Featured Follow the coin theme GAME - ancient edition - post ‘em if you got ‘em

Seleucid Kingdom, Antiochus VII Sidetes, Tyre, AR tetradrachm, dated SE year 183 (130/129 BC).



Next: Tigranes II, any coin.

 

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I don't want to hold things up, so how about a Parthian coin instead?

 

Ok, here is my only Parthian:
Phraatres II, AR Drachm
Parthia, Tambrax, ca. 128 – 126 BC

21 mm, 4.224 g
Sellwood 16.11; Shore 50, Sunrise 272; BMC Parthia p. 17, 15;

Ob.:short-bearded and diademed head of Phraates II to left; mint mark TAM behind; circular border of pellets
Rev.: ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΘΕΟΠΑΤΟΡΟΣ; Archer Arsakes I wearing bashlyk and cloak seated right on omphalos, holding bow; guide-lines in legend. No border

Picture courtesy AMCC3:



Next: a coin of Mehmet II, the conqueror of Constantinople; or else another Parthian

 

No coins of Mehmet II, but how about some Ottoman Akce.


Top left - Bayezid II 886 AH. Mint Novar., 0.68g
Top right - Selim II. 918 AH.,Edirne Mint., 0.64g
Bottom - Mehmed III. 1003 AH.,Belgrad Mint., 0.28g

Next: Any Sasanian

 

Awesome! Mehmet III does it as well. Thank you

 

My Khusro II is too awful to show (and I don't know where it or its photos are) so I'm branching out:

Here's my copy of David Sellwood (1925-2012) et al's Introduction to Sasanian Coins, signed by the authors & inscribed to the great Sasanian scholar Robert Göbl (1909-1997) himself, with his bookplate, and correspondence from one of the authors:



And my favorite "Sasanian" coin, depicting Shapur's captive Valerian I, with a Parthian captive on the reverse -- I love the irony! (Shapur's monumental Naqsh-I Rustam relief even borrowed from the iconography of Roman captives coinage to depict the emperors kneeling to him in submission!)

NEXT:

Coin from a Roman (or other ruler) who fought the Persians/Parthians/Sasanians
(they don't have to have won!)​

 

Emperor Trajan. For some reason, I frequently take this coin out of its tray to hold, feel and stare at it.

NEXT: A coin from Sirmium mint

 

JOVIAN
AE3
OBVERSE: DN IOVIA-NVS P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped, & cuirassed bust right
REVERSE: VOT V MVLT X in four lines across field within wreath; BSIRM
Struck at Sirmium 363-4 AD
3.0g, 20mm
RIC 118b

Next: Another Jovian

 

Nice big chin-jaw on that one!

Well, to my great frustration, I seem to have taken my jumbo Jovian AE Double-Maiorina (29mm, 8.1g) to the bank without photographing it.

But while looking for it I did come across this pleasant pair of Jovian AE3s, one right-facing (Siscia) and one left (Heraclea). I believe I cleaned the one on the left, from Siscia, myself from an uncleaned lot, long ago.

Unlike the coin above, these are just plain "VOT V" -- no "MVLT X":

NEXT:

Any Legend
within Wreath
(i.e., any inscription or monogram, any ancient/early medieval)​

 

Next: Any coin of the “5 Good Emperors.”

 

NEXT: Galley of any type

 

Oh good -- here's a chance to post a coin for the first time ever (I think). Got this cute little Bithynia, Kios AR Hemidrachm about 3 or 4 years ago for the nice high relief Galley Prow reverse.

NEXT:

A Coin with Something in Common with This One
(you say what they share in common)​

 

Byzantine follis, anonymous class C, Constantinople 1034-1041
Obv.: + EMMANOVHΛ , 3/4 length figure of Christ standing (icon of the "Antiphonetes") , in field IC / XC
Rev.: Jewelled cross dividing IC / XC / NI / KA ("Jesus Christ conquers")

What they share in common? see attached file

Next : another Byzantine follis

 

Very clever. I wouldn´t have spotted the link if you hadn´t attached the close ups. Well done

 

All right! I searched through my old posts, and I've actually never posted most of my Byzantine Folles. At least I can't find any previous post of this one:

JUSTINIAN PLAGUE FOLLIS (39mm, 23.97g).
Year XV (541/2), Nicomedia.
Ex Leu e-15, NAC 75, M&M (DE) 36, G&M 200.

Struck during the height of the raging "Justinian Plague" (Bubonic Plague) that devastated the Empire, causing Justinian and his generals to abandon their ambitions for restoring the old Roman Empire's territory, and changing the course of world history.

Justinian himself was famously infected -- but survived! He had prominent facial/neck scars for life and was said never to have been quite the same again.

