MIHI LIBERTAS NECESSIT-"I must have Liberty". A line from my favorite film and my favorite filmscore by Bernard Herrmann: "Mysterious Island". For me September is Bernard Herrmann month. I have a coin of "Libertas" on the Reverse and it is of course, Claudius II Gothicus. I apologize again for the quality of my photograph-still a work in progress. If one can tell (I hope) from the inscription, as best I can make out is something like: "cojj" something. That is to say looks like a weird type of squiggly "j" and it's repeated. I am very familiar with the Greek alphabet from research on the Wescott & Hort and Septuagint texts and those characters don't appear to me to be Greek. I made a search of WWd's and found Greek inscriptions. This also begs the question to me, did the Romans ever mint coins besides Latin and Greek? Thanks.
It's definitely Latin. Compare with the coin below (from Vcoins) with an obverse legend of IMP C CLAVDIVS AVG and a reverse legend of LIBERT AVG
There are a few Roman Provincial issues from North Africa that include Punic legends, such as this coin I have of Augustus from the city of Sabratha in what is now Libya:
Thank you, gentlemen (I hope that is correct) for your reply. Honestly, I hate to say this, but I think you may both be right. Yes, I believe the Reverse has Latin characters. But in the Obverse at around 7 to 8 o'clock, at least to me, has the same sort of squiggly lines. I Googled "Punic Alphabet" but can't say that I could transliterate something like: "Claudius"? Other than I can say that what I see appears to be, as I said two weird sort of double "j" characters. That would, IF I am right, raise another question then whether or not the ancient mint would have ever used a Punic Die for Obverse and Latin for Reverse. I suppose there is also a third possibility of a fake. I should also say that my eyesight is not that great. My photograph is pretty dismal and the next time I unseal it I'll take another look at it. Thanks again. PS: The actual line is: "Captain, have you seen this letterin'".
I think I should clarify that I do not believe that the OP coin has any Punic (or other non-Latin) inscription. My mention of the Punic Provincial coinage is merely answering the general question of whether Roman-issued coins ever used non-Latin or Greek inscriptions. The last Punic-inscribed North African coins were issued during the reign of Tiberius; after that, the North African mints shut down permanently. There were still occasional issues from Phoenician mints that included a single Phoenician letter in the (reverse) design; the latest that I found in my (quick and non-exhaustive) search was from Trajan, though I may have missed a later issue. But (and I'm quoting David R. Sear's Greek Imperial Coins, the introduction to the section on Claudius II Gothicus): "In this chaotic political environment most of the Greek Imperial mints had ceased to operate, with the exception of Cyzicus and a small group of Pisidian cities. Alexandria, which remained in Roman hands, also continued its large output of debased tetradrachms, as in the later years of Gallienus." So,, no mints were operating in Punic-speaking areas during the reign of Claudius II. I couldn't tell much from our photos, but the obverse inscription seems to be within what I'd expect for normal (Latin) coins of that degraded period, with any oddities likely explained by poor workmanship at the mint rather than use of a (for the time and area) very unusual language.
Look, gentlemen. I deeply appreciate your insight and experience here. I would never have deigned to bother anyone with this if I had any doubts. I have only two "mystery" coins: this one, which is actually the minor of the two and another which I have not posted yet. The inscription (whatever it is) at 7 to 8 o'clock is not Latin. I broke it out again this morning to reexamine it. I noticed it right off while cleaning. Does not have the usual "IMP", "AUG", stuff. Possibly it is cut off. Maybe it is some kind of mint mark, which I doubt. The coin is about 17 mm long, oblong and when I got it, covered in very thick black sooty lacquer. Which in a lot of cases indicates that the dealer has something to hide. It took about three days of scrubbing to remove. There is obvious damage in spots in the reverse. And about the the reverse, as I checked other versions (as in the first example cited above), LIBERTAS is rather clearly spelled out. My coin has basically one "R" it seems. Perhaps there was once a letter where the damage is. Looking under higher power-there seems to be a couple of mint marks and maybe even odder some very miniature letters at the nape of the neck. I thank you once again and it only has raised my cuiosity to the point where I might consider sending it out sometime and have them take a look at it.
Even with the blurred photos provided, it is plain to the experienced eye that the legends are the same as the coin offered by Victor_Clark (with the exception of the X in reverse field). The first Roman coins I acquired as a teenager in the early '70s were antoniniani of this same period in similarly poor condition. I convinced myself at the time that the inscriptions were "Russian". Later, I learned better.
