curtislclay

Maesa at auxiliary mint: PIETAS AVG sacrificing left, raising both forearms, no incense box, see picture below. As you pointed out above, the same rev. type also occurs for Elagabalus with the supplementary-mint obv. legend IMP ANTONINVS AVG, probably a mule, but confirming the attribution of this rev. type to the auxiliary mint. LAETITIA PVBL standing left holding wreath and rudder on globe. See your picture above under Issue 4. The same rev. type also occurs for Elagabalus with the auxiliary-mint obv. legend

My attributions for the denarii in the last two columns of your table: Maesa, two IVNO and one Fecunditas seated: all three Eastern. Paula, one CONCORDIA AVGG curule chair and one VENVS GENETRIX: both auxiliary mint. Third Paula, CONCORDIA: early Rome with Paula's first coiffure, late 219 or early 220, unclear in photo whether with or without star in field.

Yes, the die-linked LIBERALITAS AVG II is the Rome-mint type without cornucopia on base. Both die links are illustrated in the book, so there is no doubt about which types were involved. A possible explanation for the activity of Elagabalus' Eastern and auxiliary mints: Rome operated more or less continuously throughout his reign. Elagabalus' Eastern series, with obv. legend ANTONINVS PIVS FEL(IX) AVG, was added in 218 or 219 to provide aurei and denarii for the emperor and his court during their slow progress from Asia Minor towards Rome. As they approached Rome, however, the decision was made to discontinue the shipments of the rather crude Eastern denarii from Asia Minor or Thrace to the court and to replace them with dies engraved and maybe also coins struck by workers sent from Rome: the auxiliary mint with obv. legend IMP ANTONINVS AVG. It doesn't particularly bother me that on this theory the auxiliary mint's production lasted into early 220, after the emperor and the court had already returned to Rome. Yes, the mint of Rome was now available to them, but who knows what other uses the government might have found for additional denarii from the auxiliary mint during the first several months of 220?

Aren't you forgetting the SECVRITAS SAECVLI and LIBERALITAS AVG II denarii in Eauze that were struck from the same obv. die? LIBERALITAS AVG II was struck on bronze ccoins too, so definitely mint of Rome in my opinion.

The three main imperial mints are: Rome The IMP ANTONINVS AVG auxiliary mint in good style. A few coins, presumably the earliest, use the Roman obv. legend IMP CAES ANTONINVS AVG. A large Eastern issue, beginning with obv. legend ANTONINVS PIVS FELIX (or FEL) AVG, then switching to IMP ANTONINVS AVG, with rev. types largely continued from the preceding PIVS FEL AVG issue. The few aurei from this mint use a longer obv. legend. Yes, this mint is often called Eastern Mint or Antioch.

As to the continuation of coinage for Maesa under Alexander as emperor, I have no clear idea. Pink thinks her coinage didn't continue. Carson in BMC (1962), followed by Elks in his pamphlet on Elagabalus (undated, c. 1970), thought Maesa's coinage continued, probably with the PVDICITIA seated type, though Carson didn't go so far as to assign particular BM coins of Maesa to Alexander's reign. The Eauze hoard monograph of 1992, p. 221, also followed Carson. But there doesn't appear to be any solid evidence to prove the point.

