I don't mind a
poor coin, if nothing else is available!
Around 1970 I bought my first large
Roman bronze
medallion, a bimetallic piece of
Commodus with
rev. p m tr p xi imp vii
cos v p p' target='_blank'>VIRTVS AVG
P M TR P XI IMP VII
COS V P P,
Roma seated r. above
cuirass and shields, balancing
parazonium on her knee, in background left a
Victory holding a round
shield, apparently intending to place it on a
trophy in background right.
The same
type, I determined, occurred only two other times on
Roman coins: on a unique bronze
medallion of
Lucius Verus, and on a unique
sestertius of
Titus as
Augustus in the
Paris collection, with
legend ROMA S C, the second coin illustrated below.
Here, in corroded state, is a second specimen of that
Titus sestertius, from the same
rev. die as the
Paris coin, but with
portrait right instead of left on the
obverse!
This right-facing
obv. die is also
rare in its own right, for its
legend begins IMP TITVS
CAES rather than the normal IMP T
CAES. IMP TITVS
CAES is the form used on Titus' very
rare sestertii of 79, which also occurs on a very few dies, apparently the earliest of the year, in 80.
Unfortunately the IMP TITVS is almost corroded to illegibility on my coin, but I think enough remains to guarantee the reading. It would be nice to settle the matter for
good, however, by finding a clear specimen from the same
obv. die!
My new coin is so broad and round that the thought crossed my mind, could this
type for
Titus just be the invention of a clever and skilled modern forger, copying the genuine medallions of
Commodus and
Verus? So I was relieved to discover in our photofile that the left-facing
obv. die of the
Paris specimen was also used to strike an obviously authentic sest. of
Titus with one of
his normal
rev. types, IVD
CAP S C, Jew and Jewess below
palm tree, in Stack's Knobloch Sale of 1980, lot 352.