This website was created by Group C of a 300 level Classics paper at the University of Otago, CLAS344: From Augustus to Nero: Scandal and Intrigue in Imperial Rome. The paper itself is focused on the events and scandals associated with the development of an imperial dynastic rule in a previously republican empire, with specific focus on the Julio-Claudian family.

In order to understand the historical and social context at that time, students explore the written accounts, but also focus on propaganda printed on coins, as we have to consider the bias of different historical sources. This coin exhibition project is part of the internal assessment for the paper in which we analyse coins from Imperial Rome minted under different Julio-Claudian emperors.

For this project we decided to look at the use of Roman Gods and Goddesses on Roman Imperial coins. We chose to make our coin exhibit about this topic as we are all interested in ancient deities and how emperors used them and their symbols to reinforce Roman values and ideals to the populace.

The coins used for this project are housed at the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand.

For more information about this project, please contact Dr Gwynaeth McIntyre, lecturer at the University of Otago and the course coordinator for CLAS344.
Email: gwynaeth.mcintyre@otago.ac.nz
Webpage: https://www.otago.ac.nz/classics/staff/otago112054.html

Meet Group C:

Olivia wrote the story for the Denarius of Augustus and was the leader of Group C.

Stѐf contributed to the story for the As of Tiberius.

Jayden wrote the story for the As of Caligula and was also responsible for the curation of the 'About Us' section and introduction for the exhibition.

Anna wrote the story for the As of Caligula (for Agrippa)  and was responsible for editing.

Sarah wrote the story for the Sestertius of Nero, created the logo, and was responsible for metadata and page creation.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Charlotte Dunn for photographing the coins, and to the Otago Museum for allowing us the use of the coin images for educational purposes.