Not a book review

This is not a book review because I am not as huge a fan of Roman Republicans as so many of the CT family so my opinions would certainly run afoul somewhere along the way. What I would like is to start a discussion of these books and hear what those of you who do love the Republic think about them. I know there are some who can not accept any theory that goes against Crawford and Harlan do that here and there. Usually I see his opinions as well supported but, again, I have not studied what has come to light since Crawford to a point that I am entitled to a opinion.

For those perhaps less experienced in Roman Republicans than I:

Michael Harlan has two volumes Roman Republican Moneyers and their Coins each covering a period of interest in the 1st century BC. The first (1995) volume covered the more recent period (63-49 BC) and was updated in 2015 making it both the first and the most recent with the earlier (81-64 BC) published in 2012 between the two. I have not seen the original edition of the later book. Don't pay extra for the old version; buy the 2015 one.

The books address the subject reviewing the issues of a moneyer in a chapter covering his single or multiple issues. There is a lot of material that will help beginners understand the offices held that involved issuing coins and why some of our coins are more linked to history than others. For example there are two chapters in the 63-49 book explaining on of our Coin Talk favorites (based on the number of us that own one) issued in 58 BC jointly by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus and Publius Plautius Hypsanus.

It takes two chapters since each side of the coin was the responsibility of a different moneyer (in this case Curile Aedile) both of whom are fine examples of wealthy Republicans for whom I can not manage the least sympathy for how things turned out. If you are one who regards the Republic as a prime example of how governments should be run, you might not want to know the whole stories here.

Another interesting section covers the popular Caesar issue with elephant trampling a snake. If you believe the elephant represents Caesar, you might want to read Harlan (also in the 63-49 volume) and see if you are convinced.

I ask, then, that you Republican specialists post your thoughts on these books. Those who have not read them, should. Whether you agree with every detail in every chapter is not important; a student of the period covered needs to read and understand this material. Those of you who are looking for heroes to worship might find them scattered in the Republican period just as you can in the Imperial days.

 

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Merry holidays, Mentor ... sadly, I don't have either of those cool books

Is there a DVD version?



... just jokes

Oh, but I did receive a cool book from Gandalf during our Xmas Santa thingy (I'll have to dust-off my glasses and get busy!!) ... books rock (I love the "look" of 'em)

 

I know Republican coinage is something I've been wanting to get into. Hopefully the specialists will chime in.

 

I should have mentioned that these two books do not cover anything like all of the Republican coinage and there never will be similar coverage of the whole subject. The times of Sulla through the Imperatorials are considerably better represented in the literature than the centuries before. It is like trying to find information on some emperors that ruled when no one was writing histories.

If the specialists don't chime in here, consider buying Harlan just on my suggestion. $75 will buy both. If you don't like Republicans at all, what book are you considering?

 

I bought 81-64 earlier in the year and read it through several times - it's a very engaging analysis of the various types. Time to get the next one!

 

I don't have either book but this thread has me interested

 

I have read both volumes closely and enjoyed them a great deal. Harlan is interested in dating Republican coin types and to that end he explains the histories of the moneyers and what was going on in the Republic and how they might mesh. His theories don't quite fit all the evidence, but this is true of the theories of every other author who has attempted to put Republican coins on a timeline. You can see some of the types of evidence authors consider on my two pages:

http://esty.ancients.info/Repub/TimelineTable.html

Harlan's books are both good reads and the fact there are some disputable dates should not put you off. Keep in mind that Crawford was written in 1973 and clearly needs updating, but no one has managed to put the all the types on a timeline that fits all the evidence. But the quest is very interesting and Harlan's work is part of that.

 

I'll admit that I am not intimately familiar with Roman history. Is there a particular reason he chose those dates to start and end the book's coverage? They seem like random dates to me.

 

49 BC is the beginning of the so-called "imperatorial" period (Caesar crossed the Rubicon) and the problem of identifying unknown moneyers and their dates largely disappears. The coins are mostly related to famous individuals and the history of the Republic is so much more thorough that the problem of dating coins after 49 is not so hard.

