Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Finn235, post: 3731444, member: 98035"]It's less clear with early coins; Most coins of Augustus are inscribed in Latin, even the ones of cities where Greek was everyone's first language. The explosion of Greek-inscribed provincial coins comes with Nero (who was a Hellenophile) and further expanded with the Flavian dynasty, and continued until the provincial mints were converted to imperial under the later Crisis emperors - by the time of Aurelian's death, it was pretty much only Alexandria striking provincial coins, and Alexandria was stripped of that privilege in 297 for supporting the rebellion of Domitianus. Bosporus struck the absolute last provincial coins, under Rhescuporis VI around the time of Constantine and Licinius. Imperial coins are usually fairly easy to distinguish, as they follow fairly strict patterns; Even in the latin-inscribed provincial coins, you never see reverse legends along the lines of "PM TR P XIII COS III PP", "ANNONA AVGG", "VICT PART MAX" etc, and except for Antioch, the provincial coins almost never bear SC on them, which was mandatory for all Imperial bronzes.[/QUOTE]