Like a ticket on a time machine, an ancient coin opens up the corridors to the past as we hold a token of Rome’s glory in our hands today, we can imagine the individuals through whose hands it passed centuries before. Such a coin evokes the grandeur and glory of that ancient empire, a place of great beauty and barbarity. As our fingers rest where others did so long ago, we connect in an intimate way with that vanished world and with the lives of the people who gave it meaning.