My interests are in Hellenistic coins. Especially, but not exclusively in, the spread
flan coinages called stephanephores and the
New Style silver coinage of
Athens in particular. This appears to be hardly in any other
members collecting
area.
I think the problem with the Hellenistic era is that it is not seen as pure Greek, tainted with the vile
barbaric stain of the wildly megalomaniacal Macedonian usurpers Phillip and
Alexander. It is not Magna Grecia: touched by the hand of Kimon.
Classicism is a gas; Hellenism is not.
MFB’s I cannot find stimulating especially in the
poor bronze examples which often are debated on as to whether they are, in fact, MFB’s! Other than listing them where does this lead? Now you can see why the Athenian
New Style has such an attraction for me.
In the past year I have written some articles on academia.edu, two criticising the British Museum.
The first is based on a member’s very
poor treatment by the BM which incensed me. I
had never visited the BM in a coin collecting capacity but I could envisage every word and manner as if that it
had happened personally to me.
Luckily it happened to someone else or I doubt there would be an
intact cabinet in the department. Snobs they are and snobs they remain.
Please read my article on academia.edu under my name John Nisbet,” The British Museum, UNESCO 1970, coin collectors and me”.
A later article based upon “Cicerokid’s review of 2013” is an acknowledgment, by the paraphrasing the title, of a book by H.B.Mattingly. Called “From coin collecting to
numismatist”, it tells of my numismatic journey and how essentially the BM outlaws collectors. The BM no longer wishes to acknowledge its collecting roots and appears to despise them and has now changed its focus to where new specimens are no longer needed in its
collection.
They, though, cannot resist the forbidden fruits of modern
auctions. Maybe they look at such catalogues hidden within a copy of Playdude.
I did suggest to the BM‘s board of directors that they read my articles but I know they haven’t.
Two other articles on Academia.edu I have recently added came from reading F. de
Callatay’s paper from 2011 on Academia.edu “More than it would seem: the use by the
Romans of coinage in late Hellenistic
Asia Minor (133-63 BC)".
The first one “
Roma &
Nike”: who deserves the crown?” was generated by the fact I could only find one article referring to what did
Nike crowning
Roma refer to. Sadly the complexities of absolute dating of events proved an obstacle and the dominance of other events may have obscured others.
Still worth a read!
The second article “Two ears of
Corn: the key to who coined the O Demos imitation”, was brought about because de
Callatay wanted to conflate yet another pair of coins into a single year; the famous “
Star between two Crescents” with the controversial “Two ears of
Corn”. I was struck by the similarity of
style and particularly the cut of the letters on the reverses.
In a footnote in “More than it would seem….”, Prof. de
Callatay wrote that the
work of Jorg W. Muller on Athenian dark - age chronology
had produced absolute dating of the intercalary New Styles and particularly one coin in the Rome-Pontic section.
An excited Dr Muller
had promised in
his paper of 1991 that he was actively preparing a
New Style sequence based upon
his work. He seemed to be
still promising it in 1994 in another paper and not mentioned it in another paper in 1998.
Oxford, Warwick Universities and I can find no reference to the promised
work. Maybe it “
ran into the sand” but should it have been so authoritively noted in a footnote 20 years after it
had been promised but failed to appear?
One
good thing though is that it identified a new intercalary coin in the “
Tyche, Staff &
Cornucopia” issue that I was unaware of published in
Coin Hoards 1 RNS 1975.
My contacts about things
New Style have all but died away and I think that maybe I have trodden on ground they might have been preparing in a careful, thoughtful academic way and I have gone blundering in. Indeed I have essentially unpicked a
still held cherished opinion using evidence gleaned purely from
Thompson alone which I guess will not make me wildly popular, whereas I long for interest and criticism.
I am even trying to bully an author on the
Roman civil wars into
writing about the Mithradatic wars and using
his military knowledge to try and come up with a tighter geographical chronology of simultaneous events.
I have, via PM, supplied a Finnish member with requested articles on New Styles and he is using them in
his researches on an
Alexander 111 coin hoard. I
hope to hear of
his endeavours soonish.
I can heartedly recommend two books both on
Bactria with a lot of emphasis on the coins. Both are by Frank lee
Holt called “Thundering
Zeus” and “Lost world of the golden king-In
search of ancient Afghanistan” , in which amongst the thanks for contributions and conversations the author numbers Lloyd
Taylor. This would be the one-time recent
Forum member. Like Rover 1.3 I miss greatly their contributions to the
forum.
Now let’s bring on the coins!
My coins for 2014 started with a nice VF example of an
Athens New Style tetradrachm with symbol “
Gorgon Head”.
Readers of my last years posts in the
Greek coins section on research and original
work on the Rome-Pontic New Styles will know that this is seen as the first pro-Pontic symbol identifiable in the
New Style coinage and is
obverse die-linked to the “Drinking
Pegasos”
type which is definitely pro-Pontic due to the exact copying of the symbol from the
reverse of Royal Pontic coinage. My originality is that in the chronology of this period I have swapped the positions with another pair of die linked coins to give the symbol on the royal Pontic coinage precedence and a couple of years to percolate into the Athenian consciousness.
This then was a must have coin.
Coin #2 was an early period
New Style tetradrachm. I love these large
flan coins with
monograms especially the very early
types with
monograms only and no controls. It has a symbol,”
Trophy”, and Margaret
Thompson stated that this was the largest
New Style issue to date. I always seemed to find examples that
had been badly mis-struck and/or worn to even put me off. When this one appeared with a nice clear
reverse and an OK
obverse then it
had to be mine.
