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.