I tried this on Coin of the Day where it was completely ignored so I'll move it here for a try. Perhaps no one cares about common
Falling Horsemen?
The postman brought me a coin that may or may not qualify for "... of the year" status depending on whether I can convince myself that it is what I believe it to be. The Seller, a student of high repute, believes it to be barbarous. I don't. Of course I am prejudiced since the official option is a lot more interesting than would be something barbarous. If you have an opinion , I would LOVE to hear it. Either way I'm happy to have the coin which will serve as my only Falling Horseman from Trier and will
star on my page on them when I get around to that project.
At first glance the coin appears to be
Constantius II RIC 259 (
vol VIII page 157) but both 259 and 259A (same thing lacking the A on the
reverse) are given as
bust type D3 (pearl diadem). I see what I believe to be weak rosettes with a large jewel on top which would make it a D4 or D5 depending on whether we imagine laurel between the rosettes. This is unlisted for this particular coin but at this time this
mint had been flopping back and forth between the two styles. I might suspect there were two diecutters working at the time who differed in the way they did heads. For example, I'll tack on here two other coins of Constantius from Trier that were issued just a
bit after the coin in question showing two diadem styles (D5 and D3?). Of course they might be barbarous, too. They certainly differ from each other. All coins from this time and place look a
bit barbarous. This is at least high end barbarous
work.
If you remember your
history of the period you may know that
Magnentius defeated
Constans and set himself up as
Augustus. Later he named
his brother
Decentius as
Caesar. If you look up page 157 of
RIC VIII you will note that coin 259 is listed as an issue of
Magnentius although there is a note that it could have been struck under
Constans. I prefer the more romantic answer that this coin was a first issue of
Magnentius at a time when he was
still recognizing
Constantius II as a fellow
Augustus. The seller who saw the coin as barbarous may have been influenced by the fact that the hair here is combed a
bit more like we see on
Magnentius than on Constantius from other times or other places. I believe this is perfectly normal for a coin issued alongside those of
Magnentius. I'll also point out that the last years of
Constans at Trier received attention from the authors of
RIC to the point that they added a chart on page 131 (NEVER skip reading
RIC introductions - that is where the
good stuff is found). This
portrait strikes me as a
bit like their description of "O4". Yes, I could be wrong again but I believe this coin looks right for #259 which unfortunately is not illustrated in
RIC. Their coin is listed as a TRS but my weak
mintmark seems pretty likely (T)RP. #259A is listed from a note with no hint of where the actual coin may have been. I
hope one of you own it. The fact that
RIC 259 is only listed as 'R' suggests that they knew of others besides the BM coin. Who has one?
This is where I ask your
help. The
RIC listing for 259 was made from one coin in the British Museum (weighing 5.07g?). Mine is 5.41g bringing up the question in my mind if the BM specimen might be a
bit more worn and the diadem difference was an assumption rather than a clear variation. I would love to see any images any of you have of a coin of this
type (259 or 259A) or if any of you have connections at the BM and could see their coin and report just what it shows. I have not been able to find anyone who owns one of these and my
library on this period is very slim. Has anyone seen a discussion of this in some obscure publication?