Roman Imperial Coinage, Volume II, Part 1: Vespasian to Domitian

There has been no change to the original guiding principle behind the Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC).  This new volume still intends, as did its predecessors, to present the coinage in a form ‘serviceable to both students and collectors’.  It is a type, and variety, corpus.  The imperial coins from this period are too numerous to attempt a full corpus of known specimens (as has been attempted for many of the issues in the RPC II) or a die corpus, which is the preferred format for detailed numismatic studies of more manageable bodies of material.  The authors’ intention has been to identify and classify all of the coinage varieties produced by the imperial mints during the Flavian period. 

It is important, both for students and collectors, to be able to recognize authentic products of these mints, and of the difficulties of the first edition of RIC II was that it included coin varieties which could not at the time be verified.  They were included often because they had appeared in the earlier catalogs.  However, over the course of time, as more collections were catalogued and new finds were published, it became easier to see which of these coins were genuine, which were false, and which were phantoms, based probably on misread originals.  The authors have tried to include in this edition only material that they were satisfied is reputable, either from personal inspection, or at the very least from illustration.  Many dubious varieties published in the earlier edition have been eliminated; at the same time, many new varieties that have come to light since 1926 have been added.  Overall, this new edition describes almost twice as many ancient coins as the Flavian section of the original edition.

See our guide on Roman Imperial Coinage for more information on this series of books and how this title fits in the full set.

Binding: Hardcover
Edition: 2nd
Publication Date: 2007
Size: 5.75 x 9.5
Pages: 404