Mark Antony Legion Denarius Showing Crystallized Silver

As I have mentioned this coin before I will share it.



This denarius was issued in the eastern Mediterranean to pay Mark Antony's legions. I believe this one was found here in Portugal, lost after crossing the whole empire while being used for centuries perhaps. I could not trace it past the previous collector but it is old enough in collections to predate online buying. As with most of these coins it is worn. The legends are all readable but the coin has to be rotated on the light.



On the obverse one of the earliest uses of AVGUSTVS on roman coins. The earliest?
ANT AVG
III VIR·R·P·C
The name and title Augustos was to be appropriated by Antony's enemy, Octavian.

On the reverse, Legion III: LEG III
That would be the legion garrisoning Cyrenaica. Later moved to Egypt by Octavius after the defeat of Mark Antony.
The obverse of the coin is also ironic in its iconography. A ship. Mark Antony's downfall was to be due to a naval defeat leaving his army on an untenable position.
I initially knew these as Mark Antony triremes. Only later began seeing them described as legionary denarius.

Current opinion is that these coins were not used for payment of the legion they are inscribed with. I am unsure of that. The distribution of coins found in hoards according to legion numbers appears balanced. It is consistent with issuing similar quantity of coins for payment of each legion. If these survivals reflect the number of coins produced. Why bother to issue coins with legion numbers, and do so in a proportion adequate for payments to each legion, if the coins were all mixed together before first use?

The broken bit is the reason why I usually do not try to drop and listen to ancient silver. These coins are easy to break. Someone must have broken off that flake on the reverse at 1h after the coin was found because the crystallized silver appears golden under sunlight. This is the look of a recently broken coin, not one broken before being lost.



It was not too bad with this one, the lost bit was unimportant. And the crystallized silver demonstrates that the coin is not false. I always worried when buying worn but expensive ancients. These legion denarii are said to be numerous but I see one for sale here only every few years. And they are always expensive