Harlan says the block of 30 moneyers which he puts in 63-49 has more history attached to them than the ten moneyers just before them, who were unknown to history other than on coins. Also, the cursus honorum established by Sulla in 81 was mostly being followed, so that helped with dating. Also, the Mesagne hoard closed about 58 BC, which required many of Crawford's dates to be changed and allowed (required) reconsideration of the time period after the unknown moneyers and before the imperators. That was the first book.

After further years of study, he attempted to date the difficult group of moneyers from the Sullan reform to 63. That is book 2. Book 2 has better photographs. Seaby made book 1 (63-49 BC) have life-sized photos, which are pretty small when you are really studying the details of a coin, and some show only the one side (I hate seeing only one side of a coin). Book 2, which I think he self-published, is very attractive with all photos enlarged and all two-sided.

 

The new edition corrects the image problems with the original 63-49 book and adds/updates material.

 

I'm sorry this thread flopped so hard with the CT posters who specialize in Republicans. I find it hard to believe so few have an opinion on the books.

I have been reorganizing my numbering system for coins in my collection making more categories and freeing up numbers where needed. My old system broke the files into folders RA for Republican, RE for Imperial before 193, RS for 193-217 (I have a lot of them) and RX for coins starting with Macrinus. Since I started that system, I have added a lot more RX coins than fits so I was separating them into 12 codes. I am thinking I should do the same for Republicans but it is harder to break them into neat little Groups. Harlan makes a case for a separation at 81 and 49 but I still am having trouble with some details of the decision. Imperatorial seems like a neat group but what does one do with coins like the Mussidius below that are later than many Imperatorials but really seem like old fashioned Republicans. I'm now considering a pre-Sulla group, later Republicans group and the obvious Imperatorials. There is also the question on whether it is sensible to have a separate group for Aes since so many I have are harder to associate with a person or date with any certainty. I'm trying to develop a catalog that will make ense to me for the duration without having to redo it periodically. I'm starting with the late Roman separations and we will see how that goes before committing. I do see a natural break with Sulla which Harlan pointed out well but that might be because I do not know enough about the whole subject to see the problems with it.

 

Well, we are living in an age where most dont wish to own books as they have much information so free on the internet. Even before the internet many would fight hard against owning books as many felt why spend $100 (or any amount) on a book when I can just buy more coins? Sure, we can look up a coin and get a reference number, but it doesnt give any of the details. Many are losing out on such great information and they will never know it if they dont buy books. I have always advocated buying books even at the risk of losing sales. I dont think this will change much, and assume it will only get worse.

 

Where do you guys buy these numismatic books? Is there any site dedicated to selling them??

 

@dougsmit Missed this post, no comment only because I did not see the post. The half-life of posts on CoinTalk is about like Sodium-24, half a day.
I have the first one, 63 - 49 BC, and have quoted it here at times. I read over half of the book straight through. I skimmed the rest and read the chapter on coins I buy in that period. Most of the time, I see no new info, but the read is interesting.

I did not realize the second book covered a different time period. I bought the second book today.

My bookshelf includes about 20 books. Crawford is at the top of the list, but is not the only book I use. My favorite is Grueber, BMCRR.

I collection in a spreadsheet. I sort it by Crawford's date / number. The spreadsheet uses the "best guess" data for most coins. The biggest change being due to the Mesagne Hoard which re-dated several coins.

My current collecting focus is cast RR Central Italy, or much older. There are fewer books covering this period. Dating for these is also much less precise. The books I do not have are expensive, or in another language (or both).

 

I unfortunately haven't read Harlan yet but they've been on the short list for a while and your post prompted me to finally go and buy both volumes. I will be sure to share my thoughts when I've had time to read through and digest them.

 

The Vcoins seller Charles Davis is a good one to buy from. I've found many specialist books in his store and he usually ships quickly.

 

I haven't really had much time to spend on CT. I have these books but I've only spot read on certain coins and the books have been in a less convenient area in my library. I pulled them down and will spend some time with them. My library & study focus is on easily accessing provenance hunting and identification, not history.

Charles Davis: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/charles_davis-44/ancient-coins/Default.aspx?#!/Home

Kolbe & Fanning (more antiquarian/collectable literature): https://www.numislit.com

Forvm: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/catalog/roman-and-greek-coins.asp?vpar=1834&pos=0#Roman-Books

ANE: https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/ancient_numismatic_enterprise-9/ancient-coins/Default.aspx?

