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Author Topic: What issue for this Libertas sestertius of Sev Alex?  (Read 469 times)

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Offline mix_val

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What issue for this Libertas sestertius of Sev Alex?
« on: September 18, 2019, 02:54:07 pm »
I just got the top sestertius and noticed that it was an obverse die match to the liberalitas sestertius BMC 9, (note the drapery and cuirass in the first picture).  If so, the top sestertius may come from the proclamation issue or 1st issue.  But comparing the top coin to libertas sestertius BMC 65 (second picture), reverse dies seem to be a die match. 
What issue date should I assign to the top coin of both pictures?     
Bob Crutchley
My gallery of the coins of Severus Alexander and his family
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=16147

Offline curtislclay

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Re: What issue for this Libertas sestertius of Sev Alex?
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2019, 07:33:34 pm »
Both types were pretty surely struck in 222; but the exact sequence of the coinage in that year is uncertain.

Maybe the first largesse type formed part of a Proclamation Issue, the first of the new reign, as proposed in BMC; a largesse to the people soon after Elagabalus' assassination would seem appropriate. In that case the seen from behind bust type on the sestertii might have preceded the seen from front type, since all Liberalitas sestertii that I have seen, with platform scene or Liberalitas standing alone, show the seen from behind bust type. However, the Liberalitas standing aurei of 222 are known with both bust types, BM 1-2, Plate 1.

Turcan, in his publication of the Guelma sestertius hoard, suggested that the seen from front portraits were more reminiscent of Elagabalus than those seen from behind, so seen from front should have been earlier.

Liberalitas types seem sometimes to have been accompanied by Libertas types, so for Commodus in 190 (LIBERAL AVG VII) and Septimius and sons in 208 (LIBERALITAS AVG VI). Maybe the same was also true in 222, but so far that is just a conjecture!

Finally there is the question, in 222 which came first, the types with descriptive legends, for example LIBERTAS AVG(VSTI), or the same types with the dated legend P M TR P COS P P ? Carson, BMC p. 50, placed the dated legends first, because he thought they were associated with younger looking portraits of Alexander on denarii, particularly those of the Elveden find, Num. Chron. 1954. But he doesn't attempt to buttress this conclusion by referring to specific coins illustrated in BMC or elsewhere, and he didn't mention this question at all in his brief listing of the contents of the Elveden find in 1954, which provides no illustrations.
Curtis Clay

Offline mix_val

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Re: What issue for this Libertas sestertius of Sev Alex?
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2019, 09:53:16 am »
Thank you Curtis
Bob Crutchley
My gallery of the coins of Severus Alexander and his family
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=16147

 

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