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22 essays on the monetary history of the period, on examining a coin, on attributing it and on the vocabulary of the trade. Written to be useful with a coin in hand.
Valerian captured, Gaul and the East in secession, silver vanishing from the flans: what the buried hoards tell us about that year.
Read →HistoryFrom Septimius Severus to Aurelian, a continuous debasement, measurable in the laboratory. Why it happened, and what it means for a buyer.
Read →HistoryIn 274, a new coin marked XXI. What numismatics can establish about the reform, and what it can only hypothesise.
Read →HistoryThe last Antonine had himself shown as Hercules on his aurei. Three months after his death, four emperors were fighting over the empire.
Read →HistoryHow Rome removed a man from inscriptions, portraits and contracts — and why his coins survived.
Read →HistoryThe scandals come from a late and hostile compilation. The contemporary reverses speak only of a religious reform.
Read →HistoryThe first emperor risen from the ranks never saw Rome. His angular portrait set the style for a century.
Read →HistoryIn 248 Philip staged the millennial games. The SAECVLARES AVGG animal series is their programme and their souvenir.
Read →HistoryDiocletian split power four ways and had the same reverse struck everywhere, with interchangeable portraits. Political doctrine legible in style.
Read →HistoryIn 301 prices were capped on pain of death. The state capped prices on one hand and revalued its coinage on the other.
Read →HistoryVRBS ROMA and CONSTANTINOPOLIS answer each other from mint to mint: the birth certificate of a city that lasted eleven centuries.
Read →The weights and diameters to expect mint by mint, how to take them, and what a discrepancy tells you about the strike.
Read →TechniqueRelief, die breaks, off-centring, the look of the edge: what examination under a lens allows you to say.
Read →GradingWhat each grade covers, how it applies to a worn bronze, and why two coins graded TTB rarely look alike.
Read →ConservationRecognising a slowly formed patina, and understanding what becomes of the silvering on tetrarchic nummi.
Read →Breaking down IMP, AVG, P F, COS, TR P: the titulature dates the coin to within a year or two.
Read →MintsFrom P·ROMA to XXI·S: the map of the mints from 192 to 337 and how to read the officinae.
Read →CataloguesHow the Roman Imperial Coinage is arranged, and how to find a reference starting from a reverse.
Read →ProvenanceAuction catalogues, public collections, published hoards: where to look, and how to write down what you found.
Read →What each coin was worth, when it was struck, and how to tell them apart by eye.
Read →ImageryThe radiate crown as a mark of double value, from Caracalla to the aureliani.
Read →ImageryFortuna, Aequitas, Laetitia, Virtus: reading the political programme engraved on the reverse of a coin.
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