Concordia Tiberiana: The Temple of Concord on Late Tiberian Sestertii

Concordia Tiberiana: The Temple of Concord on Late-Tiberian Sestertii

My paper presents an original reading of the imagery on a series of late-Tiberian sestertii. These coins, dating from A.D. 34-37, bear an image of Tiberius’ Temple of Concord on the obverse, which was dedicated decades earlier in A.D. 10. I begin by asking why this temple should appear on coins at this point in time, so late after its dedication, a question which scholars rarely consider and which has no obvious explanation (such as an anniversary issue). To address this question, I propose that the design of the Concordia sestertii referenced the dynastic situation during Tiberius’ old age, when the question of the succession would have been paramount.

The Augustan-era Temple of Concord rebranded the earlier, Republican structure as “Concordia Augusta”: harmony within the imperial family. The new temple was closely linked to the contemporary rebuilding and dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in A.D. 6: both temples were financed by Tiberius and their dedicatory inscriptions listed both Tiberius and his long-dead brother Drusus Maior as the dedicators. As E. Champlin (2011) has argued, it seems likely that Tiberius’ aim behind this unusual decision was to associate the story of him and his ill-fated brother with the archetypical example of brotherly love: the myth of Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri. Other scholars have similarly illustrated how the concepts of familial harmony, the Dioscuri, and the imperial succession were all closely intertwined in early imperial ideology (e.g. Sumi 2009, Pollini 2012). For example, an inscription from Ephesus hails Tiberius’ twin grandsons as “sons of Drusus and new Dioscuri” (Harland 1996).

Building on this previous scholarship, I propose that the image of the Temple of Concord on late-Tiberian sestertii served to remind viewers of Tiberius and Drusus Maior, the Dioscuri, and the newly-rewon dynastic concordia at a time when Rome was still reeling from the aftermath of Sejanus’ conspiracies, which resulted in his eventual execution in A.D. 31 and a series of deaths in the imperial family that finally ceased in 33. When these coins were minted, the only potential successors were, like the Dioscuri, two young men: Tiberius’ great-nephew (and Drusus Maior’s grandson) Caligula and Gemellus, one of Tiberius’ own surviving grandsons. Believing that these two youths shared a bond as strong and harmonious as the Dioscuri’s would have been in everyone’s interest.

My argument complicates the surviving picture of the last years of Tiberius’ principate. Tacitus’ account would have us believe that Tiberius gave little thought to the succession. If H. Gesche (1971) is correct in proposing that Tiberius intended Caligula and Gemellus to govern jointly and advertised the two as joint heirs on his coinage, then my reading of the Concordia sestertii of A.D. 34-37 strengthens this view and emphasizes how coins are embedded with other forms of imperial image-shaping, including architectural patronage, and can even be agents in shaping the evolution of a public monument’s symbolic meaning.