Featured The legend (?) of SPONSIANUS

As mentioned above, the methodology is impressive. However, the main argument is quite curious. The authors admit that the forgers knew how to achieve a realistic wear pattern and that there is no way to say how long the coins were buried, but paragraphs later they claim that the wear and burial described above prove that they products of antiquity and dismiss the previous consensus. It seems a bit of a jump.
All the more, since this Sponsianus is not attested by any other source, the coins are not securely dated (the previous consensus was AD 248/249, the authors change it to 260s). The reverse imitates a 135 BC Republican denarius, so the observe could imitate as well an older model (but see below), and the coins could be dated later. From this point of view, the argument for an authentic 3rd century coin is circular.

The paper admits the coins are unusual in some regards, but does not explore what does it mean to the question of their authenticity. There are some details which were not noticed:
- The Dacian mint at Apulum issued bronze coins between ca. AD 246 and 257. Why did the hypothetical usurper not use it (the coins of Pacatianus were struck in Viminacium, of Regalianus in Carnuntum etc.)? Why and how did a Dacian mint use a Republican reverse with a depiction of Columna Minucia and a legend of Caius Minucius Augurinus?
- Why the radiate head on an aureus? See, for example, coins of other usurpers:
https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/imperial-wannabes-the-ancient-coinage-of-roman-usurpers/
- Why the so-called emperor had a servile name? The paper claims that "Only one other instance of it is known, from a first century funerary inscription in Rome which names an obscure individual called Nicodemus Sponsian". That's not quite true. The name is recorded on three funerary inscriptions from Rome, all of them slaves or freedmen. In any case, the hypothetical forger needed not to know the inscriptions, because he could have easily derived the name from Latin words such as spons "(free) will", sponsio "promise", just as the masters of these slaves did. Obviously, if this were the case, he did not know that his made-up name would eventually turn up in inscriptions.
In my opinion, such details allow for the hypothesis of a forger, someone not very knowledgeable in Roman history and numismatics, using a fabricated name and combining elements from different coins he knew (probably misreading C AVG for Caesar Augustus).

The article concludes "We suggest that Sponsian may have been the commanding officer (dux) of these legions and the combined forces of Dacia, and that he led a secessionist regime within a time window extending from 260 to the mid-270s at a time when most of the rest of the empire was wracked by civil war and collapsed frontiers, and secure communication with Rome was impossible. " That seems problematic. Some vexillationes from these legions were certainly relocated during the reign of Gallienus: some inscriptions at Poetovio in Pannonia were set up by the commander of the two legions, a certain Flavius Aper, who was probably accompanied by soldiers. More soldiers from the Dacian legions are attested in north western Italy in this period, some of them being mentioned as killed in action. The soldiers must also be paid: the number of coins/year in Dacia drops under Gallienus, and they tend to concentrate in the south, on the Danube. Many scholars use such evidence to argue that Gallienus used the Dacian units in his campaigns against barbarians raids and usurpers and the Danube became the new frontier. After his death and the short reign of Claudius II, Aurelian created Dacia Aureliana south of the Danube.

 

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Any luck?

 

No destructive tests allowed

 

We can't really respond to long essays but answers to much of this can be found in the paper.

The Apulum mint was closed down by 260 and, presumably, the staff had moved out. Hence we suggest insteadthe coins were made by artisan jewellers which could explain the casting and other anomalies. We emphasize that this is all hypothesis, trying to explain the many anomalies, especially the central puzzle of why these coins are so deeply worn, and not something we propose as fact. We are glad it is generating discussion and alternative views, that way we move forward.

Yes vexilations were moved all over but the historical sources, such as they are, say the legions were relocated south of Danube by Aurelian in 270s so would have been in Dacia up to that time, even though seemingly cut off from external money supply sometime in the 260s.

 

I promised to try to respond but here are lots of questions.

So 1 - different batches of refined metal, not necessarily different mines
2 - yes, it is deeply ingrained with the cracked metal surface on some coins (see Fig 5)
3- I don't understand the question, sorry. There is only one known pair of hubs for each design type
4 - we mean incomplete filling of fine detail e.g. along the spear in Fig 5 of the paper. I'm not sure what you mean of a filling line but clean up irregularities may account for it.

 

Several posts have mentioned 'barbarous' gold. Of course these can be called that, as they are certainly unlike the beautiful Roman aurei we all admire and wish we could afford. But apart from the term being a somewhat perjorative term, they are not very similar to any other known 'barbarous' coins we know of, especially in weight, being mostly thick objects > 10 g and up to 22 g in one case. So categorizing them with all those others may be misleading and hide their significance. Unless some of you know of other big heavy cast objects like this?

 

The paper is about testing the idea they are 1700s fakes as thought by the few people who have considered from Cohen to Bursche. We are convinced not, based on the condition, especially earthen deposits. You are right they don't prove Sponsian existed - it couldbe a random collection of letters - but we think a hypothetical Sponsian in Dacia in the 260s-early 270s would explain various enigmatic features. It is a hypothesis and labeled as such.

