INTRODUCTION
Realizing that Steemit is an international platform I hesitated to post this article on the history and symbolism of US coins. After all, why would someone in Australia, Malaysia, or Finland, care to read about the coins jingling in the pockets of Americans. Yet the far-reaching effects of US policy makes the subject matter relevant to everyone, everywhere. Besides, this stuff is pretty damn interesting.
If you have read one or more of my previous posts listed under ART you will notice that my interest lies not only in the art itself, but also in its symbolism and how it is used by those in power. Steemit has a large population of people, the ecosystem, who consider themselves, along with the the cynic philosopher Diogenes, "citizens of the world." It attracts the usual suspects: Anarchists, Libertarians, Anti-Statists, you know, the good guys. And the thing most noticeable about these radical types is they’re extremely knowledgeable and passionate about their politics. Existing outside of the Left-Right paradigm of control, they are free to graze beyond the fence that contains the sheeple, the masses who are content to chew on the same cud of misinformation forever. They can rattle off statistics on debt, fractional reserve banking, fiat currency, gold, silver, the FED, and the role that crypto currency can play in dismantling power structures. My hope, is that with this article, another arrow is put into the quiver of the "good guys" when they go to battle with Statist's.
ALL ROADS ACTUALLY DO LEAD TO ROME
Today's American coins bear the images of Presidents Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Washington, and Kennedy. They appear on the one cent, five cent, ten cent, twenty-five cent, and fifty cent pieces. This wasn't always the case. From the birth of the nation until 1909, over 100 years, the only images to appear on United States coins were those of allegorical figures, the most common being various depictions of LIBERTY as a young woman. The man whose visage broke this long and purposeful tradition was Abraham Lincoln. He was the first non-allegorical figure, the first actual man, to ever appear on an American coin. Below you can see the coin that began the shift away from the coinage of a free people to the coinage of an empire.
PENNY
The "Indian" Head Penny seen below is actually LIBERTY wearing a headdress. From 1793 to 1909 every one-cent piece minted was a variation on the LIBERTY theme.
Forty-four years elapsed between Lincoln’s death in 1865 and the minting of the first Lincoln penny in 1909. The die was cast, to use an apt pun, as FDR appeared on the dime in 1946, only a year after his death. This may seem innocuous at first glance, but consider that between 1909 and 1948 all United States coinage was re-designed to depict Presidents rather than allegorical figures representing abstract political concepts such as LIBERTY.
NICKEL
In 1938 LIBERTY was bumped off the nickel. Thomas Jefferson has been in her place ever since.
DIME
For 72 years the image of FDR (above) has appeared on the obverse of the ten-cent piece, whereas from 1793 to 1946, over 150 years, versions of LIBERTY held that spot. The coin pictured below was nicknamed the Mercury dime because of the winged headpiece but it is indeed Liberty. The US Mint made a conscious decision to fade out the emphasis on US coinage from the founding principles of Freedom and Liberty, to Hero Worship, which always leads to despotism. The changes that were taking place on the faces of America's coins are an indication of changes that were concurrently taking place in the political and economic arenas. The ethos of Liberty was being replaced by the ethos of control.
QUARTER
Above you can see the stunning Standing Liberty quarter, one of the most beautiful coins ever minted. It was discontinued in 1932 to make way for the first president, George Washington seen below.
HALF DOLLAR
In 1948 another stunning coin, Walking Liberty, was replaced with the equally ugly Franklin half dollar.
During this same period, from 1909 to 1948, the United States created the Federal Reserve in 1913, entered WWI in 1917, abandoned the gold standard in 1933, entered WWII in 1941, established Bretton Woods in 1944, and the United Nations in 1948. Those thirty-nine years saw the United States of America go from being a relatively small player in international affairs to a global superpower, some would argue a nascent Empire. But while the US was establishing its political, military, and economic dominance overseas it was at the same time establishing a national mythos at home, embarking on an ambitious project of monumental architecture and sculpture across the continent, dedicating the Lincoln Memorial in 1922, and beginning the Jefferson Memorial in 1939. The American hero-cult had reached its apex with the dynamiting and jack-hammering of Mt. Rushmore in the Dakotas; the faces of four US Presidents carved into a god-damn mountain.
Athenian coins during its brief Democracy bore the image of a patron god or goddess, or a legendary hero, on one side, and a symbol of the city on the other. They never depicted actual people, dead or alive. After the Persian wars Athens actually voted to ostracize the city’s savior, Themistocles, and then minted a decadrachm commemorating the Battle of Salamis, a decisive victory over the Persians that all of Hellas owed to Themistocles. On this coin the owl of Athens is depicted, holding a spray of olive leaves. Themistocles is absent, as is any other illustrious citizen, as honoring a mere man in this way was disapproved of by the Athenians as undemocratic. Just below you can see an Athenian Tetradrachm minted around 454-404 after the Battle of Salamis. It features the goddess Athena, the city's patron on the obverse, and an owl with an olive-sprig on the reverse. No hero worship is present.
