Got this lil jewel in!..i'm so proud of it imma make a thread for it ^^(@Roman Collector )..the seller misidentified it and i won it with a $20.00 bid, so it prolly rates as the deal of the week(for me anyway).. The moneyer believed himself and his gens (family) to be descended from the 4th king of Rome, Ancus Marcius(642-617BC) so used his likeness on this coins obverse with the reverse showing an equestarian statue on an aqueduct. SHOW YOUR COINS, DEALS, COMMENTs &/OR ANYTHING YOU FEEL IS RELEVANT L. Marcius Phillipus denarius, 56BC 21mm,3.27gms
Twenty dollars is a good price. Congrats. I only paid about double what you did for this example: L MARCUS PHILIPPUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS MARCIA AR Denarius OBVERSE: Diademed head of Ancus Marcius right, lituus hehind, ANCVS below REVERSE: Equestrian statue right on an arcade of five arches; flower below horse, AQVA MAR between arches, PHILLIVS behind Rome 56 BC 3.06g Cr425/1, Marcia 28, Syd 919
Nice grab! Fun fact - Philippus was actually Octavian's stepfather! When it is said that Augustus enjoyed giving coins, including "coins of the old kings" for Saturnalia, I can't help but imagine that this is one of the coins being alluded to - certainly would have had a personal connection for him! Here's mine; cost me a lot more than $20!
A good deal for $20. This was £109.15 in 2018 (£85 hammer price, plus £16.58 premium, plus £3.32 VAT on premium and the rest was 5% import duty on the hammer price). Cr. 425/1, 4.01g/18mm/0h: I also have this one, which came in a group lot in 2010 ($70.40). Cr 425/1, 3.8g, ?mm, 0h: ATB, Aidan.
EXCELLENT deal, @ominus1 ! CONGRATS. I have always wanted to get one, as it is a cool reverse. And, yeah descendant from a Roman King? nice.
Oh yeah! I was watching that one on eBay and thought it was a good deal too. Since I already had one, I did not go for it - glad to see it went to a good home. I liked the odd flan on it. This was one of the first ancients I ever bought, September 1987 for $25.00: Roman Republic Denarius L. Marcius Philippus (56 B.C.) Diademed head of Ancus Marcius right, lituus left; below, ANCVS / Equestrian statue right on arcade of five arches, inscription within, AQVA MR; on l., PHILIPPVS Crawford 425/1; RRC 919. (3.77 grams / 16 mm)
...great minds....(and bottom feeders)..i reckon you also noticed they listed it as a Dioscuri coin too......
Not a rare coin, but very appealing reverse type, nice score. Got mine decades ago... L. Marcius Philippus, denarius - Rome mint, 56 BC [ANCVS] Head of Ancus Marcius right, lituus behind him PHILIPVS AQUA MAR, Equestrian statue above a five arch aqueduct 3.66 gr Ref : RCV #382, RSC, Marcia # 28 Q
Yeah - eBay unattributed or wrongly-attributed ancients have become one of my favorite "hunting grounds." You can get some real bargains that way. Bottom Feeders of the World Unite! (Unless we start out-bidding each other ) Just curious - did you get a weight on that yet?
These are all extremely nice examples. And @ominus1, I can't believe you were able to get yours for only $20! This type is actually one of the two Roman Republican coins I ordered that I'm still waiting for, to decide if I want to put them on my top 10 list. Not the one that went from Spain to Cincinnati (instead of NYC) and then back to Spain, but the other one. Which is also coming from across the Atlantic, so the clock is ticking on whether I actually get it before the end of December. And now that I've named it, I've probably jinxed that possibility! In fact, the moneyer, Lucius Marcius Philippus (IIIVIR in 56 BCE, suffect consul in 38) was Octavian's stepbrother. It was his father, also named Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul in 56), who was Octavian's stepfather by virtue of marrying the widow Atia, the mother of Octavian and the daughter of Julius Caesar's sister Julia and her husband M. Atius Balbus. See Harlan, Michael, Roman Republican Moneyers and their Coins 63 BCE - 49 BCE (2d ed. 2015), Ch. 15 at pp. 122-128. The horseman depicted by the statue atop the Aqua Marcia aqueduct on the reverse was Quintus Marcius Rex (praetor iin 144 BCE), who built that aqueduct. He was a distant cousin of the moneyer, but not actually his ancestor, since Quintus belonged to the Reges branch of the gens Marcia (named after the fourth king of Rome, Ancus Marcius, depicted on the obverse), rather than the moneyer's Philippi branch. The two branches had separated by the end of the third century. Id. So of the two figures the moneyer depicted on this coin, one was not technically his ancestor, and one was his ancestor but his branch of the gens didn't bear the name. Perhaps claiming some ancestral credit he didn't quite merit. (So I've now given away the basic contents of the contemplated footnote that I planned to accompany my example when I receive and post it!)
