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AE sestertius. Struck under Claudius, circa 50-54 AD, uncertain eastern provincial mint located in the modern-day Balkans.
Obv : TI CLAVDIVS CAESAR AVG F BRITANNICVS, draped bust left.
Rev : - No legend, Mars advancing left, holding spear and shield, SC in fields. 35mm, 19.4g. Extremely Rare.
Ref : BMCRE 226
Cohen 2
RCV 1908, valued at $32,000 in Fine, which is a few multiples greater than any other sestertius issued during the several centuries the denomination was in use.
A large number of the surviving examples of this series (one may even suggest a majority of them), due to their rarity, have been subjected to modern alteration techniques such as smoothing, tooling, and repatination. As such, it's actually pleasant to see a bit of field roughness and a 'plain brown' patina of old copper on this example, evidence that it is just as ugly as it was the day it was last used in circulation back in Ancient Rome.
Britannicus, originally known as Germanicus after Claudius' older brother, was the emperor's original intended heir and natural son. Machinations by Agrippina II eventually saw Britannicus supplanted by her own son Nero, (by Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) who took the throne upon Claudius' suspicious death. Britannicus himself died a few years later, reportedly poisoned by his step-brother. The future emperor Titus and Britannicus were close friends, and Titus became quite ill and nearly died after eating from the same poisoned dish that killed Britannicus.R. Smits
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Abbasid Governors, anonymous, AE fals (21mm, 3.71gm, 11h), Halab, AH 136. O: Kalima; below, large pellet left and annulet right; in margin, mint and date formula. R: At center, Kalima continued; in margin, Qur'an 9:33. Ilisch (1996) Resafa IV, p. 117, 221 (dated xx6); cf. ibid. 220 (dated 135) and 222 (date illegible, either 135 or 136); see also Nützel (1898) Berlin 2074 (dated 135 but mint illegible) and Shamma p. 89, 3 (dated xx5). Very Fine and extremely rare, olive green patina with areas of red sand encrustation. Date full and clear. Mint missing but clearly style of Halab, AH 135 and 136.Quant.Geek
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John Comnenus-Ducas. As emperor of Thessalonica, 1237-1242. BI Trachy (14mm, 0.38 g, 6h). Thessalonica mint. Facing bust of Christ Pantokrator / Facing busts John and St. Demetrius, holding patriarchal cross between them. DOC –; SB –; NAC 56, lot 830 (hammer 800 CHF). VF, dark green patina, obverse struck with worn die, ragged flan. Extremely rare.
From the Iconodule Collection.Quant.Geek
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Philip II. AD 247-249. AR Antoninianus (22mm, 5.26 g, 12h). Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) issue, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Rome. Rome mint, 3rd officina. 9th emission, AD 248. Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Goat walking right; III. RIC IV 224 var. (goat left); RSC 72 var. (same). Toned. Good VF. Extremely rare variety, none in CoinArchives.
paul1888
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EGYPT. Alexandria. Domitian, 81-96. Diobol
(25 mm, 7.42 g, 11 h),
Obv: RY 10 = 90/1. [ΑΥΤ] ΚΑΙϹΑΡ ΔΟΜΙΤ [ϹЄΒ ΓЄΡΜ] Laureate head of Domitian to right, with aegis on his left shoulder.
Rev: L I Agathodaemon serpent riding horse to right.
Dattari (Savio) 563. Emmett 276.10. K&G 24.110. RPC II 2584A.
Extremely rare. Somewhat porous and with light deposits, otherwise, good fine.
From a European collection, formed before 2005.
Leu Numismatic Web auction 17 Lot 2103 Sunday August 15, 2021
I was first made aware of this coin a few years ago. Ever since, I have trying to grab one when they come up at auctions. The problem is 2-fold. First, it is a rare type. If the attribution of RPC 2854A is correct, it is even rarer than RPC 2854 which is on its own a rare coin. RPC online has my coin as RPC 2854 but I am not sure they are correct. The presence or absence of Aegis on the bust seems to be the key factor in differentiating these types.
I have found that I am attracted to the Alexandrian bronzes struck for Domitian. So many of the Egyptian themed coins are interesting and are a real departure from the reverses of the imperial coinage from the same time period.
Rarity aside it is the reverse of this coin that really shines. A coin that depicts a snake riding a horse? Yes, I will take one of those please. The reverse is so interesting that there is more demand for this type than the current supply. I consider myself lucky to add this fascinating type to my collection.
From the auction description: “According to Emmett, the reverse of this interesting issue is connected to the grain harvest. The horse represents the continuous cycle of the seasons, while Agathodaemon ensures that the grain will sprout, thus ensuring Egypt's prosperity.”
orfew
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LUCANIA , METAPONTION AR STATER ( NOMOS )
HN Italy 1482, Extremely Fine, 20.9mm, 7.54 grams
Obverse: Ear of barley with six grains, META upwards to left
Reverse: Ear of barley with six grains, in incusepaul1888
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PHILIP I THE ARAB (244–249). Antoninianus. Rome.
Obv: IMP PHILIPPVS AVG.
Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: SAECVLARES AVGG / II.
Lupa (She-wolf) standing left, suckling twins Romulus and Remus.
RIC 15.
Ex Numismatik Lanz auction 40 (1987) Lot 783.
Condition: Extremely fine.
Weight: 5.5 g.
Diameter: 23 mm.paul1888
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RHODOS - AR Drachm - Magistrat EPMIAΣ CARIAN ISLANDS.
Pseudo-Rhodian (c.175-170 B.C.),
Silver Drachm, Imitation issue minted in Thessaly.
2.48 g / 14 x 15 mm
Head of Helios facing, slightly inclined to right.
R/ EPMIAΣ , rose, with a bud on right, Z-Ω either side of stem
(SNG Keckman 793-795 (att ributed to Thessaly); Price, Kra ay-Mørkholm Essays, pp. 241-2 (attributed to Northern Greece); SNG Copenhagen Su ppl. 358 (attributed to Rhodian Peraia)).
Lightly toned, good extremely fine. Great head facing
Although the attribution of this issue has been debated, it seems likely that it was struck by Perseus to pay Cretan mercenaries, who would have been familiar with Rhodian issues, in the Third Macedonian War against the Romans (see R. Ashton, NC 1988, pp. 29-30)
paul1888
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41 - 54, Claudius I, AE Dupondius, Irregular (barbarous) issue struck after 43AD in BritanniaObverse: Blundered legend. Bare head of Claudius I facing left.
Reverse: Blundered legend. Ceres, veiled, seated facing left, holding grain ears and long torch.
Diameter: 26mm | Weight: 9.5gms | Die Axis: 11h
SPINK: 745
Green Patina. Scarce. Found near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, UK
These irregular coins are associated with the Claudian invasion of Britain in 43AD. It appears likely that the authorities allowed them to be struck to augment the scanty supply of bronze from the central mint of Rome and the evidence available from museums and recorded in numismatic literature would seem to bear this out.
Although it is difficult to work out the proportion that these copies bear to the official issues on a national scale, it is quite evident that it is of a considerable size, about 20% on an average over the whole area in which Claudian coins are found, and in some localities well over 50%. When you consider that the actual area over which these coins are found exactly covers the areas of the first conquests, and there are no credible reasons for supposing them to be Gallic importations, the likelihood is that they were struck in Britain itself. Those barbarous examples found beyond the Fosse Way bear witness to the spread of the new coinage, and also to its continuance during the subsequent years of conquest..
The actual types found are equally strong evidence for the connection of these copies with the Claudian legions. Copies of Sestertii are rare, Dupondii less so, but the majority, about 70% of the Claudian copies found in England, are Asses.
Irregular issues of all the foregoing types are found in varying stages of degradation, ranging from coins which show all the detail, and much of the excellence of the official prototypes, down to rough unskilful productions of crude and barbarous style.
The majority of copies, particularly the good ones, have been found in or near the towns which were either administrative and/or military centres, such as Lincoln and Gloucester. This seems to indicate that the coining of irregular issues were, if not official, an acceptable method of supplementing the military funds to pay the troops during the conquest. The first generation copies, since they were intended for paying the soldiers, were fairly accurate in style and weight. In time though, once they had circulated through the tribal centres and the lands that lay between and behind the chief Roman military posts and been absorbed into currency, the copies would themselves be copied. These second-degree copies became proportionately less faithful to the originals and are extremely numerous at such tribal centres as Cirencester, Silchester, Winchester and Dorchester, which were civil, but not military, towns.*Alex
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274, Roman Imitative Antoninianus (Barbarous Radiate), produced in Britain and the continent. Struck in the name of TETRICUS II as AUGUSTUSObverse: (IMP C TET)RICVS AG. Radiate bust of Tetricus II facing right, seen from behind.
Reverse: Struck from extremely worn reverse die which possibly depicts Salus feeding serpent arising from altar.
Diameter: 14mm | Weight: 1.7gms | Die Axis: 6
SPINK: 749
RARE
This is an irregular issue (barbarous radiate) giving Tetricus II the title of Augustus rather than Caesar.
Interestingly the Historia Augusta makes this statement with regard to Aurelian's triumph in A.D.274. "In the procession was Tetricus also, arrayed in a scarlet cloak, a yellow tunic, and Gallic trousers, and with him his son, whom he had proclaimed in Gaul as Imperator." (Historia Augusta, xxxiv, iii). Imperator was a title that invariably, when referring to an Imperial figure, implied the rank of Augustus, but no regular official coinage issues of Tetricus II citing him as such are known.
The term 'barbarous radiates', dating from its use by antiquarians in the 19th century, is still often used to refer to the locally produced unofficial coins which imitated the official Roman antoninianii of the period. These coins were not struck by barbarians outwith the Empire as the name would suggest, nor were they intrinsically forgeries or fakes. Instead they were the result of a period of great instability within the Roman empire during which the western provinces especially often experienced a severe lack of coinage. To fill this void small denomination coinage was unofficially issued in very large numbers. Though some of these coins are fairly close copies of the official coins which they imitate, many others have been produced by die engravers who were patently illiterate and often of limited ability artistically as well. Around 274 Aurelian banned the use of these imitative bronzes when he reformed the currency but it is possible that some "barbarous radiates" were still being produced after that date. Whether individual coins are of British or Continental mintage can really only be ascertained by provenance.
*Alex
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7 MaxentiusMAXENTIUS
AE Follis (24-27 mm, 5.96 g)
Aquileia Mint, late Summer 307.
O: IMP C MAXENTIVS P F AVG, Laureate head right.
R: CONSERV VRB SVAE, Roma seated l. on shield in tetrastyle temple, r. handing globe to Maxentius (in military dress, stading r.), l. hand holding sceptre; seated captive between;
Victories as acroteria; she-wolf and twins in pediment; AQP in ex.
RIC VI Aquileia 113.
Dark patina. Extremely fine.
Ex Auctiones GmbH
Sosius
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90 Avitus?AVITUS?
AE4/5, Rome mint
O: DN AVIT-VS PF AVG, bust right
R: VICTOR-IA AVGG, Victory standing, left, holding wreath and palm branch, RM in ex., S in left field
RIC X 2412 or 2413, R5. Sear (2014) 21581 or 21582 (extremely rare)
Like many late Roman coins, this could be a barbarous issue, but it has many of the features of genuine Avitus coins. Still not enough detail or legends to remove the question mark after Avitus, though!Sosius
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AS FOUND. DOMITIAN CAESAREA MARITIMA JUDAEA CAPTA TYPEJudaea Capta, Domitian, Struck at Caesarea Maritima 81-96 CE. Æ 24mm
O: Laureate bust of Domitian to right.
R: Victory to left with trophy.
Hendin-747. Æ 24mm
Extremely Fine
Maritima
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JUSTINIAN I, AE Tetranummium (4 Nummi), struck 527 – 562 at ThessalonicaObverse: D N IVSTINIANVS AVG Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust of Justinian I facing right.
Reverse: Large Δ, between smaller A – P.
Diameter: 13.37mm | Weight: 1.66gms | Die Axis: 6
SBCV: 194 | Not in DOC | MIB: 175
Extremely Rare (R3)
Small denominations like this coin are excessively rare and are usually heavily worn. Hahn (MIB) considered this issue to have been struck between 538 – 540.*Alex
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Roman Imperial Coinage Trajan, AD 98-117.Sestertius 114-116, A 28.4 g. IMP CAES NER TRAIANO OPTIMO GER DAC P M TR P COS VI P P Laureate and draped bust r. Rev.
Trajan seated r. on platform placed on I., accompanied by two officers, addressing six soldiers, holding standards; in exergue,
IMPERATOR VIN/ S C. Rare. A very interesting reverse composition finely detailed on a full flan. Lovely untouched black patina with a few minor encrustations and green spots, 5/5 extremely fine
Private collection of Mr. B. MazehBrahim M
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ROME
PB Tessera (16mm, 2.92 g, 12 h)
Horse standing right; C above
Erect phallus; A V flanking
Rostovtsev -
Rostovtsev1 gathers into one group all tesserae depicting the phallus, various iterations of the word Amor, and the extremely rare pieces depicting sexual acts. He assumes that these pieces were entrance tickets to the Lupanaria, ancient brothels. This association has caused many scholars to refuse to accept tesserae as currency, as they feel that such crude themes would never have been depicted on currency. Thornton2, however, convincingly argues that, as Mercury is sometimes depicted as a herm, a statuary type consisting of a bust set on a square pedestal adorned with only genitalia, the phallus is in fact an emblem of the god in his guise as a fertility deity.
1. Rostovtzev, Mikhail. 1905. Römische Bleitesserae. Ed. C.F. Lehmann and E Kornemann. Beiträge z. Liepzig: Theodor Weicher.
2. Thornton, M. K. 1980. “The Roman Lead Tesserae : Observations on Two Historical Problems Author.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 29 3: 341-3
Ardatirion
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EGYPT, Antinoöpolis
PB Tessera – Dichalkon
Draped bust of Antinous right, wearing hem-hem crown(?);[Δ]/I downward to left, X/A downward to right
Tyche standing right, holding rudder and cornucopia; [Λ/K] downwards to left, [O/N] downwards to right
This piece is extremely important for the study of lead tokens in Roman Egypt. The legend reads DIXALKON, normally a bronze denomination. Leads bearing denominational names are known from only a few specimens (see Köln 3502, for one such piece from Memphis), including one of this type in Dattari (Savio).Ardatirion
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CANADA, Nova Scotia. William IV King of Great Britain, 1830-1837
CU Halfpenny Token
Belleville (New Jersey) mint. Dated 1832, but struck circa 1835
PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right
HALFPENNY TOKEN, thistle with two leaves; 1832 (over 1382) below
Charlton NS-3C; Corteau 281; Breton 871
This reverse die was initially engraved with the anachronistic date 1382, but was quickly caught and corrected, leaving only a handful of that extremely rare variety known today. Ardatirion
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"As de Nîmes" or "crocodile" Ӕ dupondius of Nemausus (9 - 3 BC), honoring Augustus and AgrippaIMP DIVI F , Heads of Agrippa (left) and Augustus (right) back to back, Agrippa wearing rostral crown and Augustus the oak-wreath / COL NEM, crocodile right chained to palm-shoot with short dense fronds and tip right; two short palm offshoots left and right below, above on left a wreath with two long ties streaming right.
Ó”, 24.5 x 3+ mm, 13.23g, die axis 3h; on both sides there are remains of what appears to be gold plating, perhaps it was a votive offering? Rough edges and slight scrapes on flan typical for this kind of coin, due to primitive technology (filing) of flan preparation.
IMPerator DIVI Filius. Mint of COLonia NEMausus (currently Nîmes, France). Known as "As de Nîmes", it is actually a dupontius (lit. "two-pounder") = 2 ases (sometimes cut in halves to get change). Dupondii were often made out of a golden-colored copper alloy (type of brass) "orichalcum" and this appears to be such case.
