Timothy F Clark (Boston University)
How local elites represented their identity in the context of the Roman empire has been the subject of much scholarship (Burnett [2005], Alcock [2002], Price [1984]). Ando’s (2013) concept of consensus showed how provincial elites could create their own views of the emperor in accordance with local political cultures. Williamson (2012) discussed how elites in the provinces often mimicked images of the emperor produced at Rome to construct their relationship with Roman power. But what did provincial elites do when the imperial center faced an ideological crisis and did not transmit consistent ideological messages?
Provincial coinage from Alexandria and Crete produced during Trajan’s war with Parthia and Armenia (114-117 CE) illuminates this phenomenon. The failure to conclusively conquer these states forced reassessments of the types of imperial authority that could be associated with Trajan. Imperial coins at the start and end of the war emphasized Trajan crowning eastern client kings: seated on a curule chair, the emperor receives a king kneeling or offering up his crown. In between these issues, other types emphasized outright military conquest, such as showing two Parthians sitting in mourning beneath trophies.
Provincial leaders in Egypt and Crete repurposed imperial iconography to elide these tensions in the capital’s conceptions of imperial control over Armenia. While several different cities produced images of the Parthian war, coins from the mints at Alexandria and the Cretan koinon at Gortyn are the most numerous and innovative in extent evidence. Both mints were situated at key nodes of eastern imperial administration. The Alexandrian mint was the sole producer of coins for all of Egypt, while the koinon at Gortyn was closely tied to the promotion of the imperial cult on Crete. Officials in charge of the Alexandrian and Cretan mints were thus doubtless aware of the shifting emphasis between client kings and conquest in imperial coinage. Yet these officials did not replicate these changes. Instead, they repurposed certain iconographic elements to fashion an unambiguous image of Trajan as military victor over Armenia. Alexandrian drachmae reused the motif of Trajan seated in a curule chair with an Armenian figure kneeling before him at left (RPC III Trajan 4794.1-.6, 4842). The Alexandrian type, however, depicts the emperor holding out Nike in his left hand, while a trophy is shown behind Armenia. The Armenian figure here does not beg for his crown, but for his life, as Nike and the trophy signify Trajan’s triumph and identify the Armenian as a groveling, defeated foreigner. Similarly, Cretan coins (RPC III Trajan 31-33, 39) show the emperor standing above a seated Armenian figure, who sits in mourning as Trajan threatens him with a large spear.
Provincial officials in Crete and Alexandria were critical agents for the creation of consensus. With the imperial center unsure how the emperor ought to act in the East, these officials created their own image of his relationship to Armenia. As leading imperial administrators, they borrowed visual discourses that communicated subservience to Rome to tell their own story of Trajan’s military success.