96

Despite floods that were felt to be devastating, the Tiber has allowed and supported the development of Rome. Under the Principate, the river became a monetary motive, attested on coins from Vespasian (69-79 AD) to the first Severus (204 AD). Nourishing river, connecting the Vrbs to the sea, it is still the river at the very origin of the city, which favored its exceptional destiny; it is therefore a river that should be associated and celebrated especially during the ludi saeculares. Monetary iconography invites us to question the nature of the image represented: river, god, and political symbol, the Tiber integrated the reservoir of types or images from which emperors drew, thus elaborating a monetary discourse or discourse in images, a political and economic but also historical and memorial discourse.