Erica FILIPPINI (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna)
DACIA FELIX: LA COSTRUZIONE DELL’IMMAGINE DELLA PROVINCIA DACIA NELLA MONETAZIONE DI ETÀ IMPERIALE
Keywords: Dacia, coin iconography, Roman imperial coinage, Roman provincial coinage, imperial ideology and propaganda, personifications of Roman provinces.
Abstract: Dacia Felix: Constructing the image of the province of Dacia in the coinage of the imperial period. The article examines the construction and development of the personification of Dacia in Roman imperial coinage from the early Trajanic period to the third century AD, through a diachronic and diatopic iconographic analysis. Adopting a semiological approach to the interpretation of the numismatic evidence, it reconstructs the successive phases of the ‘iconic programme’ promoted by the issuing authority: from the imagery of Dacia victa and capta, expressing ethno-territorial subjugation after the Dacian wars, to the formalisation of the province as an integrated component of the imperial order, and finally to the later Hadrianic, Antonine, and third-century developments marked by an increasing emphasis on the military character of the personification. Particular attention is paid to historical and political contextualisation and to the propagandistic function of the coin types within broader dynamics of imperial legitimation. The analysis demonstrates that the image of Dacia on coins both reflects administrative and military transformations within the province and articulates the strategic importance of the Danubian frontier, highlighting coinage as a key medium for understanding the symbolic construction of Roman provincial space and the processes of redefining territorial identity within an ideological and propagandistic framework.