Caesarea as walled city on a coin of 243 not 241

[curtislclay]

As Imhoof-Blumer argued in Revue suisse de num. VIII, 1898, the epithet ENT or ENTI or ENTIX or ENTIXION, the Greek word for "Walled", on quite a few bronze coins of Gordian III's Year 4 at Caesarea suggests that Gordian was responsible for providing Caesarea with a city wall. Strabo, under Augustus, had called Caesarea an "open city", i.e. unwalled; but Procopius writes that Justinian I (527-565 AD) replaced Caesarea's old walls with new ones. Presumably Caesarea already had walls under Gallienus, since we are told that the city put up a long and brave defense before being captured by the Persian king Sapor in 268 AD. The Persians had been threatening invasion earlier, so there would have been good reason for Gordian III to fortify Caesarea; Gordian himself undertook two expeditions to Syria to confront the Persians, in 239 and then again in 243, and died in Persian territory at Ctesiphon in 244 during that second campaign.

Imhoof-Blumer, and more recently Sydenham with substantial supplements by Alex Malloy and Forvm member Pete Burbules, knew that epithet ENTIXION only on coins of Gordian's ET Δ=Year 4=241 AD at Caesarea, but recently a similar coin from ET S=Year 6=243 AD turned up: see seller's picture below. It could be that this was just an old rev. die of Year 4 that was still available in Year 6, so had its date altered from Δ to S and was used further; there seems to be a shadow of a Δ below the S in the exergue. The protrusion engulfing the E of ET is not evidence of additional alteration, but merely damage caused by the application of the countermark on Gordian's neck on the obverse. AE 25-26 mm, 9.19 g, axis 11 h.

[Pscipio]

Curtis,

this is very interesting, I had not been aware of the 'walled' issues of Caesarea up to now! T. Ganschow's recently published excellent catalogue of the Henseler Collection of Cappadocian coins, which is much more than a mere Sylloge, lists eight year 6 coins with ENT, ENTI or ENTIX (Types 901-904). Your coin is his Type 902, known to him in 3 examples in Oxford, Paris and the Henseler coin (no. 1409), which has the same countermark but is from a different reverse die than yours. The year 6 coins referring to the city walls are certainly much rarer than those of year 4, of which Ganschow lists nine types with dozens of surviving examples - a pattern that corresponds to the overall rarity of Gordian's year 6 bronzes as compared to those of year 4.

It is noteworthy that the plate coins of Types 901-902, nos. 1408-1409 from the Henseler Collection, both have a similarly awkward ς on the reverse, which speaks against the use of recut year 4 dies. I have not actively looked for die matches, however, so I cannot exclude that the mint recut several old dies at once.

Thomas Ganschow: Münzen von Kappadokien. Sammlung Henseler. Istanbul 2018 (2 Vols).

Lars

[curtislclay]

Lars,

Thanks for the additional information and for the reference to Ganschow's new book, which sounds like it will mark a major advance in our knowledge and understanding of the important, mostly dated, coinage of this city!

Curtis

[curtislclay]

I overlooked a Caesarean coin with ENT in Year 5=242: Sydenham 614, citing the Hall Coll.

[Pscipio]

I wonder whether Sydenham may have misread the Hall coin from ЄT ς to ЄT Є, as Ganschow did not know of any bronze coinage struck in Gordian's 5th regnal year.

Lars