Everything you never wanted to know about a 4-1/2 assaria provincial from Tomis

I know I only recently posted this coin, but I just love it. Let me tell you why! (Feel free, as always, to post anything you feel is relevant)


Gordian III, with Tranquillina. A.D. 238-244.
Roman provincial AE 4.5 assaria; 28.92 mm, 15.89 g, 7:00
Moesia Inferior, Tomis, A.D. 241-244; Magistrate Pontianus
Obv: AVT K M ANTΩNIOC ΓΟΡΔΙΑΝΟC // [C]ABINIA (TP)AN / KVΛΛINA, confronted laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gordian right and diademed, draped bust of Tranquillina left
Rev: MHTPO ΠONTOV TOMEΩC, Nemesis standing facing, head left, holding arshin (rod) and sling, wheel at feet; Δ - < (denomination) in fields
Refs: AMNG I 3537; Varbanov 5701; Moushmov 2279; Cf. SNG Cop 305.


A Short History of Tomis

According to Romaniancoins.org, the city of Tomis (now the Romanian municipium of Constanţa), was founded at the beginning of the sixth century BCE by Ionian colonists from Miletus. Ionia, the region of Miletus, lies on the shores of Asia Minor near the islands Samos and Chios. By the end of the third century BCE, Tomis had become an important sea fortress, and that is when first monetary issues were minted.

Along with other Greek cities, Tomis was part of the great coalition founded to fight the Romans by Mithradates VI Eupator (132 - 63 B.C., ruler from 120 B.C. to his death).

The city later came under the influence of the great Dacian king Burebista around 50 BCE. However, autonomous rule was not to last. The Roman general, Licinius Crassus, captured the city in 29-28 BCE, incorporating it into the Roman Empire.

Under Roman hegemony, Tomis was member of a federation of Pontic cities known as the Hexapolis, and served as its capital. The other five member cities were Histria, Callatis, Dionysopolis, Odessos and Mesambria. The declared purpose of the community was to celebrate the cult of the emperor, but there were almost certainly economic advantages to such an arrangement. The president of the federation was called the pontarch.

The city is perhaps best known as the place where the poet Ovid (43 B.C. - 17 A.D.) was exiled by the emperor Augustus.

Like elsewhere in the Roman Empire in the tumultuous third century CE, Tomis fell victim to barbarian invasions. In 269 the city’s outskirts fell to a coalition of migratory peoples led by the Goths, who burned the walls of the city. Around 680 CE, the city fell to the Slavs and Avars.

The first Tomitian coins were struck in bronze when it was an autonomous city-state from the end of the third to the first century BCE. A few centuries later, as part of the Roman province of Moesia Inferior, the mint in Tomis again issued local coinage, starting sometime before the reign of Antoninus Pius. The Roman Emperor does not appear on coins of this city until the reign of Elagabalus in the early third century CE and the mint remained in operation into the reign of Philip I, when the city fell to the Goths.


Gordian and Tranquillina

Furia Sabinia Tranquillina (c. 225 – aft. 244) was the Empress of Rome and wife of Emperor Gordian III. She was the teenaged daughter of the Praetorian Prefect Gaius Furius Sabinius Aquila Timesitheus, the man who was appointed the head of the Praetorian Guard by Gordian III in 241. In May of that year, Tranquillina married Gordian and became a Roman Empress, receiving the honorific title of Augusta. Her marriage to Gordian was an acknowledgement by the young emperor of Tranquillina’s suitability as an empress as well as Timesitheus' political indispensability. The fact that he arranged his own high appointment and the marriage of his daughter to the emperor demonstrates how much sway Timesitheus held over the youthful emperor. Celebrations were probably brief as Gordian, Timesitheus and Tranquillina soon marched east at the head of an army to answer the invasion of Roman Syria by the Persian king Shapur. Under the guidance of Timesitheus, the Persians were contained and the lands they had pillaged restored. Had his father-in-law not fallen ill and died in the winter of 243, Gordian probably would have fared very well in the Imperial order. However, the gap in military leadership was filled by the elevation of Philip I, known as the Arab, deputy to Timesitheus, who had ambitions that did not leave room for an Imperial regent on the throne. In February of 244 Gordian met his end in the war with the Parthians. After Gordian’s death, there is no mention in the historical record of Tranquillina except for an unconfirmed reference to the birth of a daughter in 244.


