Curtis JJ

This post was the first time I've been interested enough to read anything about Sassanian Kings, but that was great! Jewish Exilarchs, persecuted Christians, scheming Zoroastrian priests... fighting lions for crowns... then falling into caves or swamps and drowning! I'm amazed how much I have in common with these guys 🙂 Moral of the story: Don't mess with the Zoroastrian Priests! I've got a handful of Numidian AE (Masinissa / Micipsa) that are sometimes struck in lead or "leaded bronze." Most look like ordinary bronze, and none of mine look like the really lead-y ones, but this one's weird patina (which I love) always got me wondering if it was a higher-lead alloy (should prob. check specific gravity): Greek North Africa. Kings of Numidia, Massinissa (203-148 BCE) or Micipsa (148-118 BCE) AE Unit or Obol (13.60g, 28mm, 12h). Struck in Cirta (?), 203-118 BCE. Obv: Laureate, bearded head left; beaded border. Rev: Horse galloping left. Ref: SNG Copenhagen 510; Sear GCV 6596 var.; MAA 12; Mazzard 23; Müller 25. Cf. MAA 11-22; SNG Copenhagen 495-518 (510-513). Prov: Ex-Gary Dayton (Specialty Coin; Champaign, IL), c. 2010-2015; ex-Harlan J Berk, Ltd. (privately purchased in large group of ancient coins forming Dayton’s initial ancient coin inventory, possibly from Curtis Clay).

All right! I see a little captive under the crust, which is my favorite thing about Licinius coinage. Here's my googly-eyed Licinius II. (Struck c. 317-321, Licinius Jr. must've been, what, like 2-5 years old? I enjoy his toddler-like portrait, if not reminiscing about his execution by his uncle, the great Constantine, alongside dear cousin Crispus and poor aunt Fausta.) Also an AE3 with Jupiter & a captive. Also left-facing. But no Helmet and spear w/ bust or eagle on reverse on this one. This is from Giovanni Dattari's (1858-1923) Collection of Late Roman Bronze Coins. Photo Credit: Still using Victor Clark's sale photo. I consider myself lucky to have gotten this one. Roman Imperial. Licinius II AE3 Follis (20mm, 3.6g, 6h). Antioch, c. 317- 321 CE. Obv: DN VAL LICIN LICINIVS NOB C. Laureate, draped bust left, hold sceptre & mappa. Rev: IOVI CONSERVATORI CAESS / H (to r.) / SMANT (in ex.). Jupiter standing, chlamys across shoulder, holding sceptre & Victory on globe. To left: Bearded, shirtless Eastern (Sarmatian?) captive, hands bound in rear, wearing pointed cap & baggy trousers w/ ornate seam or column of tassels (?). Ref: RIC VII Antioch 29 Prov: Ex Victor Clark; previously CNG group lot; ex-Giovanni Dattari (1858-1923) Collection of Late Roman Bronze Coins. Presumably ex-Vico (did all Dattari's RIC on the market start there)? Aside from accumulating Dattari coins, I am always interested in the minutiae of captives and "barbarians." This one is clearly "Eastern," maybe Sarmatian based on Licinius I's role attacking them, c. 310-. Nothing is out of the ordinary for an Eastern captive (pointy hat, no shirt, baggy pants) but I like the details. The beard and the pants are very textured. The left pantleg has an element visible on many Fallen Horsemen -- some kind of ornate column of tassels or a seam along the front? It's a bit easier to see on a bigger FEL TEMP AE2s, but I still don't have any idea what it's supposed to be. As a regular part of the design, though, it must be illustrating a typical feature of "barbarian" clothing....

I enjoyed that you actually defined "random" properly and gave a methodology! I used Google's random number generator; on my fourth trial I got an inventory number associated with a photograph (#85). I might not buy this one again, since I've become stricter about sourcing, and this was a bit of a departure from my usual practices. But I do love my tiny archaic fractions. Kings of Lydia, Kroisos (or successors) AR Twelfth Stater (0.88g, 8.5mm). Sardes mint, 561 - 546 BCE (or later). Obv: Confronted foreparts of roaring lion and bull. Rev: Double incuse punch. Ref: Berk 26–7; Rosen 662-8; SNG von Aulock 8213; SNG Kayhan 1020; SNG Ashmolean 775 (Persian Period); Traité I 413. Prov: Ex-Zeus Numismatics (UK/Nederland) Prime Auction #1 (Online, 17 Nov 2019), Lot 3.

