FORVM`s Classical Numismatics Discussion Board

Numism => Reading For the Advanced Ancient Coin Collector => Topic started by: curtislclay on October 29, 2007, 11:24:03 pm

Title: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on October 29, 2007, 11:24:03 pm
ROMA asked about the mint attribution of these coins; Mauseus suggested considering Kevin Butcher's arguments in his Coinage in Roman Syria (RNS, London, 2004).

It's a problem that still needs to be solved by careful examination of the types and legends, style, die links, and perhaps also findspots of the coins.  My preliminary ideas are as follows.  I leave out the mint of Alexandria, which struck for Commodus, Pertinax, Pescennius Niger, and Septimius Severus, J. Domna, and Clodius Albinus, because the Alexandrian coinage is quite separate from the Syrian coinage.

Niger struck denarii and aurei at two mints in Syria/Asia Minor, namely at Antioch in Syria and at Caesarea in Cappadocia. 

The coins assigned to Antioch have the identical portrait style that appears on Niger's Syrian tetradrachms, whence the attribution to Antioch.  Obv. legends are either undated, or call Niger COS II.  There are a great many rev. types.

The Caesarean coins are attributed to that mint because one of their Latin obv. dies also appears muled with typical Greek-legend rev. types of drachms of Caesarea.  The obv. legend is undated, and there are a comparatively small number of rev. types, all different from the types of the Antioch denarii and aurei.

Septimius' "Syrian" denarii and aurei fall into four main groups, three that copied the rev. types and style of Niger's Antioch denarii and lasted from 193 or 194 until mid 197, and a fourth group that finally introduced a new style and new rev. types, lasting from mid 197 until mid 202.  Each of the four groups has a characteristic obv. legend or legends, the only cases of overlapping being Septimius' legend with IMP VIII which occurs both in the third old-style group and on his earliest new-style coins, and Julia's IVLIA DOMNA AVG which was used in all three of the old-style issues.

The COS II group is by far the largest of Septimius' three "old-style" groups.  As we have seen in other threads, this group starts with an undated obv. legend of Septimius copied from Roman coins of 193, though sometimes with II COS on the rev., quickly followed by rare obv. legends ending CO, II COS, II CO, or II C.  There is also, confusingly, a somewhat larger issue with COS I at the end of the obv. legend; is that just a mistake, since the coins with II COS on obv. or reverse would appear to be EARLIER than those with COS I? Anyway, these early variants soon disappeared, and the great bulk of the issue was struck with the standard obv. legend IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS II.

COS II means after 1 Jan. 194.  It is uncertain whether any of the earliest undated coins, or those with CO or COS I on the obv., were actually struck before that date, late in 193, or are mere errors belonging to 194.

The flans of the denarii get smaller and thicker as time progresses, and the style changes. Some of the coins apparently belonging very near the end of the issue call Septimius TR P III IMP V, titles valid during approximately the first half of 195. So it appears that the issue ended in the course of 195, which is precisely when Septimius broke off his campaign in Mesopotamia and began his march to the west to confront Clodius Albinus.

The rev. types of this issue, at the beginning, copy almost all of the rev. types of Niger's denarii of Antioch, including such unusual types as INVICTO IMP TROPAEA, trophy; SAECVLI FELICITAS, crescent and 7 stars; even the type naming Niger, VICTOR IVST AVG, Victory, which was soon corrected to VICTOR SEVER AVG.  In style and lettering too Septimius' COS II coins closely resemble Niger's coins of Antioch.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on October 30, 2007, 02:27:01 am
Septimius' IMP II group, perhaps one-tenth the size of the COS II group, has the obv. legend L SEPT SEV PERT (or PERTE or PERET) AVG IMP II.  Septimius held that title IMP II for maybe a month c. Nov. 193, between his victories over Niger at Cyzicus (IMP II) and Nicaea (IMP III) in NW Asia Minor.  Like the early COS II coins, the IMP II group too mainly copied the rev. types of Pescennius Niger's Antioch mint, and also shared its style and lettering.  Sometimes one or both strokes of the numeral II after IMP are under the bust, separated IMP I - I or IMP - II, which has led to the erroneous readings IMP I and IMP; Mattingly, and Butcher too, are not aware, unfortunately, that these readings are phantoms and that all coins actually show IMP II.