Nemesis

Per the well-researched website devoted to ancient mythology, theoi.com, Nemesis was the goddess of indignation against, and retribution for, evil deeds and undeserved good fortune. She was a personification of the resentment aroused in men by those who committed crimes with apparent impunity, or who had inordinate good fortune.

Nemesis directed human affairs in such a way as to maintain equilibrium. Her name means “she who distributes or deals out.” Happiness and unhappiness were measured out by her, care being taken that happiness was not too frequent or too excessive. If this happened, Nemesis could bring about losses and suffering. As one who checked extravagant favors by Tyche (Fortuna). Nemesis was regarded as an avenging or punishing divinity.

I find it intriguing that this goddess of indignation and retribution would be featured on a marriage commemorative. What, if any, significance did this have?


About the Denomination

The denomination value is marked by letter Δ together with a semis sign <. Letter Δ, being the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, stands for the value of 4. The half of assarion was marked by a semis sign, <, so the coin is worth 4½ assaria.

Denomination assarion / assaria was used for the name of bronze coins issued by several towns on the western and northern border of the Black Sea (Tomis, Callatis, Chersones, Tyras, Olbia and others). At Tomis, coins of 1 assarion, 2, 3, 4 and 5 assaria were struck, bearing as digits Α, Β, Γ, Δ and Ε. Coins with intermediate values were also issued.

The coins of 4½ assaria are specific to Tomis, while the design with confronted busts was in widespread use throughout the eastern Roman Empire. A possible explanation for this odd denomination is proposed here @dougsmit 's page. The value of 1 denarius was, officially, 16 assaria and the coins may have been used when converting the local bronzes into silver denarii. Moneychangers typically bought and sold denarii at slightly different rates. For example, a denarius might be bought at 16 assaria and sold for 18 (or four of these 4 1/2 coins).

I can’t think of a more plausible explanation, and I think Doug’s explanation is more than reasonable.


Technical Notes

Notice how there is a raised dot as well as a depressed pit in the middle of the obverse. The raised dot was a feature of the die and results from the point of the compass used to draw the circular border of the obverse design. As such, it is geometrically in the center of the design and, being a feature of the die itself, it would be present on all coins minted with this particular die. Typically, all traces of the compass dot would have been removed during the process of engraving the obverse portrait. However, on issues with conjugate busts, such as this one, the geometric center of the coin design remained unengraved, leaving the compass mark visible.

In contrast to the raised compass dot, there is an impressed pit, often called a “centration dimple” in the numismatic literature, which was a feature of the flan and not the die. This almost certainly resulted from lathe-turning of the flan to prepare it for striking. The best explanation about this technique of flan preparation can be found here at Classical Coins’ website.

Prior to lathe-turning, the flans themselves were cast of molten bronze. Jere M. Wickens, in his essay, "The Production of Ancient Coins," written for Bearers of Meaning: The Otillia Buerger Collection of Ancient and Byzantine Coins at Lawrence University, notes that flans "were cast en chapelet, that is, using open or closed moulds in which a number of mould hollows were connected by channels." This resulted in a “runner” or sprue between the cast flans, which would be removed before striking. Sometimes, the process of breaking off the sprue removed a chunk from the flan’s edge, leaving what is known as a “flan chip.” Evidence of casting sprue removal can be best seen at the 3:00 and 10:00 positions on the coin’s reverse.

Lastly, it shows evidence of a die-shift during striking, resulting in a ghost-like doubling of the obverse portraits.


Final Comments

The combination of the oddball denomination, the storybook but ill-fated imperial couple, the surprising appearance of Nemesis on its reverse, and the trace evidence of ancient coin production techniques make this a very educational and fascinating coin, indeed!

 

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I love the coin as well, great detail and a WOW patina. Also enjoyed your write up of the province history and ruler facts.

 

Cool and very interesting coin. Thanks for the writeup.

Mine's a plain old tetrassarion, with a hole in it to boot. On the other hand, I don't recall seeing one of these reclining Dioscuri reverses from a city other than Tomis.

MAXIMUS
AE Tetrassarion. 9.54g, 29.1mm. MOESIA INFERIOR, Tomis, circa AD 235-238. Varbanov 5513 (R4). O: Γ IOYΛ OYHP MAΞIMOC KAIC ΓEP, barehead, draped and cuirassed bust right. R: MHTPO ΠONTOY TOMEΩC, Dioscuri reclining left, side by side, heads facing, right one holding patera, left one resting on rock; each with star above forehead; ∆ in left field.