As I stated above, IMP ANTONINVS AVG coins in near Rome-mint style should be attributed to a subsidiary mint, the dies maybe having been cut by Rome-mint engravers. They have little to do with the Rome mint coins, so cannot be assigned to the same five issues. Instead we have to work out the order and chronology of this mint's production independently, before attempting to compare it to the contemporaneous coinage of Rome. The production seems to have lasted only from 219 (quite a few types dated TR P II COS II) until some way into 220 (a fairly common Jupiter-seated type dated TR P III COS III, RD 28, plus very rare Consular Quadriga and Stone of Emesa types with the same titles). There are three obvious groupings: Types struck on antoniniani as well as on denarii, including two dated types, both TR P II COS II. Sev. Alex's antoninianus falls into this grouping. Types struck only on denarii, never on antoniniani, including two other types dated TR P II COS II. Finally the three types already mentioned dated TR P III COS III, struck only on denarii, possibly accompanied by a couple of the undated types of the preceding group. Plus two PIETAS AVG types and LAETITIA PVBL for Maesa, and CONCORDIA AVGG seated on curule chair and VENVS GENETRIX for Julia Paula. But no coins for Soaemias! It hadn't occurred to me before that this fact helps refute Heliodromus' idea that Saoemias' VENVS GENETRIX seated type was struck in 219, for in that case we would expect the subsidiary mint too to have struck coins at that time for Soaemias, which was however not the case. Soaemias was missing from the subsidiary mint's production in early 220 also, so maybe her Rome-mint coinage too resumed a little later than I suggested above, a couple of months into 220 rather than at the beginning of that year. In any case it's hard to reconstruct the original order of the subsidiary mint's production, apart from the three general groupings mentioned above. Progress might be made by die studies and by noting the types included or omitted from other large hoards of denarii buried in the course of Elagabalus' reign. That's quite a nice As or dupondius of Soaemias! My small collection of plaster casts of her bronze coins includes middle bronzes of that type struck from five obv. dies with stephane like your coin, plus a sixth obv. die without stephane. Elagabalus struck scarce denarii for Alexander as Caesar with two rev. types: INDVLGENTIA AVG Spes (RD 4) and PIETAS AVG implements (RD 7). It's evident that Elagabalus soon became disenchanted with his newly adopted son Alexander Caesar, with the result that the mint struck substantially fewer coins for him than would have been normal.

That the specimen counts in large second and third cent. silver hoards mostly accurately reflect the mint's original volumes of production of the various types is in my opinion not an act of faith, as you say, but instead a well attested fact. How else will you explain the innumerable cases where each type in a particular issue is represented by approximately the same number of coins in a large hoard, for example in the last two issues of Philip I in the Dorchester hoard as related above? Of course the Reka Devnia figures should always be checked against those in other large hoards, for example the Eauze hoard published in 1992, in order to confirm the approximate equality of the number of coins per type in each issue, or show that for some reason the numbers of coins per type were apparently not equal in some issues, or sometimes to arouse the suspicion that the numbers of coins per type reported in a certain hoard publication were erroneous and needed to be corrected, as is often the case with the Varna coins in the Reka Devnia publication. Historical context will come at the end; first we have to reconstruct the sequence and chronology of the coin types, upon which their historical interpretation will often depend. I was mistaken in my first post to this thread to state that my reconstruction of Elagalalus' coinage as presented here was original to myself and unpublished. I had forgotten that I was in fact closely following Pink's reconstruction in his Aufbau II, Numismatische Zeitschrift 67, 1934. The main things I actually discovered that Pink had overlooked were just the four rare variant emperor-sacrificing types at the beginning of Issue 5 in which the star was always placed behind the sacrificing emperor, and the explanation of the "double-star" coins, on which the star behind the emperor was deliberately eradicated and replaced by the star before him. Moreover Pink's order for the reverse types of Soaemias was 1. VENVS CAELESTIS seated, 2. VENVS CAELESTIS standing, 3-4. IVNO REGINA and MATER DEVM, exactly the reverse of the correct order in my opinion. Thanks for reminding me of Maesa's denarius showing her Fecunditas standing reverse type but with legend FORTVNAE REDVCI of Elagabalus, proving that Maesa's FECVNDITAS AVG type must have been struck in the same issue as Elagabalus' FORTVNAE REDVCI, a chronology which is moreover supported by their specimen counts in Reka Devnia, 50 for Maesa and 52 for Elagabalus. As far as I know these mislabeled denarii of Maesa were all struck from just a single reverse die, as one would have expected. Elagabalus' issues usually contained four rev. types for the emperor; so what should we make of my Issues 2-3, which contain only seven not eight denarius rev. types for him? My suggestion: the four commonest types may belong in Issue 2, namely LIBERALITAS AVG II (RD 53), FORTVNAE REDVCI (RD 52), PAX AVGVSTI (RD 55), and FIDES MILITVM (RD just 31, not RD 47 as I mistakenly wrote above); leaving the three scarcest types for Issue 3, TR P II Sol standing (RD 18), FORTVNAE AVG (RD 8), and SECVRITAS SAECVLI (RD 12). Pink, in contrast, separated three types from the other four because they were struck on denarii only, whereas bronze coins in addition to denarii were struck for the other four types. Who knows? But I don't think we should throw out a useful observation, that four denarius types were normally struck for Elagabalus in each issue, just because one issue seems to contain only three types for him and we don't know why. The Eauze hoard, incidentally, contained a LIBERALITAS AVG II denarius struck from the same obv. die as a SECVRITAS SAECVLI denarius, and a TR P II Sol standing denarius struck from the same obv. die as a FIDES MILITVM denarius, proving that each of these pairs of die-linked reverse types were very probably struck at the same mint and at about the same time. A useful piece of information, since an auxiliary mint might have come into question for the three types of this issue for which denarii only, no bronze coins, were struck.

