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donativum
#1
Dear all, I'm looking for an image of a donativum. Is there any material available at hand or do I look in vain?
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#2
It was just a gift of money, correct?


So it would look like Roman coins in a pouch possibly...
Nicholas De Oppresso Liber

[i]“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.â€
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#3
Hi Bert,
Do you perhaps mean the 'diploma' for legionaries? There is a miniscule few of which a picture should be obtainable.
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
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#4
I mean the, in the course of later centuries bigger and more frequent occuring, gifts of money by the emperor to the soldiers. Contrary the monetary gifts to the people were called congiaria. I looked at coinarchives.com but in vain.
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#5
Do you mean "coins" (medals) specially made for this purpose?
Something like these?
[Image: medaillon_g.jpg]
[Image: imperum_romanum_goldmedaillon.jpg]
[Image: hercules_04.jpg]
Christian K.

No reconstruendum => No reconstruction.

Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.
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#6
I don't know if we'd be able to tell which coin was which today. There is the theory that military-themed coin issues [adloc(utio) coh(ortum), fides equit(um) and suchlike] were used for donativa, but I'm not entirely convinced (we have military-themed coinage from the Augustan era which is a bit early).

Or do you mean dona (like we get on this forum - phalerae, coronae, torques, armillae and such)? In Late Antiquity, these were probably also given out as 'quasi-cash' rather than as exceptional rewards for bravery. I think there we're also limited to depictions, mostly.
Der Kessel ist voll Bärks!

Volker Bach
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#7
this could be of any help but considering the importance of this act in a period of ever growing imortance of the army I find it strange that there are no more explicit images of donativa on arches or military inspired monuments. Coins mentioning e.g. the liberality of the emperor hint in this direction but one expect's more direct evidence, given other common motives involving contact between emperor and army (for example the adlocutio scenes)
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