Philip the Arab

I got this nice Antonius of Philip the Arab this week. Its RIC 3, 22 mm, 4.2 grams. Felicitas

 

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Cool addition

 

A very fine denarius indeed: well-struck on both sides. I've got one Philip the Arab provincial to share...

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Nice coin Rip. The Philip I coins that I see available seem to be better struck than many of their counterparts. This one is no exception. Congrats. :thumb:

 

That's a very purdy coin, Ripley ...

:high5:

 

:thumb: Thanks guys. My budget only let me buy bronze, so far this year. However, this one was just too nice to pass up.

 

Very nice Ripley!

 

Ripley, very nice, great details, i have one i will post soon..:thumb:

 

Here's my Philip l..

Philip l ..244 - 249..AD...
Ob..radiate draped cuirassed bust right.
Rev. Felicits standing left..
not sure on mint, going with ..Rome...
22x 24mm x 4.8g..

 

That's another beauty John.:thumb:

 

Nice coin. I still don't have him yet.

 

You know what strikes me about the pre-Tetrarchy portraiture is how uniform it is. There must have been an entire school of die engraving that was taken as seriously as other Roman arts, with master engravers, apprentices, and copious training. Perhaps the masters traveled to various mints to give instruction, perhaps pupils went to a particular school before they were sent out into the world of minting. It's unfortunate that the Romans didn't keep better records of all that, for the sake of numismatic posterity.

How else would you get almost carbon-copy likenesses of Philip from even just the coins illustrated in this thread?

 

John: First, welcome to the third century AD (the century of crisis, chaos, and anarchy in the Roman Empire) where I spend most of my time.

Second, your observation is right, but your conclusion might not be totally correct. Because of the rapid turnover of Emperors in the third century, time constraints and general instability resulted in an almost caricatured portraiture on coins at times.

Here's an interesting insight to the coinage of Maximinus (AD 235-238), for example:

http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?NewsletterNewsArticleID=1810

Good stuff,

guy

 

Thanks Guy! I guess I'm only lamenting the lack of evidence (other than coinage of course) for the Roman die-cutting school. I realize that portraiture underwent many permutations depending on the availability of images. As long as we're in a thread about Philip, I'll post a coin minted after his son, Philip II. The portrait is remarkably similar to the busts of Gordian III, who was also barely a teenager when he assumed the role of Augustus. Perhaps the celators felt Philip II looked enough like Gordian III to warrant recycling the same portrait and shortening the nose a bit...

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But even when the portraiture became generic in the fourth century, there were very distinct and codified styles, pointing to an artistic culture of die-engraving that we have little information about. If you look at any of the barbarous issues, you can see for a fact that the engravers of those dies were completely unschooled in Roman aesthetics.

 

Philly Jr / Nemesis
Philip II

 

Philip I Sestertius
OBV: IMP M IVL PHILIPPVS AVG, laureate and draped bust right
REV: AETERNITAS AVGG, elephant and driver walking left, SC in ex.
Struck at Rome, 247-48 AD
20.6g, 28mm
RIC 161a

 

Check this one : a very rare hybrid sestertius : obv : Philippus II (the son), rev : SAECVLARES type with ... COS III on the cippus. And that, my dear friends, is a rev type of Philippus I, as his son never made his 3rd consulship ! Mine is best of only 3 found on the internet (and reference books, and collection books, and private collections, and public collections aso...). Unfortunately, some dodo had great fun scratching the patina off around the middle 'I', but one can clearly see the bronze underneath, so it is definately not a cut out in the patina to make it look a 'COS III'. It IS a 'COS III'. Let there be no doubts ;-).
Happy to share the extremely rare beauty with my CT friends !

 

Is this a mule?

 

A hybrid or mule... Obv is Ph. II, rev is Ph. I... Only found 2 other coins... Is this the 3rd known ?

 

Great find then my friend.