My absolute favorite Late Roman Bronze coin is the "Barbarian & the Hut" showing a roman soldier leading a barbarian child away from a hut or tree. Why do you see so few LRB "Huts" on auction sites?? I always see a ton of campgates & fallen horsemen coins that are in the same price range. Any ideas?? thanks, Bill
The currency reform that brought us the FEL TEMP REPARATIO legend originally had three denominations. The largest coins were Falling Horsemen or Galley types. Mints were under the control of two brothers and tended to favor one or the other type even if they did issue both some of the time. The middle denomination of the group was distinguished by the use of left facing bust portraits holding a globe in the hand. These AE2 coins were only slightly smaller than the largest denomination but contained less silver in the alloy and were probably valued at half the large coins they accompanied. Mints controlled by Constans preferred a reverse scene shows a soldier leading a small barbarian from a hut located under a 'tree'. Constantius II's mints preferred a type with a soldier and two captives. The interesting point on the Hut coins is that they were issued by 13 different mints and each used a different type tree (branch, shrub or plant). Perhaps botanists will be able to identify the species intended. Coins without mintmarks can be placed by the style of the tree and hut. The type was used more commonly at mints controlled by Constans but versions in the name of Constantius II also exist. The illustration above shows an obverse of Constans (far left) and Constantius II (second coin) followed by reverses from six different mints. The Galley type as well as the Huts were discontinued on the death of Constans so the variation in sizes is much more limited than with the Falling Horseman series. About that same time inflation pressures caused the large denomination to shrink with no need for the fractions. The Falling Horseman continued to be issued for a decade all the while getting smaller and smaller. Demand for more and more of these less valuable coins caused them to be extremely common even today. The Hut and other types in the original series were just part of a currency reform that failed and are much less common now. More: http://dougsmith.ancients.info/ftr.html
Thanks for the answer. I have read your site LOTS of times but that little nugget of wisdom just never sank in........... Any hints on how to search for huts in online auctions without using the emperor's name?? Thanks, Bill
Huts are usually described as a soldier leading a barbarian or captive from under a tree or out of a hut so you could set up a search for soldier, barbarian, captive or tree but requiring "hut" is more accurate. More may be found using Constans (why do you not want to?) and searching titles and descriptions but "hut" finds most. Currently I found about 8 huts on eBay and 35 on VCoins. Some are very nice; some are junk; some are not cheap. Good luck.