For $20, that's a good catch! I like this type and am actively looking for a nice example to match my earlier denarius of an ancestor of the moneyer, which apparently inspired the equestrian statue on the later type. This coin was one of my favorite 2019 purchases: Roman Republic, moneyer: L. Philippus, AR denarius, 113-112 BC, Rome mint. Obv: ROMA (heavily ligated); head of Philip V of Macedon r., wearing helmet decorated with goats' horns and skin; below, Φ. Rev: L·PHILIPPVS; equestrian statue: horseman carries laurel- or palm-branch; below horse, flower (?); below, tablet with inscription and crossed X. 19mm, 3.86g. Ref: RRC 293/1. Ex Calgary Coin (2006); ex JB collection; ex AMCC 2, lot 98.
Great buy for 20 bucks with a good clear reverse, I can't remember how much I paid for mine a few years back but I think I got it cheap because it had a dark stain across it, since cleaned up a bit.
When I posted my Top 10 list, consisting entirely of Republican coins, one of them (the Naevius Balbus with the triga) was my Republican coin no. 42. But I never posted no. 41, which also recently arrived (after a lengthy and circuitous voyage from Spain). It didn't quite make my top 10, so I sort of forgot about it until today. Plus I didn't particularly like the dealer's photo, and mine isn't much better: the coin is very shiny in hand, and I'm not good at photographing such coins. (Also, what looks like a discolored patch near the top of the reverse is actually just a shadow, caused by the fact that the coin is quite concave in that area.) With all those caveats, I really do like it. For one thing, it's one of the few examples I've seen where the legend beneath the arches of the aqueduct (including the monogram at the end) is complete. Roman Republic, L. Marcius Philippus, AR Denarius, 56 BCE, Rome Mint. Obv. Diademed head of Ancus Marcius [fourth King of Rome] right, lituus behind, ANCVS below / Rev. The Aqua Marcia aqueduct, represented as an arcade of five arches surmounted by an equestrian statue right [portraying Quintus Marcius Rex, builder of that aqueduct], with horse rearing; flower below horse; PHILIPPVS on left, AQVAMAR [MAR in monogram] within the arches. Crawford 425/1, RSC I Marcia 28, Sydenham 919, Sear RCV I 382 (ill.), Harlan, Michael, Roman Republican Moneyers and their Coins 63 BCE - 49 BCE (2d ed. 2015) (“RRM II”), Ch. 15 at pp. 122-128. 18 mm., 3.92 mm., 7 h.* * The moneyer, Lucius Marcius Philippus (triumvir in 56 BCE, praetor in 44, suffect consul in 38 BCE) was the stepbrother of Gaius Octavius [later Augustus] (age seven at the time of this issue). The moneyer’s father, also named Lucius Marcius Philippus (consul in 56 BCE), was Octavius's stepfather by virtue of marrying the widow Atia, who was the mother of Octavius and Julius Caesar's niece (the daughter of Caesar’s sister Julia and her husband M. Atius Balbus). See Sear RCV I at p.145, Harlan, RRM II at pp. 122, 127-128. The gens Marcia, to which the moneyer belonged, was named after Ancus Marcius, depicted on the obverse -- the legendary fourth king of Rome, who was the founder of that gens, and, therefore, the moneyer’s ancestor. (The lituus probably represents the king's augurship.) Quintus Marcius Rex, the horseman depicted by the equestrian statue atop the Aqua Marcia aqueduct on the reverse, and the builder of that aqueduct in 144 BCE when he was praetor, was a distant cousin of the moneyer. However, he was not actually the moneyer’s ancestor, because Quintus belonged to the Reges branch of the gens Marcia, rather than the moneyer's Philippi branch of that gens. The two branches had separated by the end of the third century. Harlan, RRM II at pp.122-126. See id. for details on the size of the aqueduct and its reputation (according to Pliny) of having the coolest and most healthful waters of all Roman aqueducts. See Pliny, Naturalis Historia, 31.41. Does anyone have any idea what the flower beneath the horse signifies? None of the sources I looked at said anything about it.
I know nothing about the reason for the plant but it does seem this is a candidate for the RR coin owned by more of us than most. From Harlan Berk 1989 for $35.
You might be right. Maybe the L. Plautius Plancus with Medusa on the obverse? Or one of the Calpurnius Piso Frugis, father or son? A minor typo in your description: it's one L and two P's, not the other way round. (I used to get that confused a lot, so I always check.)
