by Nick Brown
Aurelian expanded Rome’s network of mints, particularly in the East. It is believed that the Tripolis mint was set up to produce coins celebrating the victory over Palmyra and fortify the troops before their Egyptian expedition. Like all emperors, Aurelian also wished to propogate his image and secure the loyalty of his men. The imagery of the solar deity featured on coins from this era exists as described. Readers of the previous book, The Black Stone, will recall that although fascinated by the religons of the East, Aurelian was careful not to favour them above the traditional ‘great gods’ of the Roman pantheon.
Counterfeiting was a widespread problem but generally more prevalent in the West, particularly Britain. Although coin production techniques were relatively simple, they were dependent on precise methods and expert practitioners; high-quality fakes were not easily created.
Berytus (modern day Beirut) was known as the ‘most Roman’ city in the East. From the third to the sixth centuries, the law schools trained so many officials and issued so many legal texts that it earned the title ‘mother of law’.
Although the specific instance of civil unrest described here is an invention of mine, we do know that Berytus’s weavers were a significant group and that the presence of Aurelian’s army in the eastern provinces brought a variety of pressures. Protest and rioting was a fairly regular feature of Roman life and the use of soldiers to ‘keep the peace’ often inflamed febrile situations.
Acknowledgements
The Emperor’s Silver was completed between February and September 2014.
Sincere thanks to the usual suspects:
My agent David Grossman – for help with everything relating to writing and publishing.
Editor Oliver Johnson – for help making book five as good as possible.
Anne Perry – for being supremely helpful and well organised.
All those historians whose excellent texts I made use of.
And finally my wife Milena – for putting up with my ramblings and the occasional rant.
