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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 2612196, member: 44316&quot;]When an emperor died there was sometimes a time lag between when mints began issuing coins in the name of the new emperor and the time they actually had a good idea what he looked like. Sometimes the first issues of a new emperor had portraits a lot like the previous emperor.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is an interesting example from the Kingdom of the Bosporus (in Crimea, on the north side of the Black Sea).&nbsp; They often put the king&#039;s portrait and name on the obverse of their coins. The reverse has an imperial portrait and the year of the kingdom, but not the imperial name. The &quot;portraits&quot; are poor so we usually identify which Roman emperor it is by the date on the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]571700[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]571701[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Electrum, 19 mm. 7.69 grams. A stater.</p><p>MacDonald 551/4. Anokhin 628B.</p><p>On this coin we can read</p><p>&quot;&quot;of King Rhescuporis&quot; (II) in Greek around his portrait and &quot;H Φ&quot; (= year 508, in Greek)</p><p>and a trident below an imperial portrait.&nbsp; Can you guess who the emperor is?</p><p><br /></p><p>Scholars think the Bosporan era began in Autumn, 279 BC. MacDonald says, in the standard reference &quot;An Introduction to the History and Coinage of the Kingdom of the Bosporus,&quot; the year began in October [p. 101]. To get AD dates when the Bosporan date is greater than 297, subtract 297 and the year begins late that fall and continues until the following fall.</p><p><br /></p><p>H Φ = 508 in Greek. 508-297 = 211. So the year of the coin is late 211 to late 212.&nbsp; Who was emperor then?&nbsp; Septimius Severus died Feb. 2, 211 in York, England.&nbsp; His sons Caracalla and Geta were then co-emperors. Geta was killed by Caracalla in the closing days of 211 and Caracalla lived until 217.</p><p><br /></p><p>So the date of this coin is at least 6 months after the death of Severus. News traveled slowly compared to today and the Kingdom of the Borporus was far away from York, but there was time enough for such important news to make it all the way there.</p><p><br /></p><p>The imperial &quot;portraits&quot; in this series are cartoonish and rarely good enough in the third century to identify emperors merely by their portraits. There are some coins very like this one with this same date that have a &quot;portrait&quot; somewhat like Caracalla. They have his beard and scowl (see 551/1 in MacDonald), and all coins of this date have been attributed by scholars to Caracalla. On the other hand, this particular reverse image resembles Severus. The beard, with three points, is characteristic, even if artistry is lacking. Look at imperial denarii of Severus for comparison.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Bosporan mintworkers had the advantage of not having to name the emperor, so they could not be embarrassed by putting the the wrong portrait with a name; there was no name. Because so long had passed since Severus had died, it is likely this coin was minted after the mint knew that Caracalla was the new emperor (Geta was younger and less powerful), but did not yet know what he looked like. They used a portrait of Severus long enough to issue this coin. When they finally got a description of Caracalla, they switched portraits.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are other cases where the first issue of a new emperor uses a portrait much like the previous emperor. Can you show us an example?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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