I promised to write something on the social war coinage within the next 12 months. I’m not engaged in the work now but wanted to keep this reference handy and have a place for similar future notes.
There is one chapter on coins but the whole is very relevant:
More to come. Back to my lit survey for the article I’m working on.
Next Day.
A colleague sent this note:
“Apropos Italia:, see the latest thinking by Crawford in ImIt I, 2011, pp. 67-74”
So I re read it. Most know but the standard work is.
I would sorely love a physical copy of this for my library but that is a pipe dream. I went looking for a copy of Crawford’s Roman Statutes yesterday and struck out for anything less than 2-3k. By heavens, Crawford is really the mind of last 100 years.
My other stray thoughts after a quick skim are that the Oscan legend uses something very like the apex, a diacritic mark I discussed fairly recently in Latin. And it has vowel reduplication for long vowels (cf. earlier post with classic example). The orthography, or writing culture, of the Italians was clearly part of the same cultural world as that of literate Latin. No surprise but exciting nonetheless to observe.
I was fixing broken links and images in this old post and I had to take a look at the bes or 2/3s coin = 8 unciae (RRC 266/3). When I see an old post is getting traffic, I will try if I can to check it is still working and correct what I can.
This led me to notice that the Tübingen and BNF specimens of this rare bronze type have a similar cut on the face of Bacchus. Similarly placed as well, but not exact. I suspect they may even have been made with the same tool.
Why cut the face of a bronze?! It cannot be plated or faked in that way. And it wouldn’t be mistaken for worn Roman silver with a weight of between 10-12 grams.
Is it to cancel it? Is it because the moneyer’s name is associated with Brutus and murder of Julius Caesar? Some other reason did it need to cancelled or counter-marked in some way?
Alanya Museum Reconstructed Roman oil pressing reconstruction (wikimedia image)
Or like this:
Capernaum Roman-era olive mill in the ruins of the town (wikimedia image)
Fabrication de l’huile et pressoir à huile. Bas-relief sur un sarcophage. D’après l’Archäologische Zeitung, t. XXXV, pl.
There are also screw presses but these are less common.
My point is that the fiscus as a basket must withstand the crushing weight of probably the first type of press above. AND let the liquid out without letting through bits of the olive flesh or crushed pits.
Cheese too needs to be drained of the whey while retaining the curd, especially in a fine fresh cheese like a ricotta, often by pressing.
The woven basket character is confirmed by another diminutive.
I’m also delighted in the first passage with all the discussion of sealing and labelling. It fits so nicely with the tesserae.
This is a footnote in a draft piece I’ve been writing.
[I’m 5,000 words into the first draft of an article and think it might be good, also think it might be banal and terrible–such is the nature of writing.]
After removing 18 suspected forgeries, Coinage of the Roman Republic Online (CRRO) provides weight data on 259 examples of denarii struck between 53 and 50 BCE at the Roman mint, with a mean weight of 3.83 grams and relative standard deviation (RSD) of 5%. 3.83 x 6000 = 22.98 kg = 50.66 lbs. By way of comparison RRC 350A/1 is dated to the Cinnan regime (c. 86 BCE) and is represented by 357 specimens in CRRO it has a mean weight of 3.84 and an RSD also of 5%. 3.84 x 6000 = 23.04 kg = 50.79 lbs. At 84 to the pound this would correspond to a Roman pound of c. 322 grams
Here’s another footnote from the draft:
Plin. 33.46. The Roman pound was not the same in all places at all times. Most prefer 327 grams as the conversion to modern weights and measures and this fits well will the set of seven basalt weights found at Praeneste in 1907 which have a mean average for a whole pound unit of 327.7 with an RSD of 0.2%. Crawford 1974 prefers 324 grams as the conversion for the Roman pound.
Yes, there are also mention of various stuff like batch control at the Roman mint. Yes, I used revised dating for what coins I included in the 53 to 50 BCE window.
Anyway. I got thinking about 5% tolerance number for weight variations and I wondered what gold was like as I’ve always believed gold was better regulated.
[Yes this was a distraction, but long columns of numbers are soothing as I trying to get words on the page and think thoughts more substantially through issues than I normally do here on the blog, so I’m allowing myself this moderate distraction before I go back to the article draft.]
The Sullan gold issue best represented in CRRO is RRC 386/4 (28 specimens, 25 with weights recorded). It has an RSD of less than 2%.
Sextus Pompey’s RRC 511/1 has 44 specimens with weight values and an RSD of 3%.