I find the "Justinian Plague Coinage" fascinating for many reasons. (For one thing, it's amazing the mints could remain active at all in cities where 2/3 of the population died within a few years!) I posted a blog on the topic, also incl. some of my other related coins in 2021: https://conservatoricoins.com/showcase-coin-justinian-plague-follis-constantinople-540-1-ad/

NEXT:
Coin connected to historical events
that you find interesting​

 

Incidentally, here's the silver, left-facing version (ex Orfew / Andrew Short)


I consider the elephant/Colosseum types a continuation of the Judaea Capta coinage. The Colosseum was built with the spoils and slave labor from the First Jewish-Roman War (there's even an inscription on the Colosseum relating it to the war in Judaea: "Imp. T. Caes. Vespasianus Aug. Amphitheatrum Novum Ex Manubis Fieri Iussit" or “The Emperor Titus Caesar Vespasian Augustus had this new amphitheater erected with the spoils of war”).

A few decades later: The Bar Kochba Revolt (or Third Jewish-Roman War), 132-135 CE.

This coin was actually overstruck on a Provincial Judaea Capta coin, this representing both wars, over 50 years apart, in one numismatic object:

Judaea, Bar Kochba Rebellion AE Middle Bronze (25mm, 9.88 g, 6h; under-type: Agrippa II w/ Titus [87/8 CE]), 133/4 CE.
Obv: 'Sma' (abbreviating Simon; Paleo-Hebrew). Seven-branched palm tree, two bunches of dates.
Rev: 'Year two of the redemption of Israel' (Paleo-Hebrew). Grape vine leaf on tendril. Undertype portrait of Titus visible.
Ref / Prov: Ex-David Hendin Collection, Guide to Biblical Coins (2nd edition), 160a (this coin illustrated); for undertype: RPC II 2285.


​

Next:
more numismatic links to historical event(s)
​

 

We can move forward in time, still with an elephant as the focus, as the reverse of an uncommon issue from Antoninus Pius. The celebrations of the 900th anniversary of the founding of Rome.

NEXT> More historical occurrences visually or alluded to on a coin

 

Elephants appeared on Greek coinage in the late 4th c. BC, on the famous large 5 shekels silver coins of Alexander, minted in Babylon c. 337 BC. Many other coins with elephants will be minted in the 3rd c. BC in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Kingdoms, at Carthage or Punic Sicily, even at Rome and in Etruria. All these 4th-3rd c. BC elephants were seen as symbols of military might, for elephants were frequently deployed on battlefields.
In the 2nd c. BC it became obvious that war elephants represented a disproportionate investment for very limited tactical benefits on the battlefield. A little like battleships in WW2. In the 1st c. BC and AD Rome continued to import elephants but only for the show, in imperial funerals or in the Circus or the Amphitheatre. These Vespasian or Antoninus Pius coins with elephants allude to exceptional shows.

Let's now consider rhinos. Rhinos were extremely rare animals in the Mediterranean countries. It seems that Hellenistic Greek texts call them "rhinoceros" for African species, "monoceros" for the Indian species. Very few individuals, wild or tamed, were transported to the Mediterranean in classical Antiquity, so few that Kees Rookmaaker could make a list of them. The first one was an "Aethiopic rhinoceros" seen in Alexandria in 279 BC, in the Dionysiac parade of Ptolemy Philadelphus. According to Pliny the first one seen in Rome was in the games offered by Pompey the Great in 55 BC, but Cassius Dio writes that the first one seen in Rome was brought by Octavius in 29 BC. Cicero, who watched the Pompeian Games and wrote about them in his letters mentions elephants but no rhino: it's possible that Pliny was mistaken. Octavian's rhino came from Alexandria, probably from the royal menagerie. It was an Indian one horned rhino, probably tamed, that embarked to Corinth (where he was displayed to the public and seen by Strabo), then to Rome where he was displayed in the Saepta. In 8 AD another rhino (which species?) was opposed to an elephant at the games. The elephant won.

The third rhinoceros seen in Rome was shown by Domitian in the Colosseum for the Capitoline Games of 86 or the Secular Games of 87. The poet Martial wrote two epigrams about him. He was an African two-horned rhino, and was opposed to a bear and to a bull. He won both fights.

This rhino was a sensation in Rome at the time. No such animal had been seen there since 78 or 79 years (roughly like Halley's Comet), and it was probably the first African two-horned specimen in Rome. He was chosen as the symbol of Domitian's munificence, and his very realistic image (obviously it had been accurately drawn) was struck on the famous Domitian rhino quadrantes.


Domitian, AE quadrans, 17 mm, 2.60 g, Rome
Obv: African rhinoceros walking left.
Rev: IMP DOMIT AVG GERM around large SC

This quadrans was later imitated in Alexandria under Trajan in 113/4 on a small AE dichalkon. But we can see that many depictions of this rhino also appeared in art (mosaics, bronze statuettes, gems, oil lamps, etc.). It is impossible to date precisely these objects, but it is likely that they are all posterior to 88 and represent this very popular rhino.

Next up :
Domitian ! ​

 

^ Sheesh, sometimes I forget that Romans really sound totally psychotic. They see a magnificent rare animal for the first time on their continent in centuries...and their thought is, "Let's see which other wild beasts we can make it kill and which ones can kill it."


Mine is missing the horn off flan unfortunately

Here's a Domitian sestertius from his Germania Capta series, trying to match his older brother and father's famous propaganda success with their Judaea Capta:

NEXT:

Another Flavian​