Lol... And wow, what a cool coin! Aside from the interesting reversal of obv. bust and figure on reverse, I love that there's a smith-god doing metalwork on the back. I had no idea you could find a coin depicting a full blacksmithing scene on it! Also really cool for the place and time period. Just at a glance I'd have thought, "Hm, that's an intriguing Roman Provincial Bronze from somewhere in Roman Asia..." I'm assuming the end date of 41 is for Claudius' invasion of Britannia. Even if influenced by Roman Pronvicials (or Roman-friendly coins in the West), that makes it a proper pre-Roman British coin, which I would never have guessed. Didn't even know there was such a thing. Still something new to learn every day, I love it!

Glad you brought up this topic, I've wondered about this a lot, and spent some hours looking around for what others say. I recently bought a pair of left-facing Flavian denarii (from CNG, previously Orfew collection, which I thought might contain an over-representation of leftward facing busts, perhaps because he has a predilection for scarcities and rarities?): It seems the preference for right-facing obverses might’ve begun very early in coinage, long before the Romans (with right-facing Athena on the late 6th cent. BCE Athenian tetradrachms, and the right-facing lion on the mid-6th BCE Electrum Trites/Hemihektes of Lydian Kings c. Alyattes). But I think the answer may be similar for Greek & Roman. As you say: Right is good luck. As I pointed out in my other, related thread (leftward reverses), there is probably a degree of “institutional inertia” as well. Cities and Kingdoms and Moneyers wanted their coins to fit the accepted forms of the previous coinage. It also had the same connotation of being "forward-looking," in the same sense of looking east toward the sunrise and the future. From Stevenson’s (1889, p 588) Dictionary of Roman Coins, the word Oriens “was used by the Romans to designate either that part of the world where the sun appears to rise, or some province of the empire situate[d] towards the East; or the Sun itself.” So -- back to Imperial Rome -- Aurelian's Oriens Augusti was proclaiming "A New Morning" for Rome, as in, the East is the future. (I don't have the references, but I checked, and they did think of right as East and left as West, just as we do today, at least in the northern hemisphere.) A similar phenomenon occurs with Left-Facing Reverses. (I don't have the numbers handy, but I've seen it quantified.) That veers into different enough territory I decided to post separately here: https://www.numisforums.com/topic/792-left-facing-reverses-and-seated-left-imagery-4th-bce-to-5th-ce-zeus-athena-roma-its-all-baal/ [EDIT: OKAY GOT RID OF UNINTENDED EXTRA PHOTOS! OOPS!]

At first I was commenting on @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix's interesting thread on Right-Facing Portraits, but decided to split my comment between the two, and put the reverses here. (I'm still editing my left-facing obverses comment over there, but it's coming!) Just as obverses have a tendency to face right, there seems to be a preference for Left-Facing Reverses. I have a mini-collection of "seated left" imagery. It began in late archaic / early classical Greek coinage (and other art), which probably influenced the later coins, but my examples begin with the influential AR Stater of Tarsos under Mazaios, c. 361 - 334 BCE, shortly before the city and mint were taken by Alexander III. One great detail from this turning point in history is Alexander's adoption of the Baaltars imagery for his own Tetradrachms. (I think it's obvious, though others may disagree; see Biblio at end.) This was more than an artistic choice: Alexander III wanted a design that could appeal both to the local population (who would see it as Baal, the "old god") and to Alexander's Greeks (who would see it as Zeus). (See esp. Rowan 2016, in Biblio note.) Over 750 years, from Baaltars of Mazaios, to Zeus of Alexander III, to Athena of Lysimachos and the other Diadochi, then outward to other Greek Kingdoms and cities, to Vesta and Roma et al., the imagery persists all the way to 19th and 20th century coinage (and today). Zeus, Athena, Roma, Britannia, Liberty... It's all Baal. S'all Baal, man! (Some of these images are from my previous posts) I have a bunch of others "seated left" but, at a quick glance, I only notice a few "seated right" in my collection. These ones come from Parthia (and maybe Persis), probably less constrained by Greco-Roman convention (interesting, the obverses also face the "wrong" way from a Greco-Roman perspective, leftward): WHY? Hypothesis 1: Since there's a preference for right facing obverses, a left-facing reverse gives the illusion of the obverse figure gazing toward the reverse (which gazes back). (Even if the coin doesn't have a 12h die axis, one imagines the viewer reorienting the coin properly to "see" the full tableau created by the two sides.) Only a tentative hypothesis. I'm interested to hear others. H2 (not mutually exclusively with the first): "Institutional inertia." It's how the early, trend-setting examples were done. Later versions, wanting to borrow from the familiar design elements, and have their coinage readily accepted, adopted the general imagery. This is more-or-less the explanation given by Thonemann (2015). Having once-upon-a-time studied a bit of the "new institutionalism" in sociology and economics, this explanation makes good sense to me. Note: Short Baal-Zeus Biblio. - Clare Rowan’s 2016 “Ambiguity, Iconography, and Entangled Objects" ; - Reid Goldsborough, including rival hypotheses: http://rg.ancients.info/alexander/tets.html ; - Orestes Zervos vs. MJ Price, 1982, “DEBATE: The Earliest Coins of Alexander the Great,” pages 166-190, including pp. 167-170 on "Derivation of the Seated Zeus" ; - similarly for Samarian Baal coinage, Wyssmann [2014, “The Coinage Imagery of Samaria and Judah in the Late Persian Period”]: pp. 232-234 (incl. notes, esp. 38), see also pp. 245, 247 ; - Thonemann’s (2015) The Hellenistic World: Using Coins as Sources (available here, on Archive, at least for the moment... though I found it worth it to get the paperback copies of the Cambridge "using coins as sources" series).

