Roman Empire: billon reduced centenionalis; VRBS ROMA city commemorative, ca. 330-340 AD

Very nice follis from Siscia 1st Officina, I think it is an A?

As far as I know, the two stars represent Castor and Pollux.

Haven't picked up any city commemoratives yet.

 

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I see good surfaces with less than even striking and some loss of clarity in the legend on the left. The left star is weaker than the right. The is a small flan crack of no real consequence but I am surprised NGC went 5/5 on this one. The style strikes me as ordinary from a mint not noted for 'fine style'. It is a coin I would be happy to own but would not have invested the price of a slab when compared to the value of the coin. 7

 

Yes, the prevailing theory at the moment is that the small bronzes from the reform of 318 down to the introduction of the FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins were called centenionalis. The word is found twice in the Codex Theodosianus but it is not entirely clear to which coin(s) the name corresponds.

CTh 9.23.1.3, a law of Constantius II and Julian Caesar, provides that any merchant found in possession of "any coin other than that which continues in public use" shall have both the coins and his merchandise confiscated. Additionally, the law bans inter-provincial trade (speculation?) in coins per se, specifically those "commonly called" maiorina or centenionalis, along with "other moneys known to be forbidden". The Latin wording suggests that these are names in common use but not necessarily official names. Current thinking takes "maiorina" to refer to the large FEL TEMP REPARATIO coins and "centenionalis" to mean the Constantinian bronzes of 318-348. There are those who disagree, however.

Another law, CTh 9.23.2, this time of Arcadius and Honorius, authorizes the continued use of the centenionalis while "larger coins", specifically the decargyrus, are to be withdrawn. Here, "centenionalis" almost certainly refers to the AE4 of the period.

The two laws are separated by about 40 years.

 

..if i did that, there'd be very few coins in my collection..that's a very handsome coin melord, with lots of detail intact, every ancient collection should have at least one in it i'd reckon

 

@lordmarcovan, I rated it a 10, only because I've Never, Once seen that much fur on the she-wolf. Granted, a couple of @Alegandron's examples went a good distance.
All I ever did with these was to get one Roma commemorative, and one Constantinopolis one, from the eponymous mints. ...Waaay too long ago to be able to find the pics, but the coins are still here. They're both solid, with olive patina. But you're stuck taking my word for it.

 

Here's my one example of an VRBS ROMA commemorative, from the Trier Mint, First Officina (purchased from someone who found the coin by metal detecting in Wiltshire, England, in 2014). Note the unusual presentation of the wolf's fur on the reverse.

 

@DonnaML, may I second @lordmarcovan? For a detecting find (from the south, which is interesting even without any clue about the soil, etc.), that one is magnificent. (...Or, with scansion, 'Is (...) mag'Nificent.')

 

The person from whom I bought the coin didn't tell me anything more specific than what I wrote -- which wasn't even part of the coin's description; he said that he found it by metal detecting in Wilshire in 2014 in response to an inquiry I sent him asking if he could give me any information about the coin's provenance. One certainly hopes that he reported his find, however large or small it was, before putting any of it up for sale.

 

Thanks for that. Have you tried looking on the UKDFD or Portable Antiquities Scheme websites? I've been happily surprised, a time or two, to find things that the dealer never bothered to mention were recorded in either place.

 

Romulus and Remus were raised by an anteater? I'm not sure Rome would have had quite the same success if everyone knew that and its emblem had been an anteater, though.

 

Anteater eats ants. Ant Eater. In French, it's Fourmilier.

 

...Um, this is why there needs to be an imojee for "intentional irony ...of a distinctly benign nature." (Also why I don't bother with imojees.) Checked my easy-peasy paperback Larousse; non, mon ami, ce n'est pas comme ça.

 

LOL!! Unknown to the Romans because they only live in subsaharan Africa and the new world.

 

I have a vague recollection of looking once but not finding anything.

 

...Now that you mention it, surely there'd be dozens of examples to wade through.... I really should take a look and get some idea, at least, of what you'd be facing. ...Hold me to that! It would be educational from here; never looked for much in the way of ancients.