Key ID points: oak-wreath (microphotography shows that at least one leaf has a complicated shape, although distinguishing oak from laurel is very difficult) – earlier versions have Augustus bareheaded, no PP on obverse as in later versions, no NE ligature, palm with short fronds with tip right (later versions have tip left and sometimes long fronds). Not typical: no clear laurel wreath together with the rostral crown, gold (?) plating (!), both features really baffling.
But still clearly a "middle" kind of the croc dupondius, known as "type III": RIC I 158, RPC I 524, Sear 1730. It is often conservatively dated to 10 BC - 10 AD, but these days it is usually narrowed to 9/8 - 3 BC.
It is a commemorative issue, honoring the victory over Mark Antony and conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The heads of Augustus and Agrippa were probably positioned to remind familiar obverses of Roman republican coins with two-faced Janus. Palm branch was a common symbol of victory, in this case grown into a tree, like the victories of Augustus and Agrippa grown into the empire. The two offshoots at the bottom may mean two sons of Agrippa, Gaius and Lucius, who were supposed to be Augustus' heirs and were patrons of the colony. Palm may also be a symbol of the local Nemausian deity, which was probably worshiped in a sacred grove. When these coins were minted, the colony was mostly populated by the settled veterans of Augustus' campaigns, hence the reminiscence of the most famous victory, but some of the original Celtic culture probably survived and was assimilated by Romans. The crocodile is not only the symbol of Egypt, like in the famous Octavian's coins AEGYPTO CAPTA. It is also a representation of Mark Antony, powerful and scary both in water and on land, but a bit slow and stupid. The shape of the crocodile with tail up was specifically chosen to remind of the shape of ship on very common "legionary" denarius series, which Mark Antony minted to pay his armies just before Actium. It is probably also related to the popular contemporary caricature of Cleopatra, riding on and simultaneously copulating with a crocodile, holding a palm branch in her hand as if in triumph. There the crocodile also symbolized Mark Antony.
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was born c. 64-62 BC somewhere in rural Italy. His family was of humble and plebeian origins, but rich, of equestrian rank. Agrippa was about the same age as Octavian, and the two were educated together and became close friends. He probably first served in Caesar's Spanish campaign of 46–45 BC. Caesar regarded him highly enough to send him with Octavius in 45 BC to train in Illyria. When Octavian returned to Rome after Caesar's assassination, Agrippa became his close lieutenant, performing many tasks. He probably started his political career in 43 BC as a tribune of the people and then a member of the Senate. Then he was one of the leading Octavian's generals, finally becoming THE leading general and admiral in the civil wars of the subsequent years.
In 38 as a governor of Transalpine Gaul Agrippa undertook an expedition to Germania, thus becoming the first Roman general since Julius Caesar to cross the Rhine. During this foray he helped the Germanic tribe of Ubii (who previously allied themselves with Caesar in 55 BC) to resettle on the west bank of the Rhine. A shrine was dedicated there, possibly to Divus Caesar whom Ubii fondly remembered, and the village became known as Ara Ubiorum, "Altar of Ubians". This quickly would become an important Roman settlement. Agrippina the Younger, Agrippa's granddaughter, wife of Emperor Claudius and mother of Emperor Nero, would be born there in 15 AD. In 50 AD she would sponsor this village to be upgraded to a colonia, and it would be renamed Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (colony of Claudius [at] the Altar of Agrippinians – Ubii renamed themselves as Agrippinians to honor the augusta!), abbreviated as CCAA, later to become the capital of new Roman province, Germania Inferior.
In 37 BC Octavian recalled Agrippa back to Rome and arranged for him to win the consular elections, he desperately needed help in naval warfare with Sextus Pompey, the youngest son of Pompey the Great, who styled himself as the last supporter of the republican cause, but in reality became a pirate king, an irony since his father was the one who virtually exterminated piracy in all the Roman waters. He forced humiliating armistice on the triumvirs in 39 BC and when Octavian renewed the hostilities a year later, defeated him in a decisive naval battle of Messina. New fleet had to be built and trained, and Agrippa was the man for the job. Agrippa's solution was creating a huge secret naval base he called Portus Iulius by connecting together lakes Avernus, Avernus and the natural inner and outer harbors behind Cape Misenum at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples. He also created a larger type of ship and developed a new naval weapon: harpax – a ballista-launched grapnel shot with mechanisms that allowed pulling enemy ships close for easy boarding. It replaced the previous boarding device that Romans used since the First Punic War, corvus – effective, but extremely cumbersome. A later defence against it were scythe blades on long poles for cutting ropes, but since this invention was developed in secret, the enemy had no chance to prepare anything like it. It all has proved extremely effective: in a series of naval engagements Agrippa annihilated the fleet of Sextus, forced him to abandon his bases and run away. For this Agrippa was awarded an unprecedented honour that no Roman before or after him received: a rostral crown, "corona rostrata", a wreath decorated in front by a prow and beak of a ship.
That's why Virgil (Aeneid VIII, 683-684), describing Agrippa at Actium, says: "…belli insigne superbum, tempora navali fulgent rostrata corona." "…the proud military decoration, gleams on his brow the naval rostral crown". Actium, the decisive battle between forces of Octavian and Mark Antony, may appear boring compared to the war with Sextus, but it probably turned out this way due to Agrippa's victories in preliminary naval engagements and taking over all the strategy from Octavian.
In between the wars Agrippa has shown an unusual talent in city planning, not only constructing many new public buildings etc., but also greatly improving Rome's sanitation by doing a complete overhaul of all the aqueducts and sewers. Typically, it was Augustus who later would boast that "he had found the city of brick but left it of marble", forgetting that, just like in his naval successes, it was Agrippa who did most of the work. Agrippa had building programs in other Roman cities as well, a magnificent temple (currently known as Maison Carrée) survives in Nîmes itself, which was probably built by Agrippa.
Later relationship between Augustus and Agrippa seemed colder for a while, Agrippa seemed to even go into "exile", but modern historians agree that it was just a ploy: Augustus wanted others to think that Agrippa was his "rival" while in truth he was keeping a significant army far away from Rome, ready to come to the rescue in case Augustus' political machinations fail. It is confirmed by the fact that later Agrippa was recalled and given authority almost equal to Augustus himself, not to mention that he married Augustus' only biological child. The last years of Agrippa's life were spent governing the eastern provinces, were he won respect even of the Jews. He also restored Crimea to Roman Empire. His last service was starting the conquest of the upper Danube, were later the province of Pannonia would be. He suddenly died of illness in 12 BC, aged ~51.
Agrippa had several children through his three marriages. Through some of his children, Agrippa would become ancestor to many subsequent members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He has numerous other legacies.Yurii P
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"Sow" series denarius, RRC 121/2Denomination: Denarius
Era: C. 209-195 BC
Metal: AR
Obverse: Helmeted head of Roma R,; X behind. Border of dots
Reverse: Dioscuri on horseback right, each holding spear, star above each head; "Sow" below; ROMA in 3line frame.
Mint: Rome (?)
Weight: 3.36 g
Reference: RRC 121/2
Provenance: NAC 125, Lot 376, June 24, 2021
Ex Sternberg XXI, 1988, 241 and NAC 73, 2013, Student and his Mentor part II, 38 sales.
Very rare. Reverse slightly off-centre, otherwise good extremely fine with lovely reflective surfaces.
Trace of undertype on both obverse and reverse. Note the 2nd border on the lower edge (beaded), and the raised area in front of Roma's obverse face (extended tail of early denarius?), also some hint of undertype below truncation.
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(0218) ELAGABALUS218 - 222 AD
AE 16 mm, 3.01 g
O: Radiate, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind
R: Large SC, K above, A below; all within plain circle surrounded by laurel wreath of eight elements, with wreath fastened at top with garland.
Mcalee 798 (otherwise apparently unpublished); extremely rare.
Syria, Antiochlaney
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025. Julia Paula AR Denarius. Concordia.Obv. Draped bust right IVLIA PAVLA AVG
Rev. Concordia seated left, holding patera; star to left CONCORDIA
19mm, 3.28g, 6h. Rome mint. Struck AD 220. RIC 211 (Elagabalus); Thirion 455; RSC 6a
Extremely Fine.LordBest
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027 BC-14 AD - AUGUSTUS AR denarius - struck by P. Licinius Stolo, moneyer (17 BC)obv: AVGVSTVS TR POT (Augustus, laureate, wearing cloak and short tunic, on horseback riding right, holding patera in right hand - banker's mark)
rev: P STOLO III VIR (Salii or priest of Mars's cap (same than apex flaminis) between two studded oval shields (ancilia)).
ref: RIC I 344 (R3); BMCRE 76; RSC 439 (80frcs)
mint: Rome
3.53gms,18-19mm
Extremely rare
History: The Ludi Saeculares were spread over a period of three days (from May 31 to June 3), and Augustus celebrated them to inaugurate the beginning of a new age. On the reverse of this coin the ancilias (sacred shields) symbolised the music at festivals. The "jumping priests" or Salii marched to the Regia, where was the shrine of Mars, in which the ancilia (the sacred shield, and its 11 copies) of Mars were stored. The Salii wearing apex, taking the bronze Ancilia, and danced through the streets carrying poles with the shields mounted on them in their left hands. With their other hand, they banged the shields with a drumstick.berserker
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032. Otacilia Severa AR Antoninianus PVDICITIAOtacilia Severa, Augusta, 244-249. Antoninianus (Silver, 22 mm, 4.34 g, 6 h), Rome, 244-245. MARCIA OTACIL SEVERA AVG Diademed and draped bust of Otacilia Severa set to right on crescent. Rev. PVDICITIA AVG Pudicitia seated left, raising veil with her right hand and holding long transverse scepter in her left. Cohen 53. RIC 123c. A lovely example with a sharply struck portrait. Struck from a slightly worn reverse die and with minor deposits, otherwise, good extremely fine.
From the collection of Dipl.-Ing. Adrian Lang.
LordBest
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033. Herennia Etruscilla AR Antoninianus PVDICITIAHerennia Etruscilla, Augusta, 249-251. Antoninianus (Silver, 22 mm, 4.41 g, 1 h), Rome, 249-250. HER ETRVSCILLA AVG Diademed and draped bust of Herennia Etruscilla set to right on crescent. Rev. PVDICITIA AVG Pudicitia, veiled, seated left, drawing veil in front of her face with her right hand and holding long transverse scepter in her left. Cohen 19. RIC 59b. A nicely toned coin with a charming portrait. Extremely fine.
From the collection of Dipl.-Ing. Adrian Lang.LordBest
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036 Sverre SigurdssonBracteate quarter-penny of Sverre, king of Norway 1184-1202
Mint: Oslo?
Schive VII:21
NM 9
Skaare 129
Sverre, called Sigurdsson, might have been the son of Sigurd Munn, one of the many kings of Norway during the chaotic 12th century. Sverre became leader of the Birkebeiners, a rebel group in Norway that ultimately gained power in the 1170s. However, king Sverre had the opposition of the church, and a group of disaffected nobles called the Baglers, who supported the prior regime and doubted Sverre's paternity. The conflict would continue after Sverre's death.
Sverre is an interesting character from a numismatic perspective, because of the large amount of coins of his that survived. In 1840, a large group of coins was found in Dæli, Norway. A few pennies in Sverre's name were found, but the majority of coins were bracteates. These extremely thin small coins were the main currency of the Birkenbeiner party during these troubled years. Because of the presence of the pennies with Sverre's name, it is possible to attribute these otherwise minimally marked coins.
The bracteates are found with letters, and many letters are represented. These are thought to represent mints, but it is not certain whether that is truly the case. This coin, with the 'A', may be for Asloia (Oslo)
Ex- M.Ringsrud, FinnCoinSt. George's Collection
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038 László V. “Posthumous” (Ladislaus V.) as Throne Require of Hungary, (1440-1453 A.D.), AR Denarius, H-653, C2--, U-503, P-167, Extremely Rare!!!038 László V. “Posthumous” (Ladislaus V.) as Throne Require of Hungary, (1440-1453 A.D.), AR Denarius, H-653, C2--, U-503, P-167, Extremely Rare!!!
avers: ✠mOnETA•LADISLAI•DEI•G, Hungarian Shield two parts left Árpádian stripes, and right the Patriarchal cross, K-G, circle, border of dots.
reverse: ✠REGIS•VnGARIE•ETCT, Hungarian shield.
exergue, mint mark: K/G//-- were struck by Johannes Constorfer (by Pohl), diameter: 17,5mm, weight: 0,54g, axis: 9h,
mint: Hungary, Körmöczbánya (Kremnitz,), date:1452 A.D. (by Pohl),
ref: Huszár-653, CNH-2-Not in, Unger-503, Pohl-167, Extremely Rare!!!
Q-001quadrans
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040. Valerian, 254-260AD. BI Antoninianus.BI Antoninianus. Antioch mint.
Obv. Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right. IMP C P LIC VALERIANVS AVG
Rev. Emperors sacrificing at altar. PIETAS AVGG
RSC 153, RIC 284.
Extremely nice condition for this emperor. EF.
LordBest
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0635 Focas, 602-610Gold half tremissis (1/6 solidus), 14.34mm, 0.72g, aEF
Struck c. 607-610 at Constantinople
dN FOCAS PER AV, diademed, draped, and cuirassed bust right, beardless / VICTORI FOCAS AV, cross potent, CONOB beneath.
Extremely rare with three known specimens; the smallest gold denomination in the Byzantine series.
Certificate of Authenticity by David R. Sear, ACCS
Ex: Glenn W. Woods; Frank Kovacs
Sear 635; cf. DOC 20; cf. MIB 29
Lawrence W
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071 - Elagabalus denarius - RIC 87Elagabalus Denarius
Obv:– IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG, laureate, horned, draped and cuirassed bust right
Rev:– INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG, Elagabalus standing holding patera over an altar and branch. Star in right field. Horn on ground to his left
Minted in Rome. A.D. 222
Reference– BMC 209 note. RIC 87 (where it is rated Common citing Cohen). RSC III 58. Cohen 58 (illustrated with star in right field) valued at 50 Fr. No examples in RD.
ex Numismatica Ars Classica NAC AG Sale 42, Lot 379, 20th November 2007, ex Barry Feirstein Collection, previously privately purchased from Harlan J. Berk.
Described as Lightly toned and good extremely fine by NAC.
21 mm. 3.11 gms. 0 degrees.
The coin would certainly seem to be scarcer than the "Common" rating given in RIC would imply. No examples in RD, only one example on acsearch (this coin). No examples on Wildwinds (the RIC 87 there would appear to be in error).maridvnvm
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072p Gordianus-III. (238-244 A.D.), Moesia, Viminacium, PM 01-45-01, AE-Dupondius, Bull and Lion standing at stand, Extremely rare!!!072p Gordianus-III. (238-244 A.D.), Moesia, Viminacium, PM 01-45-01, AE-Dupondius, Bull and Lion standing at stand, Extremely rare!!!
avers:- IMP-GORDIANVS-PIVS-FEL-AVG, Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right .
revers:- PMS-C-O-LVIM, Moesia standing facing, head left, holding patera in the right hand over altar, left hand holding spear downwards, bull and lion standing at stand on either side.
exergo:AN IIII, diameter: 24,5-25,5mm, weight: 8,23g, axis: 1h,
mint: Moesia, Viminacium, date: 242-243 A.D., ref: Pick-091, PM-1-45-1,
Q-001quadrans
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075 Otacilia Severa (?-249 A.D.), RIC IV-III 138, Antioch, AR-Antoninianus, AEQVITAS AVG, Aequitas standing left, Extremely Rare!!!075 Otacilia Severa (?-249 A.D.), RIC IV-III 138, Antioch, AR-Antoninianus, AEQVITAS AVG, Aequitas standing left, Extremely Rare!!!
avers:- M OTACIL SEVERA AVG, Diademed and draped bust right, on the crescent.
reverse:- AEQVITAS AVG, Aequitas standing left, holding scales and cornucopia.
exergue: -/-//--, diameter: 21,5mm, weight:4,04g, axis:0h,
mint: Antioch, date:??? A.D., ref: RIC-IV-III-138, p-85, C-, Extremely Rare!!!
Q-001
quadrans
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096a. Constantius GallusCaesar under Constantius II, 351-354. Appointed to guard the East while Constantius campaigned against Magnentius. Gallus was extremely cruel and hated. When summoned by Constantius, Gallus was arrested en route and executed.lawrence c
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0ab Lucius Cornelius Sulla FelixL Manlivs, moneyer
82-72 BC
Denarius
Head of Roma, right, MANLI before, PRO Q behind
Sulla in walking quadriga, crowned by Victory, L SVLLA IM in ex.
Seaby, Manlia 4
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (c. 138 BC – 78 BC) was a Roman general and conservative statesman. He had the distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as reviving the dictatorship. Sulla was awarded a grass crown, the most prestigious and rarest Roman military honor, during the Social War. He was the first man to lead an army to Rome to settle a political dispute, in this case with Marius. In late 81 BC, he stunned the world by resigning his near-absolute powers, restoring constitutional government. After seeing election to and holding a second consulship, he retired to private life and died shortly after.
As to the person, Plutarch wrote: LUCIUS Cornelius Sylla was descended of a patrician or noble family. . . . His general personal appearance may be known by his statues; only his blue, eyes, of themselves extremely keen and glaring, were rendered all the more forbidding and terrible by the complexion of his face, in which white was mixed with rough blotches of fiery red. . . . And when supreme master of all, he was often wont to muster together the most impudent players and stage-followers of the town, and to drink and bandy jests with them without regard to his age or the dignity of his place, and to the prejudice of important affairs that required his attention. When he was once at table, it was not in Sylla's nature to admit of anything that was serious, and whereas at other times he was a man of business and austere of countenance, he underwent all of a sudden, at his first entrance upon wine and good-fellowship, a total revolution, and was gentle and tractable with common singers and dancers, and ready to oblige any one that spoke with him. It seems to have been a sort of diseased result of this laxity that he was so prone to amorous pleasures, and yielded without resistance to any temptation of voluptuousness, from which even in his old age he could not refrain. He had a long attachment for Metrobius, a player. In his first amours, it happened that he made court to a common but rich lady, Nicopolis by name, and what by the air of his youth, and what by long intimacy, won so far on her affections, that she rather than he was the lover, and at her death she bequeathed him her whole property. He likewise inherited the estate of a step-mother who loved him as her own son. By these means he had pretty well advanced his fortunes. . . . In general he would seem to have been of a very irregular character, full of inconsistencies with himself much given to rapine, to prodigality yet more; in promoting or disgracing whom he pleased, alike unaccountable; cringing to those he stood in need of, and domineering over others who stood in need of him, so that it was hard to tell whether his nature had more in it of pride or of servility. As to his unequal distribution of punishments, as, for example, that upon slight grounds he would put to the torture, and again would bear patiently with the greatest wrongs; would readily forgive and he reconciled after the most heinous acts of enmity, and yet would visit small and inconsiderable offences with death and confiscation of goods; one might judge that in himself he was really of a violent and revengeful nature, which, however, he could qualify, upon reflection, for his interest.
Blindado
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1027 BITHYNIA Caesarea Germanica Hadrian Zeus standingReference. Extremely rare
RPC III, 1027/5
Obv. AV TPAIANOC ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟC KAIC
Laureate head, cuirassed bust of Hadrian, r. , with paludamentum
Rev. ΚΑΙΣΑΡΕΙΑ(Σ) ΓΕΡΜΑΝΙΚΗ(Σ)
Zeus standing facing, head l., holding thunderbolt (?) in his r. hand
6.36 gr
20 mm
2hokidoki
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112 Probus (276-282 A.D.), Siscia, Alföldi 0032.0000 (This bust Not in from this type !!!), -/-//XXI, Bust A/C, RIC V-II 686var. (This bust not listed in RIC from this type!!!), AE-Antoninianus, FELICITAS AVG N, Felicitas standing left, Extremely Rare!!!112 Probus (276-282 A.D.), Siscia, Alföldi 0032.0000 (This bust Not in from this type !!!), -/-//XXI, Bust A/C, RIC V-II 686var. (This bust not listed in RIC from this type!!!), AE-Antoninianus, FELICITAS AVG N, Felicitas standing left, Extremely Rare!!!
avers: IMP PROBVS INV AVG, Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right, seen from front. (This bust not listed in RIC from this type!!!)
reverse: FELICITAS AVG N, Felicitas standing left by altar, holding caduceus and cornucopiae.
exergue: -/-//XXI, diameter: 22,5mm, weight: 3,22g, axis: 0h,
mint: Siscia, 2nd. emission, date: 277 A.D., ref: RIC V-II 686var., (This bust not listed in RIC from this type!!!),
Q-001
"Thank you for showing this very rare coin reverse FELICITAS AVG(usti) N(ostri), Felicitas holding a long caduceus and a cornucopiae: the draped bust seen from front is unlisted in Alföldi's work on the mint of Siscia under Probus (so ref: Alföldi 32, -), I know it from another coin in a private collection, which shares the same obverse die as yours >> unreferenced coin, two specimens, one obverse die.
The new reverses introduced at that time in the Pannonian mint of Siscia celebrate Probus as "Augustus Noster" (Our Emperor) as the emperor is of Pannonian extraction. The marking which omits the officina number is a clue for an issue of common base aureliani minted parallelly with an imperial donativum in gold.
Very nice coin..S. Estiot" Thank you S.Estiot.quadrans
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112 Probus (276-282 A.D.), Siscia, Alföldi 0036.0001, -/-//XXIT, Bust B/F, RIC V-II Not in !, AE-Antoninianus, FORTVNA REDVX, Fortuna seated left on shield, Extremely Rare!!!112 Probus (276-282 A.D.), Siscia, Alföldi 0036.0001, -/-//XXIT, Bust B/F, RIC V-II Not in !, AE-Antoninianus, FORTVNA REDVX, Fortuna seated left on shield, Extremely Rare!!!
avers: IMP C PROBVS P F AVG, Radiate, cuirassed bust right. (This avers legend not listed in RIC from this type!!!)
reverse: FORTVNA REDUX, Fortuna seated left on shield, holding baton and cornucopiae.
exergue: -/-//XXIT, diameter: 22,5mm, weight: 4,37g, axis: 0h,
mint: Siscia, 4th. emission, date: 276 A.D. ref: RIC-V-II-Not in, (695var, p91, ???), Alföldi 0036.0001,
Q-001
"This is an extremely rare issue of Probus, which Pink attributes to the 4th emission of Siscia mint. It seems that RIC 695 is incorrectly described: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P F AVG, bust type G (radiate helmeted, cuirassed bust l, holding spear and shield), cited from Voetter.
However, Alföldi lists two examples with obverse legend IMP C PROBVS P F AVG: type 36/1 - Radiate, cuirassed bust right (specimen in Frankfurt) and type 36/2 - Radiate, cuirassed bust left (collection Missong, Vienna), in addition, another specimen of Alf 36/1 is kept in British Museum, coming from Gloucester hoard . All examples have -/-//XXIT mintmark. The same obverse is listed by Pink." by Incerum, thank you Incerum.quadrans
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120 Maximianus Herculeus (285-286 Caesar, 286-305, 307-308 & 310 A.D. Augustus), Rome, RIC V-II Not in !!!, AE-Ant., -/-//XXIZ, PRIMIS X•MVLTIS XX, Jupiter standing left, Extremely Rare! #1120 Maximianus Herculeus (285-286 Caesar, 286-305, 307-308 & 310 A.D. Augustus), Rome, RIC V-II Not in !!!, AE-Ant., -/-//XXIZ, PRIMIS X•MVLTIS XX, Jupiter standing left, Extremely Rare! #1
avers:- IMP MAXIMIANVS P F AVG, Radiate bust left in imperial mantle, holding scepter surmounted by an eagle. (8,H).
revers:- PRIMIS X•MVLTIS XX, Jupiter standing left, holding thunderbolt and scepter.
exerg: -/-//XXIZ, diameter: 2,20mm, weight: 3,21g, axes: 0h,
mint: Rome, date: A.D., ref: RIC-V-II- Not in !!!, p-,
Q-001quadrans
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132b Licinius l. (308-324 A.D.), Siscia, RIC VII 086Є, -/-//•ЄSIS•, AE-3 Follis, VICT•LAETAE PRINC PERP, R5!!!, #1132b Licinius l. (308-324 A.D.), Siscia, RIC VII 086Є, -/-//•ЄSIS•, AE-3 Follis, VICT•LAETAE PRINC PERP, R5!!!, #1
avers: IMP LICI NIVS AVG, Laureate head right.
reverse: VICT•LAETAE PRINC PERP, Two Victories standing, facing each other, together holding shield reading VOT/PR on the altar, with S on the face of the altar.
exergue: -/-//•ЄSIS•, diameter: 17,9-18,7mm, weight: 2,79g, axis: 0h,
mint: Siscia, date: 319 A.D.,
ref: RIC VII 86Є, p-435, r5!!!, Extremely Rare!, Sear 15357,
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1403c, Constantine I (the Great), early 307 - 22 May 337 A.D.Bronze AE 3, RIC VII 35, choice aEF, Constantinople mint, 3.336g, 20.0mm, 180o, 328 A.D.; Obverse: CONSTANTI-NVS MAX AVG, laurel and rosette diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right; Reverse: CONSTANTINI-ANA DAFNE, Victory seated left on cippus, head right, palm frond in each hand, trophy and captive before, CONS in exergue, B left; scarce. Ex FORVM.
"The information about Constantine's campaign across [the Danube] is obscure and untrustworthy. The question, therefore, of what he achieved by this enterprise was, and is, subject to contradictory interpretations. On the one hand, the Panegyrists claimed that he had repeated the triumphs of Trajan. On the other, his own nephew, Julian the Apostate, spoke for many when he expressed the view that this second 'conquest' of Dacia was incomplete and extremely brief . . . monetary commemoration was accorded to the building, at about the same time [AD 328], of the river frontier fortress of Constantiniana Dafne (Spantov, near Oltenita) . . ." (Grant, Michael. The Emperor Constantine. London: Phoenix, 1998. 58-9).
The Emperor Constantine I was effectively the sole ruler of the Roman world between 324 and 337 A.D.; his reign was perhaps one of the most crucial of all the emperors in determining the future course of western civilization. By beginning the process of making Christianity the religious foundation of his realm, he set the religious course for the future of Europe which remains in place to this very day. Because he replaced Rome with Constantinople as the center of imperial power, he made it clear that the city of Rome was no longer the center of power and he also set the stage for the Middle Ages. His philosophical view of monarchy, largely spelled out in some of the works of Eusebius of Caesarea, became the foundation for the concept of the divine right of kings which prevailed in Europe.
Constantine was not a "Christian convert" in any traditional sense. He was not baptized until close to death, and while that was not an uncommon practice, the mention of Christ in his speeches and decrees is conspicuous by its absence. Eusebius, Church historian and Constantine biographer, is responsible for much of the valorization of Constantine as the Christian Emperor. The somnambulant "sign" in which Constantine was to become victor at the Milvian Bridge is, not so surprisingly, revealed to posterity long after the "fact." Throughout his reign, Constantine continues to portray himself on coins as a sun god (Freeman, Charles. Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean; Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 582). Above all, Constantine was a pragmatist. It would be cynical to egregiously disavow his commitment to Christianity, but it would be equally wrong to think that he would allow Christianity to meddle in the governance of his empire. As he reputedly told a group of bishops, "You are bishops of those within the church, but I am perhaps a bishop appointed by God of those outside." Whatever the motives for his decision to support Christianity, Christianity benefitted from the arrangement. So, too, did Constantine. It was a match made in heaven.
J. P. Fitzgerald, Jr.
For perhaps the best Constantine The Great site on the web, see Victor Clark's Constantine The Great Coins: http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/Cleisthenes
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1409a, Julian II "the Philosopher," February 360 - 26 June 363 A.D.Julian II, A.D. 360-363; RIC 167; VF; 2.7g, 20mm; Constantinople mint; Obverse: DN FL CL IVLIANVS P F AVG, helmeted & cuirassed bust right, holding spear & shield; Reverse: VOT X MVLT XX in four lines within wreath; CONSPB in exergue; Attractive green patina. Ex Nemesis.
De Imperatoribus Romanis,
An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors
Julian the Apostate (360-363 A.D.)
Walter E. Roberts, Emory University
Michael DiMaio, Jr., Salve Regina University
Introduction
The emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus reigned from 360 to 26 June 363, when he was killed fighting against the Persians. Despite his short rule, his emperorship was pivotal in the development of the history of the later Roman empire. This essay is not meant to be a comprehensive look at the various issues central to the reign of Julian and the history of the later empire. Rather, this short work is meant to be a brief history and introduction for the general reader. Julian was the last direct descendent of the Constantinian line to ascend to the purple, and it is one of history's great ironies that he was the last non-Christian emperor. As such, he has been vilified by most Christian sources, beginning with John Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzus in the later fourth century. This tradition was picked up by the fifth century Eusebian continuators Sozomen, Socrates Scholasticus, and Theodoret and passed on to scholars down through the 20th century. Most contemporary sources, however, paint a much more balanced picture of Julian and his reign. The adoption of Christianity by emperors and society, while still a vital concern, was but one of several issues that concerned Julian.
It is fortunate that extensive writings from Julian himself exist, which help interpret his reign in the light of contemporary evidence. Still extant are some letters, several panegyrics, and a few satires. Other contemporary sources include the soldier Ammianus Marcellinus' history, correspondence between Julian and Libanius of Antioch, several panegyrics, laws from the Theodosian Code, inscriptions, and coinage. These sources show Julian's emphasis on restoration. He saw himself as the restorer of the traditional values of Roman society. Of course much of this was rhetoric, meant to defend Julian against charges that he was a usurper. At the same time this theme of restoration was central to all emperors of the fourth century. Julian thought that he was the one emperor who could regain what was viewed as the lost glory of the Roman empire. To achieve this goal he courted select groups of social elites to get across his message of restoration. This was the way that emperors functioned in the fourth century. By choosing whom to include in the sharing of power, they sought to shape society.
Early Life
Julian was born at Constantinople in 331. His father was Julius Constantius, half-brother of the emperor Constantine through Constantius Chlorus, and his mother was Basilina, Julius' second wife. Julian had two half-brothers via Julius' first marriage. One of these was Gallus, who played a major role in Julian's life. Julian appeared destined for a bright future via his father's connection to the Constantinian house. After many years of tense relations with his three half-brothers, Constantine seemed to have welcomed them into the fold of the imperial family. From 333 to 335, Constantine conferred a series of honors upon his three half-siblings, including appointing Julius Constantius as one of the consuls for 335. Julian's mother was equally distinguished. Ammianus related that she was from a noble family. This is supported by Libanius, who claimed that she was the daughter of Julius Julianus, a Praetorian Prefect under Licinius, who was such a model of administrative virtue that he was pardoned and honored by Constantine.