That is a cool type and an interesting provenance (I like it whenever collector/dealer info is preserved somewhere in the literature, when it could otherwise be lost to history, especially dealers who didn't produce much in the way of print catalogs). I don't know if I have much in the way of (presentable) Provincial Judaea Capta coins, but I did recently acquire this Judaea ("Judea") Capta AE As at CNG. (Apologies if I've posted it on another of your threads elsewhere, not sure, it's a new favorite...) It fits perfectly into both of my favorite sub-collections: (1) Roman Captives and (2) the impact of WWII on the world of ancient coins. IVDEA CAPTA: CNG had it attributed erroneously as RIC II.1 1233 (Lyons, 79 CE / COS VIII / IVDAEA) [OCRE (RIC 1233; 10 specs.)]. I believe it should be RIC II.1 305 (Rome, 71 CE / COS III / IVDEA) [OCRE (RIC 305; 14 specs.)]. Note the missing first "A" (Judea v. usual Judaea), sometimes described as an accidental misspelling (e.g., A.S.W. in "Nomos 24 Highlights," email rec. 15 May 2022, Lot 397). Salton-Schlessinger & Bressett: I bought a bunch of mostly budget coins from the coll. of Kenneth Bressett (b. 1928 - [also: Smith, American Numismatic Biographies, p. 51]) at CNG Keystone 6 (his Ptolemaic & Byzatine are coming up in Keystone 8), but this is my favorite. Bressett bought it in 1957 ($8) from Mark Salton-Schlessinger (1914-2005; born Schlessinger, he went by Salton or Salton-Schlessinger after coming to America post-WWII) and still had the tag/envelope. Salton's "inventory" and "collection" clearly overlapped significantly, and he did collect RIC and made some donations. I didn't get anything at the recent sale of his Greek collection (I did get some ex-Salton books & auction catalogs), but this will do. (Mark & Lottie Salton are surprisingly absent from Pete Smith's otherwise excellent ANB, but see the CoinsWeekly summary (English verson of MünzenWoche) or Ira Reza’s essay “Remembering Mark & Lottie Salton” in Kolbe & Fanning 161 [direct to .pdf], reprinted from ANS Magazine (Spring 2006) [link now broken]. Especially significant because Salton was from the prominent extended Schlessinger-Hamburger-et al. family of German Jewish numismatists who were largely wiped out by the Nazis (his parents were killed at Auschwitz, his father the famous Felix Schlessinger). (See U. Kampmann's great new volume on this, On the Origins of the German Coin Trade... [on Issuu, English translation], published online [free] by Künker.) I'm sure the parallels between the Roman conquest of Judaea and the Holocaust were very salient for Salton (especially since Hitler styled "the Third Reich" as a continuation of ancient Rome).

While this type of cut coin is usually described as "cut for change," I've always wondered if there was a political-economic component. After Rome defeated Hannibal and took dominion of Iberia (probably not all that long after the coin was struck), was this Punic Shekel intentionally cut down to Drachm-Denarius size? (It weighs 4.10 grams. I call it my "Hannibal Denarius," though of course both terms are highly debatable. Doing a little measurement and math, I concluded this is about 61.5% of the original, which probably weighed 6.65g. The absent smaller “half,” ~2.55g, might have corresponded approximately to a late-standard, reduced Republican Victoriatus.) CNG appears to have sold a small hoard of these. The others are pasted together from their other sales and are NOT mine (I'd like to have had the top two as well!). The weights provide only mixed support (some might call it wishful thinking) for my "Hannibal Denarius" hypothesis. Another nice thing about that hoard is the relative wear pattern on the other type of portrait suggests that this type is, indeed, later, which supports the hypothesis that it portrays Hannibal (or Melqart w/ his features) rather than the earlier BICs (Barcids-in-Charge):

Congratulations! Most of my Alexandrian are RPC (or Late Roman Bronze for which the mint is of less interest), but I love seeing how the Alexandrian mint's output changed from the Ptolemaic period to the Islamic. I'm sure a lot of people have built fascinating Alexandria collections spanning that whole period.

