Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Blake Davis, post: 8508919, member: 91820&quot;]I turned 65 a few months ago, and realized that sooner or later I would have to consider retirement and, as a result, would finally have plenty of time to pursue several things I have wanted to do, but had never had adequate time.&nbsp; Since becoming enraptured by ancient coins and ancient history I had always wanted to learn ancient Greek - I am Greek on my father&#039;s side from the small town of Itaa, the elders on my family on that side did speak modern Greek, but as was typical of the time, where it was not passed to the younger generation, since assimilation was the rule - that is the reason my name is Davis, not Dedoussis. and why my first name is Blake, not something more ethnic.</p><p><br /></p><p>To get to the point: when I do retire, it is my intention to see if it is possible for someone in his late 60&#039;s to learn ancient Greek and maybe take a few courses in Latin as well.&nbsp; With all due respect to the translators of Greek and Latin, it is not hard to notice that there is something definitely lacking in what I am reading, especially the poetry.&nbsp; Shelly called it the &quot;gray veil&quot; of translation - that is, with respect to ancient Greek, a huge understatement.&nbsp; Plus I would love to learn why they call Livy&#039;s latin &quot;milky.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Now that this utterly irrelevant introduction is done, let me launch into the purpose of this article. After many years of collecting sestertii of all types in an effort to achieve my goal of one example of every person that struck one in every style that person struck, it became clear that it would take much much more resources than I could ever hope to have to achieve to even come close to my goal.&nbsp; After months considering the matter, my goal was modified to sestertii of Septimius Severus and family.&nbsp; I confess to being influenced by the wonderful articles of Doug Smith on many topics in ancient coins, but focusing on Septimius Severus. All in all, the sestertii of Septimius and family just seemed the&nbsp; right combination of cost, rarity, beauty and more.&nbsp; I excluded the sestertii of Severus Alexander since it would be just be...too much.&nbsp; plus there is a crudity of SA&#039;s sestertii that doesn&#039;t appeal to me.</p><p><br /></p><p>So...I collect, among other things, the sestertii of Caracalla, and in doing so found something very unusual.&nbsp; Roman Imperial Coins lists sestertii with the inscription &quot;PRINCIPI IVVENTUTIS&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Caracalla left holding holding baton and spear&quot; with having two obverse inscriptions. The much (much) more common type has the obverse inscription &quot;M AVR ANTONINUS CAES PONTIF&quot; [ATTACH=full]1504922[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1504923[/ATTACH] shown by this example, which is a very common obverse die for the type.&nbsp; RIC 398(a)</p><p><br /></p><p>However, the IVVENTVTIS PRINCIPI type also has a different, earlier obverse inscription: M AVR ANTONINUS CAES - RIC 398(B)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1504924[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1504925[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>You would have noticed by now that the above example does not show the complete inscriptions.&nbsp; However, I have an example with a die match of the obverse, which shows what the obverse inscription is, as follows:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1504926[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1504927[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This example is among the first sestertii I purchased - at a coin show in Parsippany, New Jersey from an elderly dealer from Italy, and the only dealer selling ancient coins at this monthly show. It also has a pretty green patina that unfortunately does not show up on this coin.&nbsp; This obverse die with the SECURITAS reverse is rather common, and I have seen a number of examples over the years of this same die obverse and reverse die configuration.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>However, I have never seen this obverse die with the PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS reverse until seeing and purchasing the above coin on ebay a month or so ago - yes ebay can still provide some surprises. </p><p><br /></p><p>I have spent quite a bit of time searching and aside from an example on BMC, which is of the same die configuration, have been unable to find any similar examples.</p><p><br /></p><p>Since I am doing this after working like a demon for some weeks and not much sleep I hope I have it right!&nbsp; BD[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in