Despite the fact that his mother died shortly after giving birth to him, Julian experienced an idyllic early childhood. This ended when Constantius II conducted a purge of many of his relatives shortly after Constantine's death in 337, particularly targeting the families of Constantine's half-brothers. ulian and Gallus were spared, probably due to their young age. Julian was put under the care of Mardonius, a Scythian eunuch who had tutored his mother, in 339, and was raised in the Greek philosophical tradition, and probably lived in Nicomedia. Ammianus also supplied the fact that while in Nicomedia, Julian was cared for by the local bishop Eusebius, of whom the future emperor was a distant relation. Julian was educated by some of the most famous names in grammar and rhetoric in the Greek world at that time, including Nicocles and Hecebolius. In 344 Constantius II sent Julian and Gallus to Macellum in Cappadocia, where they remained for six years. In 351, Gallus was made Caesar by Constantius II and Julian was allowed to return to Nicomedia, where he studied under Aedesius, Eusebius, and Chrysanthius, all famed philosophers, and was exposed to the Neo-Platonism that would become such a prominent part of his life. But Julian was most proud of the time he spent studying under Maximus of Ephesus, a noted Neo-Platonic philospher and theurgist. It was Maximus who completed Julian's full-scale conversion to Neo-Platonism. Later, when he was Caesar, Julian told of how he put letters from this philosopher under his pillows so that he would continue to absorb wisdom while he slept, and while campaigning on the Rhine, he sent his speeches to Maximus for approval before letting others hear them. When Gallus was executed in 354 for treason by Constantius II, Julian was summoned to Italy and essentially kept under house arrest at Comum, near Milan, for seven months before Constantius' wife Eusebia convinced the emperor that Julian posed no threat. This allowed Julian to return to Greece and continue his life as a scholar where he studied under the Neo-Platonist Priscus. Julian's life of scholarly pursuit, however, ended abruptly when he was summoned to the imperial court and made Caesar by Constantius II on 6 November 355.
Julian as Caesar
Constantius II realized an essential truth of the empire that had been evident since the time of the Tetrarchy--the empire was too big to be ruled effectively by one man. Julian was pressed into service as Caesar, or subordinate emperor, because an imperial presence was needed in the west, in particular in the Gallic provinces. Julian, due to the emperor's earlier purges, was the only viable candidate of the imperial family left who could act as Caesar. Constantius enjoined Julian with the task of restoring order along the Rhine frontier. A few days after he was made Caesar, Julian was married to Constantius' sister Helena in order to cement the alliance between the two men. On 1 December 355, Julian journeyed north, and in Augusta Taurinorum he learned that Alamannic raiders had destroyed Colonia Agrippina. He then proceeded to Vienne where he spent the winter. At Vienne, he learned that Augustudunum was also under siege, but was being held by a veteran garrison. He made this his first priority, and arrived there on 24 June 356. When he had assured himself that the city was in no immediate danger, he journeyed to Augusta Treverorum via Autessioduram, and from there to Durocortorum where he rendezvoused with his army. Julian had the army stage a series of punitive strikes around the Dieuse region, and then he moved them towards the Argentoratum/Mongontiacum region when word of barbarian incursions reached him.
From there, Julian moved on to Colonia Agrippina, and negotiated a peace with the local barbarian leaders who had assaulted the city. He then wintered at Senonae. He spent the early part of the campaigning season of 357 fighting off besiegers at Senonae, and then conducting operations around Lugdunum and Tres Tabernae. Later that summer, he encountered his watershed moment as a military general. Ammianus went into great detail about Julian's victory over seven rogue Alamannic chieftains near Argentoratum, and Julian himself bragged about it in his later writing. After this battle, the soldiers acclaimed Julian Augustus, but he rejected this title. After mounting a series of follow-up raids into Alamannic territory, he retired to winter quarters at Lutetia, and on the way defeated some Frankish raiders in the Mosa region. Julian considered this campaign one of the major events of his time as Caesar.
Julian began his 358 military campaigns early, hoping to catch the barbarians by surprise. His first target was the Franks in the northern Rhine region. He then proceeded to restore some forts in the Mosa region, but his soldiers threatened to mutiny because they were on short rations and had not been paid their donative since Julian had become Caesar. After he soothed his soldiers, Julian spent the rest of the summer negotiating a peace with various Alamannic leaders in the mid and lower Rhine areas, and retired to winter quarters at Lutetia. In 359, he prepared once again to carry out a series of punitive expeditions against the Alamanni in the Rhine region who were still hostile to the Roman presence. In preparation, the Caesar repopulated seven previously destroyed cities and set them up as supply bases and staging areas. This was done with the help of the people with whom Julian had negotiated a peace the year before. Julian then had a detachment of lightly armed soldiers cross the Rhine near Mogontiacum and conduct a guerilla strike against several chieftains. As a result of these campaigns, Julian was able to negotiate a peace with all but a handful of the Alamannic leaders, and he retired to winter quarters at Lutetia.
Of course, Julian did more than act as a general during his time as Caesar. According to Ammianus, Julian was an able administrator who took steps to correct the injustices of Constantius' appointees. Ammianus related the story of how Julian prevented Florentius, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, from raising taxes, and also how Julian actually took over as governor for the province of Belgica Secunda. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, supported Ammianus' basic assessment of Julian in this regard when he reported that Julian was an able representative of the emperor to the Gallic provincials. There is also epigraphic evidence to support Julian's popularity amongst the provincial elites. An inscription found near Beneventum in Apulia reads:
"To Flavius Claudius Julianus, most noble and sanctified Caesar, from the caring Tocius Maximus, vir clarissimus, for the care of the res publica from Beneventum".
Tocius Maximus, as a vir clarissimus, was at the highest point in the social spectrum and was a leader in his local community. This inscription shows that Julian was successful in establishing a positive image amongst provincial elites while he was Caesar.
Julian Augustus
In early 360, Constantius, driven by jealousy of Julian's success, stripped Julian of many troops and officers, ostensibly because the emperor needed them for his upcoming campaign against the Persians. One of the legions ordered east, the Petulantes, did not want to leave Gaul because the majority of the soldiers in the unit were from this region. As a result they mutinied and hailed Julian as Augustus at Lutetia. Julian refused this acclamation as he had done at Argentoratum earlier, but the soldiers would have none of his denial. They raised him on a shield and adorned him with a neck chain, which had formerly been the possession of the standard-bearer of the Petulantes and symbolized a royal diadem. Julian appeared reluctantly to acquiesce to their wishes, and promised a generous donative. The exact date of his acclamation is unknown, but most scholars put it in February or March. Julian himself supported Ammianus' picture of a jealous Constantius. In his Letter to the Athenians, a document constructed to answer charges that he was a usurper, Julian stated that from the start he, as Caesar, had been meant as a figurehead to the soldiers and provincials. The real power he claimed lay with the generals and officials already present in Gaul. In fact, according to Julian, the generals were charged with watching him as much as the enemy. His account of the actual acclamation closely followed what Ammianus told us, but he stressed even more his reluctance to take power. Julian claimed that he did so only after praying to Zeus for guidance.
Fearing the reaction of Constantius, Julian sent a letter to his fellow emperor justifying the events at Lutetia and trying to arrange a peaceful solution. This letter berated Constantius for forcing the troops in Gaul into an untenable situation. Ammianus stated that Julian's letter blamed Constantius' decision to transfer Gallic legions east as the reason for the soldiers' rebellion. Julian once again asserted that he was an unwilling participant who was only following the desire of the soldiers. In both of these basic accounts Ammianus and Julian are playing upon the theme of restoration. Implicit in their version of Julian's acclamation is the argument that Constantius was unfit to rule. The soldiers were the vehicle of the gods' will. The Letter to the Athenians is full of references to the fact that Julian was assuming the mantle of Augustus at the instigation of the gods. Ammianus summed up this position nicely when he related the story of how, when Julian was agonizing over whether to accept the soldiers' acclamation, he had a dream in which he was visited by the Genius (guardian spirit) of the Roman state. The Genius told Julian that it had often tried to bestow high honors upon Julian but had been rebuffed. Now, the Genius went on to say, was Julian's final chance to take the power that was rightfully his. If the Caesar refused this chance, the Genius would depart forever, and both Julian and the state would rue Julian's rejection. Julian himself wrote a letter to his friend Maximus of Ephesus in November of 361 detailing his thoughts on his proclamation. In this letter, Julian stated that the soldiers proclaimed him Augustus against his will. Julian, however, defended his accession, saying that the gods willed it and that he had treated his enemies with clemency and justice. He went on to say that he led the troops in propitiating the traditional deities, because the gods commanded him to return to the traditional rites, and would reward him if he fulfilled this duty.
During 360 an uneasy peace simmered between the two emperors. Julian spent the 360 campaigning season continuing his efforts to restore order along the Rhine, while Constantius continued operations against the Persians. Julian wintered in Vienne, and celebrated his Quinquennalia. It was at this time that his wife Helena died, and he sent her remains to Rome for a proper burial at his family villa on the Via Nomentana where the body of her sister was entombed. The uneasy peace held through the summer of 361, but Julian concentrated his military operations around harassing the Alamannic chieftain Vadomarius and his allies, who had concluded a peace treaty with Constantius some years earlier. By the end of the summer, Julian decided to put an end to the waiting and gathered his army to march east against Constantius. The empire teetered on the brink of another civil war. Constantius had spent the summer negotiating with the Persians and making preparations for possible military action against his cousin. When he was assured that the Persians would not attack, he summoned his army and sallied forth to meet Julian. As the armies drew inexorably closer to one another, the empire was saved from another bloody civil war when Constantius died unexpectedly of natural causes on 3 November near the town of Mopsucrenae in Cilicia, naming Julian -- the sources say-- as his legitimate successor.
Julian was in Dacia when he learned of his cousin's death. He made his way through Thrace and came to Constantinople on 11 December 361 where Julian honored the emperor with the funeral rites appropriate for a man of his station. Julian immediately set about putting his supporters in positions of power and trimming the imperial bureaucracy, which had become extremely overstaffed during Constantius' reign. Cooks and barbers had increased during the late emperor's reign and Julian expelled them from his court. Ammianus gave a mixed assessment of how the new emperor handled the followers of Constantius. Traditionally, emperors were supposed to show clemency to the supporters of a defeated enemy. Julian, however, gave some men over to death to appease the army. Ammianus used the case of Ursulus, Constantius' comes sacrum largitionum, to illustrate his point. Ursulus had actually tried to acquire money for the Gallic troops when Julian had first been appointed Caesar, but he had also made a disparaging remark about the ineffectiveness of the army after the battle of Amida. The soldiers remembered this, and when Julian became sole Augustus, they demanded Ursulus' head. Julian obliged, much to the disapproval of Ammianus. This seems to be a case of Julian courting the favor of the military leadership, and is indicative of a pattern in which Julian courted the goodwill of various societal elites to legitimize his position as emperor.
Another case in point is the officials who made up the imperial bureaucracy. Many of them were subjected to trial and punishment. To achieve this goal, during the last weeks of December 361 Julian assembled a military tribunal at Chalcedon, empanelling six judges to try the cases. The president of the tribunal was Salutius, just promoted to the rank of Praetorian Prefect; the five other members were Mamertinus, the orator, and four general officers: Jovinus, Agilo, Nevitta, and Arbetio. Relative to the proceedings of the tribunal, Ammianus noted that the judges, " . . . oversaw the cases more vehemently than was right or fair, with the exception of a few . . .." Ammianus' account of Julian's attempt at reform of the imperial bureaucracy is supported by legal evidence from the Theodosian Code. A series of laws sent to Mamertinus, Julian's appointee as Praetorian Prefect in Italy, Illyricum, and Africa, illustrate this point nicely. On 6 June 362, Mamertinus received a law that prohibited provincial governors from bypassing the Vicars when giving their reports to the Prefect. Traditionally, Vicars were given civil authority over a group of provinces, and were in theory meant to serve as a middle step between governors and Prefects. This law suggests that the Vicars were being left out, at least in Illyricum. Julian issued another edict to Mamertinus on 22 February 362 to stop abuse of the public post by governors. According to this law, only Mamertinus could issue post warrants, but the Vicars were given twelve blank warrants to be used as they saw fit, and each governor was given two. Continuing the trend of bureaucratic reform, Julian also imposed penalties on governors who purposefully delayed appeals in court cases they had heard. The emperor also established a new official to weigh solidi used in official government transactions to combat coin clipping.
For Julian, reigning in the abuses of imperial bureaucrats was one step in restoring the prestige of the office of emperor. Because he could not affect all elements of society personally, Julian, like other Neo-Flavian emperors, decided to concentrate on select groups of societal elites as intercessors between himself and the general populace. One of these groups was the imperial bureaucracy. Julian made it very clear that imperial officials were intercessors in a very real sense in a letter to Alypius, Vicar of Britain. In this letter, sent from Gaul sometime before 361, the emperor praises Alypius for his use of "mildness and moderation with courage and force" in his rule of the provincials. Such virtues were characteristic of the emperors, and it was good that Alypius is representing Julian in this way. Julian courted the army because it put him in power. Another group he sought to include in his rule was the traditional Senatorial aristocracy. One of his first appointments as consul was Claudius Mamertinus, a Gallic Senator and rhetorician. Mamertinus' speech in praise of Julian delivered at Constantinople in January of 362 is preserved. In this speech, Claudius presented his consular selection as inaugurating a new golden age and Julian as the restorer of the empire founded by Augustus. The image Mamertinus gave of his own consulate inaugurating a new golden age is not merely formulaic. The comparison of Julian to Augustus has very real, if implicit, relevance to Claudius' situation. Claudius emphasized the imperial period as the true age of renewal. Augustus ushered in a new era with his formation of a partnership between the emperor and the Senate based upon a series of honors and offices bestowed upon the Senate in return for their role as intercessor between emperor and populace. It was this system that Julian was restoring, and the consulate was one concrete example of this bond. To be chosen as a consul by the emperor, who himself had been divinely mandated, was a divine honor. In addition to being named consul, Mamertinus went on to hold several offices under Julian, including the Prefecture of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa. Similarly, inscriptional evidence illustrates a link between municipal elites and Julian during his time as Caesar, something which continued after he became emperor. One concrete example comes from the municipal senate of Aceruntia in Apulia, which established a monument on which Julian is styled as "Repairer of the World."
Julian seems to have given up actual Christian belief before his acclamation as emperor and was a practitioner of more traditional Greco-Roman religious beliefs, in particular, a follower of certain late antique Platonist philosophers who were especially adept at theurgy as was noted earlier. In fact Julian himself spoke of his conversion to Neo-Platonism in a letter to the Alexandrians written in 363. He stated that he had abandoned Christianity when he was twenty years old and been an adherent of the traditional Greco-Roman deities for the twelve years prior to writing this letter.
(For the complete text of this article see: http://www.roman-emperors.org/julian.htm)
Julian’s Persian Campaign
The exact goals Julian had for his ill-fated Persian campaign were never clear. The Sassanid Persians, and before them the Parthians, had been a traditional enemy from the time of the Late Republic, and indeed Constantius had been conducting a war against them before Julian's accession forced the former to forge an uneasy peace. Julian, however, had no concrete reason to reopen hostilities in the east. Socrates Scholasticus attributed Julian's motives to imitation of Alexander the Great, but perhaps the real reason lay in his need to gather the support of the army. Despite his acclamation by the Gallic legions, relations between Julian and the top military officers was uneasy at best. A war against the Persians would have brought prestige and power both to Julian and the army.