Great episode, @Leo! The historical context is great. LOL: “Dumpster fire of imperial proportions!” Nice group (love the panther [tiger] & goat), @Roman Collector!

Oh, btw @Ryro, I would consider that first ugly Byzantine overstrike to be very fascinating! Ugly and inartistic to be sure, but I find ugly coins (and anything revealing of the minting process, its flaws & errors) fascinating. I really wish I liked fewer types!

I get the impression that most collectors start more general and go specific over time, but I've done the opposite (over ~30 or 35 years). I started with biggish Greek AR, saving up and buying one coin per year for about 5-10 years. With more exposure, though, I've found something to appreciate in a much wider range of coins (some Celtic, all Greek, E. Greek, RPC, RRC, RIC, Byzantine, some Byzantine contemporaries incl. some Islamic). Of course, that means I don't have highly specialized knowledge in any one specific area. Now, if there's a narrow focus in my collection, it has to do with the "modern object biography" or "history of knowledge" behind a coin. I look around for coins with potentially interesting backstories and try to find out as much as I can about what others have said about or used the coins for. Sometimes for types I knew almost nothing about beforehand. Used to be, I'd have thought someone was crazy to pursue coins like these. Now, I'll spend hours reading on a topic when deciding on which 3 or 4 coins to bid on, and then maybe win one or not (either way, I keep the knowledge and apply it later, and if I lose, it was free): For example, at one time I didn't care much at all for Roman Provincial Coins. But I've found those ones have the highest ratio of published literature-to-known coins (at least within my budget). And the more I've read up on them and found out what others find interesting in them, the more I enjoy them too. It's been similar for certain kinds of Islamic coins, though my lack of Arabic still keeps me away. The type below is one I'd have never been interested in if I hadn't read the references first: Those ones above are pretty attractive for their types, but I can go for unattractive coins too, if I like their story enough: Most Medieval coins haven't yet interested me (aside from Byzantine and related). Chinese coins I've never been into at all, though maybe some day. (Chinese was my answer.)

Interesting, I hadn't heard of Garum, but it's fun to learn about such little details of ancient life. And it does seem that dolphins are the most common non-fish "fish" to be found unless you have tunny coins from Kyzikos. (I've got the diobols somewhere but no good photos.) Here are a few of my Greek dolphins in different arrangements, some in secondary positions as totems, etc.: (Euboia, Karystos ; Taras ; Thessaly, Skotussa ; Amphipolis after 325 BCE; Saguntum [after 2nd Punic?]; Syracuse, mid-5th BCE) For those who aren't squeamish, I did find a video (0:11s) of my pet opossum when he was a youngster (RIP Piglet) eating the head of a Tuna fish for a snack! Piglet was a big fan of Garum! https://imgur.com/gallery/CiWvB4Y Piglet_eats_fish_head_20180817_222610.mp4

Awesome! I'm looking forward to watching it in full. Here are two Valerians -- favorites from my Captives Collection (one type, diff. obv. & rev. dies). They're not in great condition, but historically interesting, and relatively rare variants (though there are at least half a dozen readily locatable on ACSearch). As everyone recalls, he was captured in 260 by the Sassanian King, Shapur I. About 3 years before being captured by Shapur, he struck these coins showing Victory looming over an eastern (Parthian) captive w/ the legend VICT PART. (I titled my blog post "The Irony of Valerian's Captive.")

