This study is a rigorous enquiry into the identity of the Roman colonies of Asia Minor through the vast spectrum of iconography developed on their bronze coinages, minted locally from c. 45 b.c. to a.d. 275. Filges bases his analysis on a large corpus of over 8,000 coins, representing 1,500 distinct numismatic types, issued by the fourteen colonies selected for his study (Sinope, Parium, Apamea, Antioch by Pisidia, Lystra, Iconium, Ninica Claudiopolis, Cremna, Alexandria Troas, Comana, Olbasa, Parlais, Germa and Mallus). A large number of coin types are fully presented in the book, and a CD-ROM gives access to the entire body of material via a Filemaker database (the database is also presented as a PDF file, for readers who do not have the relevant Filemaker software).
The argument is spread over five chapters. A methodological introduction is followed by a chapter providing historical, geographic and social context. The main central chapter contains a detailed analysis of the various issues from the colonies, which is followed by a summary and conclusion. Four excursuses complete the study. The first two give information about the problem of allocating coins to their respective mints, and about monetary circulation in Asia Minor as reflected in hoards. The latter two furnish a list of the weights and sizes of coins with their main iconographic themes, and a list of the reverse types and of the colonies in which they were used.
F. is sensible to focus his study only on coinages minted by the Roman colonies of Asia Minor, since these cities shared similarities that enable meaningful comparison. Indeed, the colonies presented a distinctive form of civic body, constituted by coloni (Roman settlers) and incolae (indigenous people), and enjoyed a privileged legal status. In this way, they differed from peregrine cities. Moreover, the colonies chosen by F. are geographically, chronologically and culturally linked, making it fully justifiable to study their coinages together.
F.’s study clearly falls into the category of histoire des mentalités. The coins are considered as moments of iconographic memorialisation, reflecting the identity of each city. Indeed, the reverse types of the provincial coins of Asia Minor offer an extensive range of images selected by cities to represent themselves. F. argues that the iconographic types applied on the reverses were chosen by civic bodies and had to be recognisable to the local population — both coloni and incolae — and even possibly to the temporary visitor. Since coins are public, official and collective means of communication, they can be used by the historian as a primary source for questions of social identity and its construction in the Roman colonies of Asia Minor.
In his central chapter, F. investigates the monetary iconographic themes of the fourteen colonies in detail. His meticulous synoptic analysis shows that there were different categories of motif: local (deities, heroes, architectural representations), colonial (themes related to the peculiar status of the city and to its Roman foundation), regional or trans-regional (Anatolian/Greek references) and ‘fashionable’ (temporarily popular, e.g. under the influence of the Roman imperial coinage). F. shows here — and this strong argument goes against some preconceived ideas — that there was no comprehensive category of colonial motifs common to every colony. On the contrary, local themes are predominant in almost every civic coinage, demonstrating that the colonies built their own pattern of identity through iconographic monetary representations. A comparison with the coinages of peregrine cities is here instructive. F. shows that only the purely colonial types (foundation scene, insigniae, she-wolf, etc.) do not appear on peregrine coins, but all the other types do appear (deities, heroes, personifications). Thus, colonial coins differ from other provincial coins primarily through the preference for legends in Latin instead of Greek, and by the presence of colonial reverse types. These two elements enabled the colonies to exhibit their privileged status.
Consequently, F. questions the degree of ‘Romanisation’ of the colonies. Indeed, even if the Roman colonies are often thought of as ‘Rome in miniature’, the iconographic study of colonial coins reveals that the Romano-Asiatic colonies were bound to their Greek and Anatolian origins by the existence of a plurality of local reverse types. Another crucial element highlighted by F. is change over time. During the early and mid-first century a.d., colonial coins display predominantly Roman elements (e.g., members of the imperial family), but from the Flavians and, above all, the Antonines onwards, local elements eclipse the Roman ones. Did the indigenous population win a right of co-decision over time, or were the descendants of the coloni so well integrated in the city that they came to consider local cults and institutions as their own? According to F., what mattered for the Romano-Asiatic colonies was not so much the ‘Roman way of life’, but their privileged status and their special link with the city of Rome (principally exhibited by the use of Latin and colonial types).
F. also makes some interesting remarks about the reception of coin iconography by contemporaries. He attempts to discern whether the reverse coin types could have functioned as indicators of monetary denomination, and he frequently draws comparisons between coins and epigraphic and/or literary sources, showing how these sources sometimes diverge from numismatics in their representation of the city. Many questions remain open, but F. is punctilious in highlighting such problems, and always furnishes sensible attempts to answer them.
