Just as I’ve concluded there is no meaningful difference in the weight standards of RRC 14 and 18 (and 19), I’m comfortable now saying the same between RRC 21, 24, 25, 27 AND 35. RRC 35 was made on a much larger scale, far beyond any of the earlier aes grave issues. I might do the histograms it, but not today.
Haeberlin’s averages are
As = 267.83g from 1168 specimens
Semis = 269.07g from 312 specimens
Quadrans 270.37g from 266 specimens.
The problem is that RRC 26 looks like a different kettle of fish. A higher standard, a smaller issue, no real connection to the silver. I think it is a problem that does not need solving like RRC 19 the scale of the issue makes it of little real meaning for the overall pattern.
Now we see the bronze is also out of sync. Also heavy, and made in smaller quantities and perhaps doesn’t even correspond with the silver at all. It doesn’t have a legend so we could push it between Group 1 (RRC 14, 18) and Group 2 (RRC 21, 22, 25, 27, and 35) and then call it transitional but we may just never know unless a few good hoards appear.
Messy.
Yet more and more I feel RRC 25 and 27 mark something new and interesting at the mint a real emergence of control and regulation. They are substantive and also perhaps more even. Their survival rates across denominations are less radically different that with some other issues. They are complete Uncia to As with no larger units.
What happened? Did the systems that were put in place for RRC 25 and 27 fall out of use because of scaling up of production? Perhaps.
You might have guessed that I’m doing a bit of pre writing here to augment another piece I’m working on. This type of blogging I find very useful as I try to decide what I think of the data.
Why did Crawford put this aes grave with the silver of RRC 26? The types are both revivals and they both have Apollo as the chief denomination but do they really go together?!
This data is so minimal it is hard to draw any conclusions. One new RRC 26 aes grave has appeared on the market and just adding in its weight changes the shape of the data, a nice reminder that this is not a very meaningful body of evidence from which to generalized.
I have not held this piece. I cannot authenticate it. The patina suggests it was recently unearthed likely in Italy. It is great shame we do not have the find data. Aes grave is not legal for export for just this reason.
But the data gets even MORE messy if we put in the specimen the Miles specimen in the ANS which is impossibly heavy. I’ve just about convinced myself that that acorn is really there behind Apollo’s head but I really don’t know what to think about this piece.
This minimal series looks like it might have been aiming at a higher weight standard, c. 290grams. The missing triens and uncia are strange indeed. A bit like RRC 19 which has only two cast denominations. I will only publish results based on Haeberlin numbers to keep my data set relatively consistent in it sourcing of evidence.
I’ve gotten faster now as I come to the end of the data extraction and processing. The As again shows the least variation and the highest average and median. The weight standard looks about the same as the Sickle standard but perhaps more tightly controlled across all denominations.
You can totally see why the semuncia stopped being made. What a radical difference in metal content. Again the As seems a higher weight standard and better controlled, but here the semis is more in line than with the wheel series. I see why Crawford decided to call this a 265 weight standard, but I don’t think it is out of the question it was thought of as on the same weight standards of these group 2 Aes Grave, slightly reduced from group 1 (RRC 14, 18, and 19).
I wonder if it was issued with RRC 22 even if there is no attempt to ensure they read as unified in the designs.
These certainly share a similar Roma design on the As and the didrachm.
The Roma of RRC 19 is markedly different
The RRC 24 Roma of the wheel series is certainly cut from the same cloth as RRC 21 and 22 helping me understand Crawford’s choice in relative sequencing to keep these issues close together.
I’m getting better at writing LLM prompts to extract data. I’ve not yet let it run my analyses as that feels like part of my own thinking at least until I’m confident at my methods and how I will check results. I want no magic black box to spit out answers. I do like less grunt work in transcription, data cleaning, etc… Copilot (university paid subscription) needs shorter sets of data but can handle multiple multiple pages of Haeberlin all at once and produce very usable PDFs with high accuracy (now that I’ve gotten better at prompt writing).
This is a weird picture. The As is much heavier than its fractions. I’m happy (ish) to ignore the tressis (1) and dupondius (14) but the As has 44 specimens and is clearly much more tightly controlled than the fractions as well as heavier.
Why does this series have no uncia?
