A Roman coin of AGRIPPA

[HELEN S]

 There seems to be some query on when this coin was actually minted and some compelling evidence that it wasn't actually produced under Caligula.
 This is one of my best grade coins and YES I am very proud to own it. Thanks for looking



  Coin Type: Copper as of Gaius, known as Caligula, 37-41 CE
Mint and Date: Rome, 37-41 CE 
Obverse: M AGRIPPA L F COS III
Head of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa left, wearing rostral crown.
Reverse: S C
Neptune standing left, right hand holding a dolphin, left hand holding a vertical trident behind

[curtislclay]

There seems to be some query on when this coin was actually minted and some compelling evidence that it wasn't actually produced under Caligula.

And what might that compelling evidence be? The coin was certainly struck by Caligula, in my opinion!

[HELEN S]

 I will look for it and post it up thank you for the question

[HELEN S]

I have copied and pasted this so I could remove the link

. Here is a fascinating overstruck piece that provides a piece of evidence for the dating of the Agrippa issue being post-Tiberian...the Agrippa coin is overstruck on a Germanicus coin dating to Caligula's reign.



AGRIPPA AE semi-official imitative as. Overstruck on an official 'Germanicus by Caligula' type struck 37-39 AD. Unusual example of a newly issued 'demonetized' coin



AGRIPPA AE as. 'Barbarous' or semi-official restrike, struck 39-41 AD, or possibly circa 43 AD, overtop of a Germanicus (by Caligula) as. M AGRIPPA L F COS III, lareate head of Agrippa left, MANICVS PON M visible in place of M AGRIPPA. Reverse - No legend, Neptune standing left, holding dolphin, drapery, and long trident, SC in fields, visible undertype legend SAR TI AVGVST DIVI AV visible OUTSIDE of the beaded edge border for the imitative overstrike. 32mm (10-15% larger than the original host due to being restruck), 10.5g.

A very unusual Agrippa as. This coin is clearly a provincial 'imitation', although what is unusual here is that the imitative coin is overstruck on an official as of Germanicus by Caligula (issued 37-38 AD). The official Agrippa issue itself is issued 37-41 AD, (provincial imitations continued to be struck and circulate until Claudius' centralization of AEs production, including earlier types already discontinued at primary mints), so what we have here is a coin overstruck within only a few years of it's original minting. This raises some interesting questions about why the coin was overstruck at all, since overstriking, even restriking done for propaganda, was generally done using older, worn or damaged coins. The legend "...SAR TI AVGVST DIVI AV" is clearly legible, which is particular to the Germanicus type issued in the early part of Caligula's reign (37-38 AD only).

While we cannot know for sure why a coin is overstruck, this coin was very clearly demonetized intentionally while the coin itself was still brand new, making it quite likely that the coin was 'de-monetized' following Caligula's assassination, in following with Claudius' edicts in 43 AD, to remove Caligula's name and image from the public eye. (The host coin would have borne Caligula's name at the least, which required removal under the edict, and it may have been confused with his image). Oddly enough, all the overstrike managed to achieve was to replace Caligula's father with his grandfather.

Interestingly, this coin also clears up any lingering doubts about the attribution of the Agrippa memorial issue to Tiberius (as per BMC) - Since Agrippa is overstruck on Germanicus (37-38 AD, dated by reverse legend), the issue date of the Agrippa series is clearly 37 AD or afterwards, which makes any attribution of the Agrippa issue to Tiberius' reign incorrect.



AGRIPPA AE semi-official imitative as. Overstruck on an official 'Germanicus by Caligula' type...


AGRIPPA AE as. 'Barbarous' or semi-official restrike, struck 39-41 AD, or possibly circa 43 AD, overtop of a Germanicus (by Caligula) as. M AGRIPPA L F COS III, lareate head of Agrippa left, MANICVS PON M visible in place of M AGRIPPA. Reverse - No legend, Neptune standing left, holding dolphin


 SORRY it is now out of focus

[Joe Geranio]

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=The%20Agrippa%20Aes%20and%20The%20Marcus%20Agrippa%20Aes-%20Struck%20Under%20Caligula%20or%20Tiberius%20%20Joe%20Geranio

I am still not 100% sure on Tiberian strike?  I know I am in minority.

more info here on my flickr site      http://www.flickr.com/photos/60274160@N00/6717938889/in/photolist-beDcbz-9yYn8w-7z43zF-7z43zH-7z43zP-7ExiDT-9Svy3J-9nAKzi-9Hxu7E-do597A-9yViGc-9FuH22-dmNMac-eiFWBQ

[Joe Geranio]

Helen, cant see the photo?  Anyway to get a larger view?

