Lugdunum 10/14 CE       Obverse type (not shown): Bust of Augustus laureate Reverse TYPE: altar for Roma and Augustus LEGEND: ROM(a) ET AVG(ustus)

The image is difficult to make out, but it depicts an altar for Roma and Augustus. A corona civica and to laurel trees are depicted on the front of the altar and there are two Victoriae on tall columns at the sides. On the altar itself are two small shrines, alongside of which are (perhaps??) busts of the imperial family. (Zanker, 302).

• Cults and honors for Augustus spread rapidly from the east with little or no initiative from Augustus or members of his circle. Augustus had first granted permission to Greeks in Bithynia and Asia for cult worship of his person (while he was still alive) on the condition that Roma be associated with him in the cult and that he not be named explicitly as a god. The cult of the emperor offered his subjects an opportunity to express loyalty and to experience a link with the emperor through worship; in the west, the imperial cult was especially useful for unifying diverse tribes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Read more about the Augustan Age and about Roman coins:

A. Burnett. Coinage in the Roman World (London)

Galinsky, K. Augustan Culture. An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton, 1996)

Mattingly, H., ed. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum Vol. I.

Newby, J. A Numismatic Commentary on the Res Gestae of Augustus (Iowa Studies in Classical Philology, 1938). Not a bad resource for beginning catalog and physical description of coins, but has been superseded in every way by later historical and numismatic work.

Scullard, H. From the Gracchi to Nero. A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68 (London and new York, 1982)

Sutherland, C. Roman History and Coinage 44 BC - AD 69 (Oxford, 1987)

P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1988). I took much of the material on coin-types from this book.

WEB SITES OF INTEREST:

American Numismatic Society

Virtual Catalog of Roman Coins