Roman Coinage for MQ Students
Coins Depicting and Commemorating the Secret Ballot
(with line drawings from E.S. Staveley, Greek and Roman Voting and Elections [London, 1972], pp.158-163)
Three coins depicting different forms of voting receptacle. The vessels shown left are vases (urnae). The vessel on the coins above - which also illustrates a legislative ballot marked with a "V" (for V[ti Rogas]) - a wicker basket (cista).
Coins were normally issued by the triumviri monetales (a board of three for striking coins), often simply called monetales (moneyers). These were minor executive officers, and the posts were possibly filled by annual elections (although no direct evidence confirms this). The monetales were generally sons of the well-to-do (frequently nobiles ), who held this post before they embarked on a senatorial career. (For a discussion of the post, see M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage [Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1974], 598-603.)
The coins presented below are given the numbers provided in the above-mentioned catalogue of Crawford. All the coins are part of the Gale Collection, currently held by the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies at Macquarie University.
Crawford 266:
This is a coin issued around 126 B.C. by a
C. Cassius (Longinus), possibly the son of the C. Cassius Longinus
who was consul in 124 B.C. One side of the coin (the obverse)
shows the helmeted head of the goddess Roma. Behind her can be
seen a small voting urn. The other side of the coin (the reverse)
shows the goddess Libertas in a quadriga (a four-horse
chariot) holding a pileus, or freed-man's cap, in her
right hand.
Crawford 292:
This is a coin issued by a P. Licinius
Nerva around 113 B.C. One side of the coin (the obverse) shows
a bust of the goddess Roma. The other side of the coin (the reverse)
shows a voting scene. One voter, standing to the left of a pons (or
voting bridge, designed both to make the act of voting a very public
act and to augment the secrecy of a citizen's individual vote)
is being handed a ballot from a bare-chested attendant below. On
the right, another voter puts his ballot in a cista (or
voting urn). The moneyer might be the Licinius Nerva who became
a praetor in 104 B.C. It is not known why he was commemorating
the secret ballot.
Crawford 413:
This is a coin issued around 63
B.C. by L. Cassius Longinus, who became a proconsul in 48 B.C.
and a Tribune of the Plebs in 44 B.C. One side of the coin (the
obverse) shows a veiled female head, said to be that of Vesta.
The other side (the reverse) shows a voter about to deposit a voting
tablet marked V into a voting urn. V[ ti rogas] ("as you ask")
meant a "Yes" vote
in legislative assemblies.