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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Heliodromus, post: 8273784, member: 120820&quot;][USER=134416]@nerosmyfavorite68[/USER]&nbsp; has already given the general answer for the double antoniniani, 1) and 2), which were marked with their 10:1 bronze:silver content (i.e 10% silver), either in greek numerals I:A or roman numerals X:I (cf ants marked K:A or XX:I).</p><p><br /></p><p>2) is still a bit of an oddity though - why .X.I.I. rather than just X.I ? I&#039;m not sure there&#039;s a commonly accepted answer, but I&#039;d like to suggest one...</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s my favorite double antoninianus that I&#039;ve seen (not my coin).</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1460509[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>What I like about this is that just as the antoninianus was introduced with a radiate bust as a mark of double value (2 denarii, cf radiate dupondius = 2 asses), it&#039;s only logical that a double antoninianus should have TWO radiate crowns since the doubled value has been doubled again!</p><p><br /></p><p>What&#039;s also interesting here is the &quot;X.ET.I&quot; (10 and 1) expression of the 10:1 bronze:silver ratio. The &quot;.X.I.I.&quot; seems it might be related, so I&#039;d like to suggest the central &quot;I&quot; being an abbreviation of some word having a similar meaning, perhaps &quot;X.INTER.I&quot; (10 among 1). You heard it here folks (or maybe you didn&#039;t - has this been suggested before ?).</p><p><br /></p><p>Seeing as no one else is commenting, 6) and 7) are also from my collecting area...</p><p><br /></p><p>CI-HS has sometimes been suggested as &quot;Constantine Imperator, Herculius Senior&quot;, but this seems rather contrived, particulary as this issue mark was not the first issue at Lyons for Constantine as imperator (vs caesar), and also the CI-HS issue would appear to have continued in 309 AD after Maximianus (Herculius) has been forced back into retirement.</p><p><br /></p><p>The valuation alternative that has been suggested for CI-HS is 100:1 (C:I) sestertius, where HS is the abbreviation for sestertius (coming from it&#039;s value of 2 1/2 asses written as IIS). The value of 100 sestertii (= 25 denarii) appears correct, but why do we suddenly need a valuation marking in 308 AD ? However, I&#039;ve not read any better suggestions for the meaning of CI-HS.</p><p><br /></p><p>The CMH ligature used at Cyzicus and Nicomedia has also been interpreted as a reference to a sestertius-based valuation, with C=100 (sestertii), and MH=48 in greek numerals, interpreted as giving both a value in sestertii and a nominal weight of 1/48lb. However, the weight standard of 1/48lb doesn&#039;t seem to be correct either for when CMH was first introduced at Nicomedia c.307-308AD (1/40lb), nor for it&#039;s last usage at Cyzicus in 313 AD (1/72lb).[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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