Thanks! Is that a change from a month ago? I seem to recall a button on the left labelled EDIT.

Typo: there were 237 not 267 VENVS CAELESTIS standing denarii of Soaemias in the RD hoard. Can anyone explain why I no longer seem to see an Edit button to make changes to my own posts?

Attractive specimen! More recent reference: Thomas Ganschow, Münzen von Kappadokien, Sammlung Henseler, Istanbul 2018. vol. II, 561a, citing a specimen in Milan. This catalogue publishes a German private collection of 1600 coins, all of which are illustrated, and to which are added descriptions of many other Cappadocian coins in a few museums and many sale catalogues, none of these additional coins however being illustrated.

Finn, Caligula became COS II on 1 Jan. 39. The Salus coin still calls him just COS, so was presumably struck in 37 or 38.

My issues begin and end with reverse type changes. Issue 1: Dated Roma seated, passing from TR P to TR P COS P P, to TR P II COS II P P; beginning with long obv. legend, passing to IMP CAES ANTONINVS AVG in course of TR P II. Plus four undated types that undergo the same obv. legend change: FIDES EXERCITVS, MARS VICTOR, SALVS ANTONINI AVG, and VICTORIAE ANTONINI AVG. Issues 2 and 3: new obv. legend IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG, and seven new rev. types, whose division between the two issues in not entirely certain. Probably LIBERALITAS AVG II, FORTVNAE REDVCI, PAX AVGVSTI, and FIDES MILITVM standards in Issue 2, as already stated above; and TR P II Sol standing, FORTVNAE AVG, and SECVRITAS SAECVLI in Issue 3. Issues 4-5, already largely explained above; Issue 4 from 1 Jan. 220 to c. June 221, with only the Sol and Victory types lasting from beginning to end, otherwise LIBERALITAS AVG III replaced by ABVNDANTIA AVG, and LIBERTAS AVG with scepter replaced by TR P IIII Providentia standing (probably). Then Issue 5 from c. June 221 to end of reign, with the four common types of Emperor sacrificing. The common IMP ANTONINVS AVG denarii in close to Roman style, though often misattributed to Rome, must be from a subsidiary mint, since there is nowhere they can be fitted into the sequence of Roman types described above, and since their types were always restricted to denarii and antoniniani and were never struck on gold or bronze coins. I'm a little disappointed that you still think Soaemias' VENVS CAELESTIS standing type might have been struck in 219, since you admit the extreme unlikelihood of trying to cram an RD 237 type into an issue whose other four types are all around RD 50. The original culprit in reducing the weight of the aureus was Caracalla in 215. Macrinus restored the old weight in fall 217, and Elagabalus followed suit until c. fall 218, when he returned to Caracalla's reduced weight. So aurei of Soaemias weighing c. 7.2 grams were apparently struck c. July-fall 218.

