Doors

[Tacitus]

I am kind of new to camp gates... What does it mean door / no door.
The coin I am showing here, says no door on Wildwinds..  To me there is doorway....  is this not the same as having a door?

[Virgil H]

Most of the campgates I have seen have no door that one can see, but do have an opening. Clearly, it is a doorway, so not the same as a door in my mind. Some have open or closed doors you can see. The Doug Smith web site hosted here has a nice section on campgates and there is an interesting site from Belgrade that credits Forum that has a really nice catalog of these coins.

Doug Smith: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/acmcampgate.html

Campgates site: https://www.campgatecoins.com

If I ever get into Roman Empire coins in a big way, it will most likely be collecting these campgate coins, I find them attractive and interesting.

Virgil

[SC]

Yes, this is a doorway.  All campmates have at least this.  There are some rarer ones where you can see two doors open.  That type is generally what is meant by "doors".

SC

[Victor C]

the first coin below has closed doors and the second has open doors.

[Virgil H]

Nice examples, Victor. Most just have the opening.

Virgil

[Joe Sermarini]

Those two should be submitted for best of type in the Member's Gallery!

[Kristian]

Iam pretty sure the open doors is for periods of war and closed door means they had a period of peace. therefore coins with closed doors are less common.

[Victor C]

except the two coins I posted were both issued at the same time-- A.D. 318- 319

[SC]

The "doors closed for peace" are a tradition related to the Temple of Janus in Rome.  According to Plutarch a practice going back to the age of Numa.  But we have no real knowledge of practices going back that far.

In any event nothing to do with 4th century "gatehouses".

SC