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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nemo, post: 2889359, member: 58462&quot;]I don&#039;t have many Alexandrian coins but there are several I regret not buying in years past.&nbsp; Here&#039;s one that was so difficult to photograph I almost gave up!</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]694040[/ATTACH] </p><p>Gordian I Africanus, Egypt, Alexandria. A.D. 238. BI tetradrachm (22 mm, 12.47 g, 12 h). RY 1. </p><p>O: A K M AN ΓOPΔIANOC CЄM AΦ ЄVCЄB, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gordian I right </p><p>R: Athena seated left, holding Nike and spear; in left field, date (L A). </p><p>- Köln 2600; cf. Dattari (Savio) 4656 (legend); Kampmann &amp; Ganschow 68.6., Ex Coin Galleries (16 July 2003), 264. </p><p><br /></p><p>Perhaps the most reluctant of Emperors, Gordian I (Marcus Antonius Gordianus Sempronianus Romanus Africanus Augustus) was Roman Emperor for one month with his son Gordian II in 238, the Year of the Six Emperors. Caught up in a rebellion against the Emperor Maximinus Thrax, he was defeated by forces loyal to Maximinus before committing suicide. </p><p><br /></p><p>According to Edward Gibbon:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;An iniquitous sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of [Africa], the execution of which would have stripped them of far the greater part of their patrimony. (…) A respite of three days, obtained with difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train, seized on the little town of Thysdrus, and erected the standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire. (...) Gordianus, their proconsul, and the object of their choice [as emperor], refused, with unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honour, and begged with tears that they should suffer him to terminate in peace a long and innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood. Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his only refuge indeed against the jealous cruelty of Maximin (...).&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Because of the absence of accurate dating in the literary sources, the precise chronology of these events has been the subject of much study. The present consensus among historians assigns the following dates (all in the year 238 A.D.) to these events: March 22nd Gordian I, II were proclaimed Emperors in Africa; April 1st or 2nd they were recognized at Rome; April 12th they were killed (after reigning twenty days); April 22nd Pupienus and Balbinus were proclaimed Emperors; June 24th Maximinus and his son were assassinated outside of Aquileia; July 29th Pupienus and Balbinus were assassinated and Gordian III proclaimed as sole Augustus.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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