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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Marsyas Mike, post: 3559415, member: 85693&quot;]The past month or so, eBay has had a lot of cheap, cruddy imperial denarii coming up for auction - just my kind of stuff.&nbsp; So I&#039;ve been scooping up a lot of them if the price is right and then try to figure them out.&nbsp; Call it a hobby.</p><p><br /></p><p>One of my recent finds was an ugly denarius of Antoninus Pius with Fortuna on the reverse.&nbsp; Just another goddess standing around holding stuff (as Doug puts it).&nbsp; According to OCRE there are 28 Fortuna denarii for AP, so I had to start whittling &#039;em down.&nbsp; Mine is holding a rudder - but also a patera, which I thought odd (and a handful).&nbsp; The reverse inscription is FORTVNA... with the right side missing - and it is the right side that turned out to be interesting:&nbsp; OBSEQVENS</p><p><br /></p><p>According to FORVM:</p><p>&quot;On another coin of Antoninus Pius, with FORTVNA OBSEQVENS for its epigraph, Fortune places her rudder on the prow of a ship. &quot;This denotes, says Patin, that the goddess had shown herself condescending (<i>obsequentem</i>) in all things to the</p><p>emperor; the rudder and stern of a galley appear to signify the achievement of great victories, and the happy return of the legions.&quot;&quot;</p><p><a href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=FORTVNA%20OPSEQVENS" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=FORTVNA%20OPSEQVENS" rel="nofollow">https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=FORTVNA OPSEQVENS</a></p><p><br /></p><p>According to OCRE there are three of these, RIC 257, 271 and 286A, with the tribunician year being the differentiator (mine is hard to see, but I think it is XXII).</p><p><br /></p><p>Doug Smith has this coin (XXI version) written up on his &quot;Questions&quot; page (his is a much nicer example).&nbsp; It seems this one has some attribution issues/errors, according to Doug&#039;s research:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/quest.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/quest.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/quest.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Here is mine (it is on a small, crowded but chunky flan and weighs 3.37 grams):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]946285[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Antoninus Pius Denarius</b></p><p><b>(158-159 A.D.)</b></p><p><b>Rome Mint</b></p><p>ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P XXII, laureate head right / FORTVNA [OBSEQVENS] COS IIII, Fortuna standing left, holding patera above rudder on prow right, cornucopiae in left.</p><p>RIC 286A.</p><p>(3.37 grams / 16 x 14 mm)</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is the reverse from an OCRE example, OBSEQVENS visible:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]946286[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Any others out there?&nbsp; They seem to be a bit scarce, but not rare.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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