La monetazione di nicopolis d'epiro nel contesto storico-economico delle province greche

The coinage of icopolis – the city founded by Augustus near Actium after his 31 b.C. victory over Antonius – is the most important in Roman Epirus and probably one of the most remarkable in the whole Province of Achaea. Mint issues are conspicuous and they are extended over a period of two and a half centuries, between the ages of Augustus and Gallienus. This Roman provincial coinage was studied in 1970s by M. Oikonomidou and then reviewed by M.C. Kraay in 1976. After the publication of the first volumes of the Roman Provincial Coinage, this specific field of numismatic research has known a brand new season of studies, especially on the Roman provincial coinage in Greece and in the Roman East. The aim of this thesis is to update the Oikonomidou’s catalogue with new variants and new specimens, especially those never studied before that I found in the Italian Numismatic Collections, about 800 unpublished coins; secondly to complete the RPC catalogue of the entire mint production according to Kraay’s chronological review. Finally to fulfil a historical commentary of the coinage and to deepen a specific feature, the icopolis coins circulation and hoarding in the economic context of the Greek Provinces, through the study of about 500 new specimens from excavations that I had the opportunity to examine during my stay in the Numismatic Museum of Athens and in the icopolis Museum of Preveza. Considering the historical and economic framework of Roman Imperial Greece, new thoughts can be given on many different features of this coin production: the reason why the mint opened and resumed striking coins after almost a century of interruption (during the Julio-Claudian and the Flavian age); the coinage connection to the celebration and organization of the Actian Games; the bronze currency circulation through the Greek World on a medium-local scale, obtained from the evidence of coin finds and hoards; the monetary system evolution in relation to the second and third centuries political and economical changes of the province. The thesis is divided in five parts. The first chapter is an introduction to the history of Achaea, the Roman province to which icopolis belonged; in the historical framework of Epirus and Greece in Roman imperial times, a historical picture of the Augustan foundation is presented, with a reconstruction of the city’s social and economic structure based on ancient literary sources and on epigraphic and archaeological evidences. The second chapter offers a presentation of the coinage of icopolis in the economic framework of the Greek Imperial World. After an introduction to the most remarkable features of the Roman provincial coinage of the Greek imperial mints and a brief history of the numismatic researches on the coinage of icopolis, a brand new updated catalogue of all the mint issues is offered. This is the core of the thesis: over 600 issues are catalogued in chronological order from Augustus to Gallienus and each item is fully described with obverse and reverse image attached. The following section of this part includes a list of all the unpublished specimens of each issue, an updated catalogue of the Oikonomidou monograph. The third chapter offers a historical commentary of the city coinage, the evolution of the mint production from the 27 B.C. inauguration to the cassation of issues in 268 A.D.; in this part the most significant features of the coin production (such as coin legends, coin types and denominations) are analyzed in the different chronological phases of the economic and political history of Epirus and of his capital. The fourth chapter is dedicated to a specific part of material: the coins found in the excavations in the archaeological site of icopolis and in Greece. The study of the coins found inside or outside the city, accidental loss or hoard depositions, offers a fundamental picture of the bronze local currency circulation and of her diffusion all over the region and the Greek country.