 

Thanks guys.

 

As a very minor ancient-coin bookseller, I can testify that the demand for books has dropped dramatically in the last five-ten years. I used to sell auction catalogs by firm. I made an educational site:
http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/
so collectors could see what was in catalogs and whether it might have some special emphasis that made it desirable to them. Later it was obvious that very few people cared, but some still desired catalogs that emphasized whatever they collected, so I created new pages with them organized by collecting theme:
http://esty.ancients.info/catalogs/Themes.html
That was not my top priority project so it languished, far from complete, when I realized it should include the major books and even relevant articles. I began to add those in, but very slowly. I quit adding in sale catalogs because no one seemed to care.

Collectors used to love their libraries. A decade ago some collectors wanted to fill out their runs from firms they liked. That goal disappeared more than five years ago. Some still wanted the best theme catalogs. That is almost totally gone. For example, Berk and Victor England (now CNG) jointly put on an amazing sale of Byzantine AE which was then reprinted in hardcover. If you collect Byzantine AE, wouldn't you like a hardcover reference of top AE coins with real prices realized? The answer appears to be "No."
I hyped it like this on my site:

http://augustusmath.hypermart.net/numislit.html

"Byzantine! Catalog: Berk-England auction sale of Dec. 7, 1989. *New* hardcover copy of the best modern sale for Byzantine AE. It had 368 outstanding Byzantine AE, with a few photographed in color and many with enlargements. To give you an idea of the quality and rarity, 20 lots realized $1000 or more! That's for copper! The emphasis is very strongly on early pieces -- there are only 34 pieces after AD 944. 61 pages. Excellent photos. If you collect Byzantine copper, see what you can aspire to. New, hardcover ."

I have been asking $8 postage included in the US and that description has not produced a sale in months.

So, I rearranged my sale site to be organized by collecting theme (books and catalogs together) and gave away many catalogs that had no identifiable emphasis that made them special (since no one was wanting them to fill out a run and they never sold).

As for books, the major references still sell. I could sell Crawford easily at a strong price. I could sell Price's book on Alexander the Great coins easily at full price. For Byzantine, Dumbarton Oaks will sell if priced at a good discount below Amazon. But, I still have copy of Grierson, "Byzantine Coins" and that is the best one-volume work on the subject. On this forum someone recommended for beginners "Collecting Greek Coins" by John Anthony and I thought, "I wonder if someone will order my copy" (seeing as it is priced below elsewhere). No.

We can glibly explain the lack of interest in ancient-coin books by saying so much information is available on the web that you can just look stuff up. True. You can get an ID number on the web. Sometimes posters here will include lots of information and they have done quit a bit of research (usually on the web). So, it is fair to say the need for books for information about individual coins has dropped significantly.

However, it is also true that attention spans have dropped and the desire to sit down and really understand something complicated (say, Byzantine AE coins) has dropped with them. A book like Grierson's which used to be the normal way to learn about Byzantine coins (as opposed to merely IDing them) has been replaced by many websites which taken together do not yield a coherent image of the subject. Academic level understanding is hard work in a way that surfing the web is not. I surf the web a lot, but I know it does not add much knowledge compared to seriously reading the right book (I have, and have read, the right book, so I know).

Before this wonderful forum existed, I wrote a website about becoming an ancient-coin collector. This page o it:
http://esty.ancients.info/numis/learnmore.html
had advice about how to learn more. I have not fully revised it, so it probably has too much emphasis on books for current tastes.

Coin collecting is not a necessity, it is optional. You can enjoy it. Enjoyment is magnified by the interest of the coins, and the interest is dependent upon your knowledge. You can be proud of what you know which makes some coin you buy interesting. (For some US coin collectors, interesting means "high grade" or "expensive" and they don't get far beyond that. If they do, they may turn to collecting ancient coins). It starts out, I think, "This is very old!" and moves along from there. It follows that the more you know, the more interest coins have, and the more you enjoy the subject and hobby.

For me, money spent on books has been well-spent. Books are a "force multiplier" that makes all the money spent on coins worth more in terms of pleasure and buying acumen. Maybe I am too old-school, but it is a bit sad that so many collectors know so little about the series they claim to collect. Make a New Year's resolution to learn more at a deeper level and you will not regret it.

 

Books rock