My notes on Burnett 1989 say that he places this later in the relative chronology because of the standardized reverse on all denominations (cf. prow series) and CHRR 28. But I’m guessing the lack of the unciae is alway a good reason for bringing it down in the sequence of issues.
What should we use as the standard since it looks like the ass is significantly heavier than other denominations. The practical weight standard is 265 grams or so for the fractions, but 271 or so for the As.
I think the As is probably the best unit by which to judge the intended standard of production…
This work is building on my 2023 piece
“The Strangeness of Heavy Bronze” In S. Bernard, L. Mignone, & D. Padilla Peralta (Eds.), Making the Middle Republic: New Approaches to Rome and Italy, c.400-200 BCE (pp. 103-131). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2023.
I’m confident in Haeberlin’s weights based on my own reweighing in Berlin. See write up.
I’m corresponding with a very smart graduate student working on Bronze to Iron Age differences in the use of aes rude and thus have been talking about archaeological finds and how we date them.
She wrote me of Lucus Feroniae finds:
“… my dataset comes from the temple sectors excavated in 2000-2010. … In Serafin’s corpus there are no Roman denarii: the nine silver coins are all from southern Italy (Neapolis, Velia and Locri), while Roman bronze coins are often found together with aes rude.In Serafin’s corpus there are no Roman denarii: the nine silver coins are all from southern Italy (Neapolis, Velia and Locri), while Roman bronze coins are often found together with aes rude.”
“For Phase I, several primary foundation contexts contain Roman coins dated to 211-208 BCE. For example, US 79 has an uncia dated to 209-208 BCE (RRC 99,8 [= P series]), and US 93 has another uncia dated to 209-208 BCE together with aes rude. Serafin also records 89 coins from primary foundation deposits, with the latest issues reaching 208 BCE.”
This sent me to re read McCabe (and Russo) in RBN 2024:
RBN articles are restricted from online posting for two years so this one should be available shortly. If you need a copy now either McCabe or I can probably share one with you.
I agree with P being closer to Canusium that Luceria but likely a camp mint. McCabe does a great job mapping military action and regional coin finds.
The reason this P series coin at Lucus Feroniae in Phase 1 excites me is that the site was sacked in 211 BCE:
Here’s Livy 26.11 with the old translation wrongly using brass for bronze the Latin phrase is: aeris acerui = “a heap of bronze”
I’ve got to look at Serafin and consult McCabe! But that isn’t on the docket anytime soon, too many other tasks.
I was reading a draft of a collaborative piece and there was a casual reference to weight standards and I found myself wondering if Crawford was indeed correct.
Here’s my summary of the data.
First I think the weight standard is closer to 6.6 than the 6.75g Crawford reports.
RRC 26/1 looks tightly controlled and is slightly heavier in both mean and median that RRC 22/1, 25/1, or 27/1.
If we look at the various medians and means and interquartile ranges in the chart below I kind of want to nudge RRC 26/1 to before RRC 22/1. Is that nuts? Yes, it is. The legend Roma clearly is a breaking point and RRC 26 has more in common with RRC 25 and 27 but it certainly shouldn’t be separating RRC 25 and 27. I’ll have to look at the hoards again and the weights of the bronze not just the silver. I don’t want to do the bronze weights. I might not be able to resist.
RRC 25 and 27 look very similar indeed.
The quadrigati clearly have less concern for the weight standard control, not unexpected in such a large issue or rather issues.
The aes grave of RRC 26 survive in much smaller numbers and as we know now we’re missing the uncia, if one was ever made. By contrast for RRC 25 and 27 we have lots of unciae. So perhaps 26 comse after these two issues as an attempt to ensure higher standards at the mint.
The acorn symbol is curious. Sickle = Saturn = Treasury. Club = Hercules = Commercial Markets
An acorn? What is that a symbol of beyond some thing small and easily recognizable?
Lockyear’s database doesn’t have the early relevant hoards in it. Phooey. I don’t want to tabulate them myself either. We’ll see. Maybe after I read Burnett’s contribution to the RRDP volume I’ll find I don’t need to say any of this. He will have said sensible things and I can just cite that.
Flashback
A year and a day ago I released a speculative reconstruction to that I cut from an early draft of this article:
A senior colleague generously gave me a sneak peak of some weight data for known Oval series specimens pre publication. I wanted to think about it as a dataset so I drew some charts.
