THE SHOPSOF THEROMAN MINT OFALEXANDRIA.
By J. G. MILNE.
Duringthefourth century
A.D.
thecoinsissued fromthedifferentmints ofthe Romanempire commonly bore,inadditionto thename
of thecitywhere the mintwassituated,a letterornumberindicatingtheparticular shop ofthemintinwhicheach-coinwas struck.Ina recent article'Imadeastudyofthetetradrachms issuedatAlexandriaduringthe first twelveyearsofthereignofDiocletian-i.e.till the datewhen the Egyptiancurrency wasassimilated tothatof therest of theempire-tosee what evidencecould be.foundasto theexistence of marksdistinguishingtheshopsinthisseries:andIpropose now topassthewholeof the Roman
tetradrachm issues ofAlexandriainbriefreviewfor the samepurpose.Thebronzecoinagewillnot be taken intoaccount,as itpracticallyceasedabout acenturyearlierthanthe billontetradrachms,andwasalwaysmoreirregularinitsdistribution:and,as thepresentinvestigation mustdepend to some extent oncomparisonof differentperiods,the bestevidence will clearly bederivablefrom thefullestand mostcontinuous series.Inthe firstplace, the conclusionsofthearticlealready citedmayberecapitulated.Duringthreeyearsoftheperiodconsiderednumneralswereplacedintheexergueof thereverse,todenote theshops,inthe samemanner as wasdone onthe bronze coinage of thefollowing century:and thereappearedreason tosuppose that,beforethe introduction of thenumerals,astarinthe fieldofthereverse was usedasashop-mark.Theprobableorganisationof themint,aftertheassociationofMaximianinthegovernment during thesecondyearofDiocletian,wasYears
2
(part)-6.Fourshops,twostrikingforDiocletian,two for Maximian:oneofeachpair usingthestar as its mark.Years7-8(part).Twoshops,oneofDiocletian, one ofMaximian:the latterusingthestar.Years8(part)-Io (part).Fourshops, using numeral letterstwo (A and A\)ofDiocletian,two (Bandr)of
Maximian.Years
iO
(part)-i
i.
Twoshops(?).Year
12.
Oneshop (?).Inthe firstyearofDiocletian,and inthesecond till theassociationofMaximian,noshop-marks areascertainable.
1Theorganisation of theAlexandrian Mint inthereignofDiocletian,' 7.E.A.vol.iii,pp.
207-217.
THE SHOPS OF THEROMAN MINTOF ALEXANDRIA.
155
It further appeared thatthe number of shops variedfrequentlyand that the evidence did not show that this variationbore any relationto the total output of themint:also that theoutputs of thedifferentshops were not necessarily equal, but at times oneshop was muchmoreactive than another.Itmight be thought that a simple way ofdistinguishing the issuesofdifferent shops, at a mint where severalreverse-types were often.inconcurrent use, would have been toappropriate special reverse-types to each shop. But this was clearly not thecase in the yearswhen the shops were marked by numeralb:shopsAandAofDiocletian have the same reverse-types as arule,and so have shopsBandrof Maximian: and, though there is moredifferencebetweenthe reverses of the two emperors, Some types arecommon toallfourshops. At other periods a classificationofthecoinage between shopsby reverse-types maybenegatived bythe
eyid6nceoftheuseofdifferentreverse-typeswith thesame obverse-die:forinstance,inyear 4 of Valerian, when six reverse-typesin allwere employed-Helios, Homonoia, Nike,Tyche,Sarapis,andeagle-I have notedexamples of an obverse-die being associated withdifferent reversesinthefollowing pairs-Homonoia and Nike; Homonoia andTyche;Homonoiaandeagle; Tycheandeagle; Sarapisandeagle:so thatit would be out of the question to suppose thatinthisyear particularreverse-types were appropriated to particularshops.Andtheconstanttendencyofthe Alexandrian mint was to use fewer distinctreverse-types whenthetotaloutput was larger:thus,in thebusiestyearthe mint everhad-year
