Featured On the Emperor Decius, the Crisis and the Christians

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That is quite a reduction since most asses seem to fall in the 6-9g range. I have not seen a semis completely cleaned to bare metal to show if there is an alloy match between them and either dupondii or asses. My hunch is that later bronzes did not pay as much attention to alloy as the early ones so seeing the metal might not help as much as we might like. Earlier semises tended to be orichalcum like the dupondius and the TD semises can be closer to a quarter the weight of a dupondius that a half which would suggest an as. This is why I say we need a lot more information from thousands of coins before we understand the size variations. It could be just a matter of random "we don't care" but I don't know enough to accept that either.

 

The whole family:


Trajan Decius AD 249-251.
Roman AR antoninianus, 3.78 g, 21.5 mm, 7 h.
Rome, AD 250.
Obv: IMP C M Q TRAIANVS DECIVS AVG, radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: PANNONIAE, the two Pannoniae standing left and right; each raising right hand; the one on the right holds a standard in her left hand and there is a vertical standard behind the one on the left.
Refs: RIC 21b; Cohen 86; RCV 9378; Hunter 16.


Herennia Etruscilla, AD 249-253
Roman AR Antoninianus; 4.30 g, 21.4 mm, 7 h
Rome, AD 249-251
Obv: HER ETRVSCILLA AVG, diademed and draped bust right on crescent, hair waved in horizontal ridges (Sear type a; Temeryazev and Makarenko type 1)
Rev: PVDICITIA AVG, Pudicitia veiled, seated left, with scepter
Refs: RIC 59b; RSC 19; RCV 9495 var (coiffure); CRE 545.


Herennius Etruscus as Caesar, AD 249-251.
Roman AR antoninianus, 3.83 g, 22.4 mm, 11 h.
Rome, 5th emission, early AD 151.
Obv: Q HER ETR MES DECIVS NOB C, radiate and draped bust, right.
Rev: PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS, Apollo seated left, holding branch and resting left elbow on lyre.
Refs: RIC 146; RSC 24a; Cohen --; RCV 9522; Hunter 9; ERIC II 40.

Hostilian as Caesar, AD 250-251.
Roman AR antoninianus, 4.32 g, 20.5 mm, 5 h.
Rome mint, 5th officina. 5th emission, early AD 251.
Obv: C VALENS HOSTIL MES QVINTVS N C, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind.
Rev: PRINCIPI IVVENTVTIS, Hostilian standing slightly left, holding signum and reversed spear.
RIC 181d; RSC 34; RCV 9561; Hunter 4.