• January 8, 2026 | 8:00 AM - 10:30 AM
• Golden Gate 8, Lobby Level

1H: The Mobility and Circulation of Ancient Coins and People (Colloquium)

Sponsored by:
AIA Numismatics Interest Group

Organizers:
Benjamin Hellings, Yale University Art Gallery

Discussants:
Fae Amiro, University of Western Ontario

Overview Statement:
Coins provide unique insight into the ancient world. They inform us about political, cultural, historical, and economic conditions of the past and are critical primary sources. They are also a readily available, generally well-dated, studied, and organized body of material evidence that can be placed into historical contexts. In the ancient past through to the modern era, ancient coins circulated and moved across the globe and thus are excellent proxies to trace the movement of people and practices.

Coin circulation is a timeless subject, but this session, which brings together four papers and a response, different lenses to survey “The Mobility and Circulation of Ancient Coins and People” are presented to discuss matters of agency, trade, the economy (hoards or single finds), migrations, and how the topic may inform current questions (e.g., political economy, local histories, gender norms, imperialism, and colonialism). The panel covers disparate areas and times of the ancient Greco-Roman world that will foster an open dialogue about the limitations and possibilities of employing a variety of approaches.

The first paper, “The Coinage of Expelled Populations in Classical Greece: Mobility, Circulation, Identity” shed new insights into reconstructing the fates, shifting identities, and numismatic habits of uprooted populations to propose that a shared identity relating to mass expulsion was forming on multiple exiled settlements’ numismatic iconography, paving the way for a wider discourse. This first paper will speak well with the second paper, “All Rhodes Lead to Rome: A Geographic Study of the Circulation of Rhodian Coinage in the Late Roman Republic,” wherein, the distribution of Rhodian coinage agrees more with the course of political and military affairs than with commerce (as has often been assumed), to demonstrate the decline of Rhodes, its population, and influence in the Mediterranean. The third paper, “Coins on the March: The Hoards of the Anonymous Coins of the Civil Wars 68–69 C.E.” continues in the same vein, demonstrating the ways that the anonymous coins of the Civil War offer insight into political unrest and military mobility. The final paper, “Changing Representations: The Iconography of Maternal Power in the Numismatics of Julia Domna Across the Roman Empire” considers the appeal of certain iconographic types, for certain population groups (including the military) across the empire. The respondent will conclude by bringing together the papers to underscore the multivariant approaches numismatics offers to study mobility and circulation and connect the inanimate to the animate.