Lech just posted an interesting unlisted Constantopolis specimen (
RIC VII 332
var, ex. Seaton Down hard) in the Polish section, where the
Rome mint briefly chose to label newly added
officina # 5 as "V" to avoid the clash Q(uinta)=5 = Q(uarta)=4.
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=124790.0 ("
RIC VII ROME 332-33")
However, for the most
part, the tetrarchic mints followed a fairly regular pattern of
officina designators and
exergual placement. Having seen what this basic pattern is then helps make the exceptions stand out and require explanation.
The basic rules1) In the
west, where latin was spoken, the
officina designations are latin A/B/C or P/S/T/Q, and when in
exergue the
officina letter
comes *before* (to the
west of ?!) the
mint identification, e.g. PTR/STR, PLG/SLG, PARL/SARL.
2) In the east, where greek was spoken,
officina designations are greek A/B/gamma/delta/etc, and when in
exergue the
officina letter
comes *after* (to the east of ?!) the
mint identifcation, e.g. TSA/TSB/TSgamma, HTA/HTB/HTgamma.
3) In
Italy, in-between east and
west, they used a mix of eastern
officina placement, first with eastern greek letters, then switching to western latin letters, giving us:
Rome: RP/S/T/Q (but see exceptions, below)
Ostia: MOSTP/S/T/Q
Aquileia: AQP/S/T
Ticinum, somewhat unexpectedly, being the westernmost
Italian mint, follows the western pattern rather than that of it's
Italian peers.
The exceptions1) Early Lyons, perhaps before the
exergual placement rules
had been established, used A/B, LA/LB and PLA/PLB, then switched to the expected PLG/SLG.
2)
Arles, always a maverick
mint, perhaps reflecting it's status as a new
mint with no long-standing
affinity to the other western mints, used the expected P/S/T/QARL, but also ARLP/S/T/Q and even ARLA/B/gamma/delta (perhaps a nod to it's
Italian origins at
Ostia).
3)
Siscia, and
Sirmium, once acquired by
Constantine, adopted the same western
officina placement (ASIS, ASIRM) as Constantine's other mints (at that time), but with continued greek
officina letters.
4) Rather inexplicably, at the coinage reform of 330 AD (new
types,
weight reduction), the Trier
mint switches from western-style officina-first (I/IITR, A/BTR, P/STR) to eastern-style officina-last TRP/S.
5) A few mints, on occasion, used latin numerals, rather than letters, as
officina designators:
Trier: I/IITR
Cyzicus: SKM I/II/../VIII
Alexandria:
ALE I/II
6) When
Rome needed to expand it's latin
officina designations P/S/T/Q to 5, then 6, officinas, they faced a problem since the letters Q(uinta)=5 and S(exta)=6 were already in use. They could have reverted to greek letters, but preferring to stick (mostly) with latin,
had to improvise.
a)
Per Lech's
Constantinopolis specimen, it seems
Rome briefly decided to go with latin numeral V for
officina 5 (P/S/T/Q/V), but then rapidly changed their mind and went with greek epsilon instead, giving us P/S/T/Q/epsilon
b) When they added a 6th
officina in c.348 AD, they labelled it "S" (presumably latin Sexta), which would have created a clash with the existing S(secunda)=2. They could have gone with greek digamma=6, but that's pretty S-like too, so wouldn't have really helped, so instead they switched
officina 2 to greek beta resulting in the mix-n-match P/beta/T/Q/epsilon/S
Ben
