Epigraphy and numismatics concern material objects surviving from antiquity which challenge our understanding of ancient society in various ways and fuel many current debates. Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, found on buildings, plaques or tablets of various kinds of stone or metal, altars, stelae, bricks, tiles, and wall plaster, in floor and wall mosaics, on wooden or wax writing-tablets, vessels of pottery, metal, or glass, and on many other things. Clearly the term ‘‘inscription’’ is here given a broad definition, including texts cut into surfaces and texts formed in other ways, such as by painting or by arranging the individual pieces (‘‘tesserae’’) of a mosaic. However, texts on papyri and texts on coins are usually treated in the first instance as the province of the papyrologist and the numismatist respectively. Numismatics, principally concerned with the study of coins made of precious or base metal, embraces related material also, such as metal ‘‘currency bars.’’
The inscriptions and coins which concern students of the Roman Republic are not merely those produced by the Romans themselves: important evidence about the Republican period comes also from those produced by (or for) other Latin-speaking communities and communities in which another language - particularly Greek, Oscan, or Etruscan - was predominant (see also Chapter 28). But for reasons of space I shall here devote most attention to Roman inscriptions in Latin and Roman coins. In the cases of both epigraphy and numismatics, fresh discoveries mean that the quantity of material available for study increases substantially every year, and reinterpretation of already familiar items is constantly sharpening our picture ofcentral aspects ofRepublican history.
World History