It wasn't until Alexander the Great conquered all of Greece, replacing representative government with one man rule, that the Hellenistic world was flooded with coinage depicting a person. Alexander, famously influenced by the Kings of the east, proclaimed himself Zeus Ammon, the son of god, a repetitive theme we will see. Many thousands of coins were minted with Alexander as Zeus Ammon, and distributed throughout the Hellenistic world. The rams horns protruding from Alexander's temples on this coin indicate his divinity. His successors, the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Kings, none of them known for their democratic or republican sympathies, continued the practice of adorning coins with their own portraits.
The Roman Republic was a late-comer to the use of coin money. Unsurprisingly, it was through Rome’s contact with the Greeks in Sicily and Magna Graecia that minted coins first came into use. The first Roman coin was minted of silver, not in Rome but in Neapolis (Naples) in 281 BC. The obverse bore the image of the god Mars wearing a Corinthian helmet, the reverse read in Latin: ROMANO, beneath a horse’s head. Before long there was a Roman mint located on Capitoline Hill in the Temple of Juno Moneta. Our English words mint and money are both derived from the Latin word, Moneta. Her temple, which served as the Roman mint, stood where the Gothic church Santa Maria Aracoeli stands today. The first silver coin minted in Rome proper bore the image of Hercules on the obverse and a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus on the reverse. For the next few hundred years official Roman coins continued this tradition of bearing allegorical images such as Castor and Pollux, the goddesses Roma, Luna and Victoria. This ended in the first century BC, a casualty of the struggle between the Optimates (Republican Senators, high born) and Populares (anti-Republican populists drawn to Julius Caesar) over the future of Rome. When the first triumvirate took control in 54 BC, with Pompey at the helm, there was talk of him being made dictator. In response, and using his position as Moneyer of the Rome Mint, Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar’s assassin ten years later, issued silver denarii honoring two of his ancestors, Lucius Junius Brutus, the first consul of the Republic who expelled Tarquin the Proud, the last of the Roman kings, and Gaius Servilius Ahala, who assassinated a Roman suspected of having designs on the Kingship. Brutus was reaching back into the distant past, over 400 years, to a time when Romans had no tolerance for such hubris, and when the penalty for it was death. A clear warning was being sent to the triumvirate: Pompey, Caesar and Crassus, via the mint at Rome. There is no evidence it made any difference. The next ten years were a bloodbath for the Roman people as political one-upsmanship broke the Republic’s back; witnessing Caesar’s genius effortlessly overcoming his political enemies. It was after he had consolidated his power over Rome in the Civil wars that Caesar minted the first Roman coin to ever depict a living man. The obverse depicts himself wearing a laurel wreath. The reverse depicts Venus holding Victory in her right hand, a scepter in her left; propaganda advancing his claim that the Julia clan, hence Caesar himself, descended from Aeneas through Anchises and the goddess Venus, thus making him a god. The minting of this coin, among many previous offenses, was incredibly provocative to the optimates, a huge departure from tradition, and repugnant to Republicans like Marcus Junius Brutus.
Caesar's assassination at the Theater of Pompey will deny us ever knowing what his ultimate plans for the future of Rome actually were. But he knew exactly what he was doing, and the reaction it would incur, when he minted a denarius of himself. At this point Caesar’s enemies believed they had enough evidence that he, who had already been proclaimed dictator perpetuo (dictator for life), was going to touch the third rail of monarchy, something unseen in Rome for hundreds of years. Caesar had arrogated enough power to himself to where there was nothing preventing his claim to the title of Rex (King), potentially making him the first King of Rome in 500 years. It was this fear that led the conspirators, as defenders of a dying Republic, to assassinate him. As one of his assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus, was later honored on a coin struck two years later. The obverse features Brutus himself. The reverse bears the Phrygian cap of the freed slave, a symbol of Liberty to the Romans, and two daggers, the weapons used to kill the tyrant.
