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A moneyer is a private individual who is officially permitted to mint money. Usually the rights to coin money are bestowed as a concession by a state or government. Moneyers have a long tradition, dating back at least to ancient Greece. They became most prominent in the Roman Republic, and continued into the Empire.
Moneyers were not limited to the ancient world. When European coinage was revived during the Middle Ages, moneyers again were trusted to create currency on behalf of kings and potentates. For a large part of that era, virtually all coins in circulation were silver pennies, and these often bore the name or other identification of the moneyer.
Roman Republican moneyers
In the Roman Republic, moneyers were called tresviri aere argento auro flando feriundo, literally "three men for striking (and) casting bronze, silver (and) gold (coins)". This was a board of the college of the vigintisexviri. The title was sometimes abbreviated III. VIR. AAAFF. or even III. VIR. A.P.F. (tresviri ad pecuniam feriundum) on the coinage itself. These men were collectively known as the tresviri monetales or sometimes, less correctly, as the triumviri monetales. The singular is triumvir monetalis. In English, they are also sometimes called mint magistrates.
In the early times of the Republic, there are few records of any officers who were charged with the superintendence of the mint, and there is little respecting the introduction of such officers apart from a very vague statement from Pomponius. (de Orig. Jur. Dig. 1. tit. 2. ยง 30.) It was thought by Niebuhr (Hist, of Rome, iii. p. 646) that they were introduced at the time when the Romans first began to coin silver, in 269 BC, but modern authors consider this too precise a reading of Pomponius. It is known that a college of three was in existence ca 150 BC. A fourth magistrate was added by Julius Caesar in 44 BC during a time when the mint output was particularly large (in preparation for a war against Parthia).
These magistrates were responsible for the production of the Roman coinage. They were not simple mint workers (monetarii), they were officials who controlled the process, including the design on the coins themselves. Membership in the vigintisexvirate was the first step on the cursus honorum, the age when the post could be held appears to have been approximately 30, and there is some evidence that the position was appointed rather than elected.
Some coins appear to have been special issues bearing the legend S C or EX S. C. (ex senatus consulto). Some of these special issues do not bear the signature of a triumvir monetalis, but the inscription CVR. X. FL. i. e. curator denariorum flandorum, or are signed by praetors (P), aediles (CVR AED), or quaestors (Q).
In any case, the magistrate's control of the legend on the coinage lent itself to the production of coins containing political messages. This was self-advertising to further the political career of the moneyers themselves or that of their patrons; in a word, propaganda.
This article incorporates text from Smith 1875, which is in the public domain.