'[D'Ewes] began by praising Occo’s work, but immediately referred to the way that several hundred (‘aliquot centena’) coins could be added to Occo’s account from his own ‘Grytariotheca’. He added that the Royal collection could also contribute many more coins to the works of Goltzius and Gorlaeus, before saying that he would set out for Harmar the understanding and usefulness that will arise from their study, but keeping his account short (!).
He divides his remarks between the themes of religion and politics (‘sacra’ and ‘res civiles’), emphasising how coins give many important instances of information that cannot be derived from written sources. After a rather pointless and lengthy digression, he develops the theme of religion, pointing out how Harmar would be able to see life-like depictions on coins of ‘the images, altars, temples, shrines, formal clothes of priests, their clerical equipment and containers, and the manner and types of sacrifices.’
He then turns to the ‘civilis Rerum adminisitratio’, the political administration of affairs, and once again we are treated to a list, this time even longer and with no very obvious structure: how ‘you can examine more deeply on Roman coins the images and titles of the Emperors and the Empresses, the ranks of all the magistracies, their official duties, their clothing, the symbols of the tribunes, their badges and decorations, games, festivals, holidays, arts, negotiations, theatres, trade, more famous places, legions, military standards, wars, battles, triumphs, speeches, defeated peoples, armies and their generals and leaders, and innumerable other things of the same nature, with a chronology that is outstanding though sometimes not complete in all respects.’ D’Ewes added that there was a fine coin of Corinthian bronze on which a sacrifice was to be seen in his own collection.
It would be superfluous, he goes on, for him add anything regarding the contribution coins can make to Roman history, since Hubert Goltzius had published two complete volumes on Julius Caesar and Augustus, largely based on coins. He complains that he is denied the daily pleasure of going through his collection for more things that are otherwise unknown, but, although he cannot manage it, he can easily bring forward one or two examples. He goes on to describe a coin of Nerva in his own collection which has IMP NERVA CAESAR AVG P M TR P COS III PP on the obverse, and VEHICVLATIONE ITALIA REMISSA SC on the reverse, which can be dated to AD 98 by the mention of third consulship, and shows that it was in that year that Nerva abolished the vehicle tax imposed on the poor Italians by the avaricious Domitian, a very celebrated act of clemency on his part, but one not mentioned by the ancient authors who wrote Roman history. Similarly, some of the legionary coins of Mark Antony, which he describes in detail, are inscribed LEG XVII CLASSICAE or LEG XVIII LIBYCAE, but there is mention of the 17th and 18th legion in any author. He explains in detail the context of the division of the empire by the Second Triumvirate. Another example is provided by a coin he owns of Commodus, the terrible son of an excellent father, which has the inscription L AEL AVREL COMM AVG P FEL on the obverse, and HERCVL ROMANO AVGV S C and a club on the reverse, which D’Ewes interpets as the weapon of some of Commodus’s bloody crimes.
Coins can also help with an understanding of the poets: for example, who can read Ovid’s Fasti with full appreciation, if the ancient coins that illustrate everything are unknown to them? Again, an ancient denarius is relevant to the way that the poets describe Sirens as having a female upper part of their bodies and the lower part of a fish. The reverse of a very old silver coin, which Orsini classified in the Petronia family, shows one of the three Sirens, playing a flute, and she has a female body, winged and with the legs and feet of an eagle. D’Ewes gives a very lengthy explanation of why this should be so, saying that, after Ulysses had escaped their tricks and wiles, the Sirens threw themselves into the sea and the gods changed their lower parts into those of a fish.
At this point he breaks off, to scold himself for his prolixity, which his good friends Richard Busby, the Master of Westminster School, and Thomas Vincent know well, but he gives one last example. It concerns the mistakes and duplications in spelling which sometimes occur, as Goltzius set out in his Rei Antiquariae Thesaurus as occurring in ancient inscriptions and coins. D’Ewes’s own collection has coins which have TRANQLTAS for Tranquillitas, PROVDENTIAE for Providentiae, TOV XX for VOT XX and CESS for CAESS. He takes a final swipe at the Grammarians who correct such things and then abruptly takes his leave.'
(summary from Burnett 2020b, pp. 543-5)
