Kujūla Kadphises’ “Roman” Coin: an Issue for Merchants

Abstract The paper studies a copper coin type issued during the reign of the Kuṣāṇ king Kujūla Kadphises ( ca . 40/50–90 AD ) called “Roman Emperor Type”. These coins, dated towards the end of the first century AD , present on the obverse the image of a ruler recalling the imperial iconography of the Julio-Claudian period, and on the reverse Kujūla himself seated. The coin is a real innovation in the history of ancient Indian numismatics and can be the starting point to understand the political choices of Kujūla in a context still embryonic for the Kuṣāṇs. This paper, through the literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources at our disposal, aims to demonstrate that the issuing was influenced not only by the halo of authority that the Romans had in India, but mainly by the economic and religious context of the city, which the sovereign used as a place of experimentation for this particular hybrid type of coin.