In Nicola Ignarra's
work The Wrestling School at Naples, he has a long section devoted to the identity of the
man-faced bull, whom he says is always Acheloios. In the plates he has a coin from
Neapolis with the SUESA
inscription appearing as the
undertype, and judging from the footnote he devotes to the coin it seems that he was unsure what it was (or perhaps just the circumstances of when it was issued). This is interesting because it is a very early scholarly engagement with overstrikes!
Here is the Latin and my horrible translation. I've bolded the section that seems to have the essence of the footnote, but I don't quite grasp its meaning. Any
help appreciated. Attached also is the picture.
Ibi persipicue cusum apparet SVESA, primo fibilo dumtaxat superne evanido. Nummum contemplandum obtuli Domenico Baroni Ronchio, in re vetusta nummaria cum primis versatissimo: is autem negavit se umquam vidisse similem, nec quid de eo explicate diceret, habere. Conjecit tamen, quod et mihi etiam in mentem inciderat, Suesam tunc temporis in ditione suisse Neapolitanorum, a queis ut leges,
sic monetam, qua uteretur, accepisse.
Quamquam et illud etiam suspicari succurreret, societatem inter Neapolitanos et Seusano eo tempore intercessisse; eaque gratia Suesanos curasse, ut in moneta Neapolitana jam percussa, que et ipsi promiscue uterentur, vox Suesae incideretur. Nam hoc etiam contemplatione dignum est numisma, quod to Suesa non initio exaratum suit, sed alio tempore, et cuso jam numismatii, ibi ubi locus vacuus dabatur, impressum, uti nummum contrectani
pater.
"There very clearly appears SVESA, with the first
part disappearing above. I offered the coin to Domenico Baron Ronchio for consideration, one of the most thoroughly versed in ancient financial affairs; but he denied that he
had ever seen something like this,
nor did he explain what it meant. He conjectured, however, that what occurred to me also occurred to him, that [it was made] at that time Suessa was in the possession of the Neapolitans, from whom they received their laws and the
money which they were using. And yet it occurred to him also to suspect that an
alliance between the Neapolitans and Suessans
had occurred at that time; and that by this grace he
had taken care of the Suesani, that the word Suesa, which was already being struck in the Neapolitan coin, which they themselves might use indiscriminately, might be cut short. For this coin is also worthy of contemplation, which is not inscribed to Suessa at the beginning, but at another time, and now look to the coin, there, where the place was empty, is imprinted, to firmly determine the coin's origin."
I'd eventually like to publish a translation of this footnote to accompany some commentary, and I'm happy collaborate (co-author) if someone wants to refine the Latin. My reading is that he thinks an
inscription was added to a Neapolitan coin, rather than recognizing it as an
overstrike.