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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ocatarinetabellatchitchix, post: 7181646, member: 99554&quot;]Interesting hypothesis by Jim Hazelton : &quot;<i>Was this a simple mint error?&nbsp; An extra I, randomly placed?&nbsp; No it was not.</i></p><p><i>&nbsp;No it certainly was not!&nbsp; A coin is a government record.&nbsp; It is an official document.&nbsp; The target audience for this document included both active-duty military and military veterans, so such a mistake would not have been tolerated for long.&nbsp; This inscription spans the entire issue of the coin, including innumerable die switches.&nbsp; The wording was purposeful.&nbsp; But what happened, and why?</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>&nbsp;In my opinion, Legio X Fretensis took it upon themselves to acclaim Domitianimperator for the XXIIIrd time.&nbsp; Since the emperor&#039;s physical presence wasn&#039;t required, as we have already deduced from IMP II, all that was required was for the legion to proclaim the necessary formula.&nbsp; Apparently they did that.&nbsp; The coin is the evidence.</i></p><p><i>Why?&nbsp; I have no idea.&nbsp; Perhaps it was a spontaneous outburst of patriotic fervor.&nbsp; Perhaps it was thanks for a special favor or in aid of a future favor.&nbsp; Perhaps they fought a battle nobody knows about.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>&nbsp;I asked Prof Aldrete what he thought of the matter, and he offered another plausible explanation.&nbsp; He suggested a difference in the way the acclamations were counted might explain it.&nbsp; &quot;Sometimes the Imperator titles are counted for individual battles and sometimes awarded collectively for entire campaigns, so off the top of my head,&quot; he wrote by email, &quot;I&#039;m guessing that Caesarea did their math differently from the other mints and counted two battles separately that the other mints folded into one campaign.&quot;</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>&nbsp;That seems to me a reasonable explanation as well.&nbsp; Maybe there pas a difference of opinion among the legions.&nbsp; Maybe this was an attempt by the army stationed in Caesarea and the veterans settled there to set the record straight, with their version anyway.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>&nbsp;&quot;What is really interesting,&quot; Prof Aldrete added, &quot;is that they persisted with the XXIII even after it presumably would have become apparent that other coin runs had a different number.&quot;&nbsp; I agree with this statement 100%, and I wonder what Domitian had to say about this coin.&nbsp; Was it ever brought to his attention?&nbsp; If so, what was the emperor&#039;s final word?&nbsp; Did he, for whatever reason, ignore this acclamation, or did he learn of it too late, and only his assassination prevented its being recorded on the Roman coinage?</i></p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;<i>RPC 2308 is the perfect Coin of the Week in that it asks more questions than it answers.&nbsp; It leaves you wondering.&quot;</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p>Also this article by Stephan Witetschek: <i>23-mal Imperator? Die Weiheinschrift IvE 413 und die Zahl der imperatorischen Akklamationen für Kaiser Domitian.</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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