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Author Topic: Help with Tacitus  (Read 1058 times)

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Offline Tanit

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Help with Tacitus
« on: May 30, 2007, 05:58:02 pm »
Hi

Here is an Antoninianus of Tacitus.
Obv: IMP C M CL TACITVS AVG
Rev: CLEMENTIA TEMP
Cohen 16

Now, the questions: ;D
Why the coin is silvered? What means the Greek letter "Epsilon" in reverse field? To what workshop correspond letters  XXI in exergue?
Can anybody answer these questions?  ???

Thanks

Offline rick fox

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2007, 06:09:04 pm »
Why the coin is silvered? - Could be a fouree (an ancient counterfeit).  I have several of Probus....

What means the Greek letter "Epsilon" in reverse field?  - I believe the  :Greek_epsilon: is the Officina (5th I believe)

To what workshop correspond letters  XXI in exergue?  -  According to Doug Smith, XXI is not a mint mark but: "Some scholars considered this to be a mark of denomination to be read: "20 of something is worth one of something else." Others read it: "This coin contains 20 parts copper and one part silver." Since the XXI is commonly found on the smaller and earlier antoniniani, the use on this large, post-reform follis adds greatly to the credulity of the metal ratio reading. RIC (Vol. VI) places great emphasis on the association of this marking on the follis with the Edict of Maximum Prices setting a value in gold for the coins. Both coins were struck from the same alloy (about 4.7% silver). I tend to accept the copper/silver ratio reading and cannot believe that it would mean something different on the follis after years of use on the antoninianus."


Tacitus's coins were minted in Rome, Antioch, Cyzicus, Lugdunum, Siscia, Serdica, Ticinium, Tripolis, and possibly Arelate.
Iacta alea est  - 'The die has been cast' (Julius Caesar Jan 10, 49 BC Rubicon River, Italy)

Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2007, 06:15:12 pm »
The style of this coins places it in the eastern mints. It looks like Antioch to me. I don't have any references with me to look it up though.
Regards,
Martin

Offline rick fox

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2007, 06:18:10 pm »
The  :Greek_epsilon: confuses me... can a ruler who only was on the throne for a year have 5 Officinas?
Iacta alea est  - 'The die has been cast' (Julius Caesar Jan 10, 49 BC Rubicon River, Italy)

Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2007, 06:29:01 pm »
The Officina are the workshops at a mint, which you can consider as sub-mints. They are working in parallel to produce the output for that mint. The E was the mark of the coins produced at Officina 5.
The different productions runs at these different mints are often called issues or emissions. It is these different emissions that change the use of marks at the mint and all officina change at the same time to use the new marks. For example for emission 1 all Officina at a mint could use the letters A to E in exergue as their Officina marks and then at some point they will change their emission, often changing the reverse types, introducing legend changes etc. and at this point change to using the Officina marks A to E in the right field with XXI in exerge. We use this information to provide dates for the coins.
These examples are purely illustrative.
Regards,
Martin

Offline Ed D

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2007, 01:50:53 am »
Hi, Martin is right, it's Antioch RIC 210c.

Regards Ed.

Douglas

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2007, 04:11:43 am »
No one has answered why your coin is Silvered, so I'll take a stab at it. The denomination of your coin is given the name "antoninianus" by modern scholars, and they all feature a radiate bust of the ruler. It was named for Caracalla who introduced the denomination originally. It's not known what the ancients called them, but they were worth two denari. Over the years the silver content of these was lowered until Aurelian's reform in 273-274 which raised the silver content back to about 5%, and it is thought by some that the XXI (or KA at some other mints) mark on the coin reflects that, 1 part in 20 making 5%. This is not a fouree, but how they were minted, and as far as I know no one has conclusively come up with method how the ancients made these. There are theories of course, but I haven't heard of anything definitive. You can find these with varying amounts of silvering remaining, and fully silvered coins can be had.

Sorry for the long-winded answer to say "they were made that way and official".

Doug

Offline Tanit

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Re: Help with Tacitus
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2007, 06:27:35 am »
Thanks to you all for all this clear and precise information.

 

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