page_title: Roman art
section_title: Coins and medals
hierarchical_section_title: Roman art / Minor arts / Coins and medals
caption_attribution_description: English: Hadrian. AD 117-138. Æ Sestertius (32mm, 25.46 g, 12h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 134-138. Laureate and draped bust right RESTITVTORI ACHAIAE, Hadrian standing left, holding roll, raising a kneeling Achaea; amphora containing palm between. RIC II 938 var. (also cuirassed); Banti 627.
context_page_description: The art of Ancient Rome and its Empire includes architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxury objects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivory carvings, and glass are sometimes considered to be minor forms of Roman art, although they were not considered as such at the time. Sculpture was perhaps considered as the highest form of art by Romans, but figure painting was also highly regarded. A very large body of sculpture has survived from about the 1st century BC onward, though very little from before, but very little painting remains, and probably nothing that a contemporary would have considered to be of the highest quality.
  Ancient Roman pottery was not a luxury product, but a vast production of "fine wares" in terra sigillata were decorated with reliefs that reflected the latest taste, and provided a large group in society with stylish objects at what was evidently an affordable price. Roman coins were an important means of propaganda, and have survived in enormous numbers.
context_section_description: Few Roman coins reach the artistic peaks of the best Greek coins, but they survive in vast numbers and their iconography and inscriptions form a crucial source for the study of Roman history, and the development of imperial iconography, as well as containing many fine examples of portraiture. They penetrated to the rural population of the whole Empire and beyond, with barbarians on the fringes of the Empire making their own copies.  In the Empire medallions in precious metals began to be produced in small editions as imperial gifts, which are similar to coins, though larger and usually finer in execution.  Images in coins initially followed Greek styles, with gods and symbols, but in the death throes of the Republic first Pompey and then Julius Caesar appeared on coins, and portraits of the emperor or members of his family became standard on imperial coinage.  The inscriptions were used for propaganda, and in the later Empire the army joined the emperor as the beneficiary.
caption: Hadrian, with "RESTITVTORI ACHAIAE" on the reverse, celebrating his spending in Achaia (Greece), and showing the quality of ordinary bronze coins that were used by the mass population, hence the wear on higher areas.
exif: {}