Ancient Idiots: Ask the Experts Anything....

Thank you for your very detailed answer. This was exactly what I was so curious about.

Pretty insane to think that many centuries after minting a coin could still circulated. Very neat.

 

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Hey everyone,

I just have a quick question. With regard to Constantine I's earlier issues, what is a half-follis? I ask this because I've seen many similar coins labelled fractional folles, quarter folles, reduced folles...etc. Are these the same things or are these terms interchangeable? I am well aware of the fact that Constantinian aes fluctuated in size. I am not referring to the common AE3s.

Thanks for your help!

 

The term follis and many other words we see regularly are applied inconsistently by people depending on which experts they have read and believe. in many cases we have no idea what the coin was called when it was an active part of the economy. Inflation caused the standard coin (=follis) to shrink requiring several currency reforms in the last 200 years of the Roman era. Between the larger reforms, newly made coins tended to shrink so today we have full 'folles' that are the size/weight of a fraction a few years earlier. Experts do not always agree on what fraction one coin is compared to another (quarter or fifth, for example) and relatively few coins were marked with a denomination.

When Diocletian's currency reform brought us the large follis supported by a smaller radiate and an even smaller laureate coin, some of us accept their values as 5, 2 and 1 (but have no solid basis for naming each according to original usage). Not long after that when the large follis was getting smaller the old fractions were discontinued and we start seeing some smaller coins that we often call quarter folles for a short while until they disappear as the standard coin size in use was lowered again and again. I am unclear on just how often older coins were called in and reminted to the new standards as opposed to just being driven out of circulation by people saving the larger coins and spending the light weight ones.

The point is not all 'common AE3s' are the same and the day to day value of the coins changed with relation to a then current gold or silver coin. I do believe that those who are not confused by this situation are probably not paying attention. Most collectors do not bother studying the questions of weight or metal content all that closely but leave that to specialists who approach coins from the economic perspective rather than as objects of art or history. There is one book I might recommend if you are seriously interested in the matter but I should warn that even it is based on research into the facts as best understood rather than absolute truth. Surviving records are scanty at best and the situation changed rapidly.
https://www.amazon.com/Coinage-Econ...d=1&keywords=harl+coins&qid=1594641747&sr=8-1

 

Thanks for the explanation and resource @dougsmit !

 

Here I am I'm the ancient idiot no question about it "I know nothing."

 

On the bright side the only way is up from here

 

Question:
Despite throwing off the Roman yoke relatively early on, why did British coins maintain a Roman-like appearance for so long?

And why did they go back to finely detailed Roman-style coinage complete with deities?

 

Oh thanks now you've gone and done it your forcing me to look up yeah... Thanks hotwheelsearl be safe!

 

@hotwheelsearl "Throwing off the Roman yoke" is an interesting take on the Rescript of Honorius! That being said, when the minting of coins resumed in Britain following its coinless Dark Age the idea was that 'money should look like money'. The first of the two coins posted above demonstrates this notion in a very specific way. While closely resembling an English coin of Aethelred II, it is actually a Viking coin inscribed "Sihtric King of Dublin".

 

Doug, your level of erudition, and ensuing nuance, never fails to amaze. The same basic principle, more or less, is true of Medievals. Yeah, in general, coins circulated longer; fewer coin collectors! If you see a hoard with some century-old coins in it, from the date of deposit, don't blink! But on the other hand, in any given case, any number of factors contributed to the precise interval involved. The later Anglo-Saxons, for one, had a policy of replacing the old coins (or trying to) every time they had a new issue.

 

Yes! Yes! Imitations of more than one issue of AEthelred were being done all over Scandinavia, well into the 11th century.
But where are the pictures?
I have a couple cut fractions, attributed to Olof Skottkonung, King of Sweden c. 995-1022. These were from a very cool Latvian dealer who lists on US ebay.