Many of the same rev. types, and similar style, also characterize Septimius' third group of eastern denarii, which have the obv. legend L SEPT SEV (or SEVER) PERT AVG IMP VIII.  This issue is comparatively small, about the size of the IMP II issue.  Septimius was IMP VIII between his defeat of Clodius Albinus near Lugdunum on 19 Feb. 196 (not 197, as all the books say), and his acceptance of IMP VIIII towards the middle of 197.  Again, legend divisions IMP VII - I and IMP VI - II have led to the misreadings IMP VII and IMP VI of some IMP VIII coins, and Mattingly and Butcher unnecessarily complicate their accounts by accepting these misreadings as correct.

The three groups so far described are all "old style", using rev. types and style similar to those of Niger's Antioch mint.  The fourth group is the new-style eastern coinage of Septimius Severus, struck for him, Caracalla, Geta, Julia Domna, and (briefly) Plautilla between c. spring 197 and mid 202, of different, finer style and improved fabric compared to the old-style coins, and finally replacing the old rev. types of Niger with new ones, often copied from the contemporaneous coinage struck at Rome.  The starting date of spring 197 is fixed by the facts that Septimius is still IMP VIII on his earliest new-style coins, just as on his latest old-style denarii, but Caracalla Caesar is already PONTIF, a title he accepted c. April-May 197.  The end date of mid 202 is proved by new-style coins naming Septimius COS III and Caracalla COS, recording their joint consulship of 1 Jan. 202, and by new-style coins of Plautilla as Augusta, but none of these issues is very common, and there is no sign that the coinage lasted into 203.  202 is the year during which the imperial family returned from the east to Rome, for Roman coins dated to that year commemorate their arrival in Rome and the third largesse and decennalian games that we know they held there after their return.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: maridvnvm on October 30, 2007, 05:51:02 am
I would like to thank Curtis for what I consider to be an excellent summary of this coinage. I would like to add a couple of minor points.

There is also a lot of mis-reading of COS II coins as COS or COS I. Sometimes this is due to a tight flan or slightly off-centre strike leading to a mis-read of COS I-I or COS - II and sometimes it is due to sloppy engraving where there was insufficient room left for the Is and they were either squeezed in of sometimes merge with the tip of the neck of the bust. This is a pitfall that I have raced headlong into many a time.

There is also a notable shortening of the legends on types throughout the production with legends such as FORTVNAE REDVCI being shortened to FORT REDVC (even RDVC) over time on the COS II types.

Regards,
Martin
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: ROMA on October 30, 2007, 01:13:12 pm
Another well done summary on the coinage of Septimius Severus. So should it be considered that some of the coins that were copies of Niger's in Severus reign be attributed to Antioch instead of Emesa? Or am i reading that all wrong?
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on October 30, 2007, 01:17:27 pm
So far I have only described the coinage.

The attempts to attribute it by Mattingly and Butcher, plus a hypothesis of my own, are still to follow!
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on October 31, 2007, 02:54:01 am
Mattingly assigned the IMP II and IMP VIII groups and the new-style group to the mint of Laodicea.  He thought that all three of these groups must belong to the same mint, because of the similar obv. legends of the IMP II and IMP VIII groups, and because the new-style coinage starting for Septimius as IMP VIII would seem to be the direct continuation of the old-style IMP VIII group.

This mint was then Septimius' main Syrian mint, fulfilling the function that the mint of Antioch would normally perform, but it can't have been Antioch itself, first because Septimius' IMP II coinage was produced while Niger was still in control of Antioch and was striking his own coins there, and secondly because Septimius punished Antioch after his elimination of Niger by rescinding its privileges, demoting it to the status of a village, and submitting it to the authority of its rival and neighbor Laodicea.  Would Septimius locate his major Syrian mint in a city he considered disloyal and disgraced?