Thanks for the weekly Faustina threads, RC. They are helping me to familiarize myself with the sequence of Faustina's portrait types under Marcus Aurelius, which I find considerably less obvious than their sequence under Antoninus Pius! For example despite reading Beckmann's book, I had until now never properly noticed Faustina's portrait type 8, with hair combed down and forward, so clearly shown on the Berlin aureus you illustrate. It would help if I could find the energy to reconstruct the type sequence of the Roman coinage of Marcus Aurelius himself as emperor and Lucius Verus, which would doubtless provide essential background for the study of the coinage that they struck at the same time for Faustina and Lucilla. A minor point regarding this current thread: I don't think I can agree with you that the Nauman middle bronze that you illustrate has been tooled. I think the brow hair waves on that coin are original, they have merely been worn away on your overall much finer specimen from the same obverse die. I don't see clear traces of tooling anywhere on the Naumann coin. The indentations around some of the letters in the reverse legend that @thejewk points out also appear on many undoubtedly untouched coins, so must be not tooling but merely the result of how the letters were engraved or punched into the die.

You are quite correct to suspect a gap in the early coinage of Soaemias. Her earliest coinage at Rome was restricted to two scarce types datable to the year 218: IVNO REGINA on aurei and denarii, the denarius occurring in only seven specimens in the Reka Devnia hoard; and MATER DEVM, Cybele seated between two lions, on sestertii and middle bronzes. Soaemias' IVNO REGINA type must belong to 218, because its aurei carried on Macrinus' heavy weight of c. 7.2 g., which was to be reduced by Elagabalus to c. 6.8 g. by the end of 218; and because the IVNO REGINA type occurs on denarii but never on antoniniani, a denomination that was reintroduced by Elagabalus well before the end of 218, by which time the IVNO REGINA type was evidently no longer being struck. Soaemias' MATER DEVM type, on the other hand, had already begun to be produced when her IVNO REGINA type was introduced, because the obverse legend on all of her known IVNO REGINA coins was the standard IVLIA SOAEMIAS AVGVSTA, whereas on one sestertius obverse die and two middle-bronze obverse dies used for her MATER DEVM type, SOAEMIAS was written as SOAEMIS, the second A being omitted, apparently a variant but unwanted spelling that was soon corrected. These considerations of weight, denomination, and misspelled name make it clear that both of Soaemias' two earliest reverse types at the mint of Rome should be assigned to the year 218. But, on my scheme, no coinage was struck for Soaemias at the mint or Rome during the latter part of 218 and in all of 219, for her next reverse type was VENVS CAELESTIS standing with star in field, part of my Issue 4, which lasted from c. 1 January 220 to June 221. Soaemias' type was probably introduced near the beginning of that issue, on 1 January 220 or soon thereafter, since its Reka Devnia count of 201 denarii falls only a little short of the counts for Elagabalus' two scarcest "production lines" of Issue 4, namely Sol advancing with 236 denarii in the hoard and LIBERALITAS AVG III followed by ABVNDANTIA AVG with 45 and 190 denarii respectively, for a total of 235. A possible explanation for this apparent gap in Soaemias' coinage occurred to me several decades ago, and I wrote about it in the Forum discussion group in 2009 (search there for "Soaemis"). To quote myself: "It would appear that Soaemias' two early types, IVNO REGINA on aurei and denarii and MATER DEVM on sestertii and middle bronzes, were struck SOON AFTER ELAGABALUS' ACCESSION IN SUMMER 218, at a time when the mint was ignorant of the fact that Elagabalus' grandmother Maesa, not his mother Soaemias, was the power behind the throne, because THERE IS NO PARALLEL EARLY ISSUE FOR MAESA! Contrast Elagabalus' Eastern denarii of 218-9, struck nearer the court and with better knowledge of the power structure, which include coins of Maesa only alongside Elagabalus, not Soaemias." So, to continue my summary, when the mint learned of its mistake, the decision was made to stop striking coins for Soaemias until the situation could be clarified. But the emperor's journey from Syria was slow, and he did not reach Rome until towards the end of 219. At that time the mint's work was finally reviewed, and a number of changes were made. Late in 219, the Sol standing type was introduced, representing the emperor's sun god; on c. 1 January 220, the star in field was added to all reverse types of the emperor and his family; and at the same time or a little later, after a gap of over a year, the mint finally resumed its coinage for Soaemias. I hope you will agree that this seems a better solution than moving Soaemias' VENVS CAELESTIS seated type into the gap in her coinage from late 218 until early 220, thereby opening a different gap in her coinage from 221-2, when no type would appear to have been struck for Soaemias in Elagabalus' Issue 5.

