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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 3751212, member: 72790&quot;]OK, but that depends on the Herodians being literate in Latin. I don&#039;t think they were. Except in judicial and military matters the Roman officials themselves were more likely to employ the Koine Greek which was the (no pun here) Lingua Franca of the Holy Land, rather than Latin. Of course the Herodians, like any ruling oligarchy, had access to Latin speaking secretaries and were not likely not be oblivious of the uses of Latin. Even the Roman troops stationed there were mostly Syrian auxiliaries (except for their officers) who probably grew up speaking mostly Aramaic as their first language and picking up Koine Greek on on the streets if they came from Syrian cities. Yes, even they had to learn camp Latin for interaction with their officers and to understand their orders and regulations, which were universal with the Roman Army throughout the empire. The point here, however, is that the Herodians, the Pharisees and Sadducees, need not have known a word of Latin to pose the question. It was the image of the emperor that revealed the coin to be a Roman one and the inscription would have been something about the emperor, whoever it was, and whoever it was would have borne the title of Caesar. My own feeling now is that the coin rendered as a DENAPION, denarius was being used in a generic sense as any Roman silver coin and since the drachmas of Eastern mints had the image of the emperor, were similar in weight and fineness to the denarius and were more likely to find their way around the Levant than imperial denarii, which seem to have been uncommon in that region at that time, that the coin was most likely a Roman provincial, employing Greek lettered inscriptions, from a city like Caesarea or Antioch.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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