Here's one for all of those fallen horseman fans out there. Since FH coins are ultra common, I thought it may be fun to have a post for one RIC number and see what other examples are out there to show. Please post your Constantinople RIC 82 fallen horseman! *Please note that the spear goes all the way through this poor barbarian. This is my favorite detail of this coin. Haha. Constantius II AE2, Constantinople. DN CONSTANTIVS PF AVG, pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right. FEl TEMP RE-PARATIO, soldier standing left with lace-up boots, spearing fallen horseman who is bearded, bare-headed, reaching backwards. Gamma in left field. Mintmark CONSA (or H) star. (*edited) RIC VIII Constantinople 82. At 6.5 grams... this one's a beefy one An interesting note from a listing on FORVM: (edit: which is not as relevant to my coin as mine does not include the “I” but may still apply when trying to decide “A” vs “H”) The final A in the mintmark appears as H, but it must be a carelessly engraved A because IA is the officina (workshop) mark and there were only eleven officina in operation. IA is the Greek numeral eleven. IH is the Greek numeral eighteen. Open topped A's are not unusual in this period.
I got an ol' 82! Constantius II, 337-361 AD. Æ-2 O: DN CONSTAN TIVS PF AVG, Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right. R: FEL TEMP RE-PARATIO, Soldier spearing fallen horseman. Γ in left field, CONSS* in ex., RIC 82, mint of Constantinople. 23 mm, 6.5 g
It's interesting that your fallen horseman is wearing a Phrygian helmet, Doug's has two braids, while mine is bare-headed with a forked beard... all while being from the same mint and issue. I've always wondered how die engravers were given instruction, how much latitude was allowed for little variations and how many of these details were "approved" and intentional versions. ...were they working from drawings or example coins?
Coincidently the initial attribution that I copied for RIC 82 was from your coin on Wildwinds... I just didn't notice that the mint marks were slightly different until after posting, noticing the error and seeing your comment! That's a cool coin, I love the boot tassels! I remember seeing posts about them awhile back.
Here is a CONSA of RIC 81 (clutching type) A CONSIA of RIC 82 (reaching); bare headed, braids and bearded I have this one as RIC 82 too (CONSDelta);Phrygian cap, bearded, though the central dot could be taken into account in which case I don't know what to call it. Then there is RIC 106 (with a real dot in the field); clutching, Phrygian cap or is it a helmet, bearded Is the horseman wearing a helmet in this one or is his hair braided?
I always regret causing confusion and regularly post my wishes that folks dont copy attributions without seeing the original listings. That is why most of my posts do not include full attributions. It is quite possible to collect and enjoy these things without reference numbers. I like RIC for the way they point out what exists as far as they know. The OP coin is an 82 with bearded, bareheaded barbarian. Mine is not since RIC 82 specifies those characteristics and I have no beard (but do have pigtails). CT's own Randy has turned up quite a number of little things like his swirly shield which strike me as equally noteworthy candidates for description in RIC. If I were the one writing this section of RIC today, I would run a list of characteristics found on horsemen (and soldiers' boots, horses rumps, assorted dots and things I know I have forgotten this morning) but I would not assign them number level importance unless I determined that characteristic to have meaning I could explain (e.g. weight standard change). I can't read chrsmat71's coin well enough to assign it an RIC number. I see something after CONS but what? The Falling Horseman type was one of the first two pages on my website. http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/notsev.html The purpose of that page was to discuss Victor Failmezger's belief that some horsemen showed the use of stirrups. Those of us who thought we saw this were called stupid by people who knew that Western Europeans did not use stirrups that early. We believed (I still do) that the dies were cut by either veterans from the wars who observed a people with stirrups or possibly even by captive barbarians themselves pressed into service at the mint due to their talents. We will never know for certain but we do most certainly know that any expert who believes that their PhD based on past studies of slightly related subjects has made them all knowing in all things is nothing less than a danger to science. I also believe that the die cutters had a lot more freedom to design, within certain parameters, the details of their experience. The next generation of scholars will expand or knowledge on what is seen on the clothing, hair, weapons, tack etc. but they will not achieve all of the answers. We value our catalogs and memorize their listings but we need to remember that science (numismatic and other) is a journey toward understanding and not a matter of forcing what we see into boxes built from past theories.
