I posted this already in the thread about favourite coins and tunes, but I like it so much, I'll post it again. @panzerman's lovely and rare Celtic stater inspired me to post this, also from the lastest Chris Rudd auction. This one sneaked into the sale as the last lot, the Celtic angle being that it was the "Roman prototype of Norfolk God silver units". I subscribe to the Chris Rudd lists (as someone noted on the other thread, I think it's mostly Liz Cottam operating the business and Chris is more or less retired) and buy the occasional Celtic coin, but this caught my eye as Roman Republican denarius. It's a denarius of L. Roscius Fabatus - dated to 64BC by Crawford, but is probably a few years later - the examples in the Mesagne Hoard are all in near-mint condition (this is also from that hoard). Obv. Head of Juno Sospita right, wearing goatskin headdress, L. ROSCI below, laurel branch behind. Rev. Female figure standing right, feeding snake coiled erect before her, FABATI in exergue. Cr. 412/1 (symbol pair 60), Syd. 915, RSC Roscia 3. 18mm, 3.90g. Juno Sospita was a goddess associated with Lanuvium, from where the moneyer's family originated. She was adopted by the Romans when the city's residents became Roman citizens as early as 338 BC and the Roman consuls visited Lanuvium each year to worship at her home town. The reverse depicts a local ritual where, according to Aelian in "On the Nature of Animals", maidens would bring barley cakes to a cave, the lair of a snake. They'd enter the cavern blindfolded and Divine Inspiration would guide them to the snake, apparently. If the girl was a virgin, the snake would eat the food, if not, it would remain uneaten and ants would carry out pieces of the cakes and the rest of the locals would know of the chastity or otherwise of the girls. This was a very large issue of coins - Crawford counted 240 pairs of symbols and 9 more were discovered in the Mesagne Hoard. In almost all cases, there's only one set of dies for each pair of symbols (with my coin, the reverse symbol is largely off-flan, to the left - I included a pic of the symbols under the coin pics). This coin was apparently part of the Mesagne Hoard, of about 5,940 denarii, found around 1980 - see ANSMN vol. 29 (1984), pp. 103-134) or read it online - https://www.jstor.org/stable/43573679?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior:72d64db3e5381b0d9d05cd8cd3665f92&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents The Mesagne Hoard has been important in re-dating some of the later Republican coins, including this one, as it was discovered after Crawford's 1974 work "Roman Republican Coinage". 138 coins of this type were found in the hoard (believed to have been deposited in or around 58 BC) and all were in mint condition like this one. Hersh & Walker, authors of the above article, therefore decided that the coin was most likely minted in 59 BC, rather than Crawford's date of 64 BC. Harlan, writing more recently, prefers 62 BC - it fits his moneyer timescale better and he points out that several other issues were also found in virtually mint condition in the hoard. This coin isn't listed in the above-mentioned article - it doesn't mention symbols number 60, but I don't think the article mentions every type in the hoard. The coin was sold previously by Leu Numismatic in 2002 and Chris Rudd in 2003 and the buyer then consigned it back to Chris Rudd for the latest sale (I think all items in the sale are from the William F Stevens collection). ATB, Aidan.
Nice coin @akeady. My poor man's example: L ROSCIUS FABATUS ROMAN REPUBLIC; GENS ROSCIA AR Serrate Denarius OBVERSE: Head of Juno Sospita in goat skin, L ROSCI below, Jug to left REVERSE: Girl standing right feeding serpent before, Unknown control mark (?) to left, FABATI in ex. Rome 59 BC 3.7g, 18mm Cr 412/1; Syd 915
That's nice too, Bing. I'm not sure what the reverse symbol is - I don't think whiskey stills had been invented then I'll look later. Now you've got all the Legionary Denarii, maybe you can collect all the symbols on these! ATB, Aidan.
A great coin with a great provenance. I do not have an example of that coin myself, but I do have a coin i purchased from Liz. (Actually I have bought from her a few times and always received great service) This coin is a Tribute Penny denarius and was part of a hoard sold by Liz and Chris Rudd. This coin was part of the Quidenham hoard and it was deposited in an area associated with the camp of Queen Boudicca during the time she occupied the area. Tiberius ‘Tribute Penny’. AD16-37. Silver denarius. 17mm. 3.48g. RCV 1763 RIC 26 RSC 16a bold head, clear Livia. Found Quidenham hoard, Norfolk, 2014. Recorded as Coin #22, NMS-480CEEunder the portable antiquities scheme. Purchased from Chris Rudd Numismatics July 23, 2018.
Ah - I got a Republican denarius from the Quidenham Hoard too - it was interesting how old many of the coins in that hoard were. ATB, Aidan.
