AVT K M AVPH - ANTΩΝΕΙΝΟC Laureate
head of
Caracalla r., bearded.
TPAIANO - ΠOΛEITΩN Poseidon standing r. placing l. foot on prow, holding trident with points downward with r. hand, and
dolphin with l.
arm which rests on l. knee.
AE 28-29, 17.55g,
axis 12h. Naumann E79, 7 July 2019, lot 290, dealer's picture below.
No Poseidon
type of
Caracalla at Trajanopolis is reported by
Mouchmov,
Ancient Coins of the Balkan Peninsula (1912), or by Schönert-Geiss, Die Münzprägung von
Augusta Traiana und Traianopolis (1991).
However, a specimen from the same dies as the Naumann example, misattributed to
Hadrianopolis because the beginning of the city name was illegible, was offered by
Malter on
eBay in 2002, whence it was taken over with picture and misattribution by both
Wildwinds and
Varbanov 3569. Naumann, finding
his coin in
Varbanov under
Hadrianopolis, also took over that misattribution, because the beginning of the city name on
his specimen too (see picture below) was only half on
flan and so difficult to read. However,
his coin is definitely from Trajanopolis, because another coin with different
rev. type and clearer city name was struck from the same
obv. die (Schönert-Geiss pl. 37, 64), and because both that coin and the Naumann coin are too large and too heavy to be middle bronzes of
Caracalla from
Hadrianopolis.
Another example of Caracalla's Poseidon coin, from the same
rev. die and with clear city name beginning TPAIANO which clinches the
attribution to Trajanopolis, was published from the
Zagreb collection by Schönert-Geiss p. 171, no. 60, pl. 37, but she misdescribed the
rev. type as showing not Poseidon, but the emperor standing r., placing
his l. foot on a kneeling captive and holding spear and
parazonium! There is admittedly considerable similarity between these two
types, and the
Zagreb coin has faults in front of Poseidon which obscure the prow on which he places
his foot. Schönert-Geiss clearly
had some uneasiness about her description of the
type, because she added, "
Reverse possibly
overstruck".
Schönert-Geiss did not illustrate the
obv. of the
Zagreb coin, but identified its
obv. die as her V 27. The Naumann and
Malter specimens, however, come from a different
obv. die, her V 29. Since these two
obv. dies are quite similar, I suspect that the
Zagreb coin too
comes from V 29, which was just misidentified by Schönert-Geiss as V 27. The mistake is understandable, because the coin she illustrates as showing her V 29 is in
poor condition; see the somewhat better picture of the same worn coin in
Grose,
McClean Collection II, pl. 171.2.
