Obverse: Laureate bust of the Emperor Hadrian, inscr. IMP CAESAR TRAIAN HADRIANVS AVG
Reverse: Minerva, standing left, sacrificing over a tripod, and holding a spear, inscr. PM TR P COS III

History remembers the Emperor Hadrian perhaps better than his contemporaries did. Our perception, largely originating with the work of the historian Edward Gibbons in the Eighteenth Century AD, is of an Emperor attuned to the needs of his Empire, who secured the borders, reduced the reckless expansionism of the Empire, and luxuriated in the arts and culture. The Romans, however, were somewhat less keen. First, Hadrian should probably never have been Emperor at all. Hadrian had been a ward of the Emperor Trajan since he was ten years old, following the tragic death of his father. He had grown up as a full member of Trajan’s household, but he was never actually legally adopted. Following the successful wars against Parthia, Trajan returned westwards, leaving the armies in Syria under the command of Hadrian. Coincidentally, Hadrian’s friends also seem to have been given crucial posts at this sensitive time. On 9 August, Hadrian supposedly learned from a messenger that he had finally been officially adopted by the Emperor, and on 11 August, learned that Trajan had died. No adoption papers were provided to support this claim, and when they did eventually emerge, they were signed not by Trajan but by his wife Plotina. The suspicions of the Romans were aroused, and the discontent did not dissipate across Hadrian’s reign. First, he was too foreign-looking. He grew a beard, the first Emperor in a hundred years to do so, in the eastern style rather than bearing a clean-cut Roman chin. This earned him the derisive nickname graeculus, ‘the Greekling’, which he bore for the rest of his life. The accusation of being a bit Greek came alongside accusations of being a bit feminine. This was not helped by Hadrian’s infatuation with his young companion Antinous, who was probably murdered by Hadrian’s courtiers to prevent him from being designated successor. Rumour had it that Hadrian was not interested in women whatsoever; when his wife, Vibia Sabina, committed suicide in AD 136/7, it was suggested that she did so thanks to Hadrian’s disinterest in her both physically and emotionally. And finally, it was thought that Hadrian undid the work of his predecessor, Trajan, by handing back the newly-won lands in Dacia and east of the Euphrates.

However unkind elite Romans were to Hadrian, and however history sees him now, he remains one of the most famous and important of the ‘good Emperors’, whose building projects – the Pantheon in Rome, his villa at Tivoli, and Hadrian’s Wall in the north of England – remain among the most visited attractions remaining from the Roman Empire. And, as an icon of the gay rights movement – whether this position was earned or not – he reflects from two thousand years in the past the changing sensibilities of the modern world. This coin reflects a different angle on Hadrian’s life: what the ordinary person saw of their monarch. It is a denarius, a coin which represented approximately the daily wage of a Roman legionary (which totalled 300 denarii per year), or of a skilled labourer. Seven of these coins a week would have kept a Roman family in bread, milk, rent and clothes, with perhaps just a little left to attend the Games or the theatre. Made of silver, this was probably the largest denomination coin that most Romans ever saw. Gold was valued at somewhere around ten times more than silver, and so the nearest gold denominations were well out of the reach of ordinary folk.

The reverse of this coin bears a head of the goddess Minerva. Her dual role as a goddess of wisdom and war well-represents Hadrian’s own outlook, given his aim to be a soldier and a scholar. The specific device of Minerva, while well-attested on previous coins, may also have been a reference to the Emperor’s Greek leanings, since Minerva is the Roman equivalent of Athena, the patron deity of Greece’s paramount city. Minerva is depicted as a youthful woman, wearing the fashionable peplos, a Greek garment which offered an elegant silhouette without sacrificing modesty. On her head is another Greek accoutrement, a Corinthian helmet, which has been pulled up off her face so that her vision is not obscured by the cheek-guards. This is, therefore, Minerva in peaceful mode. She pours a libation over a tripod from a patera, a kind of handleless footed cup. The obverse of the coin depicts the Emperor himself, laureate and bare-shouldered, facing right. The Emperor’s distinctive profile, strong nose, wide eyes, manly jaw, and beard are all evident, as are the characteristically Greek curls of his hair. On both sides of the coin are a continuous inscription listing the titles of the Emperor: imperator, a word which originally designated a successful general, but later came to mean something akin to our word Emperor, which derives from it; Caesar, a title distinctive to Roman Emperors, claiming a kind of fictive descent from the Julian line; Trajan, a name taken from his adoptive father, and his own cognomen, Hadrianus; augustus, another title derived from the first Emperor, Octavian, known as Augustus, meaning something like ‘venerable’ or ‘majestic’; the initials PM, standing for pontifex maximus, the highest priestly office in Rome; TR P, which refers to the tribunicia potestate, the tribunicial power, a kind of pseudo-elected hangover from Rome’s republican days, as a representative of the people (or, originally, a tribe thereof); and COS III, which refers to the fact that Hadrian had been Consul three times. The role of the Consul, something akin to a Prime Minister, was held for one year, and was still – in name at least – elected from among the members of the Senate. Hadrian was Consul once before he acceded to the throne, in AD 107/8, and after succession for the years AD 117/8 and AD 118/9. This coin post-dates his third consular spell, and is securely dated from comparable coins to AD 121 – AD 123.