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ART OF THE ANCIENT \VORLD

(1991), 168 work5 of an, 3l pp. FREE
ONE THOUSA\lD YEARS OF
G REEK VASES (1990),
186 vasc~, 52 pp. S 4
GODS & MORTALS (1989),
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THE AGE OF C LEOPATRA (1988) .
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r''"~~'"'~----_ '0 '
Page 6
Roman port at Ostia
by Marvin Tameanko
Page 12
Final demise of the
Magna Mater cult
by James Meyer
Page 18
The invention of coinage
by William E. Daehn
About the cover:
Reverse of an orichalcum
sestertius of Nero (ca. A.D.
64), depicting the Roman port
at Ostia. Photo courtesy of
Sotheby's.
Deadline for the February issue is Friday, January 10
INSIDE THE CELATOR...
Vol, 6, No, 1
FEATURES January 1992
6 Construction of a harbor at
Ostia ensured the steady
supply of grain to Rome Publisher/Editor
by Marvin Tameanko Wayne G. Sayles
Office Manager
12 Rise of Christianity led to the Janet Sayles
final demise of the Magna Mater cult Associate Editor
by James Meyer
Steven Sayles
RCC Liaison
18 Evidence for the invention of coinage: James L. Meye r
Artemisian hoard launches debate
Production Asst.
by Wifliam E. Daehn
Chris Lane
Distribution Asst.
30 A coin's point of view
Christine Olson
Even the darkest of clouds Rochelle Olson
is lined with silver
Art
by Bob Levy
Parnell Nelson
The Celator
34 Examination of literary evidence (ISSN #10480986) is an
points to heart failure as the independent journal
cause of Herod's death published on the lirst day
by George M. Burden, M.D.
01 each month at
226 Palmer Parkway,
Lodi, WI. It is circulated
internationally through
subscriptions and
DEPARTMENTS special distributions.
Subscription rates,
payable in U.S. tunds,
are $24 per year
2 The Celator's Point of View (second class) within
the United States;
4 Letters to the Editor $30 to Canada; $48
per year to all other
24 People in the News addresses (Air Printed
Matter). Advertising and
26 Coming Events copy deadline is the
second Friday 01 each
month. Unsolicited
28 Art and the Market
articles and news releases
are welcome, however
32 Antiquities by David Liebert publication cannot be
guaranteed. Second
33 Just for Beginners by Wayne G. Sayles class postage paid
(USPS #006077)
36 Book News atlodi, WI 53555.
Copyright ©1992,
38 Coins of the Bible by David Hensin Clio's Cabinet.
Postmaster; send address
changes to P.O. Box 123,
40 Reference Reviews by Dennis Kroh Lodi, WI 53555
44 Coin File - Quotes - Trivia - Humor
608·592·4684
45 Professional Directory (same lor FAX, after hours
activate with asterisk on
touch tone phone)
52 Index of Advertisers - Classifieds

