Gades — modern Cádiz — was one of the oldest Phoenician foundations in the western Mediterranean and retained extraordinary commercial importance under Rome as a hub of the Atlantic fish-sauce trade. The city held Latin rights and struck its own bronze coinage under Augustus and Tiberius as a municipium, a privilege that was curtailed and eventually ended as imperial centralization of coinage tightened through the first century. This piece, catalogued under the name of Tiberius but spanning the transition from Augustus's reign, reflects the ambiguity of that dynastic moment in the western provinces.
The RPC I 89 attribution places it firmly within the Gades civic series, struck on unusually heavy flans relative to most Spanish municipal issues.
Gades — modern Cádiz — was one of the oldest Phoenician foundations in the western Mediterranean and retained extraordinary commercial importance under Rome as a hub of the Atlantic fish-sauce trade. The city held Latin rights and struck its own bronze coinage under Augustus and Tiberius as a municipium, a privilege that was curtailed and eventually ended as imperial centralization of coinage tightened through the first century. This piece, catalogued under the name of Tiberius but spanning the transition from Augustus's reign, reflects the ambiguity of that dynastic moment in the western provinces.
The RPC I 89 attribution places it firmly within the Gades civic series, struck on unusually heavy flans relative to most Spanish municipal issues.