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Cr 350A/2 "Gargilius, Ogulnius & Vergilius"
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86 BCE
o: Laureate head of Apollo (Vejovis?) right, thunderbolt below
r: Jupiter in quadriga right, hurling thunderbolt and holding reins
Crawford 350A/2. RSC Anonymous 226.
3.84gg. (4h)
My view is this: Although in many respects this coin is boring and cold, it has an interesting virtue of being anepigraphic in an era of relative verbosity. The obverse is sometimes attributed as "Vejovis" and sometimes as "Apollo Vejovis" and sometimes just "Apollo". Vejovis seems to have been one of the most ancient gods, among the group that the Romans themselves often got confused as to origin-story and attributes. The fragmented sources do not make it much better and his odd name implying something like "un-Jupiter" is no help. (The anti-Jupiter implication --- darkest, weakest, least interested in nymphs -- being somewhat also at odds with the frequent association with Apollo.) Given the relative infrequency of Vejovis on coins, this ambiguity seems to extend to moneyers.
On the other hand, there is no equivalent Roman practice of the modern minting practice of issuing coins in a series simply to sell coins as "collect them all", so we can presume the moneyers expected a meaningful message to be conveyed.
This coin is much better in hand than the photo.
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