I
2
ofNero-onlytworeverse-typeswereused,whileinmany yearsofwhichthecoins arecomparativelyrarefrom tentotwentydifferentreverse-typescanbe foundsothat ongeneral groundsitdoes not seemthatthetypesof thereverseswill give much guidanceindiscriminatingbetween shop-issues.Wemaynowproceedtoconsiderthetetradrachmsofeachreign,andsee whether any points of distinctioncan befoundforseparatingcoinsof aparticular yearintotwo ormoreseries.1Thetetradrachms of Tiberius are constantintheirlegendandintheirtypes-thehead of Tiberiuson theobverseand that ofthedeifiedAugustusonthe reverse. The earliestissue,ofyear 7,hasbothheadstor.: butafterwardsthe headsofobverse andreversearein different directions,and,after year
II,
in each yearwhentetradrachms were struck-years
I4
and
I8
to
23
inclusive-exceptinyear
23,
examples occur with the headof Tiberius r. andthatofAugustus1.andvice versa: so there were twoclearlymarkedparallel
series.Inyear
2I
alituasis foundinthefieldofthe reverseofsome
l Noattemptismade,inrenderingtheinscrip-ticnsonthecoins)torepresent thetrue formsofthe letters.Eand ?2 are usedthroughcut forboth square and round forms.
I56
THE SHOPS OF THE ROMAN MINT OF ALEXANDRIA.
coinsofbothseries:this seemsa casualintroduction,but isofsomeimportanceinrelationto the issues
ofClaudius.
Thereare noAlexandriantetradrachms ofCaligulaunderClaudius these coinswerestruck,inconsiderablequantity,inyears
2
to6inclusive. The regularreversetypeis Messalinawithherchildren: in year
2
the bust ofAntoniaisalsofound.There aretwopossible clues for divisionof the issues. Thecoinswith theMessalina-typefallinto two classes, accordingastheyhaveor havenot a lituus in the field of the reverse the class without the lituusismuch the commoner in each year. Further, the legend on theobverseends alternatively-AVTOKor-AVTOKP:thisvariation isnot due to bad spacing on the part oftheengravers,asthe shorterlegend occurs in caseswhere thereisplentyofroom foranotherletter. But the variations of these two distinguishing marksarenotconsistent:inyears
2,
3,and
4,
thecoinswithoutthelituus onthereverse regularly have the longer obverse legend, which isalsothatof the coinswiththeAntoniareverse-type,which neverhadthelituus:butinyear 5theshorter legendis theonlyonefound, bothwithandwithout thelituus on thereverse:andinyear 6, thoughboth formsoflegendareused, theyoccurindifferentlywithandwithout the lituus.Onafew coinsofyear 4thelituusisplaced,noton thereverse,but ontheobverse,behindthehead oftheemperor:thesehavethelegend-AVTOKP.Onthewhole,thelituus seemstobe the moreconsistentlyused ofthe twodistinctions,andismorelikelyto beashop-mark thoughthepracticeof thefirstthreeyears m-ightbe heldto showthat
thevariation ofthe legendwasanequally important test,and inthat caseinyear5,whentheissue was greatly reduced, the shops were combined and used thesame form oflegend,while inyear 6,whentheoutput increasedagain,the old combination wasnotrenewed. Statistics fromthreelarge hoards (thenumbers forwhicharegiven separately) will showthecomparative sizeofthe two series.
Rev, without lituus.Rev. with lituus.Lituus on obv.
Year2
.
49
:24:
11 8:
I:
6
,,
3
8I:
34:
I8
10:
12:
34
41
:24
.
8
6:
3:
I
11
:9: 2
5 15
7
:
I
6:
2:
4,,
6
.
1I21 7I I5 12:
I:
4A variationinthetreatmentof theemperor'sheadonsomespecimensshouldalsobenoted,inview ofasimilarphenomenon inalaterreign. Occasionallyoneend ofthe tiesofthewreath,instead ofhanging straight down,whichisthe normalposition inthe AlexandrianportraitofClaudius,isbroughtforwardacross theneck. Thisis, however, very rare,andastheexamples whichIhave
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