I posted how that AV aureus from Trajan Decius "vanished" on route from CNG office to my former address. Well, that same reverse came up in Gorny & Mosch auction, I was over my budget with Lucilla, but could not resist the temptation. It went really cheap to! AR Antonianus 4.50g./ 22mm. Rome Mint struck 251AD Trajan Decius 249-51AD st.
panzerdawg => apparently you're a big fan of cool flow-lines (so am I) => yup, that's another sweet OP-addition (congrats) Here is only Trajan Decius example ... AR Tetradrachm
Love that Tetradrachm reverse/ great coin Steve. You may have just inspired me to get into those too! Thanks!
Sweet @panzerman . I love your new coin. All I have is this humble example with Dacia on the reverse.
Doug....thats amazing, on mine it looks like he is riding a pony, yours more like he is on a "Percheron" horse. That is one of the many reasons, this hobby is so great. And always learn more about ancients, since I am a novice, most of my collection is from 1200AD to prsesent day. Trajan Decius is probably one of the easiest to ID emperors.
Maybe, but your horse is more realistic in terms of size. Roman horses were rather small in comparison to modern horses...almost pony sized. It wasn't until the medieval period that we start to see breeding for larger sizes.
Made sense, since during Medieval Era, both the horse and rider were covered with chainmail/armour making it essential that the horses became larger, able to carry the heavier weight.
See this museum display and compare the size of a Roman horse relative to its rider, and then to the one on your coin. To give you an even better idea of size, that Roman is roughly 5'5 to 5'6 (average size of an ancient Roman male). Those Roman horses would today be consider d nothing but cute ponies for little girls to ride on...but the Romans made due with them just fine. You can see the same with the famous equastrian statue of Marcus Aurelius...small horse compared to our huge modern horses.