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Author Topic: Common & Cracked RIC IV, 1, no. 302  (Read 1420 times)

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Offline slokind

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Common & Cracked RIC IV, 1, no. 302
« on: October 24, 2005, 04:19:52 pm »
(1) Can we really date Liberalitas VIIII (sic!  Ninth!) no more exactly than in the last two years ("obverses as in 215")?
(2) Isn't nine liberalitates symptomatically excessive even for Caracalla?  Anyone record more?
Yet it's a rather nice (though abraded) portrait type.  Occasionally I take a fancy to just any old denariusPat L.

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Common & Cracked RIC IV, 1, no. 302
« Reply #1 on: October 24, 2005, 07:17:40 pm »
Pat,
       Caracalla's ninth largesse is datable to early 214 by the sestertius rev. type, LIB AVG VIIII P M TR P XVII IMP III COS IIII P P S C, Platform Scene, BMC pl. 75.15.
       If you work out the sequence of the denarius types, it can be shown that the LIBERALITAS AVG VIIII type also must date to early 214.  (One immediate clue is that there are no antoniniani of the type, so it predates the introduction of that denomination in mid 215.)
       Despite the number VIIII, Caracalla distributed only eight largesses, the majority of them in conjunction with his father and/or brother:
Caracalla's 1st = Severus' 2nd, Spring 197, departure on Parthian expedition.  LIBERALITAS AVG II for Severus only.
Caracalla's 2nd = Severus' 3rd, late 202, return to Rome, Decennalia, Caracalla's marriage to Plautilla.  LIB AVG III P M TR P X COS III P P for Severus only.
Caracalla's 3rd = Severus' 4th, mid 203, occasion uncertain, possibly birth of a baby girl to Caracalla and Plautilla.   IIII LIBERALITAS AVGG for Caracalla and Severus.
Caracalla's 4th = Severus' 5th, early 205, joint consulship of Caracalla and Geta.  LIBERALITAS AVGG V for Severus and Caracalla, LIBERALITAS AVGVSTORVM for Geta.
Caracalla's 5th = Severus' 6th, early 208, second joint consulship of Caracalla and Geta, LIBERALITAS AVG VI for Severus, Caracalla, and Geta.
Caracalla's 6th = Geta's 5th, 211, Return to Rome from Britain after death of Severus, inauguration of joint reign.  LIBERALITAS AVGG VI ET V for both emperors, plus standing type numbered VI for Caracalla and V for Geta.
Caracalla's 7th, probably mid-212, departure on German expedition.  Having disposed of Geta, Caracalla decided to claim Severus' FIRST largesse of 193, distributed before Caracalla became Caesar, as one of his own.  Therefore he called this largesse of 212 LIBERALITAS AVG VIII!  There are no coins of Caracalla commemorating a seventh largesse, since the unique denarius of this type in Vienna, cited in Cohen and RIC, has merely been altered in modern times from LIBERALITAS AVG VIIIVienna also happens to possess an unaltered denarius from THE SAME REV. DIE! (my unpublished observation)
Finally Caracalla's eighth largesse, early 214, return to Rome?, commemorated as his ninth as on your coin.
Antoninus Pius commemorates nine true largesses on his coins, though that includes the seventh of Hadrian that Hadrian distributed upon elevating Antoninus to the Caesarship in Feb. 138.
Curtis Clay

Offline slokind

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Re: Common & Cracked RIC IV, 1, no. 302
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2005, 12:22:31 am »
Thank you!  Although it is really more than I deserve, since I didn't even try to work it out for myself, I reasoned at the same time that with no discussion in the introductory text and with such a vague placement in the list, you certainly could improve on Mattingly here!  And if I didn't know about these "IRS refunds to the lower income groups" of his, probably very few others did, either.  We all should copy this out.  Still I shall try to take very good care of my health so as to live to buy and use the new RIC IVPat
P.S. In the thread about the Numiswiki, I stood up for Historia Numorum.  It is a different kind of book.  And Head knew about tons of stuff that others never touched.

 

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