The mint, according to Mattingly, must instead have been Laodicea.  Herodian recounts that Laodicea proclaimed its allegiance to Septimius in the course of his struggle with Niger, and was therefore mercilessly pillaged by Moors whom Niger sent to punish it.  Laodicea will have produced the IMP II issue for Septimius during this period of disloyalty to Niger in winter 193-4, and the devastation caused by the Moors will explain why Laodicaea was unable to produce further coinage for Septimius until his old-style IMP VIII group in 196-7.

The location of the COS II mint Mattingly, in BMC, left open.  It could not have been Antioch, for the same two reasons mentioned above: start of the COS II series late in 193 while Niger still controlled Antioch and was striking coins there, and Septimius' punishment of Antioch for its support of his rival after his victory over Niger in 194.  Emesa, suggested earlier by Mattingly in RIC, would be a possibility, though Bellinger had suggested Zeugma as perhaps more likely.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: ROMA on October 31, 2007, 09:13:28 pm
Interesting, do you still feel Cos II was minted in Emesa?
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: bpmurphy on October 31, 2007, 09:25:07 pm
I'm not convinced the "Emesa" mint was a stationary mint. Seems more likely to me it was a traveling mint that moved as Septimius moved. The flans, misengraved dies, mixed up types etc... suggest coins that were minted in a hurry, not coins struck at a permanent location. If the "Emesa" issues were actually from Antioch I'd expect to find reverse die links between Niger and Septimius, and so far none have been found even though many of the types are identical. The New Style Laodicean issues which are struck on very nice flans with well engraved dies are more the work of a permanent mint location. Whether or not it was Laodicea, Antioch or maybe even Caesarea is not know for certain. The style doesn't resemble the style of the tetradrachms from Laodicea or Antioch and I've seen some Caesarean drachms that have similar features to the New Style denarii, particularly of Domna, but not exact. I'd have to go back and read Butcher, but if I recall he suggests the Laodicean coins may be Thracian in manufacture, not Syrian, citing similarities he's observed between the denarii and Thracian provincial issues.

Barry Murphy

Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: mauseus on November 01, 2007, 03:39:54 am
HI,

Yes, (from memory) I think Butcher does suggest a Thracian mint for the Laodicean coins; I think it is due to the find spots of them.

Regards,

Mauseus
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on November 01, 2007, 04:22:28 am
Kevin Butcher, Coinage in Roman Syria, London 2004, pp. 98-108, makes some changes in Mattingly's picture of Septimius' coinage of denarii and aurei in Syria, but does not appear to me to improve it!

According to Butcher, Septimius' COS II coinage appears to be the continuation of Pescennius' coinage at Antioch, and must therefore also be attributed to Antioch, or possibly to Laodicea, if the Roman provincial administration moved to that city as part of the punishment of Antioch after Niger's defeat. The COS II coinage could therefore only have begun after Niger's final defeat in mid 194, so Butcher discounts the indications, such as the mysterious COS I legend, that this coinage might have begun late in 193.  As we saw above, it is indeed difficult to decide whether this coinage began late in 193 or only sometime in 194.

What about the IMP II series?  It seems to me that this issue has been strangely manhandled in recent years, on the assumption that the title IMP II is simply a mistake!  

Roger Bickford-Smith, in an article in Rivista italiana di numismatica 1994/95, suggested that the IMP II issue SUCCEEDED the COS II issue in the course of 195, and so filled the apparent gap in the eastern denarius coinage between the COS II issue ending in 195 and the old-style IMP VIII issue beginning in 196/7.

I know from personal conversations some 15 years ago that Kevin Butcher once also wanted to date the IMP II issue to 195-6, but in his book he adopts a different position: The IMP II coins were produced by the same mint, that is either Antioch or Laodicea, and at the same time as the COS II coins, the IMP II title just being an engraver's preference or possibly the mark of a different officina within the mint.

