Coin Talk

Dear Friends of Nikopolis ad Istrum!

Today I have won on Ebay a coin from Nikopolis with a new legend of Caecilius Servilianus. This is the occasion for this article

Nikopolis ad Istrum is special for several reasons. Firstly, it is the provincial mint in the Roman Empire with the most issued types. Why this is so is still unanswered today. In our monograph Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis ad Istrum, 2020, there are already 2676 different types, but this list will certainly have to be extended further.

And then in Nikopolis was the governor Caecilius Servilianus, for whom I have found up to now (2020) 42(!) different name legends. Such a large number of name legends do not exist anywhere else in the Roman Empire. Unfortunately I cannot give a reason for this. The longest name form found so far is KAIKIΛEI CEPBIΛEIANOV, the shortest KAI CEPBIΛ and KAIK CEPBI! Here is the coin with the longest name legend::

The Coin::
Commodus, AD 177-192
AE 29, 11.97g,...

This is a rather long-winded article about buying a new coin. Hopefully it will be worth both writing and reading it. It is about:

I, as in me, a coin collecting nuffsaid from Norway.

Claudius, Emperor of Rome 41-54 AD.

A collection of silver coins from the first 12 Caesars, which this coin from Claudius completes.

Confusion over identifying the correct place where this coin was minted, and an examination of dies.

This is the coin in question:



The very reputable auction house described it as follows:

Denarius 44, AR 19 mm, 3.74 g. [TI] CLAVD CAESAR AVG P M TR P [IIII] Laureate head r. Rev. PACI – [AVGVST]AE Pax-Nemesis, winged, advancing r., holding with l. hand winged caduceus pointing down at snake and holding out fold of drapery below chin with r. C 56. BMC 27. RIC 28. CBN 42.
Old cabinet tone, a small scratch on obverse field, otherwise very fine

Ex Künker 35, 1997, 296 and Hirsch Nachf. 197, 1997,...

If one were to ask the average person to name a dangerous enemy of Rome, the most dangerous enemy Rome ever had, the answer might be in the form of a people or a nation, the Gauls, the Carthaginians, the Parthians or most likely, the Germanic barbarians. Perhaps the name of an individual might be offered, Brennus, Pyrrhus, certainly Hannibal, Arminius, any of several Sappors of Persia, maybe Attila. I would offer this person though, a king difficult to describe or fathom, but one who in his day must have been terrifying to Romans who found themselves in his clutches, namely Mithradates (sometimes spelled with an "I" as Mithridates) Eupator or Mithradates VI, King of Pontus, and for while a lot more than that.

Mithradates Vi was born ca, 132 BC, the son of a Pontic monarch who had any number of children not born of his wife. As such, the young Mithradates had plenty of competition for the throne which meant a good deal of avoiding his murderous relatives (including his mother)...

The past year or so I've had a special interest in coinage surrounding the Punic wars. And with war comes coins that were struck while a foreign power conquered and occupied their enemies' cities and lands. I thought it would be interesting (I've been wanting to do this thread since early April) to walk through some of the coin examples I have when an invading force (in my case, Punic or Roman) overtakes a city and sets up a mint and begins striking and circulating coins.

In 237 BC, in the wake of the 1st Punic War, Hamilcar Barca sought to expand his family's fortune and expand control in the name of Carthage by traveling with his army to the Iberian peninsula, set up base in Gades, and began overtaking Iberian tribes working northward. Hamilcar's son, Hannibal, at just 9 or 10 years old begged to join his father on this campaign. Story has it that before allowing young Hannibal to join him, Hamilcar held his son over a sacrificial chamber with fire burning beneath...

Back in 2010, Italy the State Department to restrict importation of ancient coins from Italy. It's time to renew the agreement with Italy. It's time to make your opinions heard. The last agreement didn't cover Roman Republican and Imperial coins. What Italy wants this time is secret.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee meets in July. You have a chance to submit comments to the Committee via regulations.gov. The deadline for comments is July 8.

Further information about the July 22, 2020 Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) meeting and how to comment before the July 8, 2020 deadline can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/doc...property-advisory-committee-notice-of-meeting The Federal Register notice also has a green "submit a formal comment button" which should allow you to comment directly.

