A Victoriatus born out of desperation

I agree. I cannot bring myself to clean it!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

.

 

Wine in a box? Awesome. I've never been one to put down cheap wine, as long as it tastes decent. Some of the best bottles of wine I've ever had, I bought in a store in Spain for €1.20 a bottle.

 

One of the things I find most interesting about these coins(not just the silver but the bronze and gold as well) from the Second Punic War is how each series has its own regional flavor and style. The VB types with large heads feature an elegant, expressive head of Jupiter in fine Greek style that is stylistically reminiscent of the local Brettian coinage of the period that featured Zeus on the obverse, and I think the dies were probably cut by local engravers who were used to that style of Zeus from their own coins.

The Etrurian Coinage on the other hand, at least for the bronzes, features these weird, staring, bug-eyed obverse busts that are reminiscent of their own bronze coinage of the period. Sicily, Apulia, Spain, Corcyra and Sardinia, likewise all have their own styles as does of course the Rome mint. It tells a fascinating story of a war fought on multiple fronts requiring huge amounts of manpower and money and shaping the destinies of not just the Romans and Carthaginians but all peoples of Gaul, Italy and Spain.