 

This a Terrific question. Imitation of Roman motifs goes back to the 'barbarous' examples, most (that's Most) of whose prototypes are issues of the 3rd-4th centuries. (Yep, some are earlier.) Their origin ranges from unofficial coinages within the borders of the empire, to Real Live imitations by Real 'Barbarians,' mostly east of the Rhine.
And they continue, seamlessly, into the 5th and 6th centuries, notably by various polities in the immediately post-Roman world.
It needs emphasis that for the people issuing these coins, the Roman ethos was still very resonant. Many of the tribes (Franks, Visigoths, et al.) had been active as mercenaries on the Roman frontier well before they began appropriating parts of the empire in a political capacity. 'Assimilation' would be too simplistic, but the Roman influence was powerful.
As it remained throughout the Medieval period. Earlier on, this is demonstrated in the coins, to the extent that you note. At least from his coronation as Emperor in 800, Charlemagne is issuing deniers with his laureate profile. And in Anglo-Saxon England, you see the same thing from the 9th century. Even some of the earlier Anglo-Saxon and Frisian sceattas imitate late Roman prototypes --although in that case, it takes knowing what you're looking at.
Moral being, I guess, that in history, no transition is 'clean.' The transitions, with the attendant nuance, are that much more fun than if this stuff was really as easy as the 'party line' that all of us begin life with.

 

...And, Yes, I eventually found Hotwheelsearl's reply.

 

This has bothered me for quite some time. Why do so many barbaric and other imitations have blundered legends?

The "finer" ones have perfect or near perfect latin legends, but some have nonsensical words, and others have just lines and circles.

I don't care how bad of an artist you are, you should be able to imitate relatively simple letters. This isn't Chinese or Arabic where the phonemes are reasonably complicated.

Give any 3 year old a sheet of paper and ask them to reproduce something like "IMPCCONSTANSPFAVG" and they should be able to succeed reasonably well.

Why then, were celators simply unable to reproduce relatively simple legends consisting of what are pretty much 1-4 stroke runes on their coins?

 

On this front, maybe you could call a quarter century or so of collecting Medieval cheating. But eventually, it lands on you that in any mileu with literacy rates in the low teens or aughts, this is just Going to happen. By the sheer, irrational and no less inexorable weight of the demographics.
In the case of a lot of early French feudal issues, "immobilizations" begin from Carolingian prototypes, mostly 9th or earlier 10th centuries, and continue into the 12th and 13th. Over that kind of span, you can see the literacy gradually degrade, along with the style of the (pretty elementary) motifs.
But moving backward, nearer the period you're talking about, something else happens. With the late 10th and 11th century Scandinavian imitations, both of late Saxon pennies and even Byzantine nomismae (...not Norse Dublin, so much, least of all this early), the rules change. Not only are the die sinkers often completely illiterate in the operant languages (Latin, Old English and Greek); it almost looks as if they're actively drawing inspiration from Runes. Yeah, Literally! ...And otherwise, who knows, creatively adapting the otherwise meaningless texts along more purely esthetic lines? The Scandinavian penchant for design, around this time, was fairly pronounced.
Sorry for the digression. But it's easy to suspect that with the Roman -ish barbarous coins, similar combinations of factors were involved.

 

That’s an excellent point. I never realized that some celators were inspired by runes, which they potentially understood, versus Latin which they did not.

sort of like butchered chinese tattoos that look objectively aesthetic, but are nonsense.

 

Good example! When the original verbal content is gone, the aesthetics step in, in one capacity or another.

 

...Back to what could happen by processes that were that little bit more subtle, just look at what Noah Webster did to the word, "aesthetics!"

 

There is a difference between counterfeit coins intended to make a profit by deception (say, fourees with less silver than official coins) and imitations unofficially produced in order to supplement the supply of coinage when the government failed to supply enough coins to a region. The former had to similar enough to originals to fool people; they wanted good-looking legends. The latter have no need to be accurate reproductions, and, as we see, often are not. All they have to be is accepted by the locals. If they were accepted, and they were because official coins were in short supply, there was no need to get the details right.

For a lot more about imitations, see:
http://augustuscoins.com/ed/imit/

 

Wow. I'm still waking up, but the sheer concision with which you made this key point is admirable. I'd take twice as long.