Julian set out on his fateful campaign on 5 March 363. Using his trademark strategy of striking quickly and where least expected, he moved his army through Heirapolis and from there speedily across the Euphrates and into the province of Mesopotamia, where he stopped at the town of Batnae. His plan was to eventually return through Armenia and winter in Tarsus. Once in Mesopotamia, Julian was faced with the decision of whether to travel south through the province of Babylonia or cross the Tigris into Assyria, and he eventually decided to move south through Babylonia and turn west into Assyria at a later date. By 27 March, he had the bulk of his army across the Euphrates, and had also arranged a flotilla to guard his supply line along the mighty river. He then left his generals Procopius and Sebastianus to help Arsacius, the king of Armenia and a Roman client, to guard the northern Tigris line. It was also during this time that he received the surrender of many prominent local leaders who had nominally supported the Persians. These men supplied Julian with money and troops for further military action against their former masters. Julian decided to turn south into Babylonia and proceeded along the Euphrates, coming to the fortress of Cercusium at the junction of the Abora and Euphrates Rivers around the first of April, and from there he took his army west to a region called Zaitha near the abandoned town of Dura where they visited the tomb of the emperor Gordian which was in the area. On April 7 he set out from there into the heart of Babylonia and towards Assyria.
Ammianus then stated that Julian and his army crossed into Assyria, which on the face of things appears very confusing. Julian still seems to be operating within the province of Babylonia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The confusion is alleviated when one realizes that,for Ammianus, the region of Assyria encompassed the provinces of Babylonia and Assyria. On their march, Julian's forces took the fortress of Anatha, received the surrender and support of several more local princes, and ravaged the countryside of Assyria between the rivers. As the army continued south, they came across the fortresses Thilutha and Achaiachala, but these places were too well defended and Julian decided to leave them alone. Further south were the cities Diacira and Ozogardana, which the Roman forces sacked and burned. Soon, Julian came to Pirisabora and a brief siege ensued, but the city fell and was also looted and destroyed. It was also at this time that the Roman army met its first systematic resistance from the Persians. As the Romans penetrated further south and west, the local inhabitants began to flood their route. Nevertheless, the Roman forces pressed on and came to Maiozamalcha, a sizable city not far from Ctesiphon. After a short siege, this city too fell to Julian. Inexorably, Julian's forces zeroed in on Ctesiphon, but as they drew closer, the Persian resistance grew fiercer, with guerilla raids whittling at Julian's men and supplies. A sizable force of the army was lost and the emperor himself was almost killed taking a fort a few miles from the target city.
Finally, the army approached Ctesiphon following a canal that linked the Tigris and Euphrates. It soon became apparent after a few preliminary skirmishes that a protracted siege would be necessary to take this important city. Many of his generals, however, thought that pursuing this course of action would be foolish. Julian reluctantly agreed, but became enraged by this failure and ordered his fleet to be burned as he decided to march through the province of Assyria. Julian had planned for his army to live off the land, but the Persians employed a scorched-earth policy. When it became apparent that his army would perish (because his supplies were beginning to dwindle) from starvation and the heat if he continued his campaign, and also in the face of superior numbers of the enemy, Julian ordered a retreat on 16 June. As the Roman army retreated, they were constantly harassed by guerilla strikes. It was during one of these raids that Julian got caught up in the fighting and took a spear to his abdomen. Mortally wounded he was carried to his tent, where, after conferring with some of his officers, he died. The date was 26 June 363.
Conclusion
Thus an ignominious end for a man came about who had hoped to restore the glory of the Roman empire during his reign as emperor. Due to his intense hatred of Christianity, the opinion of posterity has not been kind to Julian. The contemporary opinion, however, was overall positive. The evidence shows that Julian was a complex ruler with a definite agenda to use traditional social institutions in order to revive what he saw as a collapsing empire. In the final assessment, he was not so different from any of the other emperors of the fourth century. He was a man grasping desperately to hang on to a Greco-Roman conception of leadership that was undergoing a subtle yet profound change.
Copyright (C) 2002, Walter E. Roberts and Michael DiMaio, Jr. Used by permission.
In reality, Julian worked to promote culture and philosophy in any manifestation. He tried to reduce taxes and the public debts of municipalities; he augmented administrative decentralisation; he promoted a campaign of austerity to reduce public expenditure (setting himself as the example). He reformed the postal service and eliminated the powerful secret police.
by Federico Morando; JULIAN II, The Apostate, See the Julian II Page on NumisWiki
Flavius Claudius Iulianus was born in 331 or maybe 332 A.D. in Constantinople. He ruled the Western Empire as Caesar from 355 to 360 and was hailed Augustus by his legions in Lutetia (Paris) in 360. Julian was a gifted administrator and military strategist. Famed as the last pagan emperor, his reinstatement of the pagan religion earned him the moniker "the Apostate." As evidenced by his brilliant writing, some of which has survived to the present day, the title "the Philosopher" may have been more appropriate. He died from wounds suffered during the Persian campaign of 363 A.D. Joseph Sermarini, FORVM.
Edited by J. P. Fitzgerald, Jr.
Cleisthenes
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1499 MYSIA. Cyzicus. Hadrian VaseReference. Extremely rare
RPC III, 1499/2; SNG France 647 = Waddington 729
Obv: ΚΑΙ СΕΒ ΤΡΑΙΑΝΟΥ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟΥ.
Laureate and cuirassed bust left.
Rev: K - Y / Z - I (retrograde).
Vase.
2.74 gr
19 mm
6hokidoki
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1685 JAMES II TIN FARTHINGObverse: IACOBVS SECVNDVS. Laureate and cuirassed bust of James II facing right.
Reverse: BRITAN-NIA •. Britannia seated facing left, holding laurel branch in her right hand and spear in her left, arm resting on shield bearing the device of the union.
Edge: NVMMORVM * FAMVLVS * 1685 * in raised letters. Edge GVF+.
Diameter: 23mm | Weight: 5.7gms | Die Axis: 6h
SPINK: 3420 | PECK: 547
Ex. Farthing Specialist, England (1972)
This portrait of James II was designed by Jan (John) Roettier (1631 - 1700). In 1684, under Charles II, the production of farthings was changed from copper to tin with a copper center plug. This was done to not only alleviate the critical state of the Cornish tin mining industry, but also to recoup the King's losses by giving the Crown an even greater profit margin. James II granted a patent to Thomas Neale and others to coin this money at the rate of twenty pence from each pound weight of tin on condition of them paying £40 per cent out of the profits to himself. As there was great concern about the potential for forgery, in addition to the copper plug as a security feature, the tin coins were also produced with a lettered edge inscription which translates as "The servant of the coinage", presumably meaning that it also serves to protect the coinage from forgery. In 1685, when James II came to the throne, tin halfpennies bearing his portrait, also with a copper center plug, were introduced. The reverse designs were identical to the previous ones of Charles II.
These tin coins had an alarming rate of wear from circulation and, because tin is far too reactive a metal to be used for coins, the tin coinage has readily corroded when exposed to the elements. The values of high grade examples, which are extremely rare, are thus at a premium.
 *Alex
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1701a, Saladin, 1169-1193AYYUBID: Saladin, 1169-1193, AR dirham (2.92g), Halab, AH580, A-788, lovely struck, well-centered & bold, Extremely Fine, Scarce.
His name in Arabic, in full, is SALAH AD-DIN YUSUF IBN AYYUB ("Righteousness of the Faith, Joseph, Son of Job"), also called AL-MALIK AN-NASIR SALAH AD-DIN YUSUF I (b. 1137/38, Tikrit, Mesopotamia--d. March 4, 1193, Damascus), Muslim sultan of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, and the most famous of Muslim heroes.
In wars against the Christian crusaders, he achieved final success with the disciplined capture of Jerusalem (Oct. 2, 1187), ending its 88-year occupation by the Franks. The great Christian counterattack of the Third Crusade was then stalemated by Saladin's military genius.
Saladin was born into a prominent Kurdish family. On the night of his birth, his father, Najm ad-Din Ayyub, gathered his family and moved to Aleppo, there entering the service of 'Imad ad-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur, the powerful Turkish governor in northern Syria. Growing up in Ba'lbek and Damascus, Saladin was apparently an undistinguished youth, with a greater taste for religious studies than military training.
His formal career began when he joined the staff of his uncle Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, an important military commander under the amir Nureddin, son and successor of Zangi. During three military expeditions led by Shirkuh into Egypt to prevent its falling to the Latin-Christian (Frankish) rulers of the states established by the First Crusade, a complex, three-way struggle developed between Amalric I, the Latin king of Jerusalem, Shawar, the powerful vizier of the Egyptian Fatimid caliph, and Shirkuh. After Shirkuh's death and after ordering Shawar's assassination, Saladin, in 1169 at the age of 31, was appointed both commander of the Syrian troops and vizier of Egypt.
His relatively quick rise to power must be attributed not only to the clannish nepotism of his Kurdish family but also to his own emerging talents. As vizier of Egypt, he received the title king (malik), although he was generally known as the sultan. Saladin's position was further enhanced when, in 1171, he abolished the Shi'i Fatimid caliphate, proclaimed a return to Sunnah in Egypt, and consequently became its sole ruler.
Although he remained for a time theoretically a vassal of Nureddin, that relationship ended with the Syrian emir's death in 1174. Using his rich agricultural possessions in Egypt as a financial base, Saladin soon moved into Syria with a small but strictly disciplined army to claim the regency on behalf of the young son of his former suzerain.
Soon, however, he abandoned this claim, and from 1174 until 1186 he zealously pursued a goal of uniting, under his own standard, all the Muslim territories of Syria, northern Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt.
This he accomplished by skillful diplomacy backed when necessary by the swift and resolute use of military force. Gradually, his reputation grew as a generous and virtuous but firm ruler, devoid of pretense, licentiousness, and cruelty. In contrast to the bitter dissension and intense rivalry that had up to then hampered the Muslims in their resistance to the crusaders, Saladin's singleness of purpose induced them to rearm both physically and spiritually.
Saladin's every act was inspired by an intense and unwavering devotion to the idea of jihad ("holy war")-the Muslim equivalent of the Christian crusade. It was an essential part of his policy to encourage the growth and spread of Muslim religious institutions.
He courted its scholars and preachers, founded colleges and mosques for their use, and commissioned them to write edifying works especially on the jihad itself. Through moral regeneration, which was a genuine part of his own way of life, he tried to re-create in his own realm some of the same zeal and enthusiasm that had proved so valuable to the first generations of Muslims when, five centuries before, they had conquered half the known world.
Saladin also succeeded in turning the military balance of power in his favour-more by uniting and disciplining a great number of unruly forces than by employing new or improved military techniques. When at last, in 1187, he was able to throw his full strength into the struggle with the Latin crusader kingdoms, his armies were their equals. On July 4, 1187, aided by his own military good sense and by a phenomenal lack of it on the part of his enemy, Saladin trapped and destroyed in one blow an exhausted and thirst-crazed army of crusaders at Hattin, near Tiberias in northern Palestine.
So great were the losses in the ranks of the crusaders in this one battle that the Muslims were quickly able to overrun nearly the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem. Acre, Toron, Beirut, Sidon, Nazareth, Caesarea, Nabulus, Jaffa (Yafo), and Ascalon (Ashqelon) fell within three months.
But Saladin's crowning achievement and the most disastrous blow to the whole crusading movement came on Oct. 2, 1187, when Jerusalem, holy to both Muslim and Christian alike, surrendered to the Sultan's army after 88 years in the hands of the Franks. In stark contrast to the city's conquest by the Christians, when blood flowed freely during the barbaric slaughter of its inhabitants, the Muslim reconquest was marked by the civilized and courteous behaviour of Saladin and his troops. His sudden success, which in 1189 saw the crusaders reduced to the occupation of only three cities, was, however, marred by his failure to capture Tyre, an almost impregnable coastal fortress to which the scattered Christian survivors of the recent battles flocked. It was to be the rallying point of the Latin counterattack.
Most probably, Saladin did not anticipate the European reaction to his capture of Jerusalem, an event that deeply shocked the West and to which it responded with a new call for a crusade. In addition to many great nobles and famous knights, this crusade, the third, brought the kings of three countries into the struggle.
The magnitude of the Christian effort and the lasting impression it made on contemporaries gave the name of Saladin, as their gallant and chivalrous enemy, an added lustre that his military victories alone could never confer on him.
The Crusade itself was long and exhausting, and, despite the obvious, though at times impulsive, military genius of Richard I the Lion-Heart, it achieved almost nothing. Therein lies the greatest-but often unrecognized--achievement of Saladin. With tired and unwilling feudal levies, committed to fight only a limited season each year, his indomitable will enabled him to fight the greatest champions of Christendom to a draw. The crusaders retained little more than a precarious foothold on the Levantine coast, and when King Richard set sail from the Orient in October 1192, the battle was over.
Saladin withdrew to his capital at Damascus. Soon, the long campaigning seasons and the endless hours in the saddle caught up with him, and he died. While his relatives were already scrambling for pieces of the empire, his friends found that the most powerful and most generous ruler in the Muslim world had not left enough money to pay for his own grave.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H.A.R. Gibb, "The Arabic Sources for the Life of Saladin," Speculum, 25:58-72 (1950). C.W. Wilson's English translation of one of the most important Arabic works, The Life of Saladin (1897), was reprinted in 1971. The best biography to date is Stanley Lane-Poole, Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, new ed. (1926, reprinted 1964), although it does not take account of all the sources.Cleisthenes
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1795 Yorkshire, York, Halfpenny Conder Token, D&H 63O:View of a cathedral. Ex : YORK . 1795.
R: View of a castle and drawbridge. CLIFFORD'S TOWER A.D. 1100.
E: YORK BUILT A. M . 1223. CATHEDRAL REBUILT A.D. 1075.
Dalton & Hamer as Yorkshire 63, 9.6gm, 27mm.
Extremely Fine (Sheldon AU58).Ancient Aussie
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1795- MoFM Mexico Spanish Colonial 8 Reales of Charles IIII - [KM-109 -- Charles IIII]Chopmarked, 0.7797 ounce silver 8 Reales (also known as the pillar dollar), 26.65g, 39.62mm, 0 degree, Mexico City, Mexico Mint [Mo -- small 'o' set over a large 'M'], 179[5]
Obv. - • CAROLUS IIII • DEI • GR[ATIA] •, laureate bust of Charles IIII right
Rev. - • HISPAN • ET IND • REX • Mo • 8R • F • M •, coat of arms of Spain
This coin was sold as a 1794 chopmarked 8 Reale. Upon inspection in hand under high magnification and different lighting conditions, as well as inspection of large, quality pictures on the computer allowing for color/contrast/levels manipulation, and I have determined this coin to actually be from 1795. The '5', although extremely worn is visible under the correct conditions and comparisons of the worn number morphology to other 179x coins lends credence to this finding.
The reverse is just as interesting and challenging. Although the mintmark is almost completely worn off, the assayer of FM ensures that the coin is of Mexico City, Mexico mintmark.
The coat of arms of Spain, a crown crown flanked by columns and a middle shield includes the national motto PLVS VLTRA spread across the two columns. PLVS VLTRA (PLUS ULTRA) translates to "further beyond." It is adopted from the personal motto of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (and King of Spain as Charles I) and is a Latin translation from Plus Oultre, his original motto in Old French.
Although this coin is quite worn in certain areas, it has a lovely tone and great character. The numerous different chopmarks just add to the appeal. This coins was bought as a conversation piece as I have always found them interesting, albeit with knowing next to nothing concerning them. However, after doing some research, I have come to appreciate it much more and may follow suite with further additions. In any case, I plan on further reading into the subject area.
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Purchased from Regal Coin Exchange in Savannah, GArenegade3220
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1797 AE Halfpenny, Middlesex County.Obverse: FREDk. DUKE OF YORK. Bare headed bust of Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, facing right; HALFPENNY 1795 in two lines below.
Reverse: RULE BRITANNIA. Britannia seated on globe facing left, left arm resting on shield and holding laurel-branch, right hand holding spear, ship's masts in front of her in background; 1797 in exergue.
Edge: Plain.
Diameter: 27mm | Die Axis: 6h | Obverse die flaw.
