Coinage, iconography and the changing political geography of the fifth-century Hispania
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2005
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Brill
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López-Sánchez, F. “Coinage, Iconography and the Changing Political Geography of Fifth-Century Hispania”. In K. D. Bowes and Michael Kulikowski (eds.), Hispania in Late Antiquity: Current Perspectives, The Medieval and Early Modern Iberian World 24 (Boston.Leiden: Brill, 2005)
Abstract
Ancient governments minted coins chiefly to cover their expenses. At no time did they possess a clear economic theory or feel any need to stimulate the economy by regular issues of coin. For this reason, the concentration or the relative absence of coined money in a given region will usually be an indicator not only of its economic dynamism, but also of its political importance. The diffusion of coinage in Spain after 394, in the early stages of imperial crisis in the West, constitutes valuable evidence for the most important logistical routes of the period, while the iconography of certain coin series sheds light on the politics of fifth-century Hispania. In what follows, it will become clear that political, strategic and monetary change worked simultaneously upon fifth-century Spain, and that the distribution of coin can act as a snapshot of the whole era.
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At the start of the sixth century, the change in the geostrategic focus of Spain from the Ebro valley to the south was still not complete, but it was very nearly so: not only did older and more recent Roman bronze coins circulate preferentially in the south and west, but the coin issues of barbarian kings were likewise concentrated in that region. The location of these Suevic, and later Visigothic, mints can be explained by the wealth and Mediterranean contacts of Baetica, and by their prolongation into the interior along the
Camino de la Plata. The international face of Hispania, which until the reign of Theodosius had always been linked to the Ebro valley, was from then on the patrimony of the south, and thus the whole late antique history of Hispania can be understood in terms of this geopolitical transformation. In its narrative simplicity, the shifting patterns of the coinage perfectly illustrates this change in orientation. From the middle of the fifth century onwards, commercial, military and productive importance were concentrated in the south. The southern part of the peninsula and its tributaries along the Camino de la Plata, grew in power, while the Ebro valley, once so vital, was now relegated to a secondary position. This geopolitical change, of great importance to the later history of the peninsula, was not a product of the sixth century, however. On the contrary, it began as early as 394, when Eugenius lost the battle of the river Frigidus.