The series are whole, half, quadrans, sextans, uncia, semuncia if this is a base-12 series and I think it is based on this data. In the past I’ve wondered if it might be base-10, but I think that is likely wrong.
This box and whiskers graph helps us see the median in each group of data and inter quartile range for each denomination overlaps but not well. In the Roman RRC 14 and 18 series smaller denomination are overvalued compared to large one, but here it looks like the semis and the quadrans may be the heavy outliers. The graph is deceptive because we have far less of the whole, half, quadrans and semunica, and we have more than 4 times as many sextantes than unciae.
A Pareto histogram helps us see the long tail of outliers from the central grouping of the data. The picture doesn’t change if we divide the half units into a heavier and lighter series. The data has an incredibly high relative standard deviation of 22% but the other denominations do not easily separate into heavy and light series in any way. I explored the RSD of RRC 14 and 18 in a recent publication and the Roman series seem much better controlled than the club series with an RSD under 15% and under 10% for the as and semis. Smaller denominations do tend to have higher variation but by most metrics the Roman unciae (a contemporary coin of about the same mass) has an RSD under 20%. And I thought the Roman coinage was highly variable!
IF we focus just on the denominations for which we have robust data sets the picture doesn’t change. The RSD stays at 22%. But we do see the sharp drop off in specimens corresponding to a whole unit of more than 167 grams, we also see the long tails.
I decided to see what would happen if I removed the tails and played around with the number of bin:
Overall I’d say that the whole unit was probably about 155-160 grams but this has got to be a fiat currency with this degree of weight variation within denominations.
There was also some find spot data sent along so of course I did a map. Below are points where sextantes have been reported as found:
I’ve marked the primary area with yellow. Below is a standard map of “Etruria”
I wonder if this very simple design could have been made in more than one place in Etruria and perhaps served as a common currency throughout the League. It’s spread throughout the territory is remarkably even.
The Vulci and Ariccia hoards suggest a date similar to the RRC 14 and the currency bars (aes signatum), so 1st Punic War. Interesting how much lighter this weight standard is than the Roman one at the same time…
I’m very grateful for generous colleagues letting me play with there data.
A scholarly correspondent has sent me more citations and photographs AND another specimen from the Bern collection of a specimen of RRC 14/2 engraved along the edge and perhaps pierced?! This of course made me think of RRC 5/1 in Berlin that has an inscription:
AND looking for that sent me down a rabbit hole trying to make sense of Garrucci and Haeberlin’s conflicting testimony of a possible inscription in the Ariccia hoard, which led to some updates to a previous post. And revisting Ariccia hoard made me realize I really should publish a little note on the aes grave of Praeneste as it lets us date the series.
—
Original post.
The Etruscan Necropolis of Poggio del Sole in Arezzo revealed in the late 19th century in controlled excavations an engrave Roman semis weighing 18.4 grams. The engraving is with an Etruscan name, likely a coin deposited with the deceased. Interestingly great care seems to have been taken not to obscure or deface the iconography of the coin.
The letters on the obverse begin beneath the head of Jupiter, curve around in front of it to a point above the head, and reveal the following name:
The letters on the reverse present greater difficulty; the first begins at the *acrostolion* (the curved prow ornament) of the ship, and they proceed from right to left:
This was read VE CRIVEPE AREVIZIES and pulled into Latin as Velius Crivepius Arevissii [filius]. Then the next year it was re read as Criuepeue Areuizies with the assertion that the first was the name of a lautni or freedman and the second was the name of the patron/master and of Celtic/Gallic origin. I find the proposed comparanda less than convincing in this second piece, but onomastics are not my specialty. I’m satisfied that it is all one name and that it is Etruscan and that the function was likely sepulcheral.
