Drachm of Alexandria under Antoninus Pius c. 140 - 141

Curator: This coin, a Drachm of Alexandria minted under Antoninus Pius, speaks volumes about labor, materiality, and control. Editor: The coin feels like a relic of a powerful but brutal past, a potent symbol of a system built on inequality. Curator: Precisely. Consider its material production – copper, shaped and stamped through a process that extracts resources and exploits labor, all for the purpose of circulating value and projecting imperial power. Editor: And the imagery itself – the portrait, the inscriptions – reinforces a rigid hierarchy. Coins like these not only facilitated trade but also served as propaganda, normalizing the emperor's rule and the existing social order. Curator: The wear and tear it has endured make its historical context much more tangible, showing how currency had a life in the hands of the people. Editor: Definitely. It reminds us to question whose stories are told and whose are erased, the legacies of power. Curator: It's a tangible reminder of the social and economic forces at play in the Roman Empire. Editor: Exactly, art as a lens into broader power dynamics.