The decussis, the largest Roman coin ever issued

Decussis - AE 1075 gr. c. 215 b.C. obv: Head of Rome to the right with helmet. Value mark X. rev: Roman galley to the left. Mark of value X.

The Second Punic War and the crisis of the archaic Roman monetary system

The Second Punic War (218-201 BC) was a crucial event in Roman history. An all-or-nothing struggle for hegemony in the western Mediterranean between the two powers of the region, Carthage and the Roman Republic.

At the beginning of the war, Hannibal's bold crossing of the Alps and the brilliant victories in the battles of Ticino, Trebia and Lake Trasimeno gave the Carthaginians an important advantage and left the Romans in a critical situation. Hannibal always seemed one step ahead of the Roman generals. For the campaigning season of 216 BC, the senate decided to gather a much larger army than the ones Hannibal had defeated, trusting that the numerical superiority would allow the Roman commanders to neutralize his tactical talent. They sent 80.000 men to face the Carthaginians in a decisive Battle.

Despite these enormous efforts, the 216 B.C. campaign ended in complete disaster. The Battle of Cannae was the greatest defeat of the Romans in all their history. In spite of his numerical inferiority, Hannibal made with his troops a brilliant pincer movement. The Roman soldiers, attacked from all sides, were annihilated in an unprecedented massacre.

The defeat left the Republic in a desperate situation. The losses could not be replenished in the short term and there was no longer enough metal to continue minting Roman coins to the standards in force before the start of the war. The quadrigatii were devalued by reducing their silver content and the bronze coins by reducing their weight.

The decussis

The years following the defeat of Cannae were critical for Rome. Devaluations seem to have led to a gradual loss of confidence in Roman currency. The Roman authorities reacted minting new types of coins. A particularly interesting issue is that of a complete set of bronze denominations that the English numismatist Michael Crawford dates to the years 215-212 BC. and includes large-sized cast coins.

The decussis is particularly striking because it is, in fact, the largest coin ever issued by the Roman state in all its long history, with 1075 grams of weight. Dea Roma is depicted on the obverse, wearing a Phrygian helmet and with the mark of value X behind. On the revers, we see the typical galley of the Roman bronze coins. These large cast coins were only a short lived experiment and are extremely rare. Only four decussis are known today, three of which are in museums and only one in the hands of a private collector, having been auctioned in 2010 for 240,000 Swiss francs.