I’d dearly love to share a photo of this coin but know of none thus far. I wonder if it is in the Arezzo museum. I must visit next year. For the most part I agree with the interpretation:
The incising of an Etruscan personal name on a Roman *semis*, while entirely novel, is consistent with the customs of the time. In addition to marking the urn that held the deceased’s body and ashes, such inscriptions were sometimes found on objects that had belonged to the individual or had been deposited by grieving relatives in accordance with ritual practice. This served not only to clearly distinguish—within the same tomb—which items belonged to the deceased, but also to ensure that the objects (especially those of everyday use) would not be employed by the living. To this end, the word *SVTHINA* (“sepulchral”) was inscribed across the polished surface of mirrors from Volsinii; weapons and vessels were frequently broken; and the practice of depositing *aes rude* continued into the third century BC, even when coinage bearing official markings was already in use. I have even observed that, in the first century, *asses* of the uncial standard were snapped in two to prevent them from re-entering circulation. A truly rare example has also come down to us: a *sextantal as* bearing the inscription *FORTUNAI STIPE* (B. d’Ailly, *Recherches sur la monnaie rep.*, pl. LIV, p. 12), indicating that the coin was part of a *stips* (offering) dedicated to Fortuna—perhaps intended for the construction of a temple in her honor. Similarly, by examining the countermarks found on coins of the Roman Republic—most of which remain indecipherable—we may reasonably surmise that some represent marks associated with sacred offerings or with pooled funds collected for a specific purpose.
I particularly like the idea that aes rude was preferred specifically for ritual purposes, cf. Praeneste practices. And I want to know more about this halving of asses in grave goods. The countermarks meant are likely bankers marks and those I’d connect to test cuts probably in conjunction with the legislation of Gratidianus and the Lex Cornelia. I’ve got a co-authored article that touches on that, but still awaiting proofs – so cannot share yet.
More on the Fortunai Stipe coin and parallels in an earlier post.
I wonder if some less that ethical individuals added the inscription to artifacts to raise their value through the application of a ‘unique’ ‘authentic’ feature… I wish I was not so suspicious.
No. I’ve not formatted that bibliography yet… Why do you ask…
Classic Researchastination. Or is it procrasti-posting?
I took a break between trying to do some professional travel planning and some bibliographical formatting–none of these tasks spark joy, but must be done. I decided to read something fun and share:
Counterfeit Roman Bronzes. Unfortunately, the file on forgeries must always remain open. Modern industry is constantly refining itself and devising new ways to deceive collectors. Today, we intend to discuss Roman bronzes in order to warn collectors of this series, as the coin-forging industry in Rome has reached an incredible level of perfection. Everyone knows how difficult it is to forge bronze coins for two reasons—the patina and the edge—features that are nearly impossible to replicate authentically. However, in Rome, they do not manufacture fake coins from scratch; instead, they take genuine coins and restrike them using a counterfeit die, impressing the design of a rare coin onto a common one. The edge remains perfectly preserved and appears genuine—as it truly is—even to the most expert eye. The patina, or at least the coin’s ancient coloring, also remains unaltered. To identify these restruck coins, one must look for an unusual sheen in the background areas and, conversely, a certain roughness on the raised parts of the design, particularly the lettering. The metal undergoes immense pressure during this double striking, creating the glossy background; the roughness of the relief details arises because the metal—sometimes depleted by the original striking—fails to fully fill the new die.
We have seen medium bronzes, large bronzes, and even a medallion produced using this method, and we consider it a service to warn all collectors about this extremely dangerous type of forgery. When rare or extremely rare coins are offered to you, if you wish to avoid being deceived, you should begin by being wary; furthermore, rather than relying on the authenticity of the rim or the patina—which, incidentally, can be quite skillfully faked nowadays—you should carefully examine both the flat field of the coin and its highest relief areas. One can never be too cautious.
Counterfeit Roman gold coins are also in circulation, but these are more easily recognized.
Wouldn’t you love to see one of these re strikes just to get a sense of what they look like?! If you know of one and want to send me pictures I’d love that. I wonder if they mean gold is counterfeited the same way? This type of modern restrike seems something different, closer to what Becker might have been attempting?! [If we believe he did not mean to deceive.]
All of this is a good argument about why archaeometallurgy can help, but cannot prove authenticity.
