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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1866003, member: 19463&quot;]Regnal year 9</p><p><br /></p><p>I do not claim to understand some of the legends used by Maurice.&nbsp; The OP coin is pretty typical or even a little less jumbled than some.&nbsp; Steve&#039;s coin would get IDed by me as Tiberius Constantine but I know only enough about this period to know I don&#039;t know.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Roman numerals as taught in modern schools are much more restrictive than those used by the ancients.&nbsp; The Byzantines seemed to prefer ordinary additive numbers except that they had a separate symbol for six in some periods.&nbsp; The first century AD allowed additive (VIIII) or subtractive (IX) and even allowed subtracting two in some cases (XXXIIX = 38 on a coin of Tiberius).&nbsp; I have coins of Titus that show XIX and XVIIII that seem to have been made together.&nbsp; School teachers tend to simplify the matter for an audience of people whose main use for the numbers will be reading a clock.&nbsp; The deeper subject will allow more study.</p><p><br /></p><p>BTW: it does seem that IX is a lot more common that IV in old inscriptions.&nbsp; I saw the explanation that IV is the first two letters in Jupiter and could be taken as swearing.&nbsp; I do not know how accurate this is but it is a cute possibility.&nbsp; </p><p>Maurice Tiberius Constantinople year 9 (6+3)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]314453[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>I bought this Antioch because of the year 8 expressed as 3 over 5.&nbsp; Sear Byzantine lists it as an option for 5+3 so it is not subtractive.&nbsp; If it were, that would leave 2 and that would be a really silly way of writing 2 so I&#039;ll go with Sear.&nbsp; I can&#039;t show a subtractive Byzantine but that does not mean they don&#039;t exist.&nbsp; Byzantine is not my specialty. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]314454[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Another half truth told in Latin class is that we have to use V for U.&nbsp; The Byzantines had developed the round bottom letter by this time.&nbsp;&nbsp; What we study does not allow for many changes made between the eras of Etruscan beginnings and modern clock numerals.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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