BUT, the Hirtius gold issue (RRC 466/1 – rather erratic style of die engraving) has 45 specimens is recorded weight value and an RSD of 9.4%
CICIIRON – NOT nominative with that N; and the E has most certainly been copied from a hand written document as in Roman script the E is II
We can deduce that the engraver was using some document to get the details right but that there was no highly literate Latin speaker at his elbow tut-tutting about the niceties of what what being copied from one medium to another.
I’m trying to decide what precisely is implied by the term numeratum.
Early January 49 BCE (ad Fam. 5.20)
Cicero says he does not have even a 100k ready cash to pay to his former quaestor who is concerned about a book-keeping error, even if he wanted to pay him.
quod si mihi expensa ista HS [100k] tulisses, tamen, quae tua est suavitas quique in me amor, nolles a me hoc tempore aestimationem accipere; nam numeratum si cuperem, non erat.
March 45 BCE (ad Att. 12.25)
Cicero is looking to by buy a suburban estate. He doesn’t want to sell or trade properties and doesn’t want to pay too much interest. He can call in a debt for 600k sestertii and has another 600k at home (domi) and can pay some interest on the remainder of the cost to the seller.
mihi et res et condicio placet, sed ita ut numerato malim quam aestimatione. … unde ergo numerato? HS [600k] exprimes ab Hermogene, cum praesertim necesse erit; et domi video esse HS [600k]. reliquae pecuniae vel usuram Silio pendemus…
600k sestertii in silver of any coin denomination would weigh more than 1250 pounds.
It would fit in 3 standard five-gallon construction buckets if packed solid. With space between coins it would probably need to be distributed across four or five buckets. But don’t try to lift one of those buckets–you would put your back out!
Do we think Cicero really kept this laying around his house somewhere?!
What a hoard! The so-called Mesagne hoard has 5,861 coins reported. That’s just shy of 50 pounds of silver. By volume, if solid silver, that would fill just three quarter jars.
I think it is possible to have this much ready cash in a Roman house but as the numbers get bigger than this at what point is it preposterous to imagine the weight and volume in a private residence?
And, for context when Cicero flees to Epirus to join Pompey in 48 BCE he gets cash. This time explicitly in coins from Atticus’ people.
a tuis et nummorum accepi HS [20k] et vestimentorum quod opus fuit. (ad Att. 11.2)
So Atticus himself must have had a store of coins in Epirus far exceeding this amount. Now we must imagine Cicero and his staff (and enslaved persons) carrying around 42 pounds or more of silver with them. Sounds incredibly awkward for whomever had the burden. This was only slightly less than the Mesagne hoard as reported.
I’m dropping this here as it seems to also deal with the physicality of money:
nunc omnia ista iacere puto propter nummorum caritatem. (ad Att. 11.9, 17 March 49 BCE)
Coins themselves are dear, so by extension Cicero thinks if Atticus can pay in coin he can get a better price on the estate he is contemplating purchasing.
Shackleton Bailey calls it a coin shortage, but that cannot be quite right. As the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar looms everyone wants greater liquidity as they don’t know how the credit system or real estate values may be effected. The latter were particularly vulnerable to confiscation or devaluation through destruction. Romans seem to have keep a huge amount of their assets tied up in property investments. So cash becomes king as it is portable.
There is a potential reference to the same situation in:
omnia scilicet nunc minoris. [ad Att. 13.31, 28 May 45 BCE]
versuram scribis esse faciendam mensum quinque, id est ad Kal. Nov., HS [200k] in eam diem cadere nummos qui a Quinto debentur. [ad Att. 15.20]
Here again we seem to have a question of large sum liquidity during the uncertain political landscape. A new loan is needed because COINS in particular must be repaid on specific date (1st of November). It is a lack of physical coin that is the concern. The letter goes on to discuss rental income for his son and his desire put together his own viaticus. Shackleton Bailey again oversteps in translation assuming this means a lump sum rather than simply a means of access money while traveling. Cicero is contemplating leaving Italy to escape the Political landscape of summer of 44 BCE.
There are three methods of harvesting grain: the first, employed in Umbria, in which the stalk is cut close to the ground with the hook, and each bundle, as it is cut, is laid on the ground. When a number of bundles are formed, they go over them again, and cut the ears from each close to the stalk. The ears are cast into the basket and carried to the threshing-floor, while the straw is left in the field and afterwards stacked. In the second method, employed in Picenum, they use a curved handle of wood with a small iron saw attached to the end; when this catches a bundle of ears it cuts them off and leaves the straw standing in the field to be cut later. In the third method, employed near Rome and in numerous other places, seizing the top with the left hand they cut the straw in the middle … The part of the stalk below the hand remains attached to the ground, and is cut later; while the part which is attached to the ear is carried to the threshing-floor in baskets. … The grain should be cut when it is ripe; and on easily worked land it is held that the reaping of one iugerum is approximately a day’s work for one man—this should include the carrying of the reaped ears to the threshing-floor in baskets.