 

Yes that is what we say on p. 2 - likley the work of a single engraver

 

We did refer to some leading recent papers on 'barbarous' gold by Horsnaes and Myzgin - there is no close comparison in our opinion, especially in matter of weight, but we stand to be corrected

 

The prevailing view has been these coins are 1700s fakes. The most recent published account was by Bursche (see refernces in paper) and my understanding from corresponding with leading specialists on 'barbarous' gold from early on while doing this research is that this remains the prevailing view, and also that they are unlike other 'barbarous' gold. I already answered that these are not like 'barabarous' gold in weight, style, etc. You are welcome to your view but we do not accept it is a fundamental problem.

Nor can we easily control the media, beyond what we say, where nuance and uncertainty rarely get conveyed.

There's a lot else here. We discussed all that about IMP and so on in the paper and many times with interviews. Answering why just IMP is speculation but my guess is the engraver didn't have room - these are very poorly made objects.

Sponsian is not in the Historia Augusta and so presumably wasn't known in Rome at the time it was written.

There are no personal convictions, just a hypothesis that attempts to cover all the facts about these very challenging coins!

 

We really appreciate everyone who is interested in this topic and the eagle-eyed might notice that in the paper we acknowledged anonymous contributors on cointalk!

 

Please, you are a scientist,

density of Gold 19.3
density of silver 10.5
density of copper 8.9

according with your results,

Gordian 2.77% silver 0.54% copper (higly purified for the sponsian serie)
Philip around 5% silver and 0.5% copper
Sponsianus 3.83% silver and 3.39% copper

so they managed to maintain the separation of gold and silver but they did not know how to remove the copper which is nevertheless lighter and therefore easier to separate?

do you seriouly believe in your theory or are you looking for answers at all costs in the hope that it will help sell your book?

doing moulds with 1 matrix give always the same mould, (see Hollard 2001)

on the so called Sponsianus serie all coins from same type have different shape so they are comming from different moulds and moulds have been made on different matrix

just do the test press 1 coin or one seal in modeling clay 5 times, you will get 5 times exactly the same mark. and if you try to cast sometsohing in those marks you will get 5 times the same cast item. but here with 1 matrix we have always different "coins".

Left Glasgow, middle Paris, right Vienna


Ancient forger had no interest to work on shapes like thisn only modern faker have interest to do it.

so the question is how do you explain the various shapes for "coins" of same type ?

you so never saw the clay moulds for coins or you didn't understood how they have been used. I will help you with the picture of the one in my collection



those are not placed horizontally but vertically to be filled




the round hole where the worker is filling the mould on this picture is the cut between 11 and 2 O'clock on my mould so totally filled mould give compleet tokens, partially filled mould give partial tokens

 

That is a good point about the flan sizes on the Gordian coins.

 

The discussion here was interesting for many collector because it was RESPECTFUL even if we do not share same opinion. The cheap personal attack you wrote show us what kind of person you are briac. A very skilled numismatist but a very little human being with the ones who don’t share your views. If that is the way you behave here, maybe you should think apologizing or not come back to this forum.
Ricardo

 

@Nefarius Purpus, I think the argument of the name being an attested Latin name is very strong. However, I do wish you could present some kind of hypothesis on why it is cast, when that just isn’t what we would expect.

Is there any possibility that the mould adhesions could have remained attached to the coin from when the metal blank was cast? I know that you cited the surfaces as well, but I’m just trying to find any convincing way of explaining it.

 

Over at NF a member shared two potential cast gold imitations from that region. The second one is definitely cast. The problem with the casts is that the Gordian coins all have different flan sizes. Why would that be? I’d think makin a mold would be fairly regular if using the same source, but perhaps not, since these are very poorly constructed in general.

 

I agree 100%. The amount of people angry that Paul and his colleagues are offering a theory (the horror!) is ridiculous. This is a great opportunity to highlight some of the amazing things the study of numismatics can do—even if we ultimately disprove Sponsian’s existence. As I’ve said before, any competent critic is welcome to submit a rebuttal to Koinon and I will find a qualified reviewer within a few days.

 

I too regret to see that Paul has been basically chased out of the discussion. This hostility is misplaced and really does nothing but discourage dissent. Remember that we all learn far more out of opinions that we disagree with than just going with the prevailing current. I wrote a broadly similar paper on this subject a few years ago and am, I believe, in a position to fully appreciate the amount of work and overall professionalism that went into this study. I think most of us can at the very least concede that this was far from some half-assed weekend effort.

On the other hand, I also regret that this news has spread so fast and uncritically. I'd expect this of Newsweek or The Sun but the BC and The New York Times? Honestly, that's left me pretty shaken in a "the rush to print content really has taken a toll on journalism" sort of manner. Still to be seen is what repercussions this will have, if any. It should be upsetting to all of us if history books are rewritten on this accout. None of this, again, is Paul's fault. He had a hunch and used the best science available to him to prove it.

Rasiel

 

I agree that ad hominem attacks have no place in this discussion.

Would the authors/museum allow the coins to be sent to another institution for independent analysis? Unless there were glaring scientific errors (which I don't see in this case) a rebuttal would be on similarly shaky ground without new data.