If you follow up the citations, you will see that there is no reliable evidence for the existence of a VENVS CAELESTIS type on official coins of either Julia Domna or Aquilia Severa. The cited pieces are clearly merely counterfeits, ancient or modern, that have wrongly combined official obverse and reverse types copied from two different coins. Stars were never placed on official coins of Julia Domna, so clearly her supposed denarii with the VENVS CAELESTIS type and star are merely hybrid counterfeits copying Soaemias' reverse type. The absence of official examples of a particular type in the major collections and larger hoards should always make authors wary of admitting that type to their catalogues. What type do you think could have been struck for Soaemias in 221-2, if you are still inclined to misdate her VENVS CAELESTIS seated type without star to 219? Or do you think that the mint struck no type at all for her during the last nine months of Elagabalus' reign (Issue 5)? It is indeed remarkable how accurately many large hoards seem to reflect the comparative original volumes of production of the different types in the successive issues by the mint. Compare for example the numbers of antoniniani in the Dorchester hoard of the two final issues of Philip I's reign: Issue 5, six SAECVLARES AVGG animals types, each type marked with its own Roman officina numeral from I to VI, represented by 62, 56, 60, 72, 62, and 93 antoniniani respectively in the hoard; Issue 6, six other types, each with its own Greek officina letter from A to S, represented by 37, 29, 39, 27, 32, and 26 antoniniani respectively in the hoard. This approximate equality of the numbers of coins per type in the successive issues cannot be mere coincidence; clearly, the mint must originally have divided its production about equally between the different types, and after the coins had been shipped to Britain or arrived there by circulation, their numbers per type still largely reflected that original system of production.

Another specimen, probably from the same dies: Ganshow, Kappadokien II, p. 360, cat. 892, illustrated specimen from Henseler coll. 1386. A well-preserved example!

A useful illustrated summary, but I don't think a child in each type means they probably belong to the same issue, nor do I think VENVS CAELESTIS was a childbirth type, without examining the question in any detail. Consider that the mint usually divided its production of denarii in each issue between six reverse types, four types for Elagabalus and one type each for Maesa and Soaemias, each type being struck in roughly the same volume, plus an additional type struck in similar volume for the emperor's wife during the months that he had one. On my scheme Maesa's FECVNDITAS AVG type, represented by 50 denarii in the Reka Devnia hoard, belongs to Issue 2 of the reign, along with four types of Elagabalus struck in about the same volume: LIBERALITAS AVG II (53 denarii in RD), FORTVNAE REDVCI (RD 52), PAX AVGVSTI (RD 55), and FIDES MILITVM (three standards, RD 47). It seems highly unlikely that Soaemias' much commoner VENVS CAELESTIS seated type, represented by 237 denarii in the hoard, can have been struck in the same issue. That type fits much more probably into Issue 5 of 221-2, whose four main types of Elagabalus were struck in similar high volumes: TR P IIII-V emperor sacrificing (RD 251), INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG (RD 259), SACERD DEI SOLIS ELAGAB (RD 181), and SVMMVS SACERDOS AVG (RD 221). Not that everything about this issue is clear, however: Maesa's contemporary type PVDICITIA was represented in the hoard by no fewer than 547 denarii ! Perhaps her type in this issue was struck in double volume, because her influence over the government had increased since she persuaded Elagabalus to adopt Alexander and make him Caesar in c. June 221? Like you, I don't know any coin of Elagabalus' final issue showing "the tweaked designs but just one star behind the emperor, i.e. with "incorrect" dies which had not yet been modified ." It had occurred to me too that this case demonstrates that substantial numbers of dies were sometimes cut well in advance of their eventual employment. I haven't been keeping track of how many altered reverse dies can be found for each of the four types, however. Another similar case: a dozen or more different Elephant denarius reverse dies of Caracalla in 212 are known with TR P XIIII altered to TR P XV in the legend; but no such denarius with unaltered date TR P XIIII appears to be known. I think the supposed VESTA denarii of Annia Faustina, Maesa, and Soaemias that you mention in your table are just ancient forgeries that take over the reverse type from other ladies?