Alice Sharpless writes: “Crawford identifies symbol as a sheaf of corn (i.e., wheat) but wheat does not look like this; more likely a young tree with stakes; RRC, pl. LXIX-162” and identifies it as a young sapling with stakes.
Crawford called Papius die pair no. 36: “Ball/Whip and Hoop”
I like this description very much but I cannot get myself to believe it. And I think I might be stuck thinking about Roman toys to identify them and that need not be right. Alice Sharpless rightly was concerned about the two v intentional additions to the ‘hoop’. She called it a “torque”. She also noticed the very intentional flatness of the obverse symbol and decided to call it a discus. Again reasonable. What can I add? Only that I see the problems with Crawford but am not satisfied with Sharpless’ labels as I cannot come up with a reason for the pairing.
I’ve learned some other things I want to document but they really don’t get us closer to an identification.
Hoops are rolled with a stick not a whip, BUT that stick can have a very noticeable hook or bend in it. Some modern hoops have been manufactured with catch rings that do not interfere with rolling but this doesn’t seem standard. Those rings seem to be help one start the rolling.
Hoop rolling was of course a popular amusement in the ancient Mediterranean.
ARV 1083 2 – two women with boy and youth – München AS SL 476 – 08Interior of an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 470 BC. From Vulci. (Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2674) Istanbul Mosaic Museum Sector E Children trundling hoops
I have no evidence that Roman sticks had hooks or Roman hoops had rings. So I’m still not so happy with the reverse identification.
My other thought was that if it is truly a whip and we are really looking at a gaming theme for this set of control-marks. Then the most common toy whip is for spinning a top:
James Sharples – Two Children Wearing Yellow Dresses, the Elder Holding a Rolling Hoop and Stick and the Younger Holding a Whip Top and Whip – B2015.10.2 – Yale Center for British Art
The Romans certainly also had spinning tops they launched with whips:
As a spinning-top, sometimes, that boys intent on play thrash
in a circle round an empty courtyard, turns under the whirling lash,
– driven with the whip it moves in curving tracks: and the childish crowd
marvel over it in innocence, gazing at the twirling boxwood:
and the blows grant it life:
Vergil, Aeneid 7.367ff. Kline translation.
Archaeological Museum in Milan, (Italy). Ancient Roman wooden spinning top, from Tebtynis (Egypt), dating from the 1st-3rd century AD. Shot during a temporary exhibition, usually not on display. Picture by Giovanni Dall’Orto, February 1 2014.
BUT this doesn’t help us much, unless we decide the obverse symbol is the top of a top, but that seems a silly way to represent it. And then what do we do with the hoop?! This picture suggests a relationship, but perhaps it is just two toys shown together. Tops are some times spun inside circles, bowls or on other playing surfaces made to contain them.
Inscribed: Admite (Admetus) and Alcestei (Alcestis).
The left hand figure holds a most unusual torch and a pair of shoes. The right hand figure anoints Alcestis with perfume.
It’s the torch holder that I wanted to see in action.
It looks like one warps a cloth dipped in flammable liquid around the spike? Or could one possibly wrap STRAW around the hooks and use that as the fuel?
Yes this is a Papius post. The brilliant Alice Sharpless saw a connection between reverse twenty and these debated claw-like objects. I couldn’t quite understand how it works as a pairing and I still can’t, but at least I am now convinced the claws are torch holders and I cannot deny the visual similarity. Diffendale also notices the similarity in the handle as depicted on the mirror and on the control-mark.
I’d been playing around with the idea that these were holders for the original standards of the maniple and there was a pun at play with the wheat sheaves on obverse twenty (if that is indeed the right ID, and I lean towards Crawford with this). I don’t think this is correct, but Diffendale also sent me to Ovid’s Fasti 3.113-1118.
Their ensigns were of hay, but as deep reverence was paid to hay as now you see paid to the eagles. A long pole carried the hanging bundles (maniplos); from them the private (maniplaris) soldier takes his name.
illa quidem e feno; sed erat reverentia feno, quantam nunc aquilas cernis habere tuas. pertica suspensos portabat longa maniplos, unde maniplaris nomina miles habet.
