Page 16 - January1960

14 NATTONAL BUTTON BULLETIN January, 1960

ROMAN EMPERORS ON COIN BUTTONS (Continueil)
A full list of abbreviations to be encountered on Roman coins would reach
dictionary proportions including, as it would, titl€s, proper names, marks of value,
mottoes, etc. etc. The narnes alone are very many. But with only the few short-
forms already given we can decipher the two puzzling inscriptions with which
we began and not many more explanations will be needed as we go along.
The first one separates into Imp/Nero/Caesar/Avg/P M^x/Tt P/PPP which
translates into Emperor Nero, called Caesar and titled Augustus, Head of the
Church, Head of the Government, Father of the Country.
Nero, who ruled from 54 to 68 A.D., was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.
He came from a distinguished old patrician family and was adopted by his step-
father and uncle, the Emperor Claudius. (It was custo[rary then for an emperor
to adopt the man he wished as his heir to the throne.) Nero selected his own
name-to-be-called-by (also a common practice then) because he had a famous
ancestor named Nero.
Nero's reigrr began when he was only seventeen and tras gone down in history
as one of unrestrained brutality. He became increasingly unpopular until in his
thirty-third year suicide was his only escape from assassination.
Possibly because he is so well known, Nero has been particularly popular with
button designers. Nos. 1-6 all taken from the same coin are stamped brass. They
difier not only in die work, but also in weight of metal, shape and finish. No. 1
is nearly a perfect circle; No. 4 quite lopsided. No. 5 is also stamped brass with
an open work border added alound the coin center. No. 6 is silver bearing ttre
hallmark of Birmingham, 1901-02.
Looking below the head, you will see what looks like "JJJ" upside-down from
the rest of the inscription. Those letters are actually meant to be "PPP" right-
side-up. The sense demands "PPP" and even more conclusively, there was not
such letter as "J" wtrere the coins were made.
Turning to the second inscription, we can now read it as Imp/Nerva/Caesar/
AVC/P M/T? PlCos II/P P and translate it as, Emperor Nerva, titled Caesar and
Augustus, Head of ttre Church, Head of the Government, In his Second Consul-
ship, Father of the Country.
The second year in which Nerva was a consul was 96 A.D., a fact which tells
us when the coin was minted. As far as the Romans themselves were concerned,
they saw no necessity for dating coins and it is only from uninlentional clues
that dating is possible.
Nerva, who lived from 32-98 A.D., was the opposite of Nero in every way. IIe
was a quiet man, wise and virtuous. Altho he reigned only the last two years of
his life, he was an experienced administrator having held important public ofiice
during other reigns. He found chaos and quickly restored an order that Iasted
almost a cenfury.
The button picturing him, No. 7, is stamped brass. Note the beading which
goes only part way around. Detail like that is not careless button making; it is,
on the contrary, slavish copying of the model.
Just as the abbreviations on coins must be deciphered, so too proller names
often require a key. Every emperor had a family name; he had one or more given
names; if he came from an aristocratic family, he had a "clan" name; he might
also have an adopted name. Thus he was not called by the whole string of
them; he had a regal name just as kings and queens still do. We have already
seen that Nero's full name was ab birth Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; after he
became emperor, he took the name Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germa,nicus!
There is nothing exceptional here; cases could be multiplied.
The name on a coin may be ttre true name, the regal name or abbreviations
of one or both. But before we have made identiflcation sound too difiicult, let us