Featured Roman Provincial Coin Cities-- How many can we cover?

I forgot to add my (H)Adrianopolis Gordian III/Apollo.

 

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Thanks Doug. Duly noted in my catalog.

 

I'm not sure it's a matter of euphony as simply a convention to use the particular letter to indicate a nasally sound, sort of how we use the letter h after stops to indicate a fricative (th, ph, ch) consonant, rather than using a single letter, such as þ or ð or θ, φ, and χ.

But whatever the case, this use of gamma is called the "gamma nasal," and it was used before palatal stops (G, K, and CH sounds) to indicate a nasal n-sound. See words like ἄγγελος (messenger, though typically transliterated into angel in English), ἀγκύλος (bent or crooked, such as in the medical term ankylosing spondylitis), or ἀγχίαλος (by the sea, seaside, as in the city name, Anchialus).

 

It looks like you know your Greek. I wish I could read or understand it, but I have trouble with English.

 

Taking Greek in college once earned me a medal ...


The reverse inscription means "the importance of classical languages."

It's not that much of an honor, really. It's the classics student's version of "I took Latin and/or Greek and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

 

Another example is the spelling of Verus as OVHPOC on this coin of Amastris that I posted earlier.



Lucius Verus, AD 161-169.
Æ20, 3.6g, 6h. PAPHLAGONIA. Amastris.
Obv.: OVHPOC KAICAP; Laureate head right.
Rev.: AMACTP-IANΩN; Salus standing right, feeding serpent from patera.

 

Do you remember in grade-school track, when the starting pistol would fire and everyone would explode out of the starting gate? Then a minute later you would see this fat kid lumber by, the kid whose mother made him join the track club so he would lose weight?

Well, I'm still on C. I didn't notice that anyone posted a coin of Claudiopolis. There were actually five cities named after emperor Claudius, this coin being issued in the Claudiopolis of Bithynia. There was also a city by the same name in Cilicia, and Pliny mentions three others, one in Cappadocia, one in Cataonia, and one in Galatia. I'm either late posting this coin, or early, as the town is spelled with a K on the coin...KΛYΔIO-ΠOΛEITΩN.

Here is one of my favorite provincials, a bronze of Domitian that's almost Imperial in style and fabric...



And in an effort to catch up, here is an issue of Trajan from Hierapolis. Zumbly has already given us a couple of instructive paragraphs about the city on the previous page...

 

I have one last coin from Caesarea Cappadocia, that I just discovered today, rummaging through a box of bronzes I recently bought. It's not the most handsome rendition of Hadrian to be sure, but small provincial bronzes don't have great survival rates, so this one is pretty good. Here it is next to my drachm of Gordian III - two versions of Mt. Argaeus. I wonder if anyone has ever assembled a collection of coins with Mt. Argaeus reverses, and how far they got...

 

Lately there have been a lot of the Gordian III coins like yours on the market. Hoard? I have been wanting one but required a clear and bold BNE like yours. Not all qualify. I have a friend who collects nothing but Caesarea. He has many coins that he has owned since the 1950's. When his collection hits the market, you will see some wonderful things.

 

I have two more C's I need to get out of my system before I can move on. A coin of Cyrrhus was already posted, but no history of the city. It's ruins are located in northwest Syria, on the Turkish border. The wiki blurb is quite succinct...

The Cyrrhus in Syria was founded by Seleucus Nicator shortly after 300 BC, and was named after the Macedonian city of Cyrrhus. It was taken by the Armenian Empire in the 1st century BC, then became Roman when Pompey took Syria in 64 BC. By the 1st century AD, it had become a Roman administrative, military, and commercial center on the trade route between Antioch and the Euphrates River crossing at Zeugma, and minted its own coinage. It was the base of the Roman legion Legio X Fretensis. The Sassanid Persian Empire took it several times during the 3rd century.

Cyrrhus boasted one of the largest Roman amphitheaters in Syria...



Here is a bronze issued by Trajan...

 

And finally Caesarea Maritima has also been mentioned. I probably read too much into this coin, but Marcus Aurelius epitomizes the philosophic principles of Roman Stoicism, as evinced by his Meditations, while Serapis embodies all the magic and mysticism of ancient Egypt. What I see in this coin is East-meets-West, Yin-Yang, Reason and Faith, that sort of thing...