Yet the entire world, and particularly the administrative officials of Septimius, knew that Septimius had become IMP II for his victory at Cyzicus c. Oct.-Nov. 193, IMP III for Nicaea c. Nov.-Dec. 193, IMP IIII for his final defeat of Niger at Issus in mid 194, IMP V around the turn of 194 to 195 for his first defeat of the Parthian vassals who had supported Niger, and finally IMP VI and VII approximately simultaneously for his second Parthian victory and his capture of Byzantium c. late spring-summer 195.  The mint of Rome, of course, registered each of these acclamations on its coins as soon as it became known.  And the COS II mint, as mentioned above, correctly called Septimius IMP V in several of its reverse legends of 195.  Is it at all likely that the same mint, at the same time, was also issuing coins calling Septimius incorrectly IMP II, or that the same mint, when it ended its COS II issue, then began a new issue with the wrong title IMP II? If you're going to call the emperor IMP, why not also get the number of his acclamations correct, which everyone knew?

If the IMP II and COS II coins were produced simultaneously at one and the same mint, why is it that only IMP II coins, never COS II coins, frequently misspell Septimius' cognomen PERT as PERTE or PERET? Doesn't this difference clearly signal a different mint for the two groups of coins, or at least a different phase in the production of the same mint?

Only irrefutable proof could force me to accept such an unlikely hypothesis, in either Bickford-Smith's or Butcher's version, for example the discovery of the same rev. dies passing from late COS II coins to early IMP II coins and other rev. dies passing from late IMP II coins to early IMP VIII ones, to prove Bickford-Smith's version! But no such evidence has so far been presented.

Another step backwards in Butcher's book, I think, is his reluctance to see the new-style coinage of 197-202 as the successor of the old-style coinage, also produced in the east for the same purpose, to support Septimius' campaigns and travels there.  For no particular reason, Butcher conjectures that the new-style coinage may have been minted further west, perhaps in the Balkans.

In my eyes, however, the connection between Septimius' eastern coinages and the presence of his army and court in the east is self evident.  

Septimius continued Niger's eastern coinage precisely until mid-195, when he and his army left for the west to deal with Clodius Albinus.  

After defeating Albinus on 19 Feb. 196, Septimius himself returned to Rome, but he probably sent some of his army back to the east to continue his unfinished war with the Parthian vassals.  We know that Septimius, while in Rome, heard that Laetus, who had commanded his army against Albinus in Gaul, had successfully broken the Parthian siege of Nisibis in Mesopotamia.  That may explain the revival of Septimius' eastern coinage, old-style with IMP VIII, perhaps around the turn of 196 to 197.  

Around mid-197 Septimius returned to the east himself with the rest of his army. That may have been when he ordered a reform of the eastern coinage and introduced the new style.

Septimius' new-style coinage included notably more aurei than his old-style coinage had. In the coinage of the later third century and the fourth century, at least, the production of gold coins was often restricted to mints near where the emperor himself and his court happened to be residing.

In 202 Septimius left the east and returned to Rome, and at the same time the new-style coinage ended.

And yet we are asked to believe that the new-style coinage of 197-202 may have had nothing to do with the presence of Septimius, his court, and his army in the east during precisely the same years, but may have been produced for some unknown purpose in the Balkans?

Still to come: a wild hypothesis of my own to explain Septimius' IMP II and COS II coinages.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: mwilson603 on November 01, 2007, 05:33:57 am
Still to come: a wild hypothesis of my own to explain Septimius' IMP II and COS II coinages.
Blimey, it's just like a cliffhanger episode ending in a major TV drama.  :)
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: slokind on November 01, 2007, 02:54:36 pm
But it IS. I think, a major drama.  What will scholars be saying and thinking (whether they are green and arrogant or very wise or anything in between) about Septimian RIC fifty years from now?
When all over the world former WWII code-men and their disciples were working on Linear B, before publishing the big, basic book, they sent telegrams and postcards constantly and circulated letters.  When the nascent internet appeared, they and the papyrologists were the first humanistic disciplines to realize its use.
Look what we're being let in on: trial balloons, already on the verge of being put into permanent orbit.  I hope Curtis doesn't mind my saying this.
Pat L.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: mwilson603 on November 01, 2007, 03:38:55 pm
But it IS. I think, a major drama.  What will scholars be saying and thinking (whether they are green and arrogant or very wise or anything in between) about Septimian RIC fifty years from now?
I absolutely agree with you.  I usually have little to no interest in Septimius, and I am certainly not scholarly enough to be a true numismatist, merely an enthusiastic collector.  However, I found myself getting to the end of Curtis' post and nearly shouting at my monitor "NO, don't leave me hanging, I want to know!".  I think it's fantastic to see numismatics in action, and to observe the evolution in theory and thought with the heavyweights that frequent this forum is quite inspiring.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: curtislclay on November 12, 2007, 03:39:18 am
Upon reconsideration, my reconstruction of the Syrian coinages of Septimius will not be so different from Butcher's!

