Severus provincial of the day

[moonmoth]

Well, of my day, anyway.  All the really interesting provincial types get snapped up by keen and knowledgeable people, so I was very pleased to be able to get this one, which is just nice.  The portrait is OK, pleasant but not exceptional.  But look at that reverse!  What a great garlanded altar, with the flame blowing out in the breeze.  And look at Homonoia's head.  That nose is magnificent!  And that kalathos is quite stylish, too.  (Looks a bit like a polos, but let's not go there ..) And the hair is a lot more natural than the stiff stylisations you see on the Roman equivalent.

This is probably a pentassarion, like Moushmov 2823, though doesn't have the E to confirm it (it's 27mm, 13.5 grammes).  It's from Anchialus in Thrace, and there's another oddity - the first N in ANXIAΛEΩN is formed like a gamma, with a little vertical just visible on the right. This is also present in other coins from Anchialus.

(Does "ANXIAΛEΩN" look OK to readers?  It looks fine to me, both in Firefox 2 and IE  7).

[Potator II]

Hi moonmoth,

That's just a lovely coin, indeed, congrats, and tanks for sharing it

Regards
Potator

[Tiathena]

 
       Ave Moonmoth!
 
  What a beautiful & fantastic coin!
  I would say that portrait is far more than “ok”..!  ..but maybe I’m a little biased, as I Really enjoy that style and type-depiction of Septimius - and, in any event, it's in wonderful condition.
 
  The reverse is something special!
  I wonder at the description - “..with the flame blowing out in the breeze.”
  The image is no doubt intended to be taken as a whole and there’s nothing else signifying any notable ‘breeze’ as such; Homonoia's garments hang still for instance, as do the garlands…
  Perhaps the intent with the fire was just to convey that it wasn’t ‘glass’ – but a real, ‘living’ fire, dancing it’s own fire-dance as fires do..?
 
  ( Just thinking out-loud again! )

   Your reverse reading looks good to me...
 
  Congrats on this beauty!
 
   Best,
   Tia
 

[moonmoth]

Hi, Tia.  I'm glad you like this one.  It's really pleasant to see people enjoying the coins.  I may have been a bit offhand about the portrait, but if so, it's only because there are some really exceptional Severus portraits to be had.

That flame .. you may be right about the lack of breeze, but a flame won't dance sideways that far without some sort of impetus.  Perhaps that large patera or phiale has just wafted over the top of it, as the libation was spilled out with a grand gesture.  You can see that Homonoia has her weight on her right foot, which fits with such a gesture, and the phiale is tilted.  In fact I like this interpretation better.  It brings the scene to life, so thanks for making me think of it.

As to the reverse reading .. I was concerned with the actual appearance of the letters, because I cut and pasted them into the message, and didn't use the Forum-approved method, which never works for me anyway.  Obviously they look OK to you!

[wandigeaux (1940 - 2010)]

The first N in the city name is not only formed like a gamma, but is a gamma, whhich is read as an N before X.  Cheers, George Spradling 

[Tiathena]

 
   Ave!
 
  Yes, I really do enjoy viewing them!  It’s a treat!
  I like your further development of the idea, too – yes, that’s just what I ‘see’ as well: Homonoia’s gesture with the (now tilted) phiale has ‘fanned’ the flame into a fed and more lively movement.
  It does bring the scene to life in a most appreciable way!
 
  Sorry, I mistook what you meant and were asking regarding the ‘reading’ of your Greek letters.
  I cannot for anything figure out why it only works here for me Sometimes - and not others...
 
   Best,
   Tia
 

[moonmoth]

The first N in the city name is not only formed like a gamma, but is a gamma, whhich is read as an N before X.  Cheers, George Spradling 

Thanks, George.  That's new to me! I suppose it indicates more of a "ng" sound.

[Jochen]

In the same way f.e. the greek word for 'angel' (literally messanger) is written AGGELOS but spoken 'angelos'!

Best regards

[slokind]

Indeed, even Anchialos sometimes spells itself either Greek or Latin fashion (i.e., with an N).  My favorite is O V A  I  T O N.
But seriously, that's the nicest Homonoia / Concordia I ever saw.
Pat L.

[moonmoth]

I always have to stop to translate all this "GreeK_Sigma GreeK_Sigma I  Greek_Gamma" and so on that Forum gives me.  That would be "O V A Σ Σ I Γ T O N" unless there is some special significance to the capital K in "GreeK_Sigma". 

I had to write it out in this paragraph before I saw how it would be pronounced!  And I come from County Durham, too, born within a few miles of the place.  (Or did you have another one in mind?)

As I said to Tia, it's good to see people enjoying the coins.  I hoped you'd like this one, Pat; you seem to like many of my favourites!

[slokind]

Your browser must be incompatible.  Mine, provided I put a space in the right place, come out in Greek caps, Netscape, Safari, Firefox.  You may need an upgrade?  Yep, and the rest of the dateline in a Greek newspapaer is NTI  I : D C
Pat L.

[moonmoth]

No upgrade is possible - I'm on the current versions of both Firefox and Internet Explorer.  In the text I produced, letters like Σ, Γ and Ω are symbols from the Microsoft Arial font cut and pasted in. If you can read those, then we will be able to work out Greek legends one way or the other.

..Oh, DC rather than Co. Durham.  OK then.

[slokind]

Test: MS Word Symbol (Greek Keys from the APA doesn't work so well?):
  ??    ?? ?   ??
Getting epigraphic forms to work is harder, back and forth between Roman and Greek fonts.  And using [ for a squared sigma is bad.  Pat
P.S. MS Word's Symbol evidently doesn't work either.  How do you get Greek letters out of Arial?

[moonmoth]

Hm.  Your symbols come across as nothing but a row of question marks.

I can produce the Arial characters within Excel, by using "insert / symbol."  This gives me a chart of symbols which still claim to be Arial, like so: ηλιος

I originally got my Arial Greek letters by a roundabout route.  I try to make my web page as universally readable as possible, so I use Unicode for all non-standard characters.  This displays Greek characters nicely. I discovered that when I displayed these with a browser, I could cut and paste the characters into Excel for my flip notes without the bother of using odd fonts like Numus Moneta.  They show up as Arial font when I do, even the weird diacriticals used for Sasanian emperors. Here's the scratch page I use (I have tidied it up a bit!)

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/characters.html

If you view the source you will see how the characters are produced. You can see that if I specify symbol font, that's what I get.  Otherwise I get Arial, because I specify that in my style sheet as the default font.

Because I use HTML every day, hand-written with Notepad, this is often the quickest method for me, and I have included it in case the Excel method doesn't work for you.