An interesting question! I prefer coins with an interesting "object biography" (or "provenance"), in part because I find the easiest way to understand a topic is by studying its "history of knowledge." My favorite are coins with several links in the chain-of-custody between collectors, or multiple entries in scholarly debates. Each one is unique (some more than others, if that's possible). For me, irreplaceability is in the interestingness of the network of collections and/or ideas about the coin. A small Æ chalkous (10mm, 1.16g, 7h) from Caria, Mylasa (?). Zeus (or Poseidon?) and dolphin over trident. A not-so-expensive but irreplaceable example specifically for its biography (below): It was part of several scholarly collections (Karl, Franke, Vogl), where they and/or auction catalogs attributed it to several different mints over the past 30+ years. The city has been debated for generations but finally seems to be settling on Mylasa (in addition to the 4 cities below, others have suggested Myndos, Myrina, and Nisyros): Myndos in Kölner Münzkabinett Auktion 49 [30 Oct 1989], Lot 27, where it was acq. by Erich Karl; Mygissos, Karl 246 in Lanz 131, [Munzen von Karien, Sammlung Erich Karl, 27 Nov 2006], 246; Mylasa in Grün 64-1 [Sammlung Prof. Dr. Peter Robert Franke - Griechische Münzen, 20 Nov 2014], 1046; Mylasa in Leu WA 16 [22 May 2021], 1055 (Dr. Peter Vogl Collection, acq. after the Helios 5 sale in 2010); Mylasa in Historia Numorum Caria Online Temp N. 1883, example 1 (this coin); Mylasa (this coin cited & illustrated, table 41.ε) in Dimakopoulos, Stavros. 2009. Sanctuaries and Cult of Zeus in Caria. [in Greek] Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Myous or Mygissos (this coin cited on p. 282, n8) in Lenger, Dinçer Savaş. 2016. “A New Myrinan (Aeolis) Bronze Coin?” AIIN, 62: pp. 281–286; I haven't had a chance to see Koray Konuk's new (2022) chapter in Presbeus (the Festchrift for R. Ashton), “MY Stands for Mylasa.” I’m curious to see if he discusses this type (and example), since it sounds like it's about the related series of bronze coins w/ MY ethnic (the source of the debate; e.g., HNO 735). (Konuk figures prominently in my "reattributions & debates" sub-collection, since he's always reattributing Carian coins to different cities... sometimes overruling his own prior judgments!) And an Æ Hemiassarion (18mm, 3.84g, 12h) of Domitian (looking like Caligula) from Cilicia, Anazarbus. (I included it on another thread recently). It was published w/ at least four different attributions (3 mints + "uncertain" & 2 rulers, Domitian or Caligula). It's the only coin I've found in two different Lindgren volumes (of 3), and two different RPC volumes (the first now retracted, plus RPC supplements & online) because Ziegler pointed out both were wrong at just the right time to make corrections: 1985 (Caesara Paneas, Domitian; AND Irenopolis, Domitian): Lindgren & Kovacs 2192, as Caesarea Paneas, Domitian on page 116, then “corrected” to Irenopolis in Errata on p. 187; 1992 (Uncertain mint, Caligula): RPC I 5456; 1993a (Anazarbus, Domitian): Ziegler 73.3; (From here on out, Anazarbus, Domitian.) 1993b: Lindgren III 773 on page 43 (and Errata Supplement, p. ii); 1998a: RPC Supplement 1, p. 50, “Delete:…” the entry for RPC I 5456, citing Ziegler (but not Lindgren III) and correcting to Anazarbus, Domitian; [Also included in RPC Consolidated Supplement 1-3, 2015: p. 180]; 1998b: RPC II 1750, Anazarbus, Domitian [cited in RPC Online II 1750, example 4 as Lindgren & Kovacs 2192 (corr.) but without mention of the Lindgren III 773]. Online: Isegrim 23043, example 3 (corr.) ["ZIEGLER KAISER 073(1-6)" = "SLG LINDGREN I 2192(3)<KOR>"]; 2022: CNG 510, 419, ex MDA Collection.

Nice one! Tough to find in any condition (and never fully centered). You've got most of the legend on the right; on the left it's weakly struck but maybe a bit more under the crust. (Better this way than the over- cleaned examples I've seen.) Interesting traces of an over-strike on both sides toward 12h? I believe we have the same "obv" die (i.e., emperor-side [some call that rev], not sure about "rev"/quatrefoil). I've still never found one showing the bottom left quarter (i.e., full legend, 6h to 9h). Mine shows upper left & upper right. Yours the right (minus C at the end) & top left very faintly ( IШ Δ...). Other dies have different legends. But this one's still a partial mystery: Is " IШ ΔK O ΔKAC" everything? Or another character at ~7h after K (e.g., "Π," for "ΔKΠ" instead of "ΔK")?