Butcher must be right that Septimius' COS II series is the continuation of Niger's Antioch coinage.  It is at the beginning of the COS II series that we find the closest contact with Niger's coinage: all of the odd reverse types of Niger, including VICTOR IVST AVG, many of which were altered or entirely dropped as the series continued; the one very early II COS coin of Septimius actually overstruck on a denarius of Niger, in BM ex Bickford-Smith.

Butcher concludes that Septimius' COS II coinage could not have begun until Septimius captured Antioch, presumably along with its mint, towards the middle of 194.  But what if Niger took his "mint of Antioch" with him when he and his army went to confront Septimius in northwestern Asia Minor late in 193?  Then Septimius might have captured that mint when his victories at Cyzicus and Nicaea caused Niger to abandon Asia Minor and fall back to the Taurus mountains, and Septimius might have begun producing his own COS II coinage at Niger's mint at the very end of 193 or the very beginning of 194. This hypothesis would allow Septimius' COS II coinage to begin late in 193, though it is unclear whether it actually began then or only in 194, as already stated above.  The loss of his "mint of Antioch" late in 193 might explain why Niger exceptionally also opened a denarius mint at Caesarea, or at least using Caesarean dies and mint workers; perhaps this only happened early in 194, Niger's entire Caesarean coinage postdating his entire Antioch coinage.

There is a serious difficulty to this chronology, I admit: a good part of Niger's Antioch coinage is dated COS II, and it is assumed that, like many other emperors including his rival Septimius, he assumed the consulship in the first new year after his accession, that is on 1 January 194.  However, in the face of grave military danger, which Septimius' march to the East certainly posed, it was not unknown for an emperor to assume a new consulship in the course of the year: thus Nero assumed his fifth consulship when he heard of Galba's revolt in the spring of 68.  If my hypothesis could be confirmed that Septimius captured Niger's Antioch mint late in 193, then we would have to conclude that Niger acted similarly, assuming his second consulship in summer or early fall 193.

After capturing Antioch and the rest of Syria in mid-194, we can conjecture that Septimius probably re-established the "Antioch" mint, now striking COS II coins for him, at his administrative headquarters in Syria.  Given Antioch's punishment and its subjection to Laodicea, I would think Septimius' headquarters were almost certainly in Laodicea, not in the humiliated Antioch.  Thus the bulk of Septimius' COS II series should probably be attributed not to Emesa, as Mattingly thought, nor to Antioch as Butcher prefers, but to Laodicea, Butcher's second choice.

What about the IMP II series?  Being a literalist, I would like to assign this coinage to the short period c. Nov. 193 when Septimius actually bore that title!  But that seems impossible: as Bickford-Smith and Butcher correctly saw, the stylistic and typological ties of the IMP II coinage are not to the Antioch coinage of Niger, but to the middle or end of the COS II series of Septimius.  Hopefully the relationship between these two coinages can be clarified by a close type study and die study. Why the coinage calls Septimius IMP II at a time when he was actually IMP IIII or V is likely to remain an enigma!
Title: Two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus dated TRIB POT IIII
Post by: curtislclay on July 18, 2017, 10:38:30 pm
As we saw in this old thread from 2007 (above), Septimius' COS II issue of Syrian denarii apparently began late in 193 or early in 194, not long after Septimius may have captured Pescennius Niger's 'Antioch' mint, which Niger could hypothetically have brought along with him when he marched from Syria to confront Septimius in Bithynia late in 193. But when did Septimius' COS II issue of denarii end?