Dalton & Hamer: 990. Cobwright No: F.0010/R.0010. Not in Atkins.
Manufactured by William Lutwyche, Birmingham.
In the 18th century, token manufacturers often used their dies to their own advantage by striking “mules”, solely with the object of creating rare varieties which were sold to the collectors of the day.
Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of York and Albany, was born on16th August 1763. He was the second eldest child, and second son, of King George III. Thrust into the British army at a very young age he was appointed a colonel by his father on 4th November 1780 when he was only 17 years old. He was created Duke of York and Albany on 27th November 1784.
On 26th May 1789 he took part a duel with Colonel Charles Lennox, who had insulted him; Lennox missed and Prince Frederick honourably refused to return fire.
On 12th April 1793 he was promoted to a full general and sent to Flanders in command of the British contingent destined for the invasion of France. Frederick's command fought under extremely trying conditions and though he won several notable engagements, he was defeated at the Battle of Hondschoote in September 1793. Then, in the 1794 campaign, he was successful at the battle of Willems in May but was defeated at the Battle of Tourcoing later that month.
Promoted to the rank of field marshal, on 3rd April 1795 he became effective Commander-in-Chief in succession to Lord Amherst and went with the army sent for the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland in August 1799. A number of disasters befell the allied forces however and, on 17th October, the Duke signed the Convention of Alkmaar, by which the allied expedition withdrew after giving up its prisoners.
These military setbacks led to Frederick being mocked in the rhyme "The Grand Old Duke of York":
The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.
However, Frederick's experience in the Dutch campaign had demonstrated the numerous weaknesses of the British army after years of neglect so he carried through a massive programme of reform and he was the person most responsible for creating the force which served in the Peninsular War.
Frederick died of dropsy and apparent cardioid-vascular disease at the home of the Duke of Rutland on Arlington Street, London, on 5th January, 1827. After lying in state in London, his remains were interred in St. George's Chapel, at Windsor.*Alex
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1887 Victoria Jubilee Head Shield Silver SixpenceGreat Britain, Victoria (1837-1901), Silver Sixpence, 1887, Bull 3267 R3, ESC 1752B, Davies 1150 (Dies 1+A), SCWC KM 759, Friedberg 392, MCE 1409, SCBC 3928, Withdrawn Type, EF, perhaps once cleaned, now lightly toned, with light surface marks and nicks, edge milled, weight 2.8276g (ASW 0.0841oz), composition 0.925 Ag, 0.075 Cu, diameter 19.3mm, thickness 1.0mm, die axis 0°, London mint, 1887; obverse VICTORIA DEI GRATIA-BRITT: REGINA F: D: (Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Britains, Defender of the Faith), Jubilee tall, crowned, veiled and draped bust left, wearing double pearl drop earring with 13-pearl necklace, Ribbon and Star of the Garter at breast with badge of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, small J.E.B. raised on shoulder truncation for engraver Joseph Edgar Boehm, toothed border surrounding; reverse crowned quartered shield of Arms of the United Kingdom bearing three lions passant guardant for England, lion rampant for Scotland and eight-stringed harp for Ireland, within Order of the Garter inscribed with French motto HONI ✿ SOIT ✿ QUI-MAL ✿ Y ✿ PENSE ✿ ✿ ✿ (Shame on him who thinks evil of it), 18-87 in exergue either side of strap-end, engraved by Jean Baptiste Merlen, toothed border surrounding; from the Roger Belmar Collection; ex Sovereign Rarities (3 Jun 2023); extremely rare; £275.00.Serendipity
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1887 Victoria Jubilee Head Shield Silver SixpenceGreat Britain, Victoria (1837-1901), Silver Sixpence, 1887, Bull 3265 R3, ESC 1752A, Davies 1152 (Dies 2+A), SCWC KM 759, Friedberg 392, MCE 1409, SCBC 3928, Withdrawn Type, R/I variety, UNC-gEF, bright mint lustre, some light surface marks, edge milled, weight 2.8276g (ASW 0.0841oz), composition 0.925 Ag, 0.075 Cu, diameter 19.3mm, thickness 1.0mm, die axis 0°, London mint, 1887; obverse VICTORIA DEI GRATIA-BRITT: REGINA F: D: (Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Britains, Defender of the Faith), with R/I in VICTORIA, Jubilee tall, crowned, veiled and draped bust left, wearing double pearl drop earring with 13-pearl necklace, Ribbon and Star of the Garter at breast with badge of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, small J.E.B. raised below shoulder truncation for engraver Joseph Edgar Boehm, toothed border surrounding; reverse crowned quartered shield of Arms of the United Kingdom bearing three lions passant guardant for England, lion rampant for Scotland and eight-stringed harp for Ireland, within Order of the Garter inscribed with French motto HONI ✿ SOIT ✿ QUI-MAL ✿ Y ✿ PENSE ✿ ✿ ✿ (Shame on him who thinks evil of it), 18-87 in exergue either side of strap-end, engraved by Jean Baptiste Merlen, toothed border surrounding; from the Roger Belmar Collection; ex Rare Coins & Tokens (5 Feb 2024); extremely rare; £60.00.Serendipity
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1887 Victoria Jubilee Head Shield Silver SixpenceGreat Britain, Victoria (1837-1901), Silver Sixpence, 1887, Bull 3266 R3, ESC 1752C, Davies 1153 (Dies 2+A), SCWC KM 759, Friedberg 392, MCE 1409, SCBC 3928, Withdrawn Type, R/V variety, UNC, bright mint lustre, some light surface marks, edge milled, weight 2.8276g (ASW 0.0841oz), composition 0.925 Ag, 0.075 Cu, diameter 19.3mm, thickness 1.0mm, die axis 0°, London mint, 1887; obverse VICTORIA DEI GRATIA-BRITT: REGINA F: D: (Victoria, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Britains, Defender of the Faith), with R/V in VICTORIA, Jubilee tall, crowned, veiled and draped bust left, wearing double pearl drop earring with 13-pearl necklace, Ribbon and Star of the Garter at breast with badge of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, small J.E.B. raised below shoulder truncation for engraver Joseph Edgar Boehm, toothed border surrounding; reverse crowned quartered shield of Arms of the United Kingdom bearing three lions passant guardant for England, lion rampant for Scotland and eight-stringed harp for Ireland, within Order of the Garter inscribed with French motto HONI ✿ SOIT ✿ QUI-MAL ✿ Y ✿ PENSE ✿ ✿ ✿ (Shame on him who thinks evil of it), 18-87 in exergue either side of strap-end, engraved by Jean Baptiste Merlen, toothed border surrounding; from the Roger Belmar Collection; ex KB Coins (5 Feb 2024); extremely rare; £237.50.Serendipity
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1918 Alexius I Comnenus BI Aspron Trachy. Constantinople, AD 1092-1118. SBCV-1918Nimbate Christ enthroned facing, wearing pallium and colobium, holding book of Gospels in left hand; IC-XC across fields / + ΑΛ ΔЄC, bust facing, wearing crown and jewelled chlamys, holding cruciform sceptre and globus cruciger. DOC 25b; Sear 1918. 4.92g, 29mm, 6h.
Near Extremely Fine; toned and lustrous ROMA AcquisitionSimon
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1958 Manuel I Comnenus EL Aspron Trachy. Constantinople DOC 3a; Sear 1958. 4.57g, 34mm, 6hManuel I Comnenus EL Aspron Trachy. Constantinople, circa AD 1152-1167. Christ Pantokrator enthroned facing, raising hand in benediction and holding Gospels; IC-XC across fields / MAN૪HΛ [ΔЄCΠOTH], the Virgin and Manuel standing facing, each holding labarum and akakia; M between, OV to right. DOC 3a; Sear 1958. 4.57g, 34mm, 6h.
Extremely Fine.
From the Vitangelo Collection, collector's ticket includedSimon
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1961 Manuel I Comnenus EL Aspron Trachy. Constantinople, 4.77g, 32mm, 6h.Christ Pantokrator enthroned facing; IC-XC across upper fields / Manuel standing facing, wearing stemma, divitision and chlamys, holding labarum on long shaft and globus cruciger, crowned by the Virgin Mary standing to left, wearing tunic and maphorium; MHP between, MANᏌHΛ to left, V and ΔЄCΠO to right. DOC 6d; Sear 1961. 4.77g, 32mm, 6h.
Good Extremely Fine; flan crack at 10/9h.Simon
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1aa Reign of SVLLAL Manlivs, moneyer
82-72 BC
Denarius
Head of Roma, right, MANLI before, PRO Q behind
Sulla in walking quadriga, crowned by Victory, L SVLLA IM in ex.
Seaby, Manlia 4
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (c. 138 BC – 78 BC) was a Roman general and conservative statesman. He had the distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as reviving the dictatorship. Sulla was awarded a grass crown, the most prestigious and rarest Roman military honor, during the Social War. He was the first man to lead an army to Rome to settle a political dispute, in this case with Marius. In late 81 BC, he stunned the world by resigning his near-absolute powers, restoring constitutional government. After seeing election to and holding a second consulship, he retired to private life and died shortly after.
As to the person, Plutarch wrote: LUCIUS Cornelius Sylla was descended of a patrician or noble family. . . . His general personal appearance may be known by his statues; only his blue, eyes, of themselves extremely keen and glaring, were rendered all the more forbidding and terrible by the complexion of his face, in which white was mixed with rough blotches of fiery red. . . . And when supreme master of all, he was often wont to muster together the most impudent players and stage-followers of the town, and to drink and bandy jests with them without regard to his age or the dignity of his place, and to the prejudice of important affairs that required his attention. When he was once at table, it was not in Sylla's nature to admit of anything that was serious, and whereas at other times he was a man of business and austere of countenance, he underwent all of a sudden, at his first entrance upon wine and good-fellowship, a total revolution, and was gentle and tractable with common singers and dancers, and ready to oblige any one that spoke with him. It seems to have been a sort of diseased result of this laxity that he was so prone to amorous pleasures, and yielded without resistance to any temptation of voluptuousness, from which even in his old age he could not refrain. He had a long attachment for Metrobius, a player. In his first amours, it happened that he made court to a common but rich lady, Nicopolis by name, and what by the air of his youth, and what by long intimacy, won so far on her affections, that she rather than he was the lover, and at her death she bequeathed him her whole property. He likewise inherited the estate of a step-mother who loved him as her own son. By these means he had pretty well advanced his fortunes. . . . In general he would seem to have been of a very irregular character, full of inconsistencies with himself much given to rapine, to prodigality yet more; in promoting or disgracing whom he pleased, alike unaccountable; cringing to those he stood in need of, and domineering over others who stood in need of him, so that it was hard to tell whether his nature had more in it of pride or of servility. As to his unequal distribution of punishments, as, for example, that upon slight grounds he would put to the torture, and again would bear patiently with the greatest wrongs; would readily forgive and he reconciled after the most heinous acts of enmity, and yet would visit small and inconsiderable offences with death and confiscation of goods; one might judge that in himself he was really of a violent and revengeful nature, which, however, he could qualify, upon reflection, for his interest. Blindado
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1ds Diocletian284-305
AE antoninianus
Radiate, draped, cuirassed bust, right, IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIANVS P F AVG
Zeus and Diocletian, CONCORDIA MILITVM
RIC 284B
According to the Historia Augusta, after the death of Numerian: Then a huge assembly was held and a tribunal, too, was constructed. And when the question was asked who would be the most lawful avenger of Numerian and who could be given to the commonwealth as a good emperor, then all, with a heaven-sent unanimity, conferred the title of Augustus on Diocletian. . . . He was at this time in command of the household-troops, an outstanding man and wise, devoted to the commonwealth, devoted to his kindred, duly prepared to face whatever the occasion demanded, forming plans that were always deep though sometimes over-bold, and one who could by prudence and exceeding firmness hold in check the impulses of a restless spirit. This man, then, having ascended the tribunal was hailed as Augustus, and when someone asked how Numerian had been slain, he drew his sword and pointing to Aper, the prefect of the guard, he drove it through him, saying as he did so, "It is he who contrived Numerian's death.''
Eutropius summarized a long and important reign: DIOCLETIAN, a native of Dalmatia, [was] of such extremely obscure birth, that he is said by most writers to have been the son of a clerk, but by some to have been a freedman of a senator named Anulinus. . . . He soon after overthrew Carinus, who was living under the utmost hatred and detestation, in a great battle at Margum, Carinus being betrayed by his own troops, for though he had a greater number of men than the enemy, he was altogether abandoned by them between Viminacium and mount Aureus. He thus became master of the Roman empire; and when the peasants in Gaul made an insurrection, giving their faction the name of Bagaudae, and having for leaders Amandus and Aelianus, he despatched Maximian Herculius, with the authority of Caesar, to suppress them. Maximian, in a few battles of little importance, subdued the rustic multitude, and restored peace to Gaul. . . .
Diocletian promoted MAXIMIAN HERCULIUS from the dignity of Caesar to that of emperor, and created Constantius and Maximian Galerius Caesars, of whom Constantius is said to have been the grand-nephew of Claudius by a daughter, and Maximian Galerius to have been born in Dacia not far from Sardica. That he might also unite them by affinity, Constantius married Theodora the step-daughter of Herculius, by whom he had afterwards six children, brothers to Constantine; while Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of Diocletian; both being obliged to divorce the wives that they had before. . . .
Diocletian, meanwhile, besieging Achilleus in Alexandria, obliged him to surrender about eight months after, and put him to death. He used his victory, indeed, cruelly, and distressed all Egypt with severe proscriptions and massacres. Yet at the same time he made many judicious arrangements and regulations, which continue to our own days. . . .
Diocletian was of a crafty disposition, with much sagacity, and keen penetration. He was willing to gratify his own disposition to cruelty in such a way as to throw the odium upon others; he was however a very active and able prince. He was the first that introduced into the Roman empire a ceremony suited rather to royal usages than to Roman liberty, giving orders that he should be adored, whereas all emperors before him were only saluted. He put ornaments of precious stones on his dress and shoes, when the imperial distinction had previously been only in the purple robe, the rest of the habit being the same as that of other men. . . .
But when Diocletian, as age bore heavily upon him, felt himself unable to sustain the government of the empire, he suggested to Herculius that they should both retire into private life, and commit the duty of upholding the state to more vigorous and youthful hands. With this suggestion his colleague reluctantly complied. Both of them, in the same day, exchanged the robe of empire for an ordinary dress, Diocletian at Nicomedia, Herculius at Milan, soon after a magnificent triumph which they celebrated at Rome over several nations, with a noble succession of pictures, and in which the wives, sisters, and children of Narseus were led before their chariots. The one then retired to Salonae, and the other into Lucania.
Diocletian lived to an old age in a private station, at a villa which is not far from Salonae, in honourable retirement, exercising extraordinary philosophy, inasmuch as he alone of all men, since the foundation of the Roman empire, voluntarily returned from so high a dignity to the condition of private life, and to an equality with the other citizens. That happened to him, therefore, which had happened to no one since men were created, that, though he died in a private condition, he was enrolled among the gods. Blindado
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1ep Valentinian364-375
AE3
Pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right , D N VALENTINIANVS P F AVG
Emperor in military dress, advancing right, head left, holding labarum, dragging captive behind him. No fieldmarks. Mintmark: dot GSISC, GLORIA ROMANORVM
RIC 5a
According to Zosimus: Several discussions were held among the soldiers and their officers, and various persons were nominated. At length Sallustius, the prefect of the court, was unanimously elected. He excused himself on the pretext of his advanced age, which disabled him from being of service in the present critical circumstances. They then desired that his son might be emperor in lieu of himself. But his son he told them was too young, and from that as well as other causes unable to sustain the weight of an imperial diadem. They thus failed in their wish to appoint so distinguished a person, who was the most worthy of the age. They therefore elected Valentinian, a native of Cibalis in Pannonia. He was an excellent soldier, but extremely illiterate. They sent for him, he being then at some distance: and the state was not long without a ruler. Upon his arrival at the army, at Nicaea in Bithynia, he assumed the imperial authority, and proceeded forward. . . .
