Coinage of Capua

It was during this period that coins were minted bearing the city's name, KAPU, with letters of the Oscan alphabet and with mirror script.Capua, unlike other communities in the area, had not previously issued coinage because, after its deditio to Rome in 343 B.C., in order to defend itself against the Samnites, it had become to all intents and purposes Roman and therefore did not use coins of its own.One text used is that of Rutter et al., Historia Numorum Italy, which deals with all the ancient non-Roman coinage of the Italian peninsula.Capua then sent an embassy to Rome requesting its protection, but the Roman Senate, which had previously concluded a treaty of non-belligerence with the Samnites, was forced to reject this proposal.As the ruling political class and the Capuan population supported Hannibal's military campaign, a series of bronze coins were minted.After Hannibal's departure in 211 B.C., the city was finally conquered by the Romans, and many Campanian senators, that is, from Capua, took their own lives with poison rather than fall captive into the hands of the enemy.[citation needed] Coins in the name of Capua (KAPU in the Oscan alphabet) were minted during the Second Punic War in one of the few cities in Italy that decided to ally with Hannibal.[9] With the arrival of Hannibal, some communities, having broken relations with Rome, minted coinage in all three metals to finance their expenses.[14] B.V. Head[15] attributes Capua - while expressing uncertainty - to Roman-Campanian coinage, the Greek-style coins struck in the name of Rome.[15] Arthur Sambon cites the opinions of some numismatists (Babelon, Lenormant, Millingen, Raoul Rochette, and Mommsen) who attributed the production of the Roman-Campanian coins to Capua.On the dating, however, Sambon maintains the hypothesis that these are largely coins minted from the First Punic War and only the electrum coins with the two-faced head on the obverse and Jupiter standing on the quadriga (Sambon 1050, HN Italy 2013), are to be dated during the Second Punic War and before 211 BC, when Capua was reconquered by the Romans.[citation needed] Rutter et al. in Historia Numorum Italy, date all of Capua's coinage during the Second Punic War, associating it with those of other communities that sided with Hannibal.Catalli shares the same opinion and dates the Capua coinage to the Second Punic War, at the same time as the issues of the communities already mentioned.[18] The coins that are definitely from Capua are those with the name of the city (KAPU) written in the Oscan alphabet with mirror writing, that is, from right to left.[19] There are electrum coins, a natural alloy of gold and silver with varying proportions, which had been attributed by some authors to Capua but are now considered within the coinage struck by the Carthaginians in southern Italy during the Second Punic War.The first type (HN Italy 2013) features a Janiform female head crowned with wheat on the obverse, as mentioned above, and the reverse depicts Jupiter, with thunderbolt and scepter, on a quadriga led by Victoria.[12] This coin (Sambon 1021; HN Italy 480) features on the obverse the laureate head of Jupiter, turned to the right.[12] The description of the symbol found in the less valuable bronzes is not unambiguous: Sambon merely reports it graphically, Rutter et al. call it triple knot.