The Coinage of the Early Roman Empire

The first 150 years of the Roman Empire, from the settlement of Augustus in 27 b.c. to the death of Hadrian in a.d. 138, saw the emergence of Rome as a power which in various ways was to influence the future of Europe, the Near East, and the whole civilized world for many centuries. Among other aspects too numerous to mention, a new system of government emerged, and a new theory of the place of the ruler in the state. On the emperor depended all prosperity, from him alone came the blessing of peace, and he was the sole source of victory. It is a period, therefore, in which the emotional and psychological relationship between ruler and ruled is of interest and importance, as it was in Elizabethan England.