The cumulative impact of import restrictions has been very problematical for collectors since outside of some...

In 414-415 the Visigoths based in Septimania and Aquitaine propped Priscus Attalus in his second usurpation and a local Gallic mint, located probably at Narbonne, started minting imitative siliquae in his name. By 415 though, under the pressure from general Constantius, the Visigoths abandoned him and he was captured by Honorius loyalists and taken to Ravenna. Afterwards, the mint in Septimania -- both Narbonne and Toulouse had been under the control of Athaulf, the King of the Visigoths, since at least 413 -- began issuing in the name of Honorius. The new coinage was the same style of imitative siliqua, of the same overall quality and design. These new siliquae minted in the name of Honorius are part of the "Gaul series" (RIC X p. 451) which means they must be connected with those minted for Attalus and are part of a cohesive coinage. The exergue of pseudo-Ravenna might have originated in 410 with Alaric's invasion of Italy (cf. DOC p. 223) and was used from...

Portrait Coins depicting Caesars and Augusti who campaigned in Britain.

* All images formatted by @furryfrog02


Four Augusti died in Britain:

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS - at Eboracum (York), AD 211, while campaigning in the north.

CARAUSIUS - in southern Britain, AD 293, assassinated by his Chief Minister, Allectus.

ALLECTUS - in southern Britain, AD 296, killed in battle with the invading force of Constantius.

CONSTANTIUS (Chlorus) - at Eboracum (York), AD 306, while campaigning in the north.


Julius Caesar:

In 55 BC Julius Caesar became the first Roman Imperator to set foot in Britain. He fought skirmishes with local Chieftains in the south east of the country eventually departing Britain later that year to resume his campaign in Gaul. He returned in early 54 BC and successfully subjugated the Britannic forces only to abandon the campaign later in the year.


Denarius, Crawford,...

Poliorketes is an often forgotten historical figure. Most historians would regard him as a boring historical figure, but by the end of reading this you will start to love him a bit more. He was a historical badass and his coinage reflects those accomplishments. Poliorketes was the second ruler of the Antigonid dynasty. The Antigonid dynasty was a dynasty full of Hellenistic kings who ruled an area of Macedon, after Alexander the Great, from 294-168 BC. The group that split up Alexander’s kingdom were called Diadochi (Διάδοχοι). The Antigonid was one of the four dynasties fought for by other Διάδοχοι that descended from Alexander’s conquered land.

The whole dynasty originates from one of Alexander’s best generals, Antigonus I Monophthalmus. Antigonus attempted to re-claim parts of Asia Minor and Syria. He was defeated by Demitrios I in the battle of Ipsus. The first true ruler of this dynasty was Demitrios I Poliorketes. He won the war against Antigonus and became the leader of...

After a number of diversions in Anatolia, and a bit of an RR drought, this week I added another Roman Republican coin to my collection. My latest RR coin is connected to two of my primary collection themes, Sulla and the rivalry between Parthia and Rome.

The Sulla Connections (or Romans v. Romans)
Marcus Licinius Crassus escaped when his brother and father were killed as Marius returned to Rome after Sulla went off to fight Mithridates. He then played a key role in Sulla’s return and victory at the Colline Gate. [See Plutarch Crassus 6.6] At this time the seeds were also sown for his rivalry with Pompey, a younger man of less noble birth who served Sulla well as a ruthless warlord. [See...

Inspired by the very smart and inquisitive posts of @DonnaML regarding the family of Constantine the Great, I have decided to add a new thread to the theme.

Most of us who dwell on the Late Empire have noticed that the dates assigned to some coinages in RIC VII to X are too general or even added just as the generic dates of a reign -- "c. 310-313," "340-350" or "383-388."

Others seem to be wrong when compared to newer insights and research in the history of the era. For instance in 1966, the common wisdom (based on Alfoldi) was that Helena, Constantine's mother, died after 330, perhaps not as late as 335 to 337 as it had been considered by Otto Seeck for instance, but sometime between 330 and 333. As a matter of fact, Alexandria is shown to have a pause in any and all mintage between 330 (the last issue for Helena according to RIC) and 333 (the introduction of the GLORIA EXERCITVS soldiers and standards type).

The last coinage from Alexandria assigned to...