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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sulla80, post: 6350822, member: 99456&quot;][ATTACH=full]1251554[/ATTACH]With this post, I return to the Roman Republic, and a coin from Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This denarius is from Sulla&#039;s dictatorship, 82 BC to 79 BC. Crawford adds a possibility that this coin may have been issued in celebration of the restoration of the republic when Sulla abdicated the dictatorship, or this coin may have been minted earlier as Sulla terrorized Rome and murdered those whom he considered enemies through proscriptions.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1251550[/ATTACH]<b>Q. Fabius Maximus</b>, Sullan Restoration Issue, AR Denarius (17mm, 4.00 g), struck circa 82-80 BC</p><p><b>Obv:</b> ROMA Q MAX, laureate head of Apollo right; lyre before</p><p><b>Rev:</b> Cornucopiae upon thunderbolt; all within wreath</p><p><b>Ref:</b> Crawford 371/1; Sydenham 718; Fabia 6</p><p><b>Notes:</b> more on this coin and other coins connected to transitions between authoritarian and republican government <a href="https://www.sullacoins.com/post/governments-of-men-and-laws" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.sullacoins.com/post/governments-of-men-and-laws" rel="nofollow">Governments of Men and Laws</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Three coins were issued from 80-82 BC - Crawford 369, 370 and 371 - are re-issues, or restorations, of moneyers&#039; types from 127 BC (Crawford 263, 264 and 265). The moneyers were ancestors of Sulla’s supporters, with Crawford expressing some uncertainty about whether Q. Fabius Maximus was included to complete the threesome or because he was also an important supporter.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1251551[/ATTACH]<b>Q. Fabius Maximus</b>, 127 BC, AR Denarius (17mm, 3.93g), Rome mint.</p><p><b>Obv:</b> ROMA Q MAX, helmeted head of Roma right, with star on flap; mark of value below chin</p><p><b>Rev:</b> Cornucopia over thunderbolt; all within wreath</p><p><b>Ref:</b> Crawford 265/1; Sydenham 478; Fabia 5; RBW 1073</p><p><br /></p><p>Appian describes Sulla&#039;s restoration of the republic.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The next year the people, in order to pay court to Sulla, chose him consul again, but he refused the office and nominated Servilius Isauricus and Claudius Pulcher, and voluntarily laid down the supreme power, although nobody interfered with him. This act seems wonderful to me — that Sulla should have been the first, and till then the only one, to abdicate such vast power without compulsion, not to sons (like Ptolemy in Egypt, or Ariobarzanes in Cappadocia, or Seleucus in Syria), but to the very people over whom he had tyrannized. Almost incredible is it that after incurring so many dangers in forcing his way to this power he should have laid it down of his own free will after he had acquired it.&quot;</p><p>-Appian,&nbsp; <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/1*.html#103.1" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Appian/Civil_Wars/1*.html#103.1" rel="nofollow">Civil Wars, 103.1</a></p><p><br /></p><p>This end does seem quite surprising, and there are other theories for why Sulla might have stepped down, ranging from &quot;his work was done&quot; to &quot;illness&quot;.&nbsp; A short paper by Ian Worthington suggests that his supporters pushed him into retirement :</p><p><br /></p><p>Worthington, I. (1992). <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41233856" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/41233856" rel="nofollow">Coinage and Sulla&#039;s Retirement</a>. <i>Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie,</i> <i>135</i>(2), 188-191.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Post restoration issues, coins from the Sullan Civil Wars, or anything else you find interesting or entertaining. </b>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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