I have an article on uncia in the late republic in the works but this led to my interest in the semuncia. There are blog posts on this from back in 2021 (but updated more recently with new material). And, then again more recently from my dive into the Vicarello material for a Lucerian specimen where I independently came to the same conclusions about a Crawford type as McCabe (his work is also forthcoming).
As I was thinking about putting the final touches on that article, I was checking for potential new material and the above Lucerian specimen came up in my searches (HNItaly 683). There is one in Paris, none in the BM or ANS, 7 have appeared since 2006 in trade).
The type is closely derived from the earlier cast semunciae for the same mint (HNItaly 675 and 677f):
The crescent provides continuity in the shift from cast to struck during the course of the second punic war. Moreover, the crescent helps to explain the selection of Diana for the obverse of struck materials.
Does it also explain why Diana appears on some struck semuncia of the Roman republic? We have two specimens of RRC 160/5 which are our earliest Roman Diana on the semuncia thus far. In fact the first Diana on any Roman coin known to date.
Crawford dates this issue to c. 179-170 BCE.
Diana is then ‘revived’ on some of the semuncia of the last decade of the 2nd century BCE (see earlier post).
Liv Mariah Yarrow 