An illegible magistrate under Caracalla at Miletopolis

[curtislclay]

This worn coin (32-34 mm, 14.96 g, yellow metal, axis 7:30, seller's picture below) is pretty surely of Caracalla at Miletopolis in Mysia.

Only a few letters of the obverse legend survive, but the portrait is clearly of a bearded, scowling Caracalla, probably after the death of Septimius Severus in 211.

As to the reverse, the surviving letters in the exergue seem to fit MEIΛHTOΠO / ΛEITΩN, and matching coins, of similar size and with same Hermes seated rev. type with ethnic in two lines below and magistrate's name around, were certainly struck at Miletopolis for youthful Commodus Augustus (SNG Aulock 1315), Septimius Severus (CNG E123, 2005, 80), young Caracalla Augustus (J. Hirsch XXV, 1909, Philipsen 1811), and Severus Alexander (SNG Leypold 376).

It will probably require a better specimen to decipher the magistrate's name in the circular legend on the reverse, however.

One possibility might be EΠI CTPA ΠOMΠΩNIOY ONHCIMOY TO B. Wolfgang Leschhorn cites this legend in his Lexicon of Greek Coin Inscriptions from a coin in the Plankenhorn Coll., dated 198-217 so apparently of Caracalla. However I can't really make out those letters on my coin, nor can I find a picture of the Plankenhorn coin for comparison. Not in Wildwinds, Isegrim, Asia Minor Coins, or CoinArchives Pro that I could find. It's a shame that Leschhorn didn't add a plate or two of illustrations to show otherwise unpublished coins from private or museum collections that he cites! Does any Forvm member have such a coin in his collection, or know of a picture or description of such a coin?

I am adding a photo of the similar CNG coin of Septimius Severus, whose attribution to Miletopolis is beyond question, but on which the magistrate's name (probably a different name than on my coin) is also almost entirely illegible!

[Pekka K]

Münsterberg lists for Caracalla:

Caracalla ἐπὶ στρατηγοῦ Σωτηρίχου Philipsen n. 1811

but this seems not to fit the letters on your coin, however.

Pekka K

[curtislclay]

Pekka,

Thanks for checking!

I mention that Philipsen coin above (J. Hirsch XXV), but omitted to name the magistrate, because that coin has a youthful portrait of Caracalla Augustus, so must date c. 198-205. My coin must be about ten years later, so very probably names a different magistrate.

However, EΠI CTPATHΓOV CΩTHPIXOV might be the correct restoration of the magistrate's name on CNG's coin of Septimius (above), whose circular legend does seem to end with the three letters XOV.