Ad68 Fiddling While Rome Burns -Post Your Roman Denarii Pics

How unusual is it for the letters to read anti-clockwise like on the obverse of this coin?

G'Day all I still have a few denarii to post these will have to wait as I have an extensive work load that I need to devote 6 days a week to and can only post in my spare time,Numismattyuk my Vespasian's on page 6 most of them are anti-clockwise lettering as well something to do with the slaves eliteracy regards Harry

Ouch! That's too bad -- you seemed to have a lot of good pictures...I hope you can build it back up.

interesting group, thanks for posting them DagonX!

A couple of recent additions to my Severan collection. Both are rare coins from the mint of Alexandria.

Septimius Severus denarius
Obv:- IMP CAE L S-EP SEV PERT AVG, Laureate head right
Rev:- L-EG III [IT A]V-I, TR P COS in exergue, Legionary eagle between two standards
Minted in Alexandria. A.D. 194
Reference:- BMCRE -. Cohen -. RIC -. RSC - (illustrated as 262 but an Alexandrian example was used to illustrate the Rome mint LEG III ITAL in error)



Septimius Severus denarius
Obv:- IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG, Laureate head right
Rev:- TR P IIII IMP II COS, Mars standing right, resting on spear and shield
Minted in Alexandria, A.D. 194
References:- BMCRE -, RIC -, RSC -. cf. RIN (Rivista Italiana di Nvmismatica Vol. XCVI (1994/1995)

This type was clearly struck in 194, when Septimius was TR P II and IMP III or IIII, so TR P IIII IMP II in the rev. legend is an error, the origin of which is obvious: the type is a rote copy of the identical type and legend on denarii of Lucius Verus of 164, Cohen 228-9. The titles apply to Lucius in 164, not Septimius in 194 and the engravers simply copied a Lucius Verus type by rote.



Regards,
Martin

I suspect that in starting off the mint in Alexandria, which had produced very small numbers of imperial coins under Commodus, that there was a plan to enhance the political message that Septimius Severus wanted spread. He wanted to show his supposed links with the Antonine dynasty and wished to produce coins that echoed this Antonine heritage. I think that a handful of Antonine coins were chosen and sent through to Alexandria for their designs to be copied for use on the new issues. The Alexandrian engravers were not used to producing Imperial coins and had produced local coinage with Greek legends. It is not inconceivable that they simply made some errors with a few types and copied the coins, legends and all rather than engraving the devices and then applying a more suitable legend. These errors would have been spotted quickly and stopped. The remaining designs seem to echo the reverse types ranging from Hadrian through to Antoninu Pius and Commodus.

My reason for thinking that they didn't simply have a Rome mint die of Lucius Verus is that the engraving style of the Alexandrian coins is not as refined as those of the earlier Rome mint coins. Here is a Lucius Verus of the type that could have been used as a prototype from my collection for comparison.



There are other coins where the same / similar process was used. Here is a rare reverse type for Septimius Severus (around 4/5 examples known) where the reverse legend could read COS II but in hand seems to be COS IIII.



which would echo this common denarius of Antoninus Pius (also from my collection).



Regards,
Martin

By George Martin you know your Denarii,great examples mate