weight standards – Liv Mariah Yarrow

ANS specimens of RRC 21/7 = HN Italy 294. Click image for full details.

Last time I was worrying about acorns, I was mostly on about RRC 14/7. This is the other ‘heavy’ acorn. Many of the specimens on the market do seem ‘heavy’ for being a 1/24th piece of a 265g as, or at least a quick scan suggests, but the ANS specimens are lighter: 11.75-13.9g. They are not so heavy that they seem particularly problematic in the weight standard, cf. the ANS uncia specimens of the series which are all much heavier.

My interest was peaked by how they show up in this hoard:

Image links to source publication. Marks in red are my annotations. [*Note:* the correct citation for the Nola bronze is HN Italy 607. Also see below for discrepancy between this report of the hoard and that in IGCH.]

So here RRC 21/7 is hanging out all by its lonesome with a bunch of RRC 14s and 18s. I’m not really sure why RRC 21/7 couldn’t go with the RRC 18 series. The types of RRC 21 echo the obverse types of RRC 14, so that would make the acorn fit with RRC 21. Must take a look to see if we have any other hoards with RRC 21/7 out in the cold…

I’m also sure I’m being influenced by how RRC 14s and 18s are often found in hoards together on their own; another great publication surveying this phenomenon is online.

Here’s Burnett 1977 on the importance of the above hoard:

Capture — Image links to online version of the publication.

If the statement about the semuncia being contemporary with the Roma/Victory didrachms is true this would pull this hoard’s date down to the end of 1st Punic War based on Burnett’s 2006 reading of the San Martino in Pentilis hoard. The presence of the Minerva/Cock types and the Aesernia types with the subsequent Man-faced bull issues leads me to think this is a hoard from a transitional phase between the two. I’d be inclined to agree with M. C. Molinari that it predates both the Pratica di Mare and Teano Hoards…

Okay, here’s one more complication. R. Russo in Numismatica Sottovoce proposed that RRC 16, 17, and 23 were single series (23 = double unit, 16 = unit, 17 = half unit) minted at Neapolis after the Battle of Beneventum. This seems too early to me and I hesitate to break RRC 23 away from it Messane mint connection. But neither of these points directly challenge them being a series.

But if RRC 16 was really contemporary with RRC 17 that would detract from M. C. Molinari’s ordering of these three hoards as RRC 16 is present in Pietrabbondante… I find myself leaning more away from Russo’s idea of a series.

Mattingly’s reading of the Pietrabbondante hoard is here but I think it’s mostly out of date given the evidence of the San Martino in Pentilis evidence.

Something seems to have gone wrong in the transcription of the hoard totals in the above publication. Here’s the entry from IGCH:

Note that the number of uncertain have been attributed to Neapolis above and the 126 of Neapolis have been missed out. I don’ t think it overly affects the interpretation of the hoard in source publication. The original publication of the hoard with all the details has been digitized, although it takes forever to load.

Update: since writing this post some 5 years ago I’ve continued to work on the problems of the pound. Related posts.

I also recommend Riggsby’s Mosaics of Knowledge (OUP 2019).

My concerns about Duncan-Jones’ potential overconfidence in his knowledge of the exact weight of the Roman pound (322.8 grams) and thus his reading of Pliny’s famous statement about 84 denarii to the pound (Money and Gov. 1994: 214-215; NC 1995: 110), led me to the publication of the above objects. It also made me very sad to have missed this conference.

Anyway, the thing about the big post-Constantinian weight above that seems striking to me is just that its weight, or more accurately its Mass. 1645 g. It’s high. And given things like corrosion we’d generally expect these things to be a little on the light side. It is clearly marked with its standard: 5 pounds. That makes 329 g to the Roman pound! See this recent discussion about the problem from a Byzantine perspective. A conservative ball park is usually 325 to 327 g for the Late Roman/Byzantine pound.

It’s a huge shame that the weight doesn’t have provenance: no mention of who current owns it and only very vague references to the eastern Mediterranean as to its find spot.

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Here’s Pliny’s quote just so you have it:

In spurious coin there is an alloy of copper employed. Some, again, curtail the proper weight of our denarii, the legitimate proportion being eighty-four denarii to a pound of silver. In consequence, a method was devised of assaying the denarius: the law ordaining which was so much to the taste of the plebeians that in every quarter of the City there was a full-length statue erected in honour of Marius Gratidianus. (Pliny, Natural History 33.132)

Tag: weight standards

297 out of 410 days: Acorns again.

219 out of 410 days: The Roman Pound