As to the appearance of the star in this final Rome-mint issue of the reign, each of Elagabalus' four Emperor Sacrificing types on denarii began with a rare variant of the type in which the star was always placed behind the sacrificing emperor; see for example @SeverusAlexander's INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG denarius in his post above. Then small changes were made to each type, and the mint originally planned to continue to place the star behind the emperor in these variant types also, as we can tell from the many attested denarius reverse dies of these types on which a star behind the emperor was eradicated, clearly with the intention of replacing it by the unaltered star in front of the emperor that we also see on every such die. Once these altered dies were used up, the mint engraved new reverse dies with the same variant types, but now of course with the star correctly placed before the sacrificing emperor, so that further die alterations were unnecessary. Another change regarding the star in this final issue of Elagabalus' reign: it was removed from the types of everyone except the emperor himself, whereas earlier it had been added to coins of the emperor's family too, as we have seen. So the following types were struck for family members during the mint's final issue, but always without adding the star in field: PVDICITIA seated for Maesa, VENVS CAELESTIS seated for Soaemias, a number of types for Severus Alexander as Caesar, and LAETITIA standing for Aquilia Severa during her brief second marriage to the emperor. The absence of the star shows us that the LAETITIA type of Aquilia Severa and all coins of Severus Alexander as Caesar must have been struck after circa June 221, when Elagabalus' final issue of coins began, since had they been struck earlier, the star in reverse field surely would have been added. Herodian was often an unreliable historian, but we have to be grateful to him for apparently explaining why Elagabalus' final issue of coins suddenly concentrated so heavily on types and attributes of the emperor as priest of his sun god. According to Herodian, Julia Maesa feared that the soldiers might overthrow and murder Elagabalus, so she persuaded him to adopt his cousin Severus Alexander and make him Caesar, arguing that Alexander would be able to take over some of the work of ruling the empire, leaving Elagabalus more time to devote to the worship of his sun god. We know that Elagabalus indeed adopted Alexander and made him Caesar in c. June 221, and the coin types seem to confirm that from then on he indeed desired to particularly stress the importance of his priesthood of his god. From this reconstruction of the type sequence of the coinage, it seems to me quite clear that the star on Elagabalus' coins can only have represented his sun god.