The interest is that both
monograms are in the one
field whilst the
trophy occupies the other alone.
Except for two of the rarest very early New Styles I have a
complete run of the early period
New Style monogrammed tetradrachms so I do not anticipate any more new
additions here.
Coin #3 is a dated Royal Bithynian
tetradrachm of Nicomedes 1V.
This has an artistic fat-faced
portrait and is probably meant to represent
his ancestor Nicomedes 11, the
reverse of
Zeus Stratios is of
his type and titular also. The
reverse is not artistic unlike the
obverse having
poor proportions throughout: the beauty lies in the Bithynian-Pontic date of 88/7 BC. At this time Nicomedes
had been replaced by Mithradates’ nominee
Socrates Christo and was in
Rome pleading
his case to the senate. It is assumed that not all of
Bithynia was in Mithradatic
hands and that some cities held out and minted these really interesting
rare coins.
Next is somewhat of a departure for me. It is not a
tetradrachm but links directly into my interest
area. Coin #4 is Athenian and Mithradatic linked.
New Style coinage dating to the magistracy of
king Mithradates and Aristion are
rare and beyond my pocket but the associated AE
chalkous are relatively common.
These coins were definitely minted in
Athens since the
mint has been found with blanks of the same metallic composition. The tell-tale largish percentage of lead content is diagnostic and is thought to make the dies last longer by softening the blanks. The coins feature
Athena in a Corinthian helmet on the
obverse with a
standard striding “Fulminating
Zeus”
reverse with AOE
ethnic but with the Pontic “
Star between two Crescents” symbol of
King Mithradates. All examples were made, sensibly, in the one Athenian
mint and coins are found both in
Athens and Piraeus. Those in Piraeus must pre-date the isolation of
port and city by
Sulla and most probably date to 87 BC only.
Examples appear more worn considering that after the siege they probably were not negotiable due to the symbol and this appearance is possibly due to the dies not producing a
sharp impression on the lead enriched blanks and the large numbers of coins produced
per obverse. The soft
flan meterial caused them to be rapidly worn during their short lifespan.
It is assumed that silver for tetradrachms in
Athens was
scarce since a small gold
New Style emission was also produced and that large numbers of bronze coinage was issued to fill the gap.
My next purchase was not even on my “hit list” because I
had forgotten about them. Anything anywhere that resembles Athenian New Styles attracts my interest and when I saw the
obverse “on the bay” I thought what a nice
fake. A really beautifully artistically rendered
Athena but what outrageous gorgeous
horse protomes and well rendered
fake flat spots-great
patina too!
The
reverse had the usual
owl on overturned
amphora, two
monograms, one apparently flat struck and incomplete, no
ethnic or other controls. Nicely rendered though and also with a great
patina. Sadly no
weight given and a banner that proclaimed “Museum
quality”.
OK I knew that this
type reverse was reminiscent of the Sullan
ethnic less
New Style imitations but no controls? With that
quality of art on the
obverse also?
To my
joy I found it to be a very
rare Sulla 11 imitation. Now I
had to question the seller without giving too much away. He eventually said he
had indulged in the early 1970’s in coin speculation with NERC and was
selling this and a couple of
quality Roman Empire bronzes.
Googling NERC I found that the speculation boom turned to
bust and the founder then co-founded Heritage
auctions. The two
Romans looked valuable but there are so many
fakes that these got me worried.
Oh well, in for a penny in for a few (hundred) pounds and I was the only bidder and the
Roman bronzes attracted no bidders.
Needless to say coin #5 is an absolutely genuine and very
rare coin and is categorised as a Pseudo-Athenian
New Style.
The Pseudo-Athenian coins especially
type 1 and 11 need some reconciliation: they are the same e.g. ethnic-less and share
monograms but are clearly stylistically distinct. Maybe the date given as 86-84BC needs reconsideration. Why not 87 BC, as soon as
Sulla landed and took the treasuries of the temples on
his route to
Athens for say,
type 1 and the much, much rarer
type 11 during or after the siege?.
Coin #6 is something I once thought I already
had: a
rare post-Sullan 2 magistrate
type Athenian
New Style tetradrachm. Previously my one example turned out to be an imitation that in turn fortuitously added to my research and original ideas on the
Rome -Pontic times and chronology, but nonetheless it is not a true Athenian example.
So “Poppy
Head between Grain Ears” has joined my
collection and fills the post-Sullan gap nicely.
After the fall of
Athens to
Sulla it is assumed that
New Style coinage was resumed immediately, if only for local usage. A chronology has been produced mainly on stylistic grounds and the odd
rare hoard find where a single
King Mithradates issue was accompanied by a number of thus presumed post-Sullan 2 magistrate issues.
Of these issues, around 10 have a handful of obverses, including “Poppy
Head” and then examples all but completely “fall off the precipice” having maybe only 1 example or so. One
type is only known from a
drachm and another, the last ever
New Style type discovered, as a single
overstrike.
On the simplest level
amphora month marks appear so indicating that the issues were
still being produced at occasions during a single year. A newly found
obverse die link between
types seem to show that
types did change most probably every year but there really are not enough of those examples to be absolutely sure.
All-the-same, assuming simple linear yearly issues from the end of the siege onwards takes us to an end of the
New Style in the late 50’s BC, probably 53/2 BC and not with Mark Anthony’s sojourn there c 42 BC with the presumed concomitant compulsorily introduction of the
denarii.
And finally, Plebs is the best programme on
Roman culture I have ever seen. I think Mary Beard is the historical advisor but modestly hiding behind a pseudonym.
That’s all folks!
Cic