The latest certainly official titulature on Septimius' COS II denarii was TR P III IMP V COS II, which appeared as the reverse legend of three types commemorating Septimius' first victory (IMP V) over the Parthian vassals in c. December 194. So these coins must have been struck between c. Dec. 194, when Septimius became IMP V, and mid-195, when he won two further acclamations, IMP VI and VII, in quick succession. The three denarius types with this legend, shown below, were

1. Bound captive wearing Phrygian cap seated r. with arms tied behind back, next to a captured shield and weapons which are seen behind his legs.

2. Mourning captive in Phrygian cap seated r., his r. hand reaching to the ground behind him, supporting his head with his left hand, left elbow resting on left knee; weapons behind his legs as in the first type, one also sometimes shown in exergue. (The rev. die illustrated seems to have an engraving error, an omitted stroke, showing TR P II IMP V when TR P III IMP V was intended.)

3. Two captives in Phrygian caps seated back to back on shields at the base of a trophy, the captive on left mourning, the one on r. with arms tied behind back.
Title: Re: Two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus dated TR POT IIII
Post by: curtislclay on July 21, 2017, 10:07:22 pm
There are, however, two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius that are dated TR POT IIII, and that should apparently be accepted as official issues despite their sloppily engraved reverse legends containing several errors.

The first of these denarii has been known since its publication as RIC 436 in 1936, citing a specimen in BM; BMC 411 informs us that the coin was a gift from Harold Mattingly in 1927, and illustrates it on pl. 17.17. A second, more complete specimen from the same dies was in Gorny 62, 20 April 1993, lot 474; I am grateful to have a plaster cast of this better specimen which was kindly sent to me by Roger Bickford-Smith.

IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS I, head laureate r.

IMP V IRTB P - OT IIII COS II, the mourning captive seated right type, no. 2 above, but without the shield and weapons behind his legs.

COS I on the obverse instead of the proper COS II, the strange IRTB for TRIB on the reverse, and the sloppy style of the rev. lettering might incline one to dismiss this coin as barbarous, but on the other hand the portrait on the obverse is acceptable, the coins seem to be made of good silver, and the same obverse die occurs coupled with at least three other, apparently normal reverse types:

F - ORT - REDVC, Fortuna standing l., kalathos on head, holding rudder and cornucopia (my collection)

V - ICTO - R - AV - G, Victory standing r. , l. foot set on globe, inscribing shield set on column before her and holding palm (BMC 394, pl. 17.5)

VIRT AVG TR P COS, Virtus standing l., a type copied from Rome-mint denarii of 193 (Vienna).

So these would appear to be regular denarii, and certainly of 195 AD because of IMP V and the mourning captive reverse type, despite the obsolete COS I in the obv. legend and the Virtus rev. type copied from 193.


Title: Re: Two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus dated TR POT IIII
Post by: curtislclay on July 23, 2017, 07:43:27 pm
The second COS II Syrian denarius of Septimius with TR P IIII on reverse just emerged recently in Münzen und Medaillen GmbH 45, 9 June 2017, lot 762, apparently from the collection of Marcus Weder, see dealer's picture below.

Obv.: the standard COS II legend (not COS I this time) but with three of the components shortened by one letter each: CA for CAE, SE for SEP, and PER for PERT.

Rev.: the mourning captive seated type again, this time with the usual weapons above his right leg, but also with a trophy added above his head, making the type a sort of combination of the standard types 2 and 3 above. The figure of the captive is slightly simplified by the omission of his left leg, which is usually shown bent, drawn in with foot on ground, and serving as support for his left elbow. The rev. legend is apparently the same as on the other TR P IIII die, with the same error IR - TB (the cross stroke of the T off flan) instead of TRIB, but ending CS II in the exergue, omitting the normal O in COS.

