Latin Help with Early Commentary on Neapolitan/Suessan Overstrike

[Molinari]

I'd also be interested to know what on earth he is talking about in footnote 39--somehow connecting Nike and rivers.  I happen to be working on that very topic right now.

[curtislclay]

But I don't see anything about Nike or rivers in note 39?

[Molinari]

Oh I see, the Nikephoros Nikephorou is qualified later with filii, so Nikephoros the son of Nikephoros.

What about Potamonos?  Also a name?

[Molinari]

Note 38, not 39!  Too much reading today.

[curtislclay]

In note 38 Ignarra argues that Gessner's reading

ΣYNNAT as the obv. legend of a man-headed bull coin should be corrected to

ΣYNNAoY, since a Y on a worn coin could easily be misread as a T, since the letter o in Greek was often written very small and could easily be overlooked, and since 

ΣYNNAT is not a known Greek word anyway.

To support his suggested correction, Ignarra cites two other Greek inscriptions that have apparently been misread in the same way, by overlooking a small o.

[Molinari]

Thanks for translating that, Curtis.

I discussed the coin with Francois and he agrees it is an overstrike, and this does appear to be the first illustrated to the best of his knowledge.  The phenomenon was recorded about a half century earlier, however.  That comes from a letter written by Picard Duvau concerning a Postumus overstrike, dated 1731--but not illustrated.  The next closest illustration is a Thasos overstrike in Neumman's work (Populorum et Regum Numi veteres inediti), from the 1780s (so slightly later than Ignarra).

I'd like to know who Baroni is so I have more research to do there, but otherwise I think Ignarra was simply unaware of the phenomenon, not being a numismatist and instead a general antiquarian.

I'll send a draft of my write-up soon, Curtis.