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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Sulla80, post: 3453551, member: 99456&quot;]OK, I think we need a bit more support - or maybe I just need a bit of confirmation on the various lessons from the exercise, as I am certainly missing some fundamentals.&nbsp; Here&#039;s what I think I&#039;ve picked up, above and beyond the value of looking carefully at what you see on the coins:</p><ul> <li>As @dougsmith has pointed out in various posts - anyone who wants to know everything will find ancient coins a torture, run now!<br /> </li> <li>There is a historical context required to see any coin.&nbsp; Here are some anchors for Severus&#039; rise to power (mostly summarized from RIC 4 Vol 1) and one could spend a lifetime researching one event of this period.&nbsp; This is good for collectors with small budgets as a couple of coins, an internet connection and a handful of books can be sufficient to keep you entertained for a while.<ul> <li>193 is called &quot;The year of the five emperors&quot; as there were 5 claimants to the throne&nbsp; <br /> </li> <li>AD Jan, 1 193, everyone woke up to the news that Commodus had been murdered in the night.&nbsp;&nbsp; Pertinax was declared Emperor and the senate accepted.</li> <li>March 28th - Pertinax was murdered by the praetorians, and Didius Julianus bribed his way to being proclaimed emperor</li> <li>April 13 (?) - Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor at Carnuntum in the Pannonia region which is on the eastern edge of modern Austria</li> <li>~end of April - Pescennius Niger is proclaimed emperor in Syria.&nbsp; (worth noting that Julia Domna, wife of Septimius was from Emesa) <br /> </li> <li>early June (?) - Didius Julianus was deposed and put to death as Septimius enters Rome</li> <li>June - Septimius makes an ally of Claudius Albinus Caesar, usurper in Britain and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain), presumably to avoid distraction in the Western edges of the Empire</li> <li>Pescinnius Niger would have minted coins in Antioch, the capital of Syria and the East (mostly silver, a little gold and no AE)<br /> </li> <li>AD 194 - Severus invades the East and wins battles against Niger</li> <li><b>The Campaigns against Niger in the east gave rise large eastern coinage, which must be distributed over three mints if not more </b><ul> <li>Mint 1: A small issue of the first 2-3 years of reign characterized by obverse legend &quot;IMP CAE L SEPT SEV PERT AVG&quot; which Laffranchi assigned to Alexandria by comparing with local issues</li> <li>Mint 2: a mint striking silver and aurei for Severus with obv &quot;L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP (I, II, V, VII, VIII)&quot; [Laodica ad Mare - with lots of similarity to Antioch]<br /> </li> <li>Mint 3: use &quot;IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS II) and rarely COS and COS I [&quot;conjecturally assigned to Emesa&quot;]</li> </ul></li> <li>AD 195 (Winter) Niger was beheaded and his head eventually makes it&#039;s way to Rome to be displayed, and Niger&#039;s family is also put to death<br /> </li> <li>195-196 (Winter) Albinus is proclaimed Augustus in Gaul and Britain</li> <li>197 Albinus is defeated by Septimius Severus near Lugdunum and he is&nbsp; sole Emperor</li> </ul></li> <li>&quot;the thin bearded, high cheek bone portrait&quot; can be assigned to an undetermined &quot;eastern mint&quot;&nbsp; <br /> </li> <li>[USER=31620]@maridvnvm[/USER] (Martin) has managed to find two unusual (rare?) coins with double matching dies &gt;1820 years after they were minted</li> <li>if this first feat wasn&#039;t impressive enough he has the same coin, from slightly earlier, possibly by the same engraver which shows the trajectory between COS I and COS II</li> <li>Engravers, who weren&#039;t necessarily highly literate to begin with, struggled between latin and greek lettering - maybe especially in mints where they were switching between tetradrachms and denarii (PEPT for PERT, C&#039;s and G&#039;s look alike, et.c.)<br /> </li> <li>At least one engraver was happy to tuck a barely visible stub or two under the bust of a coin to squeeze in COS I and COS II</li> <li>[USER=76440]@Carausius[/USER] is impressively observant</li> <li>There are still lots of unknowns about &quot;how many&quot; and &quot;where&quot; for these eastern mints.&nbsp; Evidence to nail down a mint is not easy, as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Mattingly" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Mattingly" rel="nofollow">Mattingly</a> b.1884- d.2004 &amp; <a href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/sydenham.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/sydenham.html" rel="nofollow">Sydenham</a> b.1873-d.1948, authors of <a href="https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/ancient_numismatic_enterprise/9/product/roman_imperial_coinage__complete_set_of_10_volumes_by_harold_mattingly_et_all/36313/Default.aspx" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/ancient_numismatic_enterprise/9/product/roman_imperial_coinage__complete_set_of_10_volumes_by_harold_mattingly_et_all/36313/Default.aspx" rel="nofollow">RIC volumes</a> who worked at the British Museum aka BM, acknowledge often. As [USER=19463]@dougsmit[/USER] mentions there could be traveling mints too.</li> </ul><p>Thanks [USER=31620]@maridvnvm[/USER] for initiating the exercise.&nbsp;&nbsp; All, please add color, other important evidence, or correct my statements above...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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