Sept 1 isn’t a big day for posting in the past. All I have is some random RR bibliography. I’m very frustrated these days with the lack of digital modernization in numismatic literature. Lots of my publications aren’t indexed by google scholar and don’t count towards any citation metrics and fundamentally get cites less because of it. I could manually enter them but a) boring and b) would it help people access them?! Also Donum has great data but doesn’t have it formatted to populate correctly in Zotero or similar software, and the INC bibliographies are now online but as PDFs not as an actual searchable database. All of this means I spend more time hunting and hand formatting when I work with coin than I do for other subfields. I tend not to care too much about metrics of productivity but I do care about being read and I’m hearing from scholars that those metrics matter a great deal at some institutions and that I have colleagues moving away from publishing in the discipline in order to actually achieve promotion and institutional recognition.
[discovery of tombs described] …Many years ago, a hoard of Consular and Samnite coins, weapons, and various objects was found there; from time to time, many decorated vases were also recovered from the tombs—which were attributed to Sant’Agata dei Goti, as the nearest town to that site. It should also be noted, as many writers affirm, that the ancient city of Saticula must have stood not far away. … Among the objects found in the past on the aforementioned property, I possess the following bronze coin (25 mm in diameter): a male head facing right, with two small dots behind it (indicating a *sextans*); on the reverse, an elephant standing to the left with a bird above it. This coin, of uncertain attribution, shares the same crude style as the one described by the distinguished Minervini, to which it bears a strong resemblance. Sambon describes similar pieces. …
I think it likely the type under discussion is this one typically dated to the second punic war and the time of Hannibal.
Meles Historia Numorum Italy 442, cf. BM specimen (w/o photo), specimen above said by Haeberlin to be in Naples (30.5g.). Typically the object on top of the elephant is identified as a rider/driver but I see how it could be seen as a bird. [link to plate with more examples] Likewise the head is identified with Hercules because a club can be made out between the dots over the far shoulder. We assume the Punic silver struck in Iberia was the model:
I wish I could be confident that the mention of “un ripostiglio di monete consolari e saunitiche” meant this was a social war hoard with social war denarii, but it doesn’t even say it was a silver hoard. If it contained a bronze of Meles than perhaps all the coins were bronze. Boo.
A cache of silver family coins discovered in the municipality. As early as November 1888, a clay vase containing a large cache of silver family coins was discovered on a farm called Scirno, owned by Mr. Francesco Martelli, in the Roccamandolfi area. The cache was seized by the judicial authorities for administrative reasons, and only now are we able to provide a description of the find. The coins, according to the catalog compiled by the Royal Inspector of the excavations, Cav. De Marco, are 337 and belong to the following families: Aburia 2. Aelia 2. Aemilia 2. Antestia 4. Antonia 16. Appuleia 1. Aurelia 1. Baebia 2. Caecilia 5. Calidia 2. Calpurnia 21. Cassia 2. Cipia 1. Claudia 2. Coelia 2. Cornelia 14. Cosconia 2. Crepusia 11. Curiatia 1. Curtia 2. Domitia 2. Fabia 3. Fannia 4. Flaminia 4. Fonteia 14. Fulvia 1. Furia 12. Herennia 2. Iulia 9. Iunia 16. Licinia 17. Lutatia 1. Maenia 5. Mamilia 3. Manlia 5. Marcia 12. Memmia 4. Minucia 2. Naevia 3. Opeimia 4. Papiria 4. Pinaria 4. Plautia 1. Poblicia 1. Pompeia 1. Porcia 6. Postumia 4. Procilia 2. Quintia 1. Rubria 10. Saufeia 1. Sempronia 1. Sergia 3. Servilia 8. Silia 3. Sulpicia 1. Thoria 6. Titia 8. Tituria 11. Valeria 6. Vargunteia 2. Vibia 16. There are also four uncertain denarii and a Samnite coin from the time of the Marsica League, on which only the number IIIV is visible. Nine other unmarked or poorly preserved family coins were also part of the same hoard.
I’m at least re assured that it is possible to call social war coins Samnite because of this “una moneta sannitica, del tempo della lega Marsica”.
The control numeral means that the coin is almost certainly HN Italy 415 with head of Italia, l. [no legend or I] and Oath scene with eight figures = Campana 3a/35-37.
The picture seems pretty clear. The odd coin survived in the hoards but most were gone from circulation by 79 BCE. There exclusion from the hoards might have something to do with the Lex Cornelia… [Which I think likely re affirmed ideas put forward by Gratidianus: with Alice Sharpless and Kris Lockyear I’ve got a piece on this for which I’m awaiting proofs.]
