Hello again Thilo and Board,
I am not certain if we are talking about the same "leaf," so I have provided a comparison here to
help us stay on the same page. The suspect leaf on each coin has been circled in
red. That being said, after further and extensive research today, I am now thinking that the two coins probably do not share the same
obverse die after all. Note, for instance, the emperor's collar, which I have circled in green. Neither one looks obviously
tooled in my opinion, and yet they are different. Also, the diameters and
weight of both coins (not
corrected in the comparison) apparently differ enough in person to indicate possibly different
denominations (the
Caracalla temple
types in general seem to be among the largest).
What this tells us is the need to find a match for Thilo's coin
type. The closest I could find in
Rouvier was no. 1737:
https://archive.org/details/journalinternati67sboruoft/page/n43/mode/2up?q=IVThe size and
weight fits better. In the 1861 volume of
Revue Numismatique, however, the
bust is described and pictured bare. Attached are the pages of interest from that article by J.
Sabatier. I am guessing
Rouvier corrected the
attribution (even though he
had cited the wrong plate in
his own
work)? Another strange thing is J.
Sabatier's coin no. 9, which is also illustrated on Plate V. It seems to be absent in
Rouvier's
work and I don't quite know why. The
reverse (the only
side pictured) also seems similar to Thilo's coin.
At this point, until someone tracks down a coin that truly shares the same
obverse die used to strike Thilo's piece, the tooling issue must remain uncertain, although I
still find the horizontal laurel leaf a
bit strange looking. In any event, despite the new questions that have arisen, the
attribution of the emperor on Thilo's coin to
Caracalla remains very strong.
I
hope this helps and urge you to contact one of the
RPC editors. They might have your arguably very
rare temple
type already cataloged and may even be able to provide a die-identical specimen for comparison.
Best regards,
Mark Fox
Michigan