Featured A Roman Greek coin

Kyriacoonie · May 11, 2021

Valentinian said: ↑

In the second century BC Rome was continually expanding. In Asia the Pergamene King Attalos III willed his kingdom to the Romans upon his death in 133 BC, and the Romans continued its previous Greek "cistophoric" coinage with only the most minor changes in what became the Roman province of Asia. Without reference works you could not tell the Greek cistophori from the similar coins produced under the Romans.

View attachment 810897

28-26 mm. 12.39 grams.
Denomination: cistophorus.
cista mystica, serpent crawling out, in ivy wreath
bow case between serpents, monogram of Pergamon to left
monogram of "prytaneis" above (google translate gives "you revere" and my source for the word, Kleiner, doesn't say what it means or why he thinks that is the expansion of the monogram) [If you know, please add it to this thread], MH above it.
Attributed to c. 85-76 BC under the Romans.

Crawford wrote "But the most astonishing feature of the monetary history of Asia under Roman rule is the evidence it provides of the absence of an interventionist approach on the part of the Romans." p. 160 in Coinage and Money under the Roman Republic: Italy and the Mediterranean Economy. That is, the Romans took over but didn't change the coins much.

G. K. Jenkins called it "the most uninspiring of all Greek coins designs (the cista mystica and a bow-case with writhing snakes)." Ancient Greek Coins, first edition, page 179.

The same type was issued in the names of several cities of the Pergamene Kingdom, but it seems many of them were actually struck at Pergamon, including some that have the name of another city on them.

Kleiner, Fred S. "Hoard Evidence and the late Cistophori of Pergamum" in ANSMN 23 (1978) 77-105 and plates 10-17, #41 (12.15 grams) plate 16
dates it to likely c. 85-76 BC, first found in a hoard dated to c. 76 BC. He writes [p. 81], "Cistophori are rarely found in hoards containing coins struck on different weight standards." The point is that this region used a different weight standard and overvalued its silver more than neighboring regions, so hoards with this denomination are mostly all of this one denomination. However, he manages to use nine hoards buried at different times to determine which control marks appeared in various time intervals. The "MH" above is one of 51 varieties in the Roman period.

Crawford's book is very interesting. It was written in a series where people expected it to be a book about Roman Republican coins as we know them, but it turned out to be a book about the transition from whatever the previous coinage was in each region to coins under the Republic, which were, as the above coin shows, often not regular Republican denarii. In the province of Asia, the transition is almost unnoticeable. The book considers every region eventually incorporated into the Roman empire. Crawford's book was the subject of a review by Buttrey who says "it is useful to have it gathered together in the remarkable scope of CaM. What is alarming about the work is C.'s tendency to force conclusions." After giving examples, Buttrey writes "These examples reveal how C.'s work too often reveals a neglect of the evidence and of clear distinctions between factual, the fairly certain, the plausible, and just guesses."

Philip Kinns writes, in his review in NC 1988, "This is a highly original work of major importance. ... He forces us to recognize that many series conventionally regarded as "Greek" must in some sense be Roman."

Is my coin a "Greek Roman" coin or a "Roman Greek" coin? I picked the latter.

Show us a "Roman Greek" coin!
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