I have now to state, that while Valentinian was on his journey towards Constantinople, he was seized with a distemper, which increased his natural choleric temper to a degree of cruelty, and even to madness, so that he falsely suspected his sickness to proceed from some charm or poison which Julian's friends had prepared for him through malice. Accusations to that effect were drawn up against some distinguished persons, which were set aside by the discretion of Sallustius, who still was prefect of the court. After his distemper abated, he proceeded from Nicaea to Constantinople. The army and his friends in that city advised him to choose an associate in the empire, that if occasion should require, he might have some one to assist him, and prevent their again suffering as at the death of Julian. He complied with their advice, and after consideration, selected his brother Valens, whom he thought most likely to prove faithful to him. He declared him associate in the empire. . . . Affairs being thus disposed, Valentinian deemed it most prudent to place the east as far as Egypt, Bithynia, and Thrace, under the care of his brother, and to take charge of Illyricum himself. From thence he designed to proceed to Italy, and to retain in his own possession all the cities in that country, and the countries beyond the Alps, with Spain, Britain, and Africa. The empire being thus divided, Valentinian began to govern more rigorously, correcting the faults of the magistrates. He was very severe in the collection of the imposts, and particularly in observing that the soldiers were duly paid. . . .
Meantime the Barbarians beyond the Rhine, who while Julian lived held the Roman name in terror, and were contented to remain quiet in their own territories, as soon as they heard of his death, immediately marched out of their own country, and prepared for a war with the Romans. Valentinian. on bring informed of this, made a proper disposition of his forces, and placed suitable garrisons in all the towns along the Rhine. Valentinian was enabled to make these arrangements by his experience in military affairs. . . . [T] he emperor Valentinian, having favourably disposed the affairs of Germany, made provisions for the future security of the Celtic nations. . . . Valentinian was now attacked by a disease which nearly cost him his life. Upon his recovery the countries requested him to appoint a successor, lest at his decease the commonwealth should be in danger. To this the emperor consented, and declared his son Gratian emperor and his associate in the government, although he was then very young, and not yet capable of the management of affairs. . . .
Valentinian, thinking he had sufficiently secured himself from a German war, acted towards his subjects with great severity, exacting from them exorbitant tributes, such as they had never before paid; under pretence that the military expenditure compelled him to have recourse to the public. Having thus acquired universal hatred, he became still more severe; nor would he enquire into the conduct of the magistrates, but was envious of all whe had the reputation of leading a blameless life. . . . For this cause, the Africans, who could not endure the excessive avarice of the person who held the military command in Mauritania, gave the purple robe to Firmus, and proclaimed him emperor. This doubtless gave much uneasiness to Valentinian, who immediately commanded some legions from the stations in Pannonia and Moesia, to embark for Africa. On this the Sarmatians and the Quadi, who had long entertained a hatred for Celestius, the governor of those countries, availing themselves, of the opportunity afforded by the departure of the legions for Africa, invaded the Pannonians and Moesians. . . . .
Valentinian, roused by the intelligence of these events, marched from Celtica into Illyricum, for the purpose of opposing the Quadi and the Sarmatians, and consigned the command of his forces to Merobaudes, who was a person of the greatest military experience. The winter continuing unusually late, the Quadi sent ambassadors to him with insolent and unbecoming messages. These so exasperated the emperor, that through the violence of his rage, the blood flowed from his head into his mouth, and suffocated him. He thus died after having resided in Illyricum nearly nine months, and after a reign of twelve years.Blindado
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1eu Theodosius379-395
AE4
Pearl diademed, draped & cuirassed bust right, D N THEODOSIVS P F AVG
VOT V MVLT X within wreath, ASISC in ex
RIC 29d
Zosimus recorded: [Valentinian] commanded some legions from the stations in Pannonia and Moesia, to embark for Africa [to crush a rebellion]. On this the Sarmatians and the Quadi. . . , availing themselves, of the opportunity afforded by the departure of the legions for Africa, invaded the Pannonians and Moesians. . . . The barbarians therefore revenged themselves by plundering all the country along the Ister, carrying off all that they found in the towns. The Pannonians were by these means exposed to the cruelty of the barbarians, while the soldiers were extremely negligent in the defence of their towns, and committed as much mischief as the Barbarians themselves in all places on this side of the river. But Moesia was free from harm, because Theodosius, who commanded the forces there, courageously resisted the Barbarians, and routed them when they attacked him. By that victory he not only acquired great renown, but subsequently attained the imperial dignity. . . .
When the affairs of the empire were reduced to this low condition, Victor, who commanded the Roman cavalry, escaping the danger with some of his troops, entered Macedon and Thessaly. From thence he proceeded into Moesia and Pannonia, and informed Gratian, who was then in that quarter, of what had occurred, and of the loss of the emperor [Valens] and his army. Gratian received the intelligence without uneasiness, and was little grieved at the death of his uncle, a disagreement having existed between them. Finding himself unable to manage affairs, Thrace being ravaged by the Barbarians, as were likewise Pannonia and Moesia, and the towns upon the Rhine being infested by the neighbouring Barbarians without controul, he chose for his associate in the empire, Theodosius, who was a native of a town called Cauca, in the part of Spain called Hispania Callaecia, and who possessed great knowledge and experience of military affairs. Having given him the government of Thrace and the eastern provinces, Gratian himself proceeded to the west of Gaul, in order, if possible, to compose affairs in that quarter. . . .
During the stay of the new emperor, Theodosius, at Thesslonica, a great concourse arrived there from all parts of persons soliciting him on business, both public and private; who having obtained of him whatever he could conveniently grant, returned, to their homes. As a great multitude of the Scythians beyond the Ister, the Gotthi, and the Taiphali, and other tribes that formerly dwelt among them, had crossed the river, and were driven to infest the Roman dominions, because the Huns, had expelled them from their own country, the emperor Theodosius prepared for war with all his forces. . . . The army having made this good use of the occasion afforded by fortune, the affairs of Thrace, which had been on the brink of ruin, were now, the Barbarians being crushed beyond all hope, re-established in peace. . . .
Meanwhile, the emperor Theodosius, residing in Thessalonica, was easy of access to all who wished to see him. Having commenced his reign in luxury and indolence, he threw the magistracy into disorder, and increased the number of his military officers. . . . As he squandered the public money without consideration, bestowing it on unworthy persons, he consequently impoverished himself. He therefore sold the government of provinces to any who would purchase them, without regard to the reputation or ablity of the persons, esteeming him the best qualified who brought him the most gold or silver. . . .
Maximus, who deemed his appointments inferior to his merits, being only governor of the countries formerly under Gratian, projected how to depose the young Valentinian from the empire. . . . This so much surprised Valentinian, and rendered his situation so desperate, that his courtiers were alarmed lest he should be taken by Maximus and put to death. He, therefore, immediately embarked,and sailed to Thessalonica with his mother Justina. . . . [A]rriving at Thessalonica, they sent messengers to the emperor Theodosius, intreating him now at least to revenge the injuries committed against the family of Valentinian. . . . The emperor, being delivered from this alarm, marched with great resolution with his whole army against Maximus. . . . Theodosius, having passed through Pannonia and the defiles of the Appennines, attacked unawares the forces of Maximus before they were prepared for him. A part of his army, having pursued them with the utmost speed, forced their way through the gates of Aquileia, the guards being too few to resist them. Maximus was torn from his imperial throne while in the act of distributing money to his soldiers, and being stripped of his imperial robes, was brought to Theodosius, who, having in reproach enumerated some of his crimes against the commonwealth, delivered him to the common executioner to receive due punishment. . . . The emperor Theodosius, having consigned Italy, Spain, Celtica, and Libya to his son Honorius, died of a disease on his journey towards Constantinople. Blindado
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2011 Alexius III Angelus-Comnenus, 1195-1203. Trachy SBCV-2011Alexius III Angelus-Comnenus, 1195-1203. Trachy (Bronze, 27 mm, 2.88 g, 6 h), Constantinople, 1195-1197. Bust of Christ Pantocrator facing, raising right hand in benediction and holding scroll in left. Rev. Alexius and St. Constantine standing facing, holding between them globus cruciger, and each holding a labarum. DOC 3. SB 2011. Dark patina. Extremely fine.
Ex Nomos, pictured lightened. Simon
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202-205 AD - PLAUTILLA As (cast)obv: PLAVTILLA AVGVSTA (draped bust right)
rev: PIETAS AVGG / S.C. (Pietas standing right holding scepter & child)
ref: RIC IVi 581(Caracalla) (R), C.19 (8frcs)
3.32gms, 23mm
Extremely rare
Fulvia Plautilla was the wife of Caracalla (AD202-205). In 205 she was banished to Sicily, later to the isle of Lipari, where was assassinated by Caracalla’s order in 212 AD.berserker
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2059 BYZANTINE, Latin Rule Half Tetarteron S-2059 OBV Figure of St. Helen Nimbate, turned slightly to the r. wearing stemma, divitision, collar-piece, and jeweled loros of simplified type; holds patriarchal cross on long shaft in l. hand
REV Full-length figure of St. Constantine turned slightly to the l. wearing stemma, divitision, collar-piece, and jeweled loros of a simplified type; holds patriarchal cross on a long shaft in r. hand and in l. , anexikakia.
20mm 2.28gm
Almost as Struck; area of flat strike, excellent remaining detail. From dies of exceptional style. Extremely Rare. Roma
Simon
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2708A PAMPHYLIA, Sillyum Hadrian Apollo Extremely rare
Reference.
RPC III, 2708A; SNG von Aulock -
Obv. [ΑΥΤ ΚΑΙ] ΑΔΡΙΑΝ?
laureate head, cuirassed, seen from front
Rev. СΙΛΛΥΕωΝ
Apollo standing right with lyre.
4.56 gr
17.5 mm
12h
Note.
Naville Numismatics Ltd
Auction 25 Lot 255okidoki
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2787A PISIDIA, Claudioseleucia Hadrian Dionysus standingReference. Extremely rare.
RPC III, 2787A; Cf. SNG Copenhagen 209; cf. Waddington 5043.
http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/3/2787A/
Obv: ΚΑΙCΑΡ ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟC.
Laureate bust right.
Rev: ΚΛΑΥΔΙΟСΕΛΕΥΚΕΩΝ
Dionysus standing left, holding filleted thyrsus and pouring cantharus.
Note Gitbud & Naumann.
Though the reverse legend does not seem to match the Copenhagen and Waddington specimens (Aνθυ Κυιητ Υρκανων---a reading which is already questionable), the similarity in obverse legend and overall style makes an attribution to this city likely.
3.70 gr
16 mmokidoki
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318-330 AD., Constantinus I., Trier mint imitative type, barbarous Follis, RIC p. 224.Constantinus (Constantine) I., Trier mint imitative type, officina 1, 318-330 AD.,
Follis / Æ3 (16-17 mm / 3,05 g),
Obv.: IMP CONSTANT - INVS AVG , cuirassed bust left, high crested helmet, spear in right hand over shoulder.
Rev.: [VIC]TORIAE LAETA PRINC IPF / STR (in exergue) , two Victories standing, facing each other and holding a shield inscribed VOT / PR on plain altar.
cf. http://www.beastcoins.com/Topical/VLPP/Coins/Imitative/VLPP-Trier-PTR-237.jpg ; cf. http://www.constantinethegreatcoins.com/barb2 .
Imitative Folles or "barbarous" bronze coins from this series are plentiful and range from extremely crude to nearly official in appearance. RIC footnotes as "irregular" or "semi-barbarous". On p. 224, Appendix to Trier, RIC describes and lists a number of "irregular" coins for the purpose of "illustrating the wide range of varieties known".
my ancient coin database
Arminius
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501b. CrispusIn 326, Crispus was suddenly executed according to the orders of his own father in Pola, Istria. Though the decision of Constantine was certainly cruel and unexpected, historians remain more interested in the motivation leading to it.
Zosimus in the 5th century and Joannes Zonaras in the 12th century both reported that Fausta, step-mother of Crispus, was extremely jealous of him. She was reportedly afraid that Constantine would put aside the sons she bore him. So, in order to get rid of Crispus, Fausta set him up. She reportedly told the young Caesar that she was in love with him and suggested an illegitimate love affair. Crispus denied the immoral wishes of Fausta and left the palace in a state of a shock. Then Fausta said to Constantine that Crispus had no respect for his father, since the Caesar was in love with his father's own wife. She reported to Constantine that she dismissed him after his attempt to rape her. Constantine believed her and, true to his strong personality and short temper, executed his beloved son. A few months later, Constantine reportedly found out the whole truth and then executed his wife Fausta at the end of 326.
This version of events has become the most widely accepted, since all other reports are even less satisfactory.
A treason against Constantine jointly plotted by Fausta and Crispus is rejected by most historians. They would have nothing to gain considering their positions as favourites of Constantine.
Another version suggests that Constantine killed Crispus because as an illegitimate son, he would cause a crisis in the order of succession to the throne. However, Constantine had kept him at his side for twenty years without any such decision. Constantine also had the authority to appoint his younger, legitimate sons as his heirs. Nevertheless, Crispus' status as a legitimate or illegitimate son remains uncertain.
Some reports claimed that Constantine was envious of the success of his son and afraid of him. This seems improbable, given that Constantine had twenty years of experience at Emperor while Crispus was still a young Caesar. Similarly, there seems to be no evidence that Crispus had any ambitions to harm or displace his father.
So while the story of Zosimus and Zonaras seems the most believable one, there are also problems relating to their version of events.
Constantine's reaction suggest that he suspected Crispus of a crime so terrible that death was not enough. Crispus also suffered damnatio memoriae, meaning his name was never mentioned again and was deleted from all official documents and monuments. Crispus, his wife Helena and their son were never to be mentioned again in historical records. The eventual fate of Helena and her son is a mystery.
Constantine may have been eventually convinced of Crispus' innocence. But he did not restore his son's innocence and name, as he probably would have on learning of his son's innocence. Perhaps Constantine's pride or shame at having executed his son prevented him from publicly admitting having made a mistake.
Beyond doubt there was a connections between the executions of Crispus and Fausta. Both happened too close in time to be coincidental. Such agreement among different sources connecting the two deaths is extremely rare in itself. A number of modern historians have suggested that Crispus and Fausta really did have an illegitimate affair. When Constantine found out, his reaction was executing both of them. What delayed the death of Fausta may have been a pregnancy. Since the years of birth for the two known daughters of Constantine and Fausta remain unknown, one of their births may have delayed their mother's execution.
Crispus, 316-326, Bronze Reduced Anepigraphic Follis, RIC-VII-53-R5, struck 324-325 at Antioch, 1.87 grams, 17.9 mm. Nice VF
Obv: Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Crispus facing left
Rev: CRISPVS CAESAR SMANTZ - Legend and mint signature in three lines, star above, dot below
An excessively rare coin of Crispus. Nicely centered and struck with even wear to both surfaces. Important and MUCH nicer than the image projects.
Ex-Glenn Woodsecoli
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6229 EGYPT, Alexandria Hadrian Hemidrachm 136-37 AD Demeter standingReference
RPC III, 6229/4 (this coin illustrated). Dattari-Savio pl. 79, 7603 (this coin); Emmett 1078.21
Issue L KA = year 21
Obv. ΑΥΤ ΚΑΙС ΤΡΑΙΑΝ - ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟС СƐΒ
Laureate draped and cuirassed bust of Hadrian, r., seen from rear.
