I think Jochen's second coin is decisive. I was trying to be careful, so noted everything I could discern. The coin with the
eagle between standards permits our reading, I think, on the far shoulder the fringe of the
Severan military cloak. As for the armor, one wouldn't want to say "Schuppenpanzer" where we cannot read overlain discs forming a
scale pattern, so it must be variant, slightly fancier treatment of mail as such. I do believe that there were basically three kinds of armor current in the 3rd century: the hammered and often adorned with relief breastplate (perhaps 'parade armor', whether on the Primaporta
Augustus or on the
Macrinus obverses with a
gorgoneion on the breast), mail armor, made of wire mesh (on which additional elements could be attached: these also could be ornamental, to glitter in sunlight, as when brass and silver gilt 'scales' alternated in patterns), and slat armor (not yet common, I think, in the
Roman army, which I was taught was adopted from the
Parthians—but there may be later literature). That is why I thought of flame-shaped elements on mail, which would be showy but not difficult to make; imagine the effect of brass alternating with copper.
If so, my first impression, simply to admire the die, would be true. But it also is right to examine what is new. It is like the second opinion in medicine or the refereeing of scholarly articles.
If I
had to imagine a 'scenario' for this new die, considering its use with an
eagle and standards
reverse (I used spec.
11y as the best preserved I
had), I should regard this one as its replacement for the very military-looking
portrait that I called
Macrinus obv. C, used by Agrippa's minting after Pontianus's. Notice, too, if I was right, the replacement of the breastplate with
gorgoneion (parade armor)
obverse (
obv. D by
H). And the scrawny
portrait (used with the Sauroktonos and other
types) may be seen as successor to the delicate-faced die initiated by Longinus (
Obv. E). These assertions cannot be proved. It's not as if we
had mintmasters' diaries. But the
Agrippa issues are uncommonly interesting and tempting in this way; notice, for instance, the flattened bow to the laurel ties on Jochen's coins.
Pat L.
P.S. Can we not read the armor on the new die as the same as that on Agrippa's bearded
portrait,
bust from behind with mail? Above I illustrate that
obv. die
J with
Revs.
07 and
79. I have trouble seeing this as
Schuppenpanzer; it seems to be some more elaborate kind of chain-linking to make mail.
BTW, your new coin
is a
reverse die match to my
R77y (and perhaps the less well preserved specimens, too). The two
obv. dies used with the eagle-and-standards
reverse die
77 do seem to account for Pick's
Abweichungen.
P.P.S. And Jochen's eagle-reverse coin nails the separation of SE – VÊ (missing on the Apollo-reverse coin).