Render unto Caesar....

Very nice example, @Pishpash!

Does anyone know to which groups the two below belong?



Tiberius. AD 14-37. AR Denarius (17 mm, 3.2 g). TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS, laureate head right; one ribbon on shoulder. / PONTIF MAXIM, Livia (as Pax) seated right on chair, holding scepter in right hand and olive branch in left, ornate chair legs.




Tiberius, 14-37. Denarius (Silver, 19 mm, 3.87 g, 10 h), Lugdunum. TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS Laureate head of Tiberius to right / PONTIF MAXIM Livia (as Pax) seated right on a chair with ornamented legs, holding scepter in her right hand and olive branch in her left. BMC 48. Cohen 16. RIC 30.

 

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Congrats, one of the nicest I have seen.

 

Very nice type @Pishpash, a lovely coin! Here's my not-so-lovely specimen:

 

Congrats, Pish, that is an excellent example.

TIBERIUS
AR Denarius. 3.74g, 18.6mm. Lugdunum (Lyon) mint, circa AD 18-35 (Group 4). RIC 30; Lyon 150. O: TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS, laureate head right; one ribbon on shoulder. R: PONTIF MAXIM, 'Livia as Pax' seated right on chair with ornate legs, holding sceptre and olive branch; feet on footstool; single line below.

 

The OP Tribute Penny is just amazing and all the examples are very nice !

After having read this thread, I don't know if I got the right group for mine. Can someone please help me attribute it correctly?

My reasoning: It is not group 1 or 2 because on these there is no footstool and no base under throne. Mine has a low footstool and a single line under the throne. Doesn't seem to be 5 or 6 either because on these Pax has always a scepter and mine has a spear and Tiberius doesn't look so old.
On Group 4 Pax usually holds a scepter, rarely a reversed spear. So I am using group 4

17 x 16 mm; 3.458 g

Ob.: TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS Head of Tiberius, laureate, one ribbon on shoulder, r.
Rev.: PONTIF MAXIM Livia (as Pax) seated r., holding reversed spear and olive branch, feet on low footstool; ornate simplified chair legs, single line under throne

Is the attribution RIC I Tiberius 30 C; Giard Lyon, group 4, 149 correct?

​

 

Specialists care about chair legs but I wish my lowly examples had better portraits. My first has quite a forehead.

Next is the pinched mouth.

Of my coins, the fourree has the finest portrait but it may look a bit too much like Augustus to be considered a true representation of Tiberius.

Of course the Indian copy abandoned photo realism in favor of trying to capture the true (lack of) personality of the man. The obverse legend suggests the die cutter only had one coin to copy and did not know what was lost (TI CAES) at the start. He did, however, take care to represent the down-arrow chair legs.

 

@Pishpash great score. I've always found @Sallent's tribute penny to be fabulous. It's found the good home it deserves I think


Tiberius, Denarius - Lyon mint, after AD 15-16
TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGUSTUS, Laureate head of Tiberius right
PONTIF MAXIM, Woman seated right (Livia ?)
3.71 gr
Ref : RIC # 30, RCV #1763, Cohen #16

Q

 

Super nice one @Cucumbor

 

...Circling back to the "Caesar" issue, there are similar anachronisms in both the Old and New Testaments, where the title is used as if it was the name. In Exodus, the construct traditionally gets translated "Pharaoh King of Egypt" (even though the ensuing Hebrew kingdoms had interaction with later pharoahs at least as late as the 25th Dynasty). In the book of Acts, the apostle Philip runs into an official of "Candace Queen of Ethiopia." Here the anachronism is doubled; "Candace" is the title, 'Queen,' and the kingdom in question is Meroe, in modern Sudan.
...In that instance, "Ethiopia" comes directly from the Greek, and it was in fact the original term for the ancient Sudan. In these other contexts, how much this sort of thing has to do with the original texts, and how much with translation (conspicuously as of the early 17th century), I could only speculate.

 

learning a lot in this thread. My personal opinion is that the 30 pieces of silver was made up of any old silver coins that were around at the time....

 

Agreed

Q

 

The only silver coins readily available to the temple priests would have been shekels and half-shekels of Tyre, being the only silver coins acceptable for payment of the temple tax. The original Greek is simply "thirty silver [ones]".

I didn't go very far in classical Greek as a university student but it was enough to struggle through the New Testament. Fortunately for me, several of the NT authors were struggling with Greek as well.

 

Shrewd closing observation! Languages are an endless fascination --starting with the ones of which I'm clueless. Could the Koine Greek of the New Testament have the same kind of relation to Classical Greek as Medieval to Classical Latin? ...Sounds like it.

 

Wow, Pish! An outstanding example! Congrats

 

Great coin, @Pishpash ! Well done, and just a gorgeous example.

How 'bout I toss a little wood on the fire...

Here is my Tribute Penny, as an alternative...


RI
Augustus
AR Denarius
struck 2 BC-14 CE
Caius and Lucius Caesars stdg shield spear
Sear 1578 NGC4276216-007

 

The first one seems to be group 4 (one can't see if there is a line under the throne, as it is off flan), and the second one seems to be group 6, the ribbons of Tiberius' laurel wreath don't fall over his neck and he appears older and his features are somehow caricaturesque

 

Thanks, @cmezner- I thought the first one was likely group 4 also. It would be easier to analyze if you could see the design under the throne. The second one does fit the "caricature" traits of group 6 coins! I appreciate your assessment.

 

Question: what was the early Germanic term for the denarius in those Germanic languages, such as Ulfilas's early translation of the Bible into Gothic or as Alfred's Anglo Saxon or on the Continent? Considering that the word for penny in modern German is Pfennig I an guessing that speakers of early Germanic languages heard the Latin word denarius as beginning with a P sound and rendered it that way when speaking and writing it.

 

We had a discussion on this about a year ago on this site. There is some evidence, based on archaeological finds in the Holy Land, that Roman denarii were not commonly in circulation circa 30AD. Considering that the Caesarea drachmas of Tiberius looked like and weighed about the same as the denarius (though of a somewhat debased silver), the actual coin may have been one of those but such coins would have been rare in the city of Rome where it is believed that Mark wrote his Gospel for a largely Roman ( in the sense of residents of the city) audience, hence his use of "DENARION" (accusative case) rather than drachma, a denomination not in use in central Italy at this time.

 

Great coins all around.

here are my "tribute pennies" that probable never actually were the the tribute penny...