 

Hi everyone! It's I-day

Thanks for all the recent additions. I haven't been around lately because I'm roadtripping with my mom (Queen + Adam Lambert concerts in Dallas and Houston). Spectacular staging! Awesome concerts. Heading back to the natal home this morning-- will catch up then.

No I-city coins in my flock though.

 

ILIUM

SALONINA
AE22. 4.96g, 22.2mm. TROAS, Ilium (Troy), 253 - 268 AD. Bellinger, Troy, T294; SNG Munich 279; SNG Cop 443. O: CAΛΩNINA CEB, diademed and draped bust right. R: IΛ-IE-ΩN, helmeted and cuirassed bust of Athena right, wearing aegis.

Homer's epic poem of the Trojan War, the Iliad, is sometimes also called the Song of Ilion, in reference to the Greek name for the settlement that was built on the site of the ancient city of Troy. Even though Xerxes and Alexander the Great had known of and visited the fabled site, the geographer Strabo noted that it "was for a time a mere village, having its temple of Athena, a small and cheap temple". Ilium was, however, by Strabo's time, already a city of size and significance in the Troad.

 

I is for ISINDA.


Annia Faustina, 3rd wife of Elagabalus, Augusta, AD 221
Roman provincial AE 25.0 mm, 8.55 gm
Pisidia, Isinda, AD 221
Obv: ANNIAN FAVCTEINAN, bare-headed and draped bust right
Rev: Confronted heads of Serapis and Isis, in field, E-Delta (yr. 4 ).
Refs: Ex Lindgren I A1322A, ex von Aulock, Pisidia I 833 (Plate coin for both references).

Here's the listing in Lindgren:

 

ooooooh that's fantastic!

 

Oops...jumping in with an H that I did not get in yesterday:

Hierocaesareia

Lydia Hierocaesareia AE15 Artemis Persica - Stag 1st C CE

 

Iconium was a city in Central Anatolia. The region had been inhabited since the Copper Age, c. 3000 BC. It was colonized by Greeks in the 8th century BC, and subsequently ruled by the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, and the kings of Pergamon. Attalus III, having no heir, bequeathed the city to the Roman Republic. During the Imperial era, emperor Claudius changed the name to Claudioconium, and under Hadrian it became Colonia Aelia Hadriana. By the time of Gallienus, it was Colonia Iconiem, as evinced by the coins' inscriptions. The city is now the seventh most populated in Turkey, Konya...



Here are small and medium denominations of Iconium, issued by Gallienus, with Silenus advancing left (whoa dude, put some pants on, sheesh), and Tyche seated with rudder and cornucopia...

 

A quick backtrack to Deultum, which issued some very interesting and scarce types, among them coins featuring Telesphoros, who symbolized recovery from illness. He frequently accompanies Hygieia, as her creepy little brother I suppose - he is always depicted as a dwarf in a cowl, sometimes faceless, as on this coin. (It’s not wear - he really doesn’t have a face - trick or treat!) Here's Diadumenian...






Or maybe it's an ancient alien rocket ship.

 

Iconium has already been posted but I wanted to show this one. On this example the city is operating under the temporary name Claudiconium (spelled with a K in Greek, but after Claudius) thus this should qualify as both an I, a C, and a K for our alphabetic purposes.


LYCAONIA. Iconium (as Claudiconium). Hadrian (117-138 AD). AE. Weight: 2.36 g. Diameter: 17 mm.
Obv: ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟС ΚΑΙСΑΡ. Bare head left.
Rev: ΚΛΑΥΔЄΙΚΟΝΙЄωΝ. Perseus standing facing, head right, holding harpa and severed head of Medusa.
RPC III 2825 (this coin is the exemplar!); SNG France 2286 = Waddington 4767.

Note: The heroic from-the-back bust of Hadrian is surprising. Note that two earlier coins of Iconium feature a bust of Perseus depicted similarly from the back. Hadrian has been rendered in the same pose as the city founder! He raised Iconium to the status of a Roman Colony about 130 AD. Perhaps that is why he is portrayed this way.

The name "Iconium" comes from the icon or image of the gorgon's head. The 12th century medieval writer Eustathius of Thessalonica records that Dionysius Periegetes claimed the mythological Perseus brought the icon of Medusa to Iconium.

 

I would have guessed that to be Pb rather than AE.

...

J or K cities, anyone? All I have is Kibyra which I posted with the Cs .