THE ROYAL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
At the January meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society the Rev. E. A. Sydenham read a paper on the "Coinages of Augustus." He began by giving a chronological summary of the various series and groups of coins under Augustus. There were seven species of mints: (a) the Senatorial Mint of Rome; (b) Military Mints; (c) Mints in Senatorial Provinces; (d) Mints in Imperial Provinces; (e) Autonomous Mints (issuing bronze only); (f) the "Imperatorial Mint"; (g) the Imperial Mint. After brief notes on the Senatorial Mint (43-36 B.C.), the military coinage of Octavius in Gaul and Italy (41-39 B.C.), incidentally attributing the S.C. coins to camp mints of Northern Italy, Mr. Sydenham proceeded to discuss the Asiatic coinages (28-15 B.C.) and the Imperatorial Mint (21-15 B.C.). Besides coins generally attributed to Asiatic mints the reader proposed to give the undated silver and gold with CAESAR DIVI F to Asia rather than Rome, and criticised Laffranchi's attribution of certain coins to Phrygia and Gabrici's to Athens. The CA bronze coins he attributed to Asia reading the CA as Commune Asiæ. The coins attributed to the "Imperatorial" Mint are very distinctive in style and were probably issued under direct control of Augustus. These coins had been attributed by Grueber to Rome and by Laffranchi to Spain. Mr. Sydenham gave cogent arguments against these views and added reasons for considering them a distinct Imperatorial issue. A theory on which a good deal of the argument turns is that in 28 B.C. Augustus made a formal surrender of his triumviral office and the extraordinary powers pertaining to it. Included in the powers was probably the right of coinage. The surrender of this right was merely an act of policy which Augustus did not regard as permanently binding. But he held to it to this extent that for five or six years he issued no coins of any sort on his own authority, and even down to the end of his reign he issued no coins in Rome. After an experimental coinage through P. Carisius in Spain (24-22 B.C.) he inaugurated his "Imperatorial" Mint, but confined its operations to the provinces. Finally he fixed the Imperial Mint at Lugdunum (14 B.C.).