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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;NewStyleKing, post: 4655150, member: 106483&quot;]<span style="color: #ff0080"><b>Whoops was composing when the talk got hijacked-This is surely more interesting!</b></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The interesting and somewhat mysterious and controversial Roman&nbsp; coinage of Aesillas.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Aesillas Macedonian Tetradrachm c 95-65 BC</b></p><p>Obv: Head of Alexander the Great with horns of Ammon</p><p>behind Θ mint of Thessaloniki</p><p>MAKEΔONlΩN below</p><p>Rev: AESILLAS ; below Q (Quaestor)</p><p>Left ;Money Chest ; middle, Club of Hercules, ; right, Quaestor&#039;s Chair</p><p>All surrounded by a wreath</p><p>Obs 37 Reverse not in plates</p><p>Bauslaugh group VI c 80 BC</p><p>29mm 17.02gm</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/albums/userpics/23982/BOTH_ASSELIAS_THIS.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p>Who was Aesillas? He was a financial figure cos he was a quaestor, that what is says. His name is otherwise unknown and it&#039;s not a Roman name apparently.</p><p>It is a most unusual coin having a Greek side and a Roman side; The Greek side having the Ammon horned head of Alexander and the legend MAKEDONION in Greek and a probable mint mark for Thessaloniki, while the reverse has the Roman quaestor&#039;s name Aesillas and the tools of his trade, a celler to sit on-his chair of office, a cista- a basket or coffer for collecting tax offerings and a club of Herakles to encourage the recalcitrant ones.</p><p>These coins are mainly found in Thracian coin hoards in Bulgaria/Roumania type regions, often in mixed hoards with First Meris,Thasos imitatives, NewStyles and other types. All the former are associated with payments to Thracian mercenaries.</p><p>Their dating is imprecise but seem to have started c 95 BC and been produced as a type immoblier to c 65BC as an intermittent coinage-when the need seems to have arisen.</p><p>Obviously when someone gets used to a type they might demand the same type again and even just like daddy had 20 years ago! The portrait of Alexander might be a sop to the last Lysimachi lovers or a propaganda fillip to the native Greeks suffering from Celtic ravages-who knows.</p><p>Some types replace Makedonanian with CAE PR-which Caesar praetor is still controversial and some replaced Aesillas with SURA LEG PRO Q who appeared also on some rare Thasos immatives. This is surely the famous Brutius Sura. There are a few other variations that are even rarer and adds to the mystery&nbsp; of the coinage.</p><p>Overstrikes of the coinage with New Styles added to the confusion of dating both coinages producing circular arguments until the NewStyle low chronology was generally accepted and work by Mattingly,MacDonald,deCallatay and finally Bauslaugh has settled the age range of the coinage into which overstrikes can be fitted.</p><p><br /></p><p>NEXT-MORE AESILLAS and Aesillas and Associated coin talk[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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