Another less common, perhaps related?, torch shape
Machine translation: The Thrax (Thracian) was a gladiator equipped with the arms of the Thracian people. He likely first appeared during the time of Sulla, after the Romans captured soldiers of that nation who had been serving in the forces of Mithridates; Cicero is the first to mention him. The gladiator known as the Thrax carries a small shield (parma, parmula); while sometimes round, it is most often square, though on certain monuments it appears triangular. His offensive weapon is the sica—a short sword with a curved blade—though sometimes the blade features an angular bend midway along its length. For protection, the Thrax wears a manica on his right arm, a balteus (belt), and a subligaculum (loincloth); his helmet takes various forms—sometimes a simple metal cap with a wide brim but no visor, and at other times a design where the face is completely concealed by a perforated visor topped with a very high crest. Finally, since the Thrax lacks the long shield used by the hoplomachus and the secutor—possessing only a parma that covers little more than his chest—he is equipped with two greaves (ocreae) rather than one; these two greaves are among the surest signs by which he is recognized. Often, his thighs are also wrapped in braies (breeches) or fasciae (bandages)—presumably made of leather—which serve to cushion blows that slip past the shield. Figure 3583 reproduces the funerary relief of a Thrax from the time of Trajan, M. Antonius Exochus; it displays virtually all the details just described, notably the two greaves, the sica (cf. Fig. 3370), and, opposite him, the… …crested helmet. Figure 3384 shows two Cupids fighting in the manner of Thracians—sword in hand—just as Roman children played at being gladiators, much like our own children play at being soldiers. We have already noted that the Thracian’s usual opponent was the *hoplomachus*, though he could also be pitted against the *murmillo*. Monuments even show instances where two Thracians were matched against each other, as seen with the two Cupids in Figure 3384. Finally, it should be noted that some Thracians are depicted holding a straight sword—similar to that of the Samnite—instead of the *sica*, while others hold a spear; however, these are merely exceptions.
For the the origin of the Thracian Gladiator, D&S cite Plutarch, Crassus 8. While logical, certainly not definite.
The citation to Cicero’s Philippics seems to contain an error. The passage meant is surely Cic. Phil. 6.13:
We see in the forum a statue of Lucius Antonius; just as we see one of Quintus Tremulus, who conquered the Hernici, before the temple of Castor. Oh the incredible impudence of the man! Has he assumed all this credit to himself, because as a mirmillo at Mylasa he slew the Thracian, his friend? How should we be able to endure him, if he had fought in this forum before the eyes of you all? But, however, this is but one statue. He has another erected by the Roman knights who received horses from the state; and they too inscribe on that, “To their patron.” Who was ever before adopted by that order as its patron? If it ever adopted any one as such, it ought to have adopted me. What censor was ever so honored? what imperator? “But he distributed land among them.” Shame on their sordid natures for accepting it! shame on his dishonesty for giving it!
Cf. Cic. Phil. 7.17:
O ye gods! who will he able to support this man’s power? especially when he has brought all his dependents into the lands. Who ever was the patron of all the tribes? and of the Roman knights? and of the military tribunes? Do you think that the power of even the Gracchi was greater than that of this gladiator will be? whom I have called gladiator, not in the sense in which sometimes Marcus. Antonius too is called gladiator, but as men call him who are speaking plain Latin. He has fought in Asia as a mirmillo. After having equipped his own companion and intimate friend in the armor of a Thracian, he slew the miserable man as he was flying; but he himself received a palpable wound, as the scar proves. What will the man who murdered his friend in this way, when he has an opportunity, do to an enemy? and if he did such a thing as this for the fun of the thing, what do you think he will do when tempted by the hope of plunder? Will he not again meet wicked men in the decuries? will he not again tamper with those men who have received lands? will he not again seek those who have been banished?
Thracians themselves had a long tradition of wearing Phyrgian helmets:
Three terms are associated with the swords of the thracians, all are curved.
While I’m not convinced we really know how these ancient terms match on to material culture we observe, this is generally how the terms seems to be used in modern accounts.
Rhomphaia (longer, heavier, whole bladed is bowed)
Livy’s ‘rumpiae’ are clearly very long weapons, but probably not lances as the Loeb translates the term (31.39).
Aulus Gellius gives us no characteristics of the sword only to help us see the association of the vocabulary with the peoples from an early date in Latin (AN 10.25)
First the Thracians advanced, whose appearance, Nasica says, was most terrible,—men of lofty stature, clad in tunics which showed black beneath the white and gleaming armour of their shields and greaves, and tossing high on their right shoulders battle-axes with heavy iron heads.
carrying on their right shoulders upright rhomaiae heavy with iron
Thus far none of the literary passages seems to describe a curved weapon. Do you know of one?
Anyway.
All of this is for Papius (RRC 384/1) control mark no. 18. And my belief it likely evokes Thracians to the Roman viewer, perhaps also gladiatorial. The curved sword is a type often developed by cultures who fight on horse back.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}