Roman Principate Giveaway

Welcome to late 3rd century Roman coins!

 

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Heck, I'm to the N'th century (age speaking)........

 

i missed that whole thread, glad i went back and took a look.


welcome to the dark side green18, it's about time you picked up some ancients.

and a classy more sallent! those coins look nice to me, nicely centered, full legends, better grade than many of the coins in my collection (if not most).

 

He is a most wonderful fellow, isn't he?

 

Now, since this is all about "new" ancient coin collectors, some of you knowledgeable gents could go through the attribution process...pretty please...

 

Welcome to the dark side, Green. First you get tempted by one, next thing you know you got a hundred of them.

On a coin like that its pretty easy since its in good shape. Start by typing the legends into google to search. Most likely a top few sites will pop up which is Wildwinds, Forvm and CoinProject. Also by looking at many ancients you can start telling which era the coin is from by the design. Who is on the obverse, reverse usually comes next. And of course read up on the history of when the coin was made, thats the whole fun of it.

 

The first step in the process is to try to find the emperor or empress's name on the obverse inscription. This is often buried in the middle, after some abbreviated titles and names, and before other abbreviated titles and names. In the case of Green 18's coin of Diocletian, the obverse inscription reads:

IMPCCVALDIOCLETIANVSAVG

It is just a matter of noticing the name of an emperor or empress. It helps a lot to read a list of emperor's names so as to familiarize yourself. Some are similar. Don't mistake Constans for Constantine. There are emperors (and empresses) that bear the same name. Tetricus I and Tetricus II, for example. Faustina Sr. and Faustina Jr., and so on.

So, once DIOCLETIANVS is recognized as Diocletian, it's a matter of noting what titles are associated with it.

In this case, it's preceded by IMP, which means "Imperator" (Although translated as "Emperor," it actually means "leader of the army" in Latin).

Then there is a C, which stands for Caesar, a title.

Then there is another C, which is an abbreviation for Diocletian's praenomen, or "first name." Diocletian's praenomen was Caius. Romans always abbreviated their first name (often with a single letter); in fact, this practice indicated Roman citizenship.

VAL is an abbreviation for Diocletian's nomen, Valerius. The nomen is a name carried by all members of an extended family or clan. These names typically end in -ius, -aius, -eius, or -eus.

DIOCLETIANVS is the fellow's cognomen, or "last (or family) name." The Diocletianus family was but one family in the Valerius clan.

Then there follows an abbreviated title, AVG, which is short for Augustus, meaning "revered" in Latin. It means the person has acheived the rank of emperor. Augusta is the title of an empress.

So that's step one. It's essential, because you won't know where to look in a catalog of coins for the particular coin otherwise.

Step 2 to follow; it's getting late.

 

Excellent photos @green18 , glad you are very happy with your coin. Hope it will get you more interested in acquiring other fine ancient coins. Unlike US coins, you could collect 600 or 700 ancients and never repeat the same ruler or exact type. The variety is endless. I think that makes this hobby very fascinating. Welcome to the dark side my coin bro.

 

Wonderful gesture @Sallent ...and they are terrific coins as well.

As 'they' say, 'actions speak louder than words'.....

 

Roman Collector did a fine job of walking you through the legend on the Diocletian. People facing similar questions might benefit from visiting my page where I list and illustrate several popular abbreviations.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/abb.html