Septimius Severus Sestertius Fortuna

[Lerian]

A step outside for me, I tend to stick to Severan silver, so this is my first Bronze (copper) specimen.


L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP VII
Laureate bust right with drapery or aegis on left shoulder.

PM TRP III COS II PP - SC
Fortuna, draped, standing front, head left, holding rudder on globe and cornucopiae.   


23.95g    Rome AD 195 or 195-196   RIC 706   BMC 580 (no wheel)


The drapery on his left shoulder surely shows his cloaks clasp and not an aegis?

And the date, I am not sure if this dates specifically to 195 or between 195-196 ??

[curtislclay]

A nice coin!

The date is clear: TR P III = 10 Dec. 194-9 Dec. 195.

The type seems ordinary but is interesting, because it is the type that replaced Septimius' earlier type for Clodius Albinus, when in c. summer 195 Septimus decided to cease striking coins for Albinus. So Albinus' type was stopped, and TR P III Fortuna was added to Septimius' coinage as his fourth contemporaneous type.

As you note, a wheel was sometimes added to this type on the ground behind Fortuna. I wonder if that wheel refers to the fact that Septimius was now underway from Mesopotamia to Gaul to confront Albinus.

Your coin is no. 1203 in my 1972 die catalogue: o227/r370, specimens in BMC 576, Paris, and Vienna. Your coin is better on both sides than the casts I chose to illustrate the dies!

Yes, fold of cloak and clasp on front shoulder and behind neck, not aegis.

[Lerian]

Many thanks Curtis.

It was actually an unintended buy from a recent auction.

Its also interesting about the wheel, BM does mention 580 with no wheel, but other specimens I have looked at on the net all seem to have it present.   

[curtislclay]

Maybe the wheel was a later addition to the type, introduced in say fall 195.

Of 18 TR P III Fortuna dies in my 1972 study, only six have the wheel.

Same type but TR P IIII: 12 dies, only one without wheel.

Septimius' march to the West must have begun in fall 195: by late Nov.-early Dec. 195 he was in Viminacium where he proclaimed Caracalla Caesar. So if the wheel too was only introduced at around the same time, that would support its interpretation as a reference to Septimius' journey.