Roman Tetradrachms?

In ancient times, the right to mint coinage was a privilege which any city that was wealthy enough could claim for itself. When the Romans came, coinage issuing rights became part of their reward-and-punishment system. Cities that put up no resistance to the invading Romans and behaved themselves afterwards were treated as allied states and could continue to issue coinage. The language on such coinage was whatever it happened to be before the Romans arrived - usually, Greek. Cities founded or rebuilt by the Romans usually issued such "provincial coinage" with Latin inscriptions.

Roman Egypt was an unusual situation, in that it became the personal property of the emperor, rather than under the control of the Roman military or civilian government. Egypt became a closed economy, with the right to trade with Egypt (one of the most lucrative trade routes in the Mediterranean) being an imperial monopoly, and to try to keep it that way Egypt was given a unique and distinctive coinage that only certain authorized moneychangers were allowed to exchange. The exchange rate was roughly 1 Roman denarius = 1 Egyptian tetradrachm, the tetradrachm being physically larger but of lower fineness.

The language on these coins was Greek, too, because the last dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs were Greek in origin and used Greek on their coinages.

The Provincial coins were issued locally for use locally and might not be acceptable as money in other places. Roman Imperial coins were good over the whole empire. In the US we had something similar back in the early days of paper money where people in one state might accept money printed by banks in another or they might not. They might accept it at a reduced value. The US stopped this and issued one national paper money. Diocletian stopped the practice in the Roman Empire and increased the system of branch mints to make coins for everyone. Either example meant an end to the occupation of changing money for profit.

Some of the Roman Provincials are really very nice and highly collectible. Most had Greek legends but a few high ranking colonies used Latin. Most used a portrait of the emperor on the obverse but there were a few towns allowed to issue semi-autonomous coins without the portrait. Usually these are small denominations. If you are new to this subject, you might enjoy my pages on them:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/gi.html
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/do...th/voc1.html

I really should replace the photos on some of my old pages. The coins are prettier. Below I'll post one photo of a 'typical' Provincial. It is Geta as Caesar from Nicopolis ad Istrum (Nikopoliton pros Istr) and shows a reverse of the statue of Apollo Sauroktonis (the lizard slayer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A...n_Louvre.jpg
which has also survived from antiquity in the form or ancient copies even though the original by Praxiteles is lost. Many of the Provincials have interesting type but I especially like this one (see the lizard on the tree?).