Am I missing hoards? If so, please let me know. I chased after a possible one in Romania but decided in the end it was a red herring.
In 2022 I found an amusing vase painting where men in Thracian costume reminded me of Roman apices. I cited a drawing not the vase itself, but it was easy to find. This vase has a man in a similar costume.
In 2018 I was playing around with how to visually depict the usage of control marks and serration on the RR coin series. It was the day I broke 50k on the book manuscript. The timelines ended up combined in the book and then took on new life as I thought about these things as I worked on RRDP. See Carbone and Yarrow RBN 2020: 298-299 for a much more detailed chart on the use of control marks and my discussion of the phenomenon.
In 2016 I have no idea what I was working on, perhaps the book but not with an eye to the final version, perhaps this was when I was trying to decide what to do with my manuscript. I was certainly having a day deep in both secondary literature and the primary sources. I know this was about the time I was finishing the first draft of the Romulus’ Apotheosis article, but that doesn’t seem to connect to these posts:
Harry Judge told me it was ok to be an academic and a Christian while I was kicking around Brasenose College as a grad student. He was one of the few fellows who regularly came to chapel and perhaps the most irreverent. He introduced me to the idea of Markian Christianity. Just embrace Mark, Baptism to the Empty Tomb. Leave Q and Gnosticism to the others and you’ll be fine. I sat on bench in the old Quad this past May dedicated to Harry and said a little pray and ask for forgiveness I never stayed in touch. I confessed to another fellow, from another college, this one ordained, my struggles with faith. She gave me two gems. If I struggled with Paul, I should teach the letters and look for the humanity of the man, the divine inspiration in tension with cultural and social norms. She said not to fetishize the early church, originalism is a theological error, when Jesus taught change and a striving towards a better future where we move towards greater equality.
I still struggle with these questions, but I try and it was good to go to church yesterday and light a candle or two and be moved by the simple act of communion. It helped move the grief a little more. In a different more raw and wordless way than writing. I meditated on Joseph the Worker. So patient and steadfast in the face of complex and unknowable forces. And then today I saw this meme and I thought of Harry, and Charlie telling me to embrace my love of the church.
Sitting in the pew with my grief I remembered a little more. He would make my stuffed animals dance around my bed to Camille Saint-Saëns’ carnival of the animals. I had no ear but he wanted me to be comfortable with classical music. There was also Peter and Wolf, but I loved Saint-Saëns more. In my teen years he ensured I got to go to Evita and Madame Butterfly, getting all dressed up and experiencing ‘real’ theatre with ‘real’ music. There was a cracked window dedicated to St. Cecilia about the candles in the left hand aisle of the nave. The crack does not erase the meaning. Our earthy lives are fragile.
Our pattern of life is changing. I’m working from home more and my beloved is out on job sites with his clients long hours. We got a bimonthly cleaner. It helps. She’s the first time we’ve had a cleaner I don’t mind in my personal space. The rest I tolerated a time or two and then let go. I can’t tell you why this one is different. I wish I could have her every week or even more.
At home I’m doing more primary-carer parenting. The kids say they don’t want cell phones if I’m in charge of tech. I’m too strict. I wonder if I am. The intertubes tell me that being strict leads to sneaking. This I know. I’ve been realizing that my concerns over tech is not in any way phone specific. Phones are really just one more device in a tech ecosystem in which they and we as a family are deeply enmeshed. I’ve got to figure out a balance.
On Saturday I did a little work and thought I might blog. I re-read an old blog post, one of those ‘look back posts’ about where I was a year ago, “… Just Email”. It helped me remember the constant struggle for self discipline. So I went for a walk and then worked on bibliography. I got really excited when I saw Donum (ANS library catalogue) connected to Zotero and I decided to again try Zotero for bibliography. Nope. Donum puts articles in as books and leaves out the details so now I get to relook up all the details to manually enter coin article data. These are the moments I wish I had a research assistant I could pay to do the grunt work. I think I will leave Zotero installed. It does a nice job with most other bibliographical databases. I wonder if the INC bibliographies are uploaded into it or can be downloaded into it with the correct formatting… Now that is a thought!
Liv Mariah Yarrow 