This one is a bit of a gamble (also in the sense that I don't have it yet, won last night at Noble 130)... really tempting the gods on this one... The gamble: I'm hoping the coin actually still looks like it did in the 1999 NAC and 2005 CNG sales, and that Noble's photography is characteristically uncharitable (in my past experience, the coins look better in hand). The coin is reportedly Virzi 512 (I don't have a copy of Virzi plates...yet... not in the Malloy sale or Hirsch, don't have the Leu sale either [*edit* just noticed the Gallica link on rNumis! *]) and in Corpus Numorum Siculorum (a set whose price I haven't been willing to pay). But what really got me was the amazing overstrike: Dolphins for the Lyre frame and Apollo wearing a helmet! The Aitna - Adnon Mercenaries types are generally struck on Syracuse AE Drachms and often have at least some traces of under-type. But here you can see the dolphins, positioned as well as possible to be incorporated in the lyre, and likewise a bit of Athena's helmet outlines the back of Apollo's head. Was this accidental? Could it possibly have been the coin-strikers having fun or expressing their creativity during their boredom? I've seen some other dramatic overstrikes that give such an impression, but my guess is that it's just luck. With enough of them, some will look cool by chance. The 17-year old photo from CNG e-Auction 116 [15 June 2005], Lot 56: From Noble 130, 4137: Sicily, Aitna Area, Mercenaries from Adranon, (c.344-336 B.C. [actually, I think a bit earlier?]),AE drachm, 30mm, (26.11 g), obv. laureate head of Apollo left, rev. lyre with seven strings (CNS III 2 st 4/5 = Virzi 512 (This Coin)). For comparison here's the undertype, with reverse rotated to the same dolphin orientation, from CNG Triton VIII [edited, not my coin]: From NAC Auction I, Lot 1137: From Noble (yikes, hope it's not accurate! but maybe it caught B.D. & took a sesquicarbonate bath... though the dimples and changes in tone appear to be in the same places):

Wow, Alexandria wouldn't have been my first guess! Good find.

Good topic, I'm looking forward to seeing some others. This is one where I've got the book but none of the coins inside... Here's my copy of The Coinage of Caesarea in Cappadocia by E.A. Sydenham. It's the original 1933 edition without the later intro by Alex G Malloy. It has bookplates from the ANS Library and David Bullowa (1912-1953), also with his embossed stamp. (It's originally softcover, but someone gave it a hard cover, but don't know if it was Bullowa or ANS. I've bought a number of these deaccessioned duplicates from ANS now; they sell them on ebay every so often.) Now I need to get some of the coins to go with it!

Lovely Trikephela! Really nice reverse on yours @Nerosmyfavorite68. And the one posted by @Simonis spectacular. Love that Mary with Jesus head peeking out (looks like a kangaroo pouch w/ a joey!), and the beautifully struck rev legend. On the old terminology for the late bronze coinage, I enjoy the old distinction between scyphate and "flat coinage"! (E.g. Goodacre's 1938 article, "The Flat Bronze Coinage of Nicaea"!)