Again one might want to dismiss this reverse die as barbarous or the work of an ancient counterfeiter, but that idea is contradicted by the use of the same obverse die with a number of other reverse dies that seem to be perfectly regular, though they occasionally show minor legend errors. Combined with the same obverse die I also know the following reverse types, in one reverse die each:

BONA SPES

BONI EVNTVS (second E in EVENTVS left out)

LIBER AVG, Liberalitas standing left

MINER VICTRIS (error for VICTRIC), Barry Murphy 284, see his picture below

VICTOR AVG, Victory advancing left

VICI (sic) AVG, same type, Doug Smith coll. 1319a, according to a plaster cast that he kindly sent to me.
Title: Re: Two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus dated TR POT IIII
Post by: curtislclay on July 23, 2017, 10:50:35 pm
What chronological conclusions can we draw from these facts?

In the first place, the two TR P IIII reverse dies might be a late revival of the issue, produced after the mint had been closed and the mint workers had been given other work, but a couple of old obverse dies were still available. Two new rev. dies were engraved by an incompetent new engraver, since no practiced one was still to be found. The new engraver based his deigns on older COS II coins with rev. legend TR P III IMP V COS II and the standard type 2 at least, perhaps also standard type 3, to which he apparently had access. If the title IMP V that he engraved was indeed still current, then the date must have been before mid-195, and the engraver's TR P IIII (after 10 Dec. 195) must have been a mistake for TR P III. If on the other hand the engraver was correct that Septimius was already TR P IIII, then the title IMP V that he engraved on his two dies must have been an error, maybe copied unthinkingly from the earlier TR P III types, since Septimius's correct imperatorial numbers as TR P IIII were IMP VII or IMP VIII.

All highly speculative, of course! But one conclusion that seems to me reasonably probable is that the two obverse dies in question, since they were coupled with these two TR P IIII reverse dies showing not only IMP V but sloppy style and a bad inscriptional error (IRTB for TRIB), were among the latest obverse dies of the normal COS II issue. That is important for showing on the one hand that not all COS I obverse dies should be dated to late 193 or early 194 and that copying a Roman reverse type of 193 is also not necessarily an indication of early date, and on the other hand that the small group of COS II obverse dies that omit several letters from their obverse legend, rendering CAE as CA , SEP as SE, and so on, apparently belong to the year 195, near the end of the COS II issue. Apart from the die of the M & M coin shown above, I know five other such COS II obverse dies, with several combinations of omitted obverse legend letters. This is the first time I have seen such an obverse legend combined with one of the obviously late IMP V reverse types.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: dougsmit on July 23, 2017, 11:25:33 pm
Since it was mentioned, here is the VICI AVG.

The MINER VICTRIS almost looks like the S was a correction S/C?
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: maridvnvm on July 24, 2017, 06:28:12 am
Here is my example of the BONA SPES

(https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10618/RI_064qn_img.jpg)
Title: Re: Two COS II Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus dated TR POT IIII
Post by: curtislclay on July 24, 2017, 03:01:56 pm
The MINER VICTRIS almost looks like the S was a correction S/C?

I would agree.

Thanks for pointing this out and posting your VICI AVG!
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: maridvnvm on July 21, 2018, 05:00:17 pm
I know this thread has been idle for a while but I have added another reverse type with this obverse die. MONET AVG.
Martin
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: Joe Sermarini on July 21, 2018, 07:25:45 pm
Nice coin. Never too late to add to a thread.
Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: maridvnvm on September 24, 2023, 08:33:55 am
And here is a type not listed by Curtis combined with this obverse die. LIBE-R AVG, Liberalitas seated left.

Same dies as HJB Buy or Bid Sale 198 Lot 402

(https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10618/RI_064uh_img.jpg)

Title: Re: Syrian denarii and aurei of Septimius Severus
Post by: maridvnvm on October 19, 2023, 02:00:53 pm
And here is yet another from the same obverse die. The Jupiter seated type is one of the more ususual ones from the eastern mints.

Obv:– IMP CA L SE SEV PER AVG COS II, Laureate head right
Rev:– IOVI VICTOR, Jupiter, seated left, holding Victory and sceptre