Choisir ses dieux en temps de guerre civile. La légitimation religieuse du pouvoir dans le monde romain vue à travers le monnayage

Abstract

As a result of the exceptional diversity of coin types (many of which depicting deities) in the Roman coinage from the 130s B.C. onwards, coin iconography is a privileged source for studying the references to the religious sphere in the “political communication” in Rome. This paper focuses on the coinages issued during the Roman civil wars from the 1st century B.C. to the Severan time. Some examples illustrate the functions and the “fields of intervention” of the deities that are depicted on these coins, and shed light on the composition of the “coin pantheons”. The conclusion stresses that the particular interest for some gods attested by the coin types led occasionally into the creation of new cults, a fact that invites not to create a too rigid separation between religion strictly speaking and the sphere of “free interpretations”.

Keywords

• Roman coinage
• civil wars
• coin pantheons
• divine networks
• religious ideology
• public cult