I obtained this unusual
overstrike at CNG's E-Auction 210, 13 May 2009, lot 270. 3.07 gr., see
CNG image below, plus a picture from
CoinArchives of the
overstruck types of
Commodus. The letters in brackets have been eradicated by the
overstrike.
Overtype:
Clodius Albinus as
Caesar,
Rome, 193, the earlier issue without SEPT in
his name,
[D CLODIV]S AL - BINVS
CAES,
head bare r.
[PROVID] -
AVG COS,
Providentia standing l. holding wand over globe and
scepter.
Because of ALBINVS it can't be the later
obverse legend with SEPT, which
had ALBIN only:
D CL SEPT ALBIN
CAES.
Undertype,
obverse under
obverse and
reverse under
reverse at virtually the same orientation as the overtypes:
Commodus,
Rome, 192:
[L] AEL AVREL CO - [MM
AVG P FEL],
head laureate r.
P M TR P XVII [
IMP VIII COS VII P P],
Fides Militum (?) standing l. holding curious "knotty"
standard and
cornucopia, perhaps traces of
star in l.
field adjoining the P of TR P.
The raised right
arm holding the top of the
standard before Providentia's
face is all that survives of the figure of
Fides from the
undertype, but that is sufficient to identify the
type: no other
denarius type of Commodus' last year showed a standing figure holding a
standard or
scepter in raised right hand.
Now, despite frequent modern assertions to the contrary, it is certain that condemning an emperor meant condemning
his coinage, and that the
Roman emperors regularly made significant efforts to withdraw, melt down, and remint the coinage of their condemned predecessors, without of course ever succeeding to destroy anything like every coin issued. We might guess that a very determined emperor might have been able to destroy half of
his condemned predecessor's total coinage, but the other half of it doubtless eluded
his grasp, explaining why coins of
Caligula,
Nero,
Domitian,
Commodus and other condemned emperors have survived in such quantities until the present day.
Since the Senate condemned
Commodus in 193, it is to be expected that
Pertinax, and perhaps
Didius Julianus and
Septimius Severus too, instructed their officials to withdraw and recoin coins of
Commodus in that year. Septimius' rehabilitation and deification of
Commodus, which of course meant the end of any destruction of
his coinage, did not occur until two years later, in 195.
However, my new
overstrike cannot be interpreted as clear evidence of Septimius' recoining of the coinage of
Commodus in 193, but must be seen as something accidental or exceptional, since condemned coinages were normally melted down and recast as new blanks, not
overstruck directly as in this case!
Direct overstrikes of coins of later emperors on those of their condemned predecessors are extremely unusual, and in the few cases where they do exist, are exceptional and were generally not struck at
Rome.
The only other cases I can think of are a
rare series of
provincial asses of
Claudius,
overstruck on
asses of
Caligula, and a unique Eastern
denarius of
Septimius Severus overstruck on a
denarius of
Pescennius Niger, in the British Museum from the
collection of Roger
Bickford-Smith.