Rev. L ΚΑ
Demeter standing facing, head l., holding ears of corn and long torch.
17.74 gr
30 mm
12h
Note.
From the Dattari collection.
Extremely rare, only two specimens known and both from the Dattari collection.okidoki
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7276 Nikomedes IV, Philopator, 94-74 BCSilver tetradrachm, 36.4mm, 15.51g, Nice VF
Diademed head of Nikomedes II right / BAΣIΛEΩΣ EΠIΦANOYΣ NIKOMHΔOY, Zeus standing left, crowning King's name with wreath in right, and holding sceptre in left hand. Eagle on thunderbolt inner left field, monogram and date (BIΣ =year 212 or 87/6 BC) below. Extremely rare date.
Ex: Forvm Ancient Coins; Wayne G. Sayles
Sear 7276; BMC Pontus, pg 213, 6v; SNG Cop 651v; SNG Von Aulock 266v
Note (courtesy Joe Sermarini): In 88 BC, Mithradates destroyed Nikomedes' army forcing him to flee to Italy. His throne was not restored until Rome defeated Mithradates in 84 BC Waddington, [RG], pp. 217-8, notes, "it is difficult to explain the very rare coins that bear the dates IC, AIC, BIC. These dates correspond to 89/8 to 87/6 BC...; but between mid-88 and the end of 83, the whole of Bithynia was in the hands of Mithradates Eupator. We are forced to conjecture (no text says so) that during this period several fortified places in Bithynia remained faithful to the legitimate king and continued to strike coins in his name."Lawrence W
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?Imitation of Hebrew script
extremely crude
AJC I, type H c or dfrederic
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ADVNTVS AVSTrebonianus Gallus antoninianus
Antiochia mint
Rev.: ADVNTVS AVS (instead of ADVENTVS AVG)
extremely rare (2nd known specimen)Tibsi
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Aemilianus AR AntoninianusRIC IVc 2b var., C 25 var. (Unlisted), Eauze hoard
2.71 g, 22 mm
IMP AEMILIANVS PIVS FEL AVG, radiate, draped, cuirassed bust right
DIANE VICTRICI, Diana standing left, holding arrow and bow.
Extremely Rare
Note from Richard Beale (Roma Numismatics):
RIC only lists coins with DIANAE VICTRI, though it does mention a coin with "DIANE (sic) VICTRI" in Berlin. I suspect that the Berlin coin is actually the same type/dies as [this one] but without the reverse's final two letters showing.
Three known including this one: One in the Eauze Hoard, one in an Italian collection (FORVM member 'aemilianus') and this one.Mark Z
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AEQVITAS AVGGordianus III. antoninianus
Antiochia mint
Obv.: ...M NT... (instead of ...M ANT...)
extremely rare
4 pieces known onlyTibsi
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AEQVTAS AVGGordianus III. antoninianus
Rome mint
Rev.: AEQVTAS... (instead of AEQVITAS...)
2 specimens are known only
extremely rareTibsi
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AIOLIS, LARISSA PHRIKONIS4th century BC.
Æ 10.5 mm 1.16 g
O: Horned female river-god facing slightly right
R: Laureate head of Apollo right.
SNG München 565; SNG Copenhagen 212
Extremely rarelaney
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Alexander III, the Great AR Drachm SUPERB Alexander III, The Great. Ruler of the Ancient World 336-323 BC.
Silver Drachm 17mm (4.28 grams)
Kings of Thrace, Lysimachos AR Drachm. In the name and types of Alexander III of Macedon. Abydos, circa 310-297 BC. Head of Herakles to right, wearing lion skin headdress / Zeus Aëtophoros seated to left, holding sceptre; AΛEΞANΔPOY to right, forepart of lion left above monogram in left field, griffin head to right below throne. Price 1581 var. (head in Phrygian cap below); Thompson -; Müller -. 4.25g, 18mm, 12h.
Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare; an unpublished variant.
SOLDAntonivs Protti
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ALEXANDER III. THE GREAT - DRACHM - COLOPHON ALEXANDER III. THE GREAT - DRACHM - COLOPHON - ZEUS - HERAKLES - SPEAR HEAD - STAR
Alexander III. The Great
Colophon
Drachm
Obv. Head of Herakles right, wearing lion skin right
Rev. ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ
Zeus seated left with sceptre and eagle. left in field star, right in field spear head
Condition: almost extremely fine
4.2 g., 18 mm
Price 1759
Ex Gitbud Naumann Philoromaos
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Alexander JannaeusAlexander Jannaeus, 103-76 BC. Lead Prutah/Token, Transjordan mint, 79/78 BCE?, 15.6 mm, 2.7 grams. O: Aramaic legend (King Alexander) in three lines within a dotted circle. R: Anchor in a circle with Greek legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΛΕΞΑΝ∆ΡΟΥ (of King Alexander) around. Hendin 1155, reverse appears to be a match with Menorah Coins die #1.
This coin is a bit of a mystery and therefore quite interesting. These were at one one time extremely rare and therefore not believed to be a coin at all but rather a trial specimen or a token used to gain entrance to an establishment. As hoards were discovered, it became apparent that this coin was common (although far more rare than his bronze issues) and in general circulation in the Transjordan.
Although the lead coins are not dated, the similar Aramaic inscription found on the dated prutah of Jannaeus (Hendin 1152, shown in my collection, dated year 25 = 80/79 BCE) indicates it may have been minted around 79 BCE. These are the only types of Jannaeus that have an Aramaic inscription.
The appearance of both Greek and Aramaic on these coins may reflect a softening of Jannaeus (a staunch supporter of the Hellenistic Sadducees) toward the Aramaic speaking Pharasees. Nemonater
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Alexander the GreatObv: Head of beardless Herakles, right, wearing lion skin headdress.
Rev: ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ in exergue; Charioteer in Biga right, Trident below.
"Alexandria (Antigoneia)" mint, struck c.310-301 BC. Extremely rare!
Attribution to this mint has been questioned of late (Meadows, NC 2004),
although no firmer alternative has yet been put forward. A mint in the Troad
seems to be likely, given that three were found in the excavations at Troy.
This is an extremely desirable and very difficult to find item. It appears that
there are none on any of the modern sales databases, and I know of only
one other that has been offered via a 'small seller' on an online auction site.
There is one in the British museum, at least one in Berlin (I-B), one in
the Portolos collection (Athens); another in Paris (B 80); the three that
were found at Troy, the one offered online, and now this one.
Please feel free to let me know of any other known specimens.
Among the rarest bronzes of the series.
Price 1587; Gaebler p.169, 7 pl.XXXI,26;
Bellinger Troy A1; BM 1921,0213.196.
(dealer's image {edited}) OldMoney
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Alexandria BI tetradrachm of Hadrian, 124-125 ADHadrian
Egypt, Alexandria
BI tetradrachm – 26mm
124-125 AD
laureate bust r.
AVT KAIC TPAIAN AΔPIA CEB
Ares standing facing, head r., holding spear and parazonium, ET ENAT
Emmett 810(9)
Note: Much of the silver has leached out, leaving this coin extremely light and fragile.
Ardatirion
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ALFOLDI 002.001 VERY RARE !!!OBVERSE: IMP PROBVS INV AVG
REVERSE: ABVNDANTIA AVG N
BUST TYPE: A2
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: --//XXI
WEIGHT 3.60g / AXIS: 12h / DIAMETER: 22-23mm
RIC 623
ALFOLDI 002.001
COLLECTION NO. 920
EXTREMELY RARE AND DESIRABLE REVERSE TYPE !!!Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 004.1 OBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: ADVENTVS AVG
BUST TYPE: H2
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: A//XXI
WEIGHT 3.65g / AXIS: 12h / DIAMETER: 21mm
RIC 624
ALFOLDI 004.1 (2 EX.)
COLLECTION NO. 1031
NOTE: extremely rare and desirable variety of the Adventvs Avg reverse where the emperor is marching RIGHT instead of LEFT.
This is apparently only the third known specimen in the world, the other two being in Vienna and La Venera hoard. My coin shares the same pair of dies as the Vienna specimen (information from Ph. Gysen) as well as the reverse die with the Venera specimen (information from J. Guillemain).
A coin of the highest rarity and numismatic interest!Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 005.042 laureal wreath on cuirass OBVERSE: IMP C PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: ADVENTVS AVG
BUST TYPE: F1 = radiate, cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/-//XXIP
WEIGHT 3.45g / AXIS: 5h / DIAMETER: 20-21mm
RIC 626
ALFOLDI 005.042 (but Alfoldi does not mention any cuirass decorations)
COLLECTION NO. 772
Note: extremely rare cuirass decoration in the form of a laurel wreath (probably corona triumphalis). In the coinage of Probus such laurel wreath is typically represented only on consular robe (toga picta + tunica palmata) not on cuirass. Apparently only the second known specimen of such cuirass decoration! Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 009.006 EXTREMELY RARE VARIANT WITHOUT MINTMARKSOBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: ADVENTVS PROBI AVG
BUST TYPE: H2 = Radiate bust left in consular robe, holding eagle-tipped sceptre (scipio)
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/-//-
WEIGHT 3.63g / AXIS: 12h / WIDTH 20-22mm
MINT: Siscia
RIC 632 VAR. (UNLISTED WITH NO MINTMARKS)
ALFOLDI 009.006 (1 ex. cited)
COLLECTION NO. 980
NOTE: This is only the 4th specimen in the world known to me.
Extremely rare variant without any mintmarks. This coin is part of a true "adventvs" issue and was most likely distributed by the emperor himself upon entering the city of Siscia contrary to regular issues of coins with the adventvs reverse and mintmarks in the exergue, which often were struck long after the emperor had left the city. Attribution of coins without any mintmarks to a particular mint is done on the basis of careful analysis of the coin's style and lettering.
Provenance: Solidus Numismatik Auction no. 15 lot 360Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 009.036 OBVERSE: VIRTVS PROBI AVG
REVERSE: ADVENTVS PROBI AVG
BUST TYPE: D7 = Radiate, helmeted, cuirassed and draped bust right, holding spear in right hand and shield seen from inner side
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/-//XXIA
WEIGHT 3.92 / AXIS: 12h / DIAMETER: 21 mm
MINT: Siscia
RIC 634
ALFOLDI 009.036 (2 ex. cited)
COLLECTION NO. 1319
Spectacular, extremely rare and desirable bust type!
Only the 5th known specimen to me
Provenance: Paul Francis Jacquier auction 45 lot 1548 = ex Ph. Gysen collection = Ex Freeman & Sear Auction I (1995) lot 736Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 016 /- (UNLISTED)OBVERSE: IMP PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: CLEMENTIA TEMP
BUST TYPE: B = radiate, cuirassed bust right (with divergent wreath ties of the corona radiata)
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: Δ//XXI
WEIGHT 3.42g / AXIS: h / WIDTH 21mm
MINT: SISCIA
RIC 645 VAR. (DELTA MINTMARK AND IMP PROBVS P F AVG OBVERSE LEGEND UNLISTED)
ALFOLDI 016 / - (unlisted!)
COLLECTION NO. 1186
Note: extremely rare and completely unlisted variant!
Provenance: Ebay auction no. (LANZ Numismatik) no. 232628508937 of 2018-01-19Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 017.011 OBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P AVG
REVERSE: CLEMENTIA TEMP
BUST TYPE: H26 = Radiate bust left in consular robe, holding eagle-tipped sceptre (scipio) and globe
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: P//KA
WEIGHT 4.14 / AXIS: 12h / DIAMETER: 20-24 mm
MINT: Siscia
RIC 646 VAR. (H26 bust unlisted)
ALFOLDI 017.011 (1 ex. cited in Vienna from MISSONG collection)
COLLECTION NO. 1326
Extremely rare and desirable bust type!
Only 4th specimen of this type known to me!
Provenance: Paul Francis Jacquier auction 45 lot 1607 = ex Ph. Gysen collection = Ex Lanz Numismatik auction 86 (1998) lot 700 Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 018.006 OBVERSE: IMP C PROBVS P AVG
REVERSE: CLEMENTIA TEMP
BUST TYPE: E1 = Radiate, helmeted and cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield (Parmula)
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: ᴗ//KA
WEIGHT 3.59g / AXIS: 12h / WIDTH 20-21mm
RIC 648
ALFOLDI 018.006 (1 ex.)
COLLECTION NO. 1098
Extremely rare, only the second specimen of this type known to me
Ex S. Luethi collectionBarnaba6
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ALFOLDI 022.063 PARMA SHIELDOBVERSE: IMP C PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: CONCORDIA AVG
BUST TYPE: E1
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/VII//XXI
WEIGHT 3.01g / AXIS: 6h / WIDTH 21mm
RIC 660 VAR. (PARMA SHIELD UNLISTED)
ALFOLDI 022.063
COLLECTION NO. 539
Rare!
NOTE: the Emperor is holding a small, round shield (Parma shield). This type of shield is eagerly sought-after by collectors. It was struck only in the mints of Ticinum, Siscia, Serdica and Cyzicus. While this type of shield is rare on Siscia and Serdica coins it is extremely rare on Ticinum and Cyzicus coins. Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 026.034 B10 BUST OBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS AVG
REVERSE: CONCORD MILIT
BUST TYPE: B10
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: T//XXI
WEIGHT 3.86g / AXIS: 6h / WIDTH 20-21mm
RIC 651 VAR. (BUST B10 UNLISTED)
ALFOLDI 026.034
COLLECTION NO. 159
NOTE: EXTREMELY RARE AND SOUGHT-AFTER BUST TYPEBarnaba6
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ALFOLDI 026.087 B4 BUSTOBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS AVG
REVERSE: CONCORD MILIT
BUST TYPE: B4 = Radiate, cuirassed (lorica squamata) bust right, seen fron rear
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: S//XXI
WEIGHT 3.69 / AXIS: 6h / DIAMETER: 21-22 mm
MINT: Siscia
RIC 651 VAR. (B4 bust unlisted)
ALFOLDI 026.087 (2 ex. cited)
COLLECTION NO. 1344
Extremely rare (especially for Siscia) bust type!
Only the 3rd specimen of this exact type known to me (apart from the two cited by Alfodli)
Provenance: Paul Francis Jacquier auction 45 lot 1597 = ex Ph. Gysen collection Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 027.055 OBVERSE: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P AVG
REVERSE: CONSERVAT AVG
BUST TYPE: E2 VAR. = Radiate, helmeted, heroically nude bust left, holding spear and (long and decorated) shield, seen from rear
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/-//XXIS
WEIGHT 4.16 / AXIS: 6h / DIAMETER: 22-23 mm
MINT: Siscia
RIC 672
ALFOLDI 027.055 (1 ex. cited in La Venera Hoard)
COLLECTION NO. 1323
Spectacular, extremely rare and desirable bust type!!! Beautifully decorated shield with emperor on horse spearing enemy!
Only the 5th example of this type known to me (1 ex. In La venera hoard cited by alfoldi; 1 ex. In S. Luethi collection; 1 ex. in M. Vosper collection and Gorny & Mosch Auktion 113, 18 October 2001)
Provenance: Paul Francis Jacquier auction 45 lot 1577 = ex Ph. Gysen collection Barnaba6
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ALFOLDI 039.002 ORIENS AVG OBVERSE: IMP PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: ORIENS AVG
BUST TYPE: B (BASTIEN'S CLASSIFICATION)
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/T//XXI
WEIGHT 3.43g / AXIS: 12h / WIDTH 21-22mm
RIC 700
ALFOLDI 039.002 var. (UNLISTED WITH WIDE WREATH TIES)
COLLECTION NO. 401
NOTE: EXTREMELY RARE AND SOUGHT-AFTER REVERSE TYPE FOR SISCIA !!!Barnaba6
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