hello, I bought a Diocletian silver coin called an Aurelianus by the seller. It's from Lugdunum. I've been told that it's still an Antoninanus as it lacks a type of marking. It was struck 292 - 293. Is this so ? What makes an 'aurelianus' ? Thanking you ========================= Diocletian, 284-305; AR Aurelianus (?) (23mm, 2.9 g), Lugdunum, 292-293; IMP DIOCLETIANVS AVG, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right / PAX AVGG, Pax draped, standing left, holding Victory on globe in right hand sceptre in left hand; C 366, RIC 67.
That's a nice looking coin. The emperor Aurelian, actually one of Rome's better rulers (too bad he did not reign longer) was one of those Balkan emperors who saved Rome from what looked like certain ruin when the bottom fell out circa 260 AD. One of his achievements was to restore some credibility to the coinage and your coin shows the improvements, much better fabric, finer portraiture, higher percentage of silver, from virtually the slimmest of silvering (or none) the double denarius (or antoninianus) was improved by Aurelian to some 5% silver and a just better looking coin. His improvements lasted into the reign of Diocletian before he, too, tried a further improvement, larger well silvered but, in my opinion, the portraiture is terrible. Because Aurelian started the improvement of coinage, his coins and those just after him sometimes merit his name for the type. Nice acquisition.
Thank you @TIF Those are the value marks I was told about. It says "many" rather than all. numiswiki "Many of the later aurelianianus were struck with value marks, XXI or KA (Greek), indicating a value of 20 sestertii = 1 aurelianianus." That's a useful site thank you.
Or it may stand for a 20 to one copper-silver ratio, or five percent silver. That makes more sense to me as the large bronze sesterces had been pulled from circulation some 15-20 years before Aurelian and they were worth in metallic value a lot more than a 5% silver double denarius.
Thank you @kevin McGonigal - very interesting. This coin does seem like an even higher % of silver with its silver wash and glimmer within holes and on edges so that's the good fabric too. It's convincing as a silver coin. I agree with you about later portraiture. I collect London Mint so I'm getting used to indifferent versions of Genius too. Some of the early London Mint coins on new Diocletian standard are pretty impressive - especially with their silvering in place - not quite as convincing solid silver as is this 'aurelianus' but bigger. I've been calling a London Mint coin a 'nummus' following Cloke and Toone and academic usage. but a lot of people like to call them 'follis'.
"Aurelianianus" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue when spoken aloud, does it? At least not until one has practiced it a time or two. Then it has a certain rhythm to the syllables. Kind of like the little chant you have to do inside your head to spell "Mississippi". It's all in the rhythm. No? Just me? OK, then. Enough digression. As you were.
That's very plausible I immediately thought. But it suddenly occurred to me that I do have a book that I only got third of a way as it's a very, very densely-packed read. It's by Kenneth Harl - the same chap who did the fascinating audio 'Great Courses' on "Rome and Barbarians" and "Byzantine Empire" and "Ottoman Empire" and "Nomads of the Steppes" etc. He talks in an interested, circular way (and the notes are well laid out with good structure). But this book is very slow reading for me so I thought I'd come back to it. But skipping ahead: Here's what he says [In 293] "the billion nummus replaced the earlier raidate aurelianianus {sic} as the 5-d.c. piece in daily fiscal and commercial transactions. Nummus of Alexandria and Siscia carried the value marks XXI and XX denoting them as coins of 20 sestertii and Antioch marked some nummi with the nurmerals of k and v., the equivalent of 20 sesterces" .... "Diocletian deliberately broke with iconographic canon to give his coinage a new look" ... "new coinage had "a better process of fusing silver to core" ... "nummus had advantage over Aurelianianus {sic} possessing three times its weight and two and one-half times its silver enrichment" The notes quote Kin in SNREHS (don't know) "the aurelianianus averages 3.88g (1/84 ound) and at 4.5 percent fine, 175 mg of silver. And L.H. Cope for nummus at 4 percent fine or 430 mg of silver. Well, look at that, I was wrong about silver content by look and feel. Interesting. Big is good.