(Recently posted a previous version on my blog, but thought it might be of interest here. In the photos, only the coin on the right is mine.) Please share any thoughts, any of your dog coins (Greek, Roman, other), any Epidauros or Asclepius coins, or anything else you deem relevant! The Argolid city of Epidauros – famous site of the Asclepeion and Temple of Apollo Maleatas – is known for its silver and bronze coins portraying Asclepius, a god of medicine and healing. Some of the 3rd century BCE bronze coins also depict his two primary companion animals on the reverse – snakes and dogs. Two similar types with dog reverses are what I'm interested in here, especially the one I suspect of "performing a play-bow" (which I call "Type 2"). (Throughout, I rely on three pairs of specimens, those published in BCD Peloponnesos I & II [obv-rev die matches to each other] and my two specimens [each has a new reverse die; both of my coins are ex Nomos 24, 137 (part), from the fascinating "Maleatas Collection of Epidaurous" (Note 1), the second coin also ex-BCD].) Mythology gives various explanations for the relationship between Asclepius and dogs. In one version, he was abandoned as a baby ("exposed" is what the Romans called abandoning an unwanted baby to its fate) but survived when protected and/or nursed by a dog or two. Dogs were, apparently, also considered healing creatures in their own right (apparently by licking wounds), and were frequent residents at Greek Asclepeia (i.e., live dogs as well as the statues). Type 1: The first of the two types shows the dog lying in sphynx-like posture, described by Gardner in the 1887 British Museum Catalog as “dog reclining r.” (HGC 736 = BCD Peloponnesos 1256; BCD Peloponnesos II 2502 [same dies as HGC 736]; Nomos 24, 137.5 = Maleatas Collection 350, now CurtisJJ [same obv., new rev. die]). On Type 1, the still, resting posture is emphasized by a distinct “ground line,” parallel to and immediately under its folded limbs, and above the monogram. Gardner (1887: p. 158, note) suggested that it “seems to be the dog which lay beside the statue of Asklepius,” referring, no doubt, to Pausanias’ (Book 2, Ch. 27) description of the famous sculpture by Thrasymedes of Paros. (I found Pausanias Ch. 27 remarkably readable and interesting, i.e., the WH Jones translation.) Type 2: The second type is the one that I find particularly interesting. In my opinion, it hasn’t received the sufficient attention to properly distinguish it from Type 1, or to recognize its distinctive cultural import and artistic accomplishment. (It's the rarer of the two according to Hoover in HGC 5, listed as "R2," 3-10 known examples; he lists the first type as "R1," 10-30 known.) Type 2 has been described only slightly differently, if at all, from Type 1 – usually as “hound seated,” “dog lying,” or similar (HGC 737 = BCD Peloponnesos 1257; BCD Peloponnesos II 2503 [same dies as HGC 737]; Nomos 24, 137.6 = Maleatas Collection 352, now CurtisJJ's [same obv., new rev. die]). Importantly, the ground line is absent on Type 2, and the dog is clearly in an active pose. In BCD Peloponnesos (LHS 96), Alan S. Walker (the cataloger) added that the “dog seems to be rushing to right”; in BCD Peloponnesos Part II (CNG 81.2), BCD (who cataloged it himself) describes it as “Dog running right.” Type 2, Corr.: I propose a different description: “Dog performing ‘play bow’ right.” (Note 2) (I adopt the conventional verb used in canid behavior studies: “perform.” What’s important, though, is explicit reference to the “play bow.”) “Dog displaying playful body language” (Thomas Zimmermann, 29 June 2015) [CC BY-SA 3.0 de]Compare the highly similar photo in a 2009 discussion of animal play from Language Log, U Penn Cognitive Sci. The Play Bow: All dog owners are familiar with it and most others recognize it when they see it. Dogs, wolves, coyotes, and foxes recognize and perform it instinctively as a friendly, nonaggressive invitation to play. Typical definitions include two elements: the raising of the haunches and the lowering of the forelimbs. One set of academic psychologists described it as “the high-rump crouch position, which occurs when the fore-quarters of an individual are bent, often in a lying down position, while the hindquarters remain elevated” (Byosiere et al. 2016: p. 107). Or, as another author puts it: “The bum goes up and the elbows go down”! Both dog types share one obverse die on most examples (I believe there is at least one more obverse die, seemingly restricted to Type 1). The Maleatas 350 (Type 1) and 352 (Type 2) examples shown above (both now in my collection) add one more seemingly unpublished die of each reverse type (so, there are at least two of each). Their high similarity to the previously known dies suggests the engravers intended to portray the dogs in two different poses in two distinct sets of dies. (Very reminiscent of the different horse poses on Larissa's coinage.) Note 1: For anyone's curious how L.J. Renauldin's (1851) "ponderous old tome" (Études Historiques et Critiques sur Les Médecins Numismatistes, Contenant Leur Biographie et l’Analyse de Leurs Écrits) fits into the story, I posted my BCD - Maleatas "Numislit Exhibit" about the collection online. Note 2: The main rival hypothesis — for now I’ll just mention it — would be that the dog is not playing, but exactly the opposite, performing its mythical guard duties for Asclepius. Note 3: Methodological/Representation Addendum: Since the dog’s posture is the main issue, the orientation of the coin’s image matter. It's very fortunate that Type 1 includes a ground line (presumably intended to be seen horizontally) as well as another element that is present on both Type 1 and Type 2 — the ethnic. I assume the ethnic should be oriented similarly on both types — the “E” on my Type 1 specimen is angled slightly upward relative to the ground line — which requires rotating the Nomos photo 12-degrees clockwise. On other Type 1 specimens, though, the ethnic is virtually horizontal (i.e., parallel to the ground line). To achieve this orientation with my Type 2 reverse required an 18-degree rotation. Link to Original: Nomos 24, Lot 137 All three orientations of my Type 2 reverse are shown above, including the Nomos photo as originally oriented. I don’t know if they fundamentally change the interpretation, but subtle changes in posture can indicate meaningful differences in behavior (the further it’s rotated clockwise, the higher the hindquarters and the more it looks like a play bow to me), so I present all three out of methodological due diligence.

That's the first thing I wondered, if any of those might be countermarks (it's often hard to tell and countermarks can easily be misread as pits). It raises the question of whether Provincial coins were more likely to escape "damnatio recalls" (or if sometimes countermarking might've substituted in times/places where they were reluctant to destroy what scarce small change was available).

Bilingual on the same side, that's pretty cool! I like bilingual coins but it's usually on different sides. A select few on one side. Hadn't ever noticed this kind before.

