There weren't any during his lifetime; it wasn't until the Imperatorial period that Romans had the idea of putting living people on the coinage (it was one of the reasons why Julius Caesar was assassinated: he put his own portrait on the coins, and thus acted like a "king"). Being an avid supporter of the Old Republic, Cicero would never have consented to coins depicting him while he was alive.
Around 30-20 BC, some coins were issued depicting him in the Greek-speaking city of Magnesia, in what is now western Turkey. Cicero's son, who was also named "Marcus Tullius Cicero", had been made Proconsul of the province of Asia where Magnesia was situated and the local city magistrate, one Theodoros by name, seems to have tried to butter up the proconsul by issuing coins commemorating the proconsul's late father. Click on
this Wildwinds page and scroll down to the coin labelled "RPC 2448"; read the description there and click on the link to the image.
They're hard to find in anywhere near readable condition - the one on that Wildwinds page was the best I could find on the net, many
others were much worse - and (perhaps not surprisingly) they're rather expensive for a Roman Provincial bronze coin.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 08/02/2016 8:59 pm
