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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nap, post: 8152393, member: 73099&quot;]Hadrian produced a celebrated series of travel coins commemorating his travels to the various provinces of the Roman Empire.&nbsp; This series is much beloved by collectors, and is very popular to collect.&nbsp; These coins come in gold, silver, and bronze.&nbsp; These were all believed to have been made in Rome, I am not including provincial issues which served a different purpose, to be used as local currency in their locale. These &quot;travel series&quot; coins were meant to spread the propaganda of the emperor&#039;s travels.</p><p><br /></p><p>Generally the set is understood to include 4 distinct types:</p><p>1) Location name alone</p><p>2) Adventi Augustus (arrival of the emperor)</p><p>3) Restitutori (restorer of the province, essentially building statues and cancelling debts)</p><p>4) Exercitus (military exercises, essentially dress review of the frontier legionary camps)</p><p><br /></p><p>I believe there are 28 different locations in the series.&nbsp; A 29th location is seen on coins of Aelius, Hadrian&#039;s caesar (who predeceased him).</p><p><br /></p><p>There are several ways to collect the series.&nbsp; Probably the most popular is to stick with the silver provincial types.&nbsp; Of these, there are 8 of the first type (location name alone): Aegyptos, Africa, Alexandria, Asia, Germania, Hispania, Italia, and Nile River.&nbsp; A 9th location is available in silver- the Restitutori type of Gallia.&nbsp; All of the rest are only in bronze, in denominations of the sestertius, dupondius, and as.&nbsp; A number of types are also available in gold; these are very desirable pieces.</p><p><br /></p><p>Rarity is sometimes hard to quantify.&nbsp; Certain locations are extremely rare, and, for example, I have never seen an example of Dalmatia.&nbsp; Cilicia, Nicomedia, and Noricum also seem to be extremely hard to find.&nbsp; Apart from these, the rarer provinces seem to be Arabia, Bithynia, Britannia, Macedonia, Moesia, Phrygia, Raetia, Sicilia, Syria, and Thracia.&nbsp; The rest are relatively common.</p><p><br /></p><p>Hadrian&#039;s journeys took him throughout the empire on three trips.&nbsp; The first was from 117-118, and was his journey from Antioch to Rome, via Asia Minor, the Balkans, and the Danube front, after he learned he was emperor.&nbsp; The second was a trip across the Western Empire, to far flung places such as Pannonia, Britannia, and Hispania, and then by boat to Asia Minor and Greece.&nbsp; The last trip took him to Sicily, North Africa, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins were issued in the later part of his reign, commemorating his visits to many of these places.</p><p><br /></p><p>A collection of every one of these locations would be quite an undertaking, given the rarities involved.&nbsp; I have not seen a complete collection, but I have seen some very comprehensive sets, including an outstanding one by one of the members here.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am making some headway with my own set, and recently added a province I had not yet encountered before, and one which appears to be missing from many of the comprehensive sets:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1422149[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Hadrian arrival to Moesia sestertius</p><p>RIC II.3 1794</p><p><br /></p><p>Moesia was a province in the Balkans, mostly compromising parts of modern day Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Serbia.&nbsp; Moesia, sometimes divided into Moesia Superior and Moesia Inferior, was of strategic importance because it was one of the frontiers on the Danube.&nbsp; Trajan campaigned from here against the Dacians.&nbsp; Later, the Danube frontier and Moesia would be the gateway into Europe used by the migrating tribes in the 4th century, such as the Goths.&nbsp; But in Hadrian&#039;s day, this was still centuries away.</p><p><br /></p><p>Collecting these coins is fun, challenging, and teaches a good deal about the history and geography of the ancient Mediterranean and European world.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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