The coin actually celebrates Brutus' failed attempt at saving Rome from Caesar's imperial designs, and features the weapons used in his assassination. Below the phrygian cap and daggers are the Latin words EID.MAR. That is the 15th of March, the date of the assassination. Caesar’s adopted son Octavian continued where his uncle left off. Caesar had declared himself a god. Octavian, later to be hailed as Augustus Caesar, became the son of god, appearing as such on Roman coinage. The Republic was no more. For the remaining 500 years of Rome’s history, having the likeness of an apotheosized emperor depicted on the coins in the money bag of their togas became as common to Roman citizens living in the ashes of a Republic, as it is for modern Americans to have the likeness of a President on the coins in their pockets and purses. Difference is, it only took 133 years for Americans to descend into hero-worship, from 1776 to 1909, whereas it took the Romans almost 500 years. When the empire in the West finally collapsed in the 5th century, petty kingdoms would replace it, each with its own King. The Republican form of government would lie dormant for well over a thousand years, until being rekindled in the breasts of America’s founders. It is in this context that we can fully appreciate Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that “the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.” This short article didn't touch on the composition of coins or debasement of currency and how it relates to tyranny. That is for another day. But the informed reader knows that American coins have gone from being physically and symbolically beautiful, minted in Gold and Silver as per the US Constitution, to being ugly and worthless tokens made of worthless alloys.
STATISM IS A CULT
All religions, theistic or civil, have at their core a dogma, and that dogma is inculcated either through sacred books or "history" books, and is reinforced with hero worship or deity worship. The power of the State or Church is reinforced through structures, be they pyramids, temples, churches, cathedrals, or monumental architecture and state monuments. Religious dogma, a national mythology, stories of heroes and saints, are taught to the young, clung to by the old, and while it all provides many people a comforting sense of belonging to a group, it can be dangerous to the heretic who questions it.
Mt. Rushmore credit
*All of the coin images are in public domain.
Modern coinage is garbage merry go round tokens, shrapnel made of worthless metals projected as an image of real money via color and appearance. Remove the men, stop worshiping the state, and replace Liberty to the coinage as well as sound money into circulation. End the Fed.
I would be curious to know whether there are any major currencies today that does not depict the images of men & women on the majority of its coins and notes...
Thank you for sharing this perspective grounded in history! The recorded experience of humanity seems to demonstrate continuous reversions toward tyranny, as though it is our inherent preference. Statism is sadly thriving in America today, and I hope dialogues such as these can chip away at its influence.
"........as though it is our inherent preference." I'm convinced that is the case. We can see it in America today, in the EU, the curtain is coming down. What's the saying?...Nations are born in the swaddling blanket of Liberty, but are buried in the shroud of Laws. Something like that.
@dissfordents so you are saying the statism are all playing those with lesser financial power into investing their funds just to reap their own gain if am right
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question.
Very interesting. I had never paid attention to the symbolism on the coins I use on a regular basis. Does the switch to hero worship coincide with the coins losing their basis in silver and becoming base metals hardly worth the metal they are made of? @Lahvista
This subject really needs more space than this forum provides. The US used a bi-metal system for many years, coins in both solid gold and silver. The gold coins were eliminated in 1933 under FDR. The silver was removed later. Today all US coins are worthless tokens. Paper currency used to be called either gold or silver certificates "redeemable to the bearer on demand" at any bank in gold or silver, the note merely being a receipt. Today paper currency (fiat) represents nothing but faith.
Nice! enjoyed your perspective on the symbolism in the US coins. There is also hidden symbols such as the Fasci on the Dime opposing mercury. The symbol of intelect on one side and the symbol of fascism on the other. And then there is Darius. Whole books could be wrote on the symbolism in his carving.
Hey thanks @andre-ager ...you are already on point. If there was some interest shown I was intending to go into, in future posts, the Washington D.C. correlations to Rome, the use of the Fasci, etc. The Darius relief is something I should read up on more.
Probably because people (or the way they think) haven't really changed that much over time... I read a little bit about the history of salt and how it shaped many of the methods used to tax the citizens and distribute wealth (unevenly) throughout history, from the Chinese to the British it was still a very similar scheme but comes in different guises.
Another very enjoyable post to read through, and I wonder if there is going to be any change in the mindset of people with the emergence of cryptocurrency as another 'new' force shaping the economy...
Really interesting and comprehensive post! Enjoyed it a lot and certaintly learned things about coins I never thought I would. Also love history, so I like how you tied it back to roman and greek empires to drive home the symbiosis between influence and power of imagery!
Hey thanks. Numismatics is super interesting stuff, ancient and modern. There seems to be a modus operandi at play across th centuries.
I really dislike the deification of presidents, but I have to say, I do prefer the reverse of the Roosevelt dime over the fasces on the reverse of the "Mercury" dime.
Since it is from the History Channel, I have to take it with a grain of salt, but a historian discussing Rome said that the axe was embedded in the fasces to represent martial authority, while an unadorned bundle of rods formed t he symbol of civil authority, which makes the axe head fasces even less appealing.
I’ve never heard that but it seems consistent with Roman symbolism. I’ll have to look that up.
Call me old-fashioned but I would like to see gold and silver money again, with Liberty rather than dead Presidents depicted on them.
And no mint monopoly