 

Great post and nice looking coin!

 

I agree about the special status of the reclining Dioscuri type from Tomis. Mine was issued in the name of Caracalla and has a quite young portrait. It has the same reverse legend as zumby's Maximus but the splits of the legend are more 'normal'. The use of the type twice at Tomis separated by almost 40 years would suggest we should find many other variations on this coin but I have not seen them and do not own a standard reference that lists them.


A quick search shows others, all rare, including the one I really would like in the name of Pertinax.
https://www.cngcoins.com/Search.aspx?IS_ADVANCED=1&ITEM_IS_SOLD=1&ITEM_INVENTORY_NUMBER=&CONTAINER_NAME=&ITEM_LOT_NUMBER=&ITEM_DESC=dioscuri reclining tomis&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_1=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_3=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_2=1&SEARCH_IN_CONTAINER_TYPE_ID_4=1&VIEW_TYPE=0
Looking at these listings, I was stuck by the variations in legend arrangement. Some, like zumby's, show the Dioscuri leaning against a rock while others, mine, show overturned urns from which liquid flows (according to the CNG description which is a possible reading of what I see. Few of them are in what one would call high grade and none sold for a high price. My example was pointed out to me by a long standing friend/dealer who said, "You need this." He retired shortly after selling me this coin. I will miss seeing him regularly at shows.

One assarion coins are common but few are marked A. Denominations B and Γ are less often seen. Most common are E=5. Most unusual is >A or 1.5 shown below for Philip II.


B (reversed) for Commodus from Dionysopolis - The B doubles as a bow for Herakles.


Γ for Diadumenian from Marcianopolis


Δ for Maximus from Tomis


E for Gordian III from Marcianopolis - This is before his marriage at which time Serapis was replaced by Tranquillina.


No town has a full set of denominations. Why each struck the ones they did is a mystery to me.

 

Lovely coin and a wonderfully interesting write-up !!! All in all---a very cool thread!!!

 

Great coin, great write up, thanks.

Another provincial of Gordianus III :

 

super kool coin & write up RC.. and the other coins posted with the two figure reclined remind me of the casket tops of the Etruscans.

 

Wonderful coin and super write-up! That was a nice way to start my day.

Your coin and Varbanov's plate coin are struck from the same dies. Also, looking through all the types from Tomis that have obverses of Gordian, Tranquilla, and the two confronted, I see every major Greco-Roman deity presented on the reverses, so Nemesis may have no special significance in this context. The minters at Tomis were simply portraying every member of the pantheon.

 

I agree. I wish I could type more, but I hurt my back on Monday and it hurts to type. However, I'm still following all the threads. This is a very nice example and informative write-up.

 

Nice info to know about the Varbonov plate coin. My guess is--based upon the breaks in the inscription--that the AMNG (Pick) coin (no photo) is an obverse die-match, too:

 

bummer on the back Bing! hope it heals fast for ya! ouch!!

 

Yeah, I slipped on wet stairs and the small of my back came down on the riser edge. I passed out for a few seconds, but when I came to, I hobbled to a chair, sat down and then passed out again. I thought I was in real trouble. But no broken bones. Just muscle damage I guess. Emergency room did nothing but take an xray. Anyway, I'm lurking, just not typing much. Thanks for your thoughts. Now back to coins.

 

I hope your recovery is speedy and uneventful

...

@Roman Collector -- great thread title, great coin, great writeup! Lots of food for thought and I hope to ponder it further this weekend. A splitting headache is keeping me from thinking right now though

 

Great thread and thanks for the info @Roman Collector. I have no half denominations!

Cilicia, Syedra. AE30 Salonina 11 Assaria. Rougher than a cob.


Pisidia, Termessos Major. Æ30


Chios sometimes named the denominations of their coins. This provincial spells out dichalkon on the reverse.

Ionia, Island of Chios. Pseudo-autonomous AE14
Dichalkon, Civic Coinage of Chios, Ionia.
Reign of Augustus - 150 AD
Obverse: XI-W-N, Sphinx left, forepaw raised.
Reverse: DIXA-LKON, amphora, dotted border.

 

Just: WAY COOL @Ancient Aussie !!!

 

Wow, Dude... Please, just be careful! I really get it... Thinking of you...

 

Oh, man! Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery!