Emperors of Rome book with lots of coin errors...

Found this book cheap at the local public library de-accession shelf. A popular history book Emperors of Rome by David Potter (a University of Michigan professor - not responsible for the photos, I hope), first published in 2007. It had lots of pretty pictures, including lots of coins, so I picked it up. But to my surprise, it was riddled with errors, which I thought might amuse the Forum.

On the table of contents page - nope, not Antoninus Pius. This is Caracalla.


Nope, not emperor Tiberius popping out of the cornucopia, rather this is Tiberius Gemellus and Germanicus, Jr. (Gemellus?). Emperor Tiberius was their grandfather, not their uncle, I believe.


Not Geta, rather Severus Alexander



Not Aurelian, but rather Commodus wearing his Hercules hat:


Not Carus, but rather Carinus


Did you know 3rd century Roman inflation was Aurelian's fault? Huh!



Not a coin, but not Otho either. The Renaissance engravers took liberties with emperors' likenesses, but this isn't close.


There were other errors too - and I've only leafed through it! Pretty inexcusable, even for a popular history book.

 

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That is pretty glaring errors.

 

Some of those mistakes are almost excusable, but the Severus Alexander coin!!!!

 

Also Aurelian wasn't emperor until about 200 years after he evidently was bestowed this title... Wow! Talk about prophetic!

 

What's the problem? That could indeed be Antoninus Pius



And the emperor below could definitely be Caracala



Ain't you guys ever heard of a good guy swapping faces with a bad guy in order to fight crime? You youngsters and your lack of knowledge of mediocre 1990s action movies...

 

I am thankful they did not use any of my photos. I'd be ashamed to be associated with the thing. These were not just typos. Is Michigan a center for higher education in Classics?

Trivia: No coin that bears the words Antoninus and Pius adjacent to each other was issued by Antoninus Pius. His legends placed AVG between those two words. Am I correct?

 

..maybe it's a trick book..

 

I thought you guys would be amused and/or appalled. The sad thing is, in this era of Internet sloppiness, a printed book manages to botch it so bad.

Here's the cover dust jacket:



Author's blurb:




Here is one of Trajan's letters to Pliny attributed to Virgil:

 

I think the University of Michigan needs to look at getting a new professor of Greek and Latin studies. This guy looks like he probably graduated from the same school as the Ancient Aliens guy. I'm shocked at the claim that he appears as an expert on Ancient Rome for television history documentaries, yet manages to makes such basic mistakes that anyone here (none of us are experts on Rome) can easily spot a mile away. An expert on Rome has never seen imperial portraits and can't tell the difference between Antoninus Pius and Caracala? Can't he read the Latin inscriptions on the coins and figure out Severus Alexander is not Geta? For crying out loud, he is a Latin professor.

And how can anyone with a degree in Latin Studies confuse Pliny the Younger with Virgil? What an embarrassment.

This might explain it, here is an image of the professor in question:


Professor David Potter

 

Here is a link to his public profile at the University of Michigan.

https://lsa.umich.edu/classics/people/departmental-faculty/dsp.html

I am currently drafting an email to the professor requesting to know how such errors made it into publication. If anyone else wants to email him and ask about the errors in this book, please be polite. He deserves the benefit of the doubt.

 

So I feel like members may be putting the cart before the horse...or is it the feathers before the horse?

My point is authors frequently have no control over illustrations or images added to their work. Publishers exercise that right. Ought not to hang him before actually examining the book other than flipping through and taking pictures of mistakes. Did Potter get anything right? How much was right? Perhaps the text was solid and some editor put in their two cents to fancy the book up?

 

I agree with Jwt708 - from what I understand, authors often don't have much to say about the images/layouts of the finished book. I haven't read the actual book yet - the text might be fine - the images/captions, however, they are pretty bungled. But again, perhaps not the author's fault. Where have all the editors gone?

The book appears to be a UK publication (the dust jacket notes the price "in the UK only" and the publication info is on the back page, not verso the title page as usual.

 

Authors do get galley proofs on which they can mark up any typos and other errors. A lot of these are inexcusable. There's no way a publisher is going to ignore a professor who points out to them an incorrect image or caption.

Someone mentioned Ancient Aliens, but even they have a higher standard than this.

 

Perhaps I'm flattering myself, but I feel good when I discover an error in an ancient coin article or publication. It's a sign that I'm learning something and have acquired some knowledge (much of that knowledge is a result of hanging out on this forum )

 

These are egregious errors and I find it hard to believe that a professor of ancient languages would be so ignorant of numismatics. Surely it isn't the author's doing.

 

I watched this program on YouTube where some dude was talking about coins in the Bible. I had a good chuckle when he showed a picture of an Alexandrian tetradrachm and referred to it as the ‘Tyre of Shekel.’

Erin

 

That is very ”normal” mistake taking into consideration the circumstances I would say.

Often a scholar expert on one field, for example Roman history here, is not necessarily an expert on numismatic coins. So that does not surprise me that David Potter or other roman historians can make such mistakes.

You can pretty much trust David Potter’s historical works, but don’t take his "coin"-part serious.

It is the same with David Sear’s “Byzantine Coins and their values”: I use it to detect and understand byzantine coins, but I don’t (necessarily) trust his descriptions of each emperors’ achievements and life as I would rather rely on other academic sources.

So if that book of “Emperors of Rome” was intended as numismatic handbook, then that would be completely terrible. Why would a Roman scholar write on a topic which is not his scholarly field? – However, if that book was supposed to be a historical handbook, then it would be fine. But perhaps he should consult a numismatic expert next time for his and the readers's own best. Or don't even mention any coins if he doesn't know how to read them.



And I am just curious since I don't colllect Roman coins: why is that first coin not Antonius Pius? I can read “Antoninus Pius”?

 

@Herberto Professor Potter is a professor of Latin Studies, and is a frequent expert on TV documentaries about the Roman Empire. You seriously mean to imply that a professor of Latin Studies and an expert on the Roman Empire could not be able to look at a coin of Caracala and say "That's not Antoninus Pius, that's Caracalla." Come on, anyone with a passing knowledge of Roman history should be able to distinguish Caracalla right away. His portrait is one of the most famous and images of his busts are frequent in history books on the Roman Empire. It's not like he was some obscure emperor.

Not only that, but this guy speaks Latin. Surely he could take two second to read the coin with the clear legend that says Severus Alexander and figure out, "Hey, that's not Geta. As an expert on Imperial Rome, I know Severus Alexander is not the same as Geta. " It's called paying attention to detail before your book gets published.

Overall this book has a lot of little mistakes that lead me to believe Professor Potter didn't really read his final product before it was published to make sure the editors had done a quality job. Professor Potter was probably too busy counting how much money he'd make from book sales after requiring his students to purchase the book for his classes at inflated prices in the college book store. That's probably why his public profile at the University of Michigan doesn't even mention this book. His students probably laughed at it, and the professor would rather forget this experience.

 

And regardless of any numismatics, the date referenced for Aurelian is still ~200 years off.

 

good catch @Marsyas Mike
I bought the book (a couple of times) to offer with an ancient coin in our local coin club auction. I am not sure if I should now. The book looked ok at a glance.