Page 14 - January1960

12 NATIONAL BUTTON BULLETIN January, 1960

Rtr MAN EM PERtr REi AEi TH EY A'PPEAR
trN trtrIN BUTTtrNsi

'JANE FORD ADAMS ANd LTLLIAN SMITTI AI,BERT

our love of the past draws us to ancient coins and we are rather awed by
tnem no *rtt". wheiher they are beautifully wrought gold pieces or rough, mis-
strapen bronze.
Does not an old coin have a inaelcal power over time? It can make the remote
ui iecent as last year. When we flnger thru a handful of Fl,oman coins
i"iine ffik-tto thousand or so years, we feel ogrselves almost in the same room
"r"t-se"-
iridtr-itti-*." who spent the money when it was fresh from the mint. When we
;;;il; a coin tearing the proflle of Nero, h-e who is reputed to have flddled while
Rome burned, we can almost smell the smoke'
perhaps such philosoohizing sounds far removed from button collecting; but
not io to ttrose wno have discovered what an intriguing specialty coi-n buttons are.
ii"iiJttt.opi.d from coins picturing Il,oman emperors-and those alone-open up
a large subject.
Since designers trave taken pains to reproduce Roman coins faithfully (often
pr"""*i"e a piti"a surface, a notched edge and a poorly centered picture as well
i"-rn acdirtute inscription), facts learned about the coins can be directly trans-
ferred to their button counterparts'
The flrst problem to confront th€ uninitiated when he tries to identify a coin
from the Iloman Empire (or its button replica) is, "What does it say?" One may
hrve a smattering of Latin and still be completely ba{led !yJ99L lin€s as "rM-
..
FNqN,OCAESAR,AVGPMAXTR'PPP'' OT IMPNERVACAESARAITGP.}I-I'-
pcosllPP"-no way to be sure where the inscription begins, some of the letters
indisiinct, words all run together!
When one tries to pick a name from the jumble, he finds "Caesar" over and
over again, attached to-faces which could not possibly all be the same man. It is
clear ihat-neittler ,.Caesar" nor its frequent abbreviation "Caes" provide any
iAe,nlincation when taken out of context. This is whv. While most cf us think
of Julius as the only on€, Caesar was actually a family name belonging to many
before Julius and assumed by many after him. Beginning with Augustus' a suc-
cession of emperors aftached the illustrious name Caesar to their own until
eventually it ceased to be a name at all and became a title. Thus it is the names
which accompany "Caesar" on a button that are ttre essential ones.
Julius caesar, it will be remembered, was a dictator in the last days of the
Roman Republic;-he was never an emperor though some thought he aspired to
be. Rome'i flrst emperor was the dictator's adopted son (and grandnephew by
blood), the man history calls Augustus. That was not his name at all. It was
an exalted title conferred upon him at a time when the Fl,omans wished to give
him power, but were not yet ready to call any man "emperot."
Succeeding emperors were given the same honor until in due time it' Uke
"caesar," became a regular ofiicial title of office' on coins, Augustus is regularly
abbriviated "AVG," sometimes mrsread "AVC." The "V" is, of course, explained
,,V,,
by the fact that .iU" and ,,J" are written alike in Latin. The confusion caused
bi the fact that .,I,' and were also written alike sometimes creates problems
in deciphering coins.
"Imp," abbreviation for Imperator, is another title that changed its meaning
during fie days of empire. In Flepublican times, the Imperator- was- the com-
-army.
mand-er-in-chi-ef of an Augustus had earned that rank before he became
chief of state. So too had his successor, Tiberius. fiberius reserved the name
Imperator for himself, allowing no other general to be commander-in-cfiief. His
suciessors followed the precedent. Consequently the word came to have two
me&nings-general and emperor.