I began to work in 1961 on the finances of the Roman Republic, with a particular interest in the effect on these of the Roman conquest of the Hellenistic World. It soon became apparent that an adequate account of the coinage of the Roman Republic was a necessary preliminary and I was gradually drawn into writing a handbook on the Roman Republican coinage. Some of the work involved has been congenial, some has not; I have tried to do it all conscientiously. Chapter 7 presents some of the work with which I started in 1961; but the subject as a whole still cannot be properly studied in the absence of an adequate knowledge of the coinages of Rome's enemies during the last two centuries of the Republic and of the coinages, such as the cistophoric, used by Rome, but not struck by the main mint of the Republic or by its magistrates for empire-wide circulation.

This book is in any case quite large enough; I have kept it to this size only by imposing on myself two major restraints. In the first place, I have only dealt with what may be called the mainstream coinage of the Republic; this is not easy to define, but it may be regarded as being coinage struck by officials of the Republic which was theoretically valid throughout the Empire; by way of example, the Social War coinage is excluded (it has no more place here than the Oscan denarii struck by Sertorius), as are all cistophori (it has never been clear to me why those of M. Antonius are traditionally included in handbooks on the Republican coinage, those of M. Cicero not) and all local bronze of the Triumviral period (in which category I include the ‘fleet’ bronze of M. Antonius, but not the issues of L. Atratinus and Cn. Piso Frugi). The catalogue closes with three issues whose inclusion is not perhaps entirely justifiable; but it is not likely that any other handbook will ever include them.

In the second place, I have considered the coinage of the Republic solely from the point of view of the issuing authority or authorities; there is much to be written about the behaviour of the Republican coinage in circulation, but not here.