If you are not already a subscriber to Coins Weekly, you should consider subscribing to the newsletter. I find a couple if items worth reading in most issues. http://coinsweekly.com/en/Subscribe-to-CoinsWeekly-Newsletter/37 This week there is a video from Kunker on Roman Republican coins in March 2015 auction: http://coinsweekly.com/en/Kuenker-Podcasts/44?&id=3784&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CoinsWeekly 26.11.2015 I also like their cartoons. I saw this cartoon and thought of a coin my sister found in a dryer. Sorry, this one is not ancient.
I really like that video but take exception with one point. True, moneyer was a job usually held by a young man on his way up the Cursus Honorum. The video says that they did not make types to show their own accomplishments because they did not have any but I believe doing so would have been seen as a horrid breech of proper behavior. Honoring an ancestor, as the video pointed out, was extremely proper. Look how Caesar was received by Brutus and the conservative Republicans and he was a major league hero by the time he was shown on coins. A 20 something who had a big head and blew his own horn would not have been taken seriously except, perhaps, by the guys with knives who might consider him dangerous. The exception here is our much shown coin with King Aretas and his camel who had surrendered to the moneyer. I doubt this would have been so well received had he put his own image in front of the camel receiving the tribute of Aretas. I wonder what the gossips on the street had to say about it as it is. Watch the video.
It's a good point. In fact, Scaurus was notorious for his cupidity. He was accused of extortion while Praetor of Sardinia, but Cicero got him off the hook despite the obvious guilt. (Cretins should always invest in a good lawyer.) Evidently though, he was incorrigible enough to eventually suffer the Roman version of being ridden out of town on a rail - sent into exile where his history vanishes. No doubt he was the source of a great deal of gossip!
