adventures in my head
Have I forgotten the small change? No! I just took two speaking engagements on new topis the first two weeks of the semester on top of other research commitments, accidentally fell in love with my great great grandfather and started a website for that project, had some proofs to deal with (we are now through… Continue reading The final unciae?
So the weird thing about this coin issue is that apparently the moneyer only made unciae and semuncia. What’s up with that? Some guesses. 1) Tubulus also made the anonymous issue 287/1 (no proof, wild speculation, do not quote me as believing this!); 2) The moneyers in the annual college got to mint in order… Continue reading Tubulus’ uncia (315)
If you’ve been following along, you know that RRC 308 was dated later in the RR coin series by Lockyear 2018, but it bears repeating if you’ve ended up on this page accidentally. The unciae are in visual dialogue with the semuncia of this issue. The semuncia has a single cornucopia and the unciae have… Continue reading Herennius’ Unciae (308)
Now you’re thinking to yourself: why, why did she skip Herennius? Cast your mind back, dear reader, to the semunciae post. As detailed there, Herennius likely comes later in the series, so we have to treat Sulpicius first! RRC 312 Are you reminded of the dog (who was a very good boy, of course!)? I… Continue reading Sulpicius’ Uncia (312)
Crawford knew two specimens of RRC 305/2: Copenhagen illustrated above and in Crawford’s own plates and F. Capranesi in D. D. Müller, Memorie, 56. Tracking down the latter is on the to do list. Irritatingly, no weight for either specimen. Schaefer was concerned that this Copenhagen specimen might be an altered RRC 315/1. I don’t… Continue reading Late Unciae (305)
So I like the sense of completion of hitting publish on a blog post, its a trivial little boost to mark a bit of work and the end of a thought unit. So I’m breaking my previous long post and starting a new one. There is no logic to my breaking spot maybe even some… Continue reading More late unciae (293/3)
Next up in our small change investigation is RRC 289/5. To understand this choice you’ll have to accept Lockyear 2018‘s methods for rearranging the relative chronology. Crawford had put this in 115-114 BCE and HBM has even nudged it down towards 112 BCE, but Lockyear tells us that 289 is in the wrong place so… Continue reading Late Unciae
I thank M. Fischer for kindly sending me the following additional 241/6 specimens! The generosity of those working on RR coins never fails to astound me and warm my heart. RRC 242/5: the Paris specimen remains unique: 3.45 g, 16.2 mm We finally get a mess of specimens (still pretty measly, but beggars cannot be… Continue reading Unciae of the 130s
I’m due to produce by Mar 1 a draft of something readable on the end of small change at Rome. (I blogged a little about this last May). I started this morning by making myself a spreadsheet by dumping csv data out of CRRO and then cleaning it up and adding new info. Dump was… Continue reading Semuncia
So this is the first appearance of Apollo on the obverse of a Roman coin type since the creation of the stable denarius system (so 211 BCE).* It is the very smallest of the bronze: 1/12 of an As. So originally you’d have needed 120 of these to equal a single denarius and after the… Continue reading An very odd uncia, in an already odd series