Here's a "Byzantine-adjacent," a John III Ducas-Vatatzes (1222-1254) of Nicaea AE Tetarteron, my favorite "Byzantine" bronze. The precise legend seems to vary by die (there are a few known dies for this rather rare type). Until recently, there were only a handful of known examples (at least published and/or in major auctions). How the coin was transcribed seems to have depended heavily on the particular example (or two) available to the authors. (I've posted it before, but not here. It's CNG's photo.) There are now a lot of better examples out there, showing a range of reasonable readings, but interestingly, some authors (and myself) come to different readings even when we clearly are using the same specimens: Sear, Suarez: [no legend given]. DOC IV.2 (pp. 508-509), which illustrated at least 3: IШ ΔЄCΠOTHC O ΔϪKAC . Goodacre (this coin), Sabatier, Wroth: IШ ΔЄC O ΔϪKAC. de Saulcy (Rev. Num., 1842: 416): IШ ΔЄCΠ O ΔOVKCA But Leon Dardel (de Saulcy, RN 1842) illustrated it differently: IШ ΔHΠ CΔKA For my specimen, I go with: IШ ΔK O ΔKAC. (Dardel seems to have drawn the left K as a wavy H and guessed at the rest/) My coin is the Goodacre specimen (he first published it in 1931, perhaps citing it as the Wroth-de Saulcy-Sabatier example, again in 1938, and in his popular, reprinted Handbook). I suspect it's also the model that Dardel illustrated and de Saulcy described as ex von Bose Collection. (It's clearly my obv. die [emperor side], but they guessed at the missing parts and got it wrong, at least for that die; if so, it's also one of the two models for Sabatier. The other, I believe, being DOC IV, XXXIV 56.1 = Hendy 1969 34.1 = Prince Egon II of Furtstenberg Coll., Cahn 75, lot 1759 [thus also de Saulcy collection (but not the von Bose specimen) and, later, Peirce collection]. The primary rival candidate for the de Saulcy 1842-Sabatier specimen would be Ratto 2291 = DOC IV, XXXIV 56.3 [Note on Hendy, Ratto] = Hendy 1969 34.2.)

Ha, I think I was bidding on this coin too (or at least had it on my watchlist), in part because I suspected it shared a provenance with other similar Hadrian denarii in the same sale. (And perhaps a previous sale of theirs, can't quite remember.) If you find out who this envelope belonged to, I'd be interested to know. I have some suspicions (the references to Cohen may help date it, also clearly from an English or English-speaking collector): I wonder if it was in the G. R. Arnold sale (part I) from 1969 (not his more famous, magnificent sale of Severan Denarii at Glendining's 21 November 1984, many of which ended up illustrated in Sear RSC and still appear in auctions every so often).... Does anyone have a G.R. Arnold tag? A lot of the coins weren't illustrated. A Hadrian ASIA denarius with similar toning and wear appeared in lot 985 of the same Noonan's sale, so I thought this might've also been one, but I don't recall if I looked to see if it's described in the Glendining catalog. Here's a cut-paste of my notes on Arnold Part I: 17 June 1969 = … Roman silver coins ([Pompey the Great] to Clodius Albinus)… G. R. Arnold [Robert Arnold], Esq. [...] = 711 lots, many ill. on 9 Pl. (~27 per, plus enlargement pl. all AR Denarii), See also Part II (Severan, Glendining, 21 Nov 1984), very important collection, catalogued by Simon Bendall & illustrated by Frank Purvey, with a few paragraphs introduction (not as thorough as Part II), mostly single lots cataloged by Cohen, like Part II no weights, but fewer prior provenances (still some) than part II, at some of the coins (perhaps many?) would be published in Seaby Roman Silver Coins and Their Values (and remain illustrated in Sear’s editions) but not mentioned here, RRC (~1 Pl.), RIC (~8 Pl.); Clearly Noonan's is selling a well-provenanced collection of Hadrian Denarii, because from their past few auctions I also bid on these (links are to the Noonan's lots on Numisbids, plus one auction link). I also suspected that your coin might've tracked to one of these... From my Watchlist notes: Noonan's 255, 514: Previously British Museum Collection. Eton College Collection, Sotheby Auction, 1-2 December 1976, lot unspecified; Glendining Auction, 14 December 1988, lot 369 (part) [note: corr., 367 no 6] [I don't think I've found the Sotheby's Eton sale online; there is a catalog of the Eton Collection which gives background, but I haven't found any coins for sale illustrated in it] Noonan's 255, 573: P. Webb Collection, Vecchi Auction 5, 5 March 1997, lot 533 [most of the Percy Webb (early RIC author) coins sold by Vecchi can be traced to Adolph Hess 211 9 May 1932] Several Hadrian Denarii also from mult. group lots from Glendining Auction, 14 December 1988 [I think this one is on Archive.org, but I don't remember and didn't take notes if it is].