12 Caesars: Vespasian

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Some spectacular coins everyone.

 

Great stuff all

 

The mintmark coins struck between 69 and 74 are from Ephesus. The later 'o' mint coins struck in 76 are likely from Ephesus as well, although that identity is uncertain.

 

This thread got by me, so I am very late to the party. Some really nice looking coins above, and a wealth of material from a popular emperor. Good show everyone!!

Vespasian (71 A.D.)
Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespiasianus
BMCRE 453; RSC 67; RIC 329
Minted in Ephesus




IMP CAESAR VESPAS AVG COS III TR P PP

As a general, Vespasion was often charged to "pacify" disrupted parts of the empire in an after the Civil Wars. In many respects this role continued as emperor, aided by the ministrations of his son, Titus, and so the coinage for Vespasian is considerable, from a number of mints around the empire.

Unlike Tiberius, whose visage on his denarii belie his advanced years (52) when he assumed the purple, busts of Vespasion leave no doubt that he was all of 60 years of age when he was called to the imperial office. Moreover, he held that office for 10 more years, and the coins do not hold back the truth about his appearance. For this reason, distinguishing father and son, despite common naming elements, is generally not a problem.


CONCORDIA AVG
in exergue EPHE (second set ligatured)

Ceres, veiled, draped, seated left on throne, foot on stool, holding two heads of wheat and a poppy extended in right hand, and cornucopia in left.

The detail on the reverse is extraordinary considering that the surface area is 29% smaller than normal. (diameter = 16mm vs 19mm). Nonetheless, I could not help being surprised by how masculine the face of Ceres appears in this rendering. The size of the nose and the strength of the jaw seems unusually large for a woman, in my limited experience. I also found it interesting that the grain represents one of the great necessities of life, but here they are supplemented with a poppy (the round object on a stick). Whatever it takes to keep the people happy, I guess.

Noteworthy too is the use of an abbreviated place name in the exergue to designate the mint. The last two characters are ligatured across the top, and are only similar in appearance to the letters EPE, the middle being more like a Greek letter Phi. There has been some dispute as to whether or not this represents the initial letters of Ephesus.

 

I don't know who who would be disputing this, the modern numismatic consensus is Ephesus.

BTW, superb coin! It's new RIC II.1 1428, frequency 'common'.

 

We have had a lot of different coins but here is one I believe we missed:
FIDES PVBL

 

It seems that CT Ancients has Vespasian well covered. Here is my own modest contribution (RIC 75):

I really need to beef up my Flavians.

 

Thanks for the comment, David. However, I think you put a different spin on my note than was intended. I don't think anyone has disputed that the letters are a marker for the mint at Ephesus. I must confess that I do not own RIC II original edition, but when I wrote my comments I had access to an online version of the original volume. Now I can't get back to it or I could give a good reference. But as I recall the comment, the point at question focused on whether the exergual symbol resembling EPE (with the last two letters ligatured) was composed of the initial letters of the name "Ephesus." If you look carefully in the new edition of vol 2 (which I DO have), that is still left an open question. Two of the exergual symbols used are introduced in V2-1 with the Greek equivalent letters in parentheses. Not so for this symbol. It is left uninterpreted. But that has no bearing on whether or not it is a mint mark for Ephesus.

The problem, I think, comes down to this: the name of the city would normally have been rendered in Greek letters. The outer letters in the symbol will conform to Greek uncial epsilon. But the middle letter is not properly formed for a Greek Phi, which is the right letter for "Ephesus." Instead, the correspondence (in my opinion) may be found by assuming use of the Latin alphabet. I suspect that the ligatured PE combination represents PH-E giving the Latin equivalent EPHE. However, that too is nothing more than a conjecture, and not the sort of thing that writers of references record as "facts." So I merely noted that the subject has had some scholarly consideration (in RIC 2 early) and left it at that.

Thanks too for the affirmation of the coin.

 

Apologies. I got a hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. I thought you were citing others as questioning the mint's location.

 

My Vesps are very poor, specially if compared with all these wonderful coins:

AR denarius, (3.01g, 17.2mm), Rome mint, 71 AD. Obverse IMP CAES VESP AVG P M; reverse AVGVR TRI POT. RIC II 43, part 1.

AR denarius, (2.51g, 17.3mm) , Rome mint, 72 - 73 AD; Observe: IMP CAESAR VESP AVG; reverse CONCORDIA AVGVSTI. RIC II 43.

At least, they have two nice portraits...

 

I missed this thread. Here is mine

 

...and I also have this “beautiful aureus”, struck by Titus in memory to his deceased father:



DIVUS VESPASIAN, posthumous memorial fourrée gold aureus, copying an issue struck by TITUS, 79 AD. DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS, laureate head of Divus Vespasian right. Reverse - S C inscribed on shield supported by two capricorns, orb below. RCV 2569, scarce. 17mm, 3.7g.

I believe that this fourrée must be deceived the people for a bit time.

 

Great coins everyone!
Seller's pics:

 

Vespasian victory on prow

 

Great Vespasian coins all