La prima moneta romana in argento: l’apporto dei ripostigli negli studi recenti

Abstract

This paper focuses on the most recent essays on the first roman silver coinage, especially on the volume by F. Coarelli Argentum signatum and the debate about the same topic, among him and other scholars. After a brief comparison of some different chronological proposals, outlined respectively by A. Burnett and M. Crawford, F. Coarelli, P. Marchetti, the attention is drawn on the coin-hoards with roman-campanian coinage, first of all on their composition. It is underlined that these hoards represent a meaningful evidence, that can be neither neglected nor overvalued. One of the key – element in the analysis of these coin-hoards is the relationship among roman-campanian coinage and other series, such as ones issued by Neapolis and Tarentum at the end of the IV BC and in the III BC: these coinages and their chronological frame offer some main clues to roman coinages in this epoch, but they are still very discussed from the chronological point of view. The comparison of some hoards, recently discovered, with other cases could offer a bit of evidence with regard to some topics: the beginning of the roman silver coinage at 310-300 BC; a short pause between weighty roman didrachms and the lighter ones, probably at or after the end of the Pyrrhic war; in relation to an earlier and shorter minting of the lighter didrachms (RRC 22, 25-27), likely contemporary each to other, at least as for the third and the fourth ones.