Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Summary. - Although it only appears on Roman Imperial coins between 97 and 205 A.D., the numismatic figure of Italy proves to be a complex and original one. It does not represent, as other geographical types, a specific territory, but has an ideological significance. During the first decades of the second century A.D., it progressively looses its connection with geographical and political reality. It both directly reflects the ideal of a prosperous and all sovereign country and indirectly reveals that emperors became aware of the decline of Italy, which under Hadrian actually comes to be assimilated to any province of the Roman empire and under the Severans is finally incarnated by the emperor himself. </jats:p>