Nice coin. Aurelian kind of saved the empire by defeating Odenathus and Zenobia who had taken control of the eastern provinces and Egypt from the Central Empire. He also defeated Tetricus and the Gallic Empire. Unusual for the time he allowed both Zenobia and Tetricus to live after their defeats. Ultimately though he was brought down by a coup d' etat as is typical for third century rulers. Nice coin with silvering intact.
Thank you! Tetricus betrayed his soldiers when he sneaked over to Aurelian didn't he? And Zenobia had to play her part in chains at the triumph. I find the 3rd century completely fascinating!
Thanks all. This has been so interesting! I'm going to adopt the 'aurelianianus' usage following this Kenneth Harl chap.
And very distinguished, I'm sure. More than my Southern US accent with a faint Georgia twang. Small wonder they usually get you Brits to play Romans in the movies.
Southern USA accent sounds really good to British ears! Brits get to play the bad characters don't they ? I recently had a daydream where I was Caligula who awoke from his illness a completely changed character. A good man like (as I would like to be), wise to the assassins and senate politics but completely focused on invading Britain. No messing with seashells but the full invasion. I didn't get further than that. I wonder what Aulus Plautius was doing.
These coins were produced silvered. This was part of the manufacturing process to induce some of the silver to the surface. Here is one of mine of the same type as yours where the silvering has stained red in patches. A loss of partial silvering is quite common. Though some partial silvering losses can make a coin look quite ugly. The silvering on this example is so thick that it almost looks like plating. Some coins were potentially re-silvered in more recent times (the Victorians like doing it apparently) and have a somewhat different appearance and appear to look like billon but are not. On these coins the silvering doesn't match the wear pattern
@maridvnvm Thank you for images. Interesting about plate thickness of the silvering and copper oxidising through like that. I've seen that weird not-silver patina before. So Victorians up to coin 'enhancements' - a small handful of British metal detectorists have gone down same route.
I agree with nothing in that Forum link except Aurelian improved the quality of the old radiate denomination. We have no idea what the coins were called when Caracalla first issued them but someone decided they needed a name so they invented Antoninianus. Someone also decided that what Aurelian did was not just an improvement so they decided to tack his name onto the coin just as the old one had been done. I will not use that name. The Forum link also botches the XXI matter. The coins had a core consisting of 1 part silver and 20 parts copper (~4.77%). Today we would say one part in a total of 21 but they thought of it as 1 added to 20. The '5%' silver was not all in the coating but the thin coating added very little silver to the weight of the coin. This is not the place to go through the evidence but just don't believe everything you read online even if it was copied from some old book that was obsolete long before there was an 'online'. Names of coins from 600 BC to the end of Roman times are often things hung on coins by collectors and scholars who could not deal with the concept of saying 'I don't know'. Some of the names are just the language of the day for 'coin' (nummus, stater). Scholars often take it upon themselves to ignore or dispute the guesses of the past replacing them with their own guesses or systems with no stronger attachment to reality than the old standards. It would be wonderful to know what the people who used the coins called them and realize that they probably did not remain consistent over the spans of time and place. After all we have five cent coins most people call nickels today but that were once made of silver and called half dimes unless you really go back and find a half disme.
My archived, annotated, London Mint coin photo galleries: https://jp29.org/cgalleryVI.htm - RIC Volume VI coinage (includes Cloke and Toone numbers and their rarity assessment system). https://jp29.org/cgalleryVII.htm - RIC Volume VII coinage Hugh Cloke, Lee Toone and me were the “movers and shakers” on the AncientsInfo Forum several years ago when much of this London Mint coinage attribution was discussed in exhaustive detail. I think that thread is still available - It might be worth your while to visit there. Unfortunately I am too sick, tired and lazy to search for it and provide a link but Google is your friend.
