Mint output 53-50 BCE plus chronology issues

who knows me, knows I’m a pragmatist when it comes to quantification. There is no use looking at one issue if we don’t know what “normal”. Our data is really wonky and our models for estimating coins made per die exceptionally inexact. I’m always looking for a relative comparison not an absolute truth.

So over the last few days I’ve been transcribing from the Schaefer Archive, thinking about mint operations, and even finally running some Esty calculations. I’ve not even using here his ‘die estimates’ but only his 95% confidence interval. When converting to coins struck I multiplied the highest number by 20k (de Callatay’s preferred number) and the lowest number by 10k (the more conservative estimate favored by others). The goal of this is to try to capture the biggest possible range so we don’t squabble over the data but rather compare what we have in full view of the limitations. Romans themselves use the sestertius as the unit of account so multiplying by 4 makes text numbers and coin numbers easier to compare.

Crawford estimated a drop in production and while his estimates vary they remain a good relative proxy of production between issues. I remain in awe of the man.

Now I want to return to RRC 423. Hollstein would put in 54, but Mattingly and Hersh&Walker would bring down to 53. Again all based on the so-called Mesange Hoard. This issue is large enough that Schaefer restricted himself to identifying Reverse dies alone.

This basically doubles our view of coins struck by the Roman mint in this four year period. Is this normal? Or low? Is there such a thing as “Normal”? Lucia and I tackled this question in a 2020 article.

So let’s just say that in any year where we can predict the whole of the mint’s output, this whole four year period looks lower. Yet all of these colleges are striking before the Sullan era. And in many ways I lean towards the Flower model of seeing Post-Sullan Rome as a different beast, even a different republic.

You may have noticed, for all I worried a bit about the dating of these issues, generally speaking if we’re talking about the period 53-50 I’m satisified they were all likely made in this period. Maybe one or two of the smaller issues to shift back but not further than 54 and none of it changes much the drop off in mint output.

There remains two more questions before I feel confident in my summary of the situation. How do I see the relative chronology of the regular coinages from about 57 to 54 (exclude aedile issues) and how big was the uptick in production in 49 before the Pompeians abandoned the Roman mint. Not small questions and I’m begrudging of my research time, but I think I’m going to tackle them. It’s do-able and worth it. I already published the Faustus issue back in 2019 and just re blogged it.

We’ll but 49 in its own blog post and in another the quantification of the preceeding 4 year period. But let’s define whose in and out of the later group to make sense of this. Numbers in brackets are Crawford estimates of reverse die totals.

At least one previous scholar has put each of these moneyers in one of the years 57-54 inclusive:

434 – Rufus, two headed, two tailed coins [~133]

433 – Brutus, two headed coins, and normal coins [~340]

430 – Crassus – Venus/ Amazon [~70]

429 – Capito – Mars/ horseman, Concordia/Villa Publica [~150]

PAUSE. [digression] Concordia! in the nominative. Looking just like Concordia on the coins of 62 BCE. Concordia is a key chapter of my paused 3rd book project. I have a blog post of my unpublished earlier drafting. I also have a nice little summary in my 2021 book (pdf of pages 163-165). Anyway we’re pausing for a digression because I didn’t think about how to connect this to veiled Concordia appearance with the laureate Concordia in the dative looking like venus without her stephane on RRC 436 (most recent blog post). RESUME.

428 – Cassius – Vesta/temple, libertas/temple, Genius/eagle [~247]

427 – Memmius – Ceres/trophy, Quirinus/Ceres [~80]

426 – Faustus – [~136]

425 – Philippus [~497]

424 – Nonianus [<11]

423 – Servilius [~110]

421 – Sufanas [~62]

420 – Hypsaeus [~78]

410 – Musa [~100]

405 – Plaetorius [~103]

At most we can have 12 over four years. So Two of these names must be wrong. So who to jettison and which direction to push those we push out? This calls for a chart.