[HELEN S]

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=The%20Agrippa%20Aes%20and%20The%20Marcus%20Agrippa%20Aes-%20Struck%20Under%20Caligula%20or%20Tiberius%20%20Joe%20Geranio

I am still not 100% sure on Tiberian strike?  I know I am in minority.

more info here on my flickr site      http://www.flickr.com/photos/60274160@N00/6717938889/in/photolist-beDcbz-9yYn8w-7z43zF-7z43zH-7z43zP-7ExiDT-9Svy3J-9nAKzi-9Hxu7E-do597A-9yViGc-9FuH22-dmNMac-eiFWBQ

 Joe this is a very complex study and it makes a RIVETING READ thank you for posting I do hope we get a great debate on it from the experts THANK YOU for your time

[curtislclay]

My ideas about the date and purpose of the Agrippa asses, copied from a Forvm thread of two years ago:

Yes, Germanicus certainly celebrated a triumph on 26 May 17 AD, commemorating his German victories during which standards lost by Varus had been recovered.

Hobler, writing around 1860, shared the universal assumption of his time that the Germanicus dupondii were struck during Germanicus' lifetime, and the Agrippa asses during Agrippa's lifetime. There is, after all, nothing on the coins to indicate that a later emperor had struck them or that the honorees had already died!

It was only during the twentieth century that these coins were redated to Caligula's reign.

The chief arguments are:

1. The countermarks that are found on these middle bronzes, specifically TI AV and TI CAESAR ligate, are ones that otherwise occur on bronzes of Caligula, but not on bronzes of Tiberius.

2. Tiberius' bronze coins were struck with their die axes either upright or inverted, but Caligula's mint introduced a change: his bronze coins show the inverted die axis only. The Germanicus dupondii and Agrippa asses followed the Caligulan practice: axes inverted only. That seems to be powerful evidence that these coins were struck not by Tiberius, but by Caligula.

3. During the reign of Caligula, the mint of Caesaraugusta in Spain copied various obverse types from Caligula's bronze coinage, including the obv. type of the Agrippa asses. Those copied obv. types were: bare head l. of Caligula, radiate head l. of Divus Augustus, bare head l. of Germanicus, draped bust r. of Agrippina I, and finally head of Agrippa l. wearing rostral crown (RPC 373-386). But if the Agrippa asses were struck by Caligula, the Germanicus dupondii probably were too!

An unpublished idea of my own: Caligula may have allowed the Senate to melt down the bronze coins of Tiberius, whom the Senate hated, just as Claudius later allowed the Senate to melt down the bronze coins of Caligula himself.

The metal from the melted down Tiberius bronzes was then used to strike coins for Caligula's great grandfather Agrippa and his father Germanicus, who, had they only lived longer, would have been the successors of Augustus instead of Tiberius and, by implication, would have been better emperors!

Caligula didn't add his own name to the coins because that would have spoiled the impression they were intended to give of having been struck long before his accession to the throne. An interesting attempt to rewrite history, or at least to express dissatisfaction with the course it had actually taken!

[HELEN S]

  

 Joe and Curtis I am so amazed that this information can derive from one coin it is just utterly amazing.
 I am still studying the replies and trying to work my way through the theories Of course I have read about die axes but never bothered too much about them. Now I am beginning to realise the significance of them as it can help determine many things oh how much we can actually glean from a coin is amazing.

 I do hope we get some more opinions  or comments. Thank you for your time and expertise. By the way my coin has a die axes of 6h hoping this is correct for this type
  

[Steve Minnoch]

I think this passage has been responsible for a reluctance in the past to assign these issues to Caligula, but it has to be remembered that it was written about 80 years later by an author not necessarily known for his diligence in fact checking when it came to juicy stories.

"He did not wish to be thought the grandson of Agrippa, or called so, because of the latter's humble origin; and he grew very angry if anyone in a speech or a song included Agrippa among the ancestors of the Caesars. He even boasted that his own mother was born in incest, which Augustus had committed with his daughter Julia; and not content with this slur on the memory of Augustus, he forbade the celebration of his victories at Actium and off Sicily by annual festivals, on the ground that they were disastrous and ruinous to the Roman people."

Suetonius, life of Caligula, 23

[HELEN S]

 Thank you Steve for that quote I wonder just how much we can rely on these facts if at all. Very interesting to see the evidence on both sides and it will be up to each individual to decide

[curtislclay]

The facts that Suetonius relates do not sound made up! I would not doubt their truth, although they need not apply to Caligula's whole reign: maybe it only happened once, over a period of several months, that he rejected Agrippa as his grandfather and cancelled the annual celebrations of Agrippa's great victories at Naulochos (3 Sept. 36 BC) and Actium (2 Sept. 31 BC).

My solution eases this problem somewhat by making the Senate responsible, rather than Caligula himself, for deciding to restrike the melted down coins of Tiberius as asses of Agrippa and dupondii of Germanicus, once Caligula had acceded to the senators' request to recall Tiberius' bronze coins.

[Joe Geranio]

And Curtis makes a good point.