Late in the reign of
Trajan Decius and early in that of
Trebonianus Gallus, the
Roman government evidently attempted to restrike all of the old
denarii in circulation, primarily of the emperors from
Septimius Severus to
Gordian III, into
antoniniani, so doubling their value with one blow of the hammer.
This action, as I have argued elsewhere, was clearly the occasion for the production of
antoniniani of the Divi, consecrated emperors from
Augustus to
Severus Alexander, as a sort of restoration of their coins that were being restruck into
antoniniani, since some of the Divi
antoniniani themselves were also struck over earlier
denarii, obviously as
part of the same restriking, and since Divi obverses sometimes occur combined with
reverse types of
Decius and Gallus on
mint mules, showing that this series too must have been produced in 251, at the same time as the restriking of old
denarii.
We owe our knowledge of these overstrikes primarily to Mattingly's publication of the Dorchester
Hoard in Num. Chron. 1939, pp. 41-46. A few such overstrikes
had been observed before, but in this single
hoard Mattingly found no fewer than 25 of them with more or less identifiable undertypes, of the following emperors:
9 of
Trajan Decius, with
obv. legends
IMP C M Q TRAIANVS
AVG,
IMP CAE TRA DECIVS
AVG, or
IMP CAE TRA DEC AVG. The CMQ
legend was the second and main
legend of the reign, while the two shorter legends were the latest of the reign.
3 of
Herennia Etruscilla. The only one illustrated, pl. III, 12, has, as we would expect, the later form of the empress' coiffure, with the hair in ridges rather than smooth.
3 of
Herennius Etruscus as
Caesar, and 1 of Etruscus as
Augustus, a title he assumed only at the very end of Decius' reign.
4 of
Hostilian as
Caesar, 3 with
VALENS HOSTIL in the
obv. legend, 1 with the shorter and probably later
VAL HOS.
3 of
Trebonianus Gallus.
1 of
Volusian as
Augustus.
1
DIVO AVGVSTO /
CONSECRATIO antoninianus.
I bought the
antoninianus of
Hostilian shown below because it was obviously an
overstrike on a
denarius of
Septimius Severus, perhaps one with
obv. L SEPT
SEV PERT AVG IMP X or L SEPT
SEV AVG IMP XI
PART MAX and
rev. MARTI VICTORI, like the
Wildwinds coin shown below.
On Hostilian's
rev., one sees the
laurel wreath and curly hair of the top of Septimius'
portrait upside down in the
exergue, two points of Septimius' beard emerge faintly above Apollo's extended r.
arm, and the truncation of Septimius'
bust is seen faintly in front of Apollo's neck and
face. Below the NC of Hostilian's
legend PRINCIPI, there may be traces of an M from the original
obv. legend, either the M in
IMP X or that in
MAX.
On Hostilian's
obverse, upside down on the cheek and neck of
his portrait, we see the
head and chest of a male god standing r., the chest bare and the right upper
arm extending downwards. In the
field before Hostilian's forehead is the faint image of the oval
shield held by
Mars.
The
weight of the coin is a surprising 4.05 gr. That was an overweight
denarius that happened to be gathered in for overstriking; the typical
Severan denarius weighed between 2.5 and 3.5 gr.!
I got a real bonus when the coin arrived and I took a close look at the
obv. legend: it appears to be of
Hostilian as
Augustus not as
Caesar! Here are the two
obv. legends that come into question:
C
VAL HOS MES QVINTVS N C
IMP CAE C
VAL HOS MES QVINTVS
AVG.
Unfortunately my coin is weak in precisely the two crucial spots, the beginning and end of the
legend! However, the letter after QVINTVS looks more like an A than an N, and, the decisive point, the
legend clearly began well before the visible C
VAL HOS at 9-12 o'clock. If anything came before C
VAL, it can only have been
IMP CAE. One sees the bottom of at least two letters before C
VAL, though unfortunately I can't say they are definitely an A and an E; they look more like MC.
Antoniniani of
Hostilian as
Augustus are very
rare; he was made
Augustus by Gallus after the deaths of
Decius and Etruscus, but apparently died himself soon thereafter.
RIC 189 describes an
antoninianus of
Hostilian as
Augustus with the
rev. type of my coin, but the only authority is
Cohen 29, who cites a coin in the stock of the coin dealer Rollin. No such coin was known to Richard Beale, who comments on
his website that this
rev. type was normal for
Hostilian as
Caesar, so it would probably be a
mule if it really also occurs for
Hostilian as
Augustus. Princeps Iuvventutis, "Prince of the
Youth," was a title normally held by Caesars only, not by emperors.
According to
RIC 180, this
PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS,
Apollo seated,
rev. type of
Hostilian as
Caesar only occurs with a longer
obv. legend naming him
VALENS HOSTIL. However, according to a note that I wrote into my
RIC, the shorter
VAL HOS
obv. legend occurred with this
rev. type on a coin
overstruck on a
denarius of
Geta, shown on
Forvm by HISPANORVM in May 2005. Unfortunately that post has apparently been deleted from the database, and my printout of the image is in one of several stacks of hundreds of illustrations that
still need to be cut out and integrated in my photofile. I wonder whether HISPANORVM's coin might also actually have been of
Hostilian as
Augustus, not
Caesar!
Another point of interest that I only noticed after my coin arrived: it seems to leave out the second T in the second word of the
reverse legend,
writing IVVENTVIS rather than the intended IVVENTVTIS.