@maridvnvm Those are some great coins and great photography too! Lots of barbarians getting the spear there! I agree that we shouldn't get too hung up on reference numbers. For this post I had just intended to highlight a type so that we could see lots of examples and appreciate the detail or condition differences. However, you do bring up an important question for some of us that do not own the references. What exactly is a RIC VIII Constantinople 82, or a LRBC II 2026 or a Sear V 18148? Not that it matters much but it may be of interest to some. I do not own RIC VIII but I can show some snippets of LRBC (Late Roman Bronze Coinage) and Sear V. LRBC II (Late Roman Bronze Coinage) In LRBC, the defining characteristics are only the field and mint mark (the officina does not matter), the type and reverse legend, the horseman position (FH3 for reaching, FH4 for clutching the horse's neck), the issuer (in this case Cs = Constantius II), the legend (here 1 which is DN CONSTAN-TIVS PF AVG), and the bust (which is B, draped with a pearled diadem). No further detail is described for the horseman. RIC 82 corresponds to 2026. Sear V In Sear, it is much the same as LBRC. The description is more self-explanatory here so I will not go through it as I did above. But here as well, there is no description of the horseman himself. In fact, Sear does not differentiate by the horseman's position as both RIC 81 (clutching the horse) and RIC 82 (reaching back toward the soldier) are given the same reference number. Additionally, the star at the end of the mint mark does not call for a different reference number here. I identified my coin with Dane's spreadsheets so I am not exactly certain of how it is actually listed and how the horseman is described. If anyone is willing, I would like to see how exactly this coin is listed in RIC VIII. After all of this bucketing and defining... these are hand made coins where each die was different. As long as you can place it in the right chronology and understand what is depicted... the rest of the details are just frosting on the cake. Cool coins everyone!
That’s a nice coin, the obverse especially! Since posting this thread in 2019, I may have a few more to add to it. I’ll check.
I know that I have added a few more from Constantinople:- RIC 81, CONSS* Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right Rev:– FEL TEMP REPARATIO, Helmeted soldier to left, shield on left arm, spearing falling horseman; shield on ground at right. Horseman is bearded and falls forward (FH4) Minted in Constantinople (Gamma | _ //CONSA*). A.D. 348-351 Reference:- RIC VIII, Constantinople 81 (Noted as a scarcer reverse legend break R-E rather than RE-P). RIC 109 Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped & cuirassed bust right, Delta behind bust Rev:– FEL TEMP REPARATIO, Helmeted soldier left, shield on left arm, spearing falling horseman; shield at ground to right. Horsemanis falling forward clutching his horse. He is wearing a phrygian cap Minted in Constantinople (G | . | _ /CONSG). Reference:- RIC VIII Constantinople 109 RIC 121 Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right Rev:– FEL TEMP R-EPARATIO, Helmeted soldier to left, shield on left arm, spearing falling horseman; shield on ground at right. Horseman wears helmet and falls forward reaching towards emperor Minted in Constantinople (dot //CONSS). 15th March A.D. 351 - Winter A.D. 354 Reference:- RIC VIII Constantinople 121 (Rated rare with R-E reverse legend break) Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped & cuirassed bust right, Rev:– FEL TEMP REPARATIO, Helmeted soldier left, shield on left arm, spearing falling horseman; shield at ground to right. Horseman turns to face the soldier, and reaches his left arm up towards him. He is bare headed Minted in Constantinople (Dot //CONSIA). Reference:- RIC VIII Constantinople 121 Obv:– D N CONSTANTIVS P F AVG, Pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right Rev:– FEL TEMP RE-PARATIO, Helmeted soldier to left, shield on left arm, spearing falling horseman; shield on ground at right. Horseman is bare headed and reaches back towards the emperor Minted in Constantinople (//CONSIA dot). Reference:- RIC VIII, Constantinople 135. 18.29 mm. 3.08 gms. 0 degrees
Was Confused as always when I started. Wish I had a book on this stuff. I may never have any of these type coins. But they’re wild to look at. They’re literally Killer coins. I like trying to find what you members say are the images. I’m a trool
Check out Dougs site https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/ https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/fh.html
