The Production of Civic Coins in Third-Century Pisidia and Pamphylia: Mapping Regional Trends and Urban Deviations (original) (raw)

"During the third century A.D. the Roman Empire faced for the first time in its history a continuous pressure on both the eastern and western borders, causing widespread political, economic, social and moral alterations. Likewise, this was the case for the region of Pisidia and Pamphylia, located in south-central Asia Minor. Because of its favorable geographical location, the region played a key role in the logistical and strategic political realm during the various Persian, Parthian and Gothic campaigns. Concerning the monetary policy in this region, it is striking that some Pisidian and Pamphylian centers still minted considerable amounts of bronze coins during the reign of Emperor Claudius II Gothicus (A.D. 268-270), Aurelian (A.D. 270-275) and Tacitus (A.D. 275-276), while most cities in the Roman East had ceased their coinage during the government of emperor Gallienus (A.D. 260-268). This study wishes to explain this remarkable regional development in the Pisidian and Pamphylian coinage of the third century. The quantitative analysis, using civic coins from public and private collections, indicates an absence of an explicit regional pattern in both the number of active mints and the production volume and shows that a substantial amount of the production during the length of one reign was concentrated in a specific city. Considering a series of case studies concerning these urban contexts, it becomes clear that the cause for an increase in coin production was in many cases related to either of two phenomena that sometimes occurred within the same period of reign: 1) the increased military presence in the area, or 2) the organization of large-scale agones hieroi. However, some cities show a lack of active minting when one of these phenomena occurred. This indicates that when other stocks, be it from a previous reign or an approximate city, could provide enough small change to sustain the local economy, there was no necessity of local coinage, even during periods of increased purchasing power. Moreover, analyses of urban contexts enable some general statements about the military, monetary and socio-economic history of third-century Pisidia and Pamphylia. Firstly, the continued coinage and its causes confirm the exceptionally strategic importance of the region, particularly in the second half of the third century A.D. Furthermore, the attested circulation of coins confirms the idea that exchanges and trade contacts developed predominantly at the regional level. Finally, the numismatic data from Pisidia and Pamphylia support the model of the second wave of Romanization as proposed by Mitchell (1999), which at first caused a manifestation of Roman themes in the coin iconography, but in time led to the elite's disinterest in sponsoring civic coin production. The fact that the decision to maintain the local coinage as the cessation of this practice, a choice of local leaders and not imposed by the Roman government, finally indicates the strong social embedding of technology."