Heliodromus is correct, the star stands for Elagabalus' sun god, according to the unpublished sequence of Elagabalus' reverse types that I worked out several decades ago. Elagabalus' first and second issues of coins, lasting from his accession in June 218 until c. fall 219, included no types referring to his sun god and no types marked with the star in field . The same applies to his contemporaneous FECVNDITAS and IVNO types for Julia Maesa and his contemporaneous IVNO REGINA type for Julia Soaemias: no sun-god reverse types and no star in reverse field. Elagabalus' first denarius type referring to his sun god, P M TR P II COS II P P Sol standing, appeared in c. autumn 219 and lasted until the end of that year, when it was replaced by a similar type showing Sol advancing that continued throughout 220 with date TR P III COS III and then into 221 with date TR P IIII COS III. The appearance of this Sol type on c. 1 January 220 coincided with the introduction of the star in reverse field not only in that same type, but in the other three types, VICTORIA AVG, LIBERALITAS AVG III, and LIBERTAS AVG, that were struck alongside the Sol advancing type in the same issue. Ditto for the contemporaneous types of Elagabalus' female relatives: SAECVLI FELICITAS for Maesa; VENVS CAELESTIS standing for Soaemias; CONCORDIA marriage scene without star followed by CONCORDIA seated first without and then with star for Julia Paula; and finally the CONCORDIA marriage scene and CONCORDIA standing types with star for Aquilia Severa and the CONCORDIA marriage scene type with star for Annia Faustina. It makes sense that Elagabalus' Sol standing and Sol advancing types of late 219 and early 220 must refer to his sun god, since the same type with the same star in field was also struck with the variant reverse legend CONSERVATOR AVG, characterizing the sun god as the emperor's protector. In an aureus type, also with star in field, the same legend CONSERVATOR AVG was also used with type Stone of Emesa in quadriga, clearly referring to the emperor's Emesan sun god whose cult he was bringing with him to Rome. Leaving aside a few special types, then, there were only moderate references to Elagabalus' sun god on the imperial coinage of the first three years of his reign, namely the Sol standing and then Sol advancing type of fall 219 until mid 221, and the star placed randomly left or right in the reverse field (see Heliodromus' survey above) on all types between January 220 and mid 221. A major change, however, took place in Elagabalus' final issue between mid 221 and his assassination in March 222. The four ordinary reverse types of his preceding issue, for example ABVNDANTIA AVG and P M TR P IIII COS III P P Victory laying garland on two shields, were replaced by four types showing the emperor in Syrian priestly dress sacrificing to his sun god, with legends INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG, SACERD DEI SOLIS ELAGAB, SVMMVS SACERDOS AVG, and the dated legend with TR P IIII followed by TR P V. The "horn", obviously a cult object of some kind, was added to the emperor's portrait on the obverse, until it was removed early in 222, probably in the hope of mollifying the praetorians who were furious that he had attempted to assassinate his cousin and colleague, Severus Alexander Caesar. (to be continued)

Your new sestertius: I have two coins from that same obv. die and with the same Concordia seated rev. type. One has S - C in field like yours, but is not from the same rev. die. Acquired from London Ancient Coins Sale 12, 7 June 2012, lot 240. Second has S - C in exergue, a variety not recorded by Strack. Unfortunately I forgot to record the source on my coin ticket.

I have one like yours, different dies, also S - C across field, not in nice condition but a little better than yours. I'd like to post an image, but unfortunately have never learned how to photograph coins....

I think I have always pronounced it MOO-see-a, (MOO like a cow), perhaps incorrectly. The silver specimen you cite brings back an unhappy memory: I bought that coin from the Gorny sale of 1998, then sent it to Oxford so they could inspect it before inclusion in RPC, but somehow they misplaced it so were unable to send it back! Perhaps it will eventually still turn up somewhere and be returned to me.

A and Δ can be hard to tell apart. It may take some study to establish which of these letters was meant on tetradrachms of a particular issue at a particular mint. As Klaus says, following McAlee, tetradrachms calling Macrinus COS IV were presumably mules, struck from dies originally prepared for Caracalla, since Caracalla had been COS IV since 213 AD, but Macrinus never advanced beyond the rank of COS II.

David, A coincidence! The rev. legend on restored bronzes of Titus generally starts at upper right if the type is merely S C surrounded by one or two lines of legend, but at lower left if an actual old reverse type is reproduced along with the regular S C. The only exception I can find in RIC and in Komnick's Restitutionsmünzen is RIC 435, pl. 111: As of Tiberius restored, rev. winged caduceus and S C, but legend nevertheless starts at upper right, rather than the expected lower left. But now, all at once, two further exceptions: a mediocre Germanicus As that I just acquired from Savoca, see their picture below; and the Drusus As with which you started this thread. Both with S C only on reverse, but reverse legend nevertheless starting at lower left instead of the expected upper right. I didn't recognize that your Drusus was anything special when you posted it two weeks ago; but now I ran across it again right after checking and then purchasing my Germanicus As from Savoca! The reverse legend, obscured by pits and deposits, is IMP T CAES DIVI VESP F AVG REST; from a different reverse die than your Drusus.