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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 4852366, member: 44316&quot;]That is a good point, although I think RIC dated the VOT X and VOT XX post-reform radiate coins of Carthage to c. 303 for poor reasons. The mint was apparently open in &quot;296 or 297&quot; because Maximian went to North Africa then (the year of his trip is uncertain). This was after the coin reform of c. 293-4 that introduced the new follis (nummus) denomination and the post-reform radiate. You&#039;d think that when they started issuing folles &quot;c. 296&quot; [according to RIC] that they would also issue the new post-reform radiate [a.k.a. radiate fraction] but, no, <i>RIC</i> puts if off until this &quot;c. 303&quot; issue. So, a mint that issues a denomination does not do it for 7 years when they could have? </p><p><br /></p><p>Another possibility is that they issued the radiate fraction as soon as they could have, c. 296 when the mint opened, with the VOT types a little late for their year, but, as soon as they could have. I put the VOT X for the Caesars at Carthage as soon as the mint opened and the VOT XX for the Augusti at the same time, with vota suscepta, not soluta. Note that neither type was continued into a new mintmark series (<i>RIC</i> VI page 427, so I also think it was an unpopular and short-lived denomination there. There is a longtime interval from the coin reform to the end of the tetrarchy May 1, 305, into which that one issue belongs. Maybe they issued the new denomination seven years late with a type that is soluta. Or maybe they issued it as soon as they could with a type that is suscepta. Looking over the VOTA types from issues before and after, I think suscepta issues are more common (like the OP coin). I vote for the issue, and others like it, being suscepta. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>RIC</i> gives dates to many very issues. It was an extremely useful first draft. I consult it all the time. But it was published in 1973 when our knowledge was much less complete and in many cases the author was just filling time gaps with educated guesses. When there are two explanations for one phenomenon (e.g. VOT X), we need reasons to prefer one over the other. The opinion of <i>RIC</i> about dates carries weight, but it is not conclusive when there is evidence to the contrary. I am open to hoard evidence, or other evidence on the dates of VOTA coins under Diocletian and later. CT members above have noted above numerous later cases (discussed on <a href="http://augustuscoins.com/ed/VOTA/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://augustuscoins.com/ed/VOTA/" rel="nofollow">the website</a>) when the dates <b>must</b> be suscepta at the beginning of the time interval, so X is not issued at year ten, but in year 1, vows suscepta for the future. If we didn&#039;t have <i>RIC</i>, we would expect vows for XX to be issued at year ten. I think the argument that it was issued at year ten (as opposed to twenty) is good.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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