Commentary by Wayne G. Sayles
ince returning from the New York
S Internationa l Numjsmatic Con-
vention, we have repeatedly been
asked about the condition of the "mar-
ket" for ancient coins. Many collectors,
and dealers, apparently felt that the
strength or weakness of trading at this
major event would tell us what the new
year is going to be like. If there were
any great revelations, they managed to
elude us, as the signals were definitely
mixed.
The concensus, throughout the past
year, has generally been that "collector"
". . . the old faces remain, and
the heart of The Celator beats on. "
coins have been in demand, while hoard
coins and upper-end generic types have
not done as well at auction or on the
bourse fl oor. By collector coins, we
mean those types that generally show up
only in singular appearances, and some-
what infrequently. They tend 10 appeal
to the collector who has waited patiently
for some time and is willing to compete
fo rthecoin when it does find its way into
the market. These are not always inex-
pensive coins. although that erroneous
connection is sometimes made. Neither
are collector coins necessarily rare. A
collector of coins with some specialized
motif might find a very desirable speci-
men in an otherwise unremarkable type.
Even within a series of generally "inex-
pensive" coins, like Constantinian
bronzes, for example, one will find that
there are distinct differences between
collector coins and generic types.
Anyone who attended the Superior
Galleries sale of the Bromberg collec-
tion of Jew ish coins shou ld realize that
fJhe C.dato, i, named (0' and dedicaled to the
coin Jie.-en97.afJ~~j,.of antiquity who1.£ a'rt 'temainj.
M powe.(uf and appeafin:J today a, in thei, own time.
2 The Celato(
• •
collector coins can become very expen-
sive. In most respects, the NYINC con-
firmed the concensus opinion which had
built over the past year. Extraordinary
coins from extraordinary collections
brought extraordinary, indeed record
breaking, prices. Auction aUendees were
also treated to some e lementary lessons
jn world econom ics. As currencies
fluctuate, and the popularity of certain
issues increases or decreases within
various countries and regions of the globe,
we can see an unmistakable " now" of
material across the seas. This was par-
ticularly evident in prices realized for
Roman Republican coins in the Numis-
matic Fine Arts sa le. At the moment, the
tide is ebbing for American collectors-
but the pendulum always seems to fmd
its way back eventually.
Is the market in trouble? The answer
seems to be that business is not as good
as some would like, but not as bad as the
economy in general. Optimism still seems
to prevaiL For example, we enjoyed the
participation of 44 dealers in last year's
Besl o/The Cefalor /990, and this year
(/99/ ) thenumberclimbed t0 48. Shows
are clearly not as successful, from an
economic point of view, as they have
been in the past. Lists, on the other hand,
seem to be rising in popularity, and the
mail-order business is doing very well
for some dealers. With the U.S. dollar
weaker, there has been less American
dealer travel to Europe this year, and we
see an increasing number of dealers from
Europe attending U.S. shows. This is all
rather curious, but perhaps not unex-
pecled. The world is truly gettingsmaller
each day. The market is unquestionably
hindered by our current economic mal-
aise, bul it is not down and out by any
means, and the relative strength, com-
pared to other segments of theeconomy,
is encouragmg.
This month we celebrate our fifth
anniversary at The Cefalor. It's been a
wonderful five years, and we have plenty
to reminisce about. We've had a few
"hot" topics along the way -does any-
one remember the Hobby Protection
Act? Micro-leHers?, The Decadraehm
Hoard?, S labbing?, or The Black Sea
Hoard? It's interesting to look back and
observe the changes. In Volume I, No. I
of The Celarorwe announced the prepa-
ration, by Dr. Martin Price, of a new
work o n the coinage of Alexander the
Great. Dennis Kroh reported on the
results of the 1986 New York Interna-
tional, and we re ported on the retirement
of Harvey Hoffer and the sale of the
Harvey HofferColiection of the coins of
Hadrian. We also announced, in that
issue, the addition of Nick
Economopoulos to the staff of Edward J.
Waddell, Ltd. Somethingsneverchange,
and among o ld familiar faces in that issue
were the "Com ing Events", "Trivia
Quiz", and "Coin File".
In a letter to the editor, one of ourfiTSt,
Tom McKenna wrote "I do wish you
luck but have seen many such ventures
launched, and quickly fai l." Well, Tom
sent us an ad anyway - as d id Pegasi
Coins, Royal Numismatics. The Time
Machine Company, Frank Robinson, and
Empire Coins. That's right - six ads
(not counting a ton of house ads) and 12
pages of tabloid newspaper fonnal. Last
month's issue of The Ce fator included 60
pages, in a much improved fonnat, with
84 advertisers particjpating. Still, we are
proud to say that the o ld faces remain,
and the heart of The Celator (soon to
become Celato r, Inc.) beats on.
Just a reminder for those who might
have procrastinated, The Best of The
Celator 1991 is now in stock and avail-
able at $6.95 postpaid, or $20 for all four
issues of this increasingly popular clas-
sic. We hope that the holiday season has
been a very special one for all of you, and
look forward to hearing from you in the
coming months with your own point of
view!
 Some Impressive Results
from our recent auction for the
New York International

C lod"" Alb inll' G"ld Aurell_'

Sold klrS1J7,SIHI

( ;., Ii ~ub.
Sihn ))"''''';'' '
Sold ti,r $S.251 1

We are new accepting consignments for our Spring 1992 Auctions

For hlrther details call James Limb, Christine Deussen or David VagI at
212/S46- 105(), 502 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10022.
For cltaloS'llCS subscnptiolls call Christie's PublicltiotlS
at 71 HI7R4- 14HO

CHRISTIE'S

January 1992 3

I)'
\ well travelled members who knew the
(:1
Dear Editor:
I just received the December issue
of The Celator, which was once again
full of interesting articles. There are,
however, a few comments I'd like to
make.
J enjoyed as always Marv
Tameanko's article, but was surprised
that he attributed the design of the
Mauretanian temple (Price & Tre1l128)
to the temple of Oivus Julius, when
Philipp Hill has convincingly argued for
the Curia Julia, the Senate House vowed
by Julius and completed and dedicated
by Oclavian in 29 B.C.; the Temple of
Divus Julius apparenlly had a different
design altogether.
As lor Christopher Connell's article
on the "Icon of Christ", I found it to be
fascinating when discussing the actual
art and symbology, but I was
disappointed al his sweeping
generalizalion concerning Ihe slale of
Rome in A.D. 330-itwas by no means
a "small town" althat time; it was still
quite a metropolis, until the sacks in the
fifth century, when the population was in
serious decline. Also, the monumental
nalure of the cily made il attractive
enough for the emperors 10 holdlriumphs
there in the late fourth century . I am not
trying 10 nitpick at what was otherwise a
very interesting article, bull hate to see
a generalization of that type that
misinforms Ih e readers of your
publicalion.
Eric Kondratieff
California
David Liebert's article on "Ancients
may have known thatlhe world is round"
[December, 19911 was well done , but
not carried far enough.
EratosthenesofCy rene (276?- 195?
B.C.) was a great scholar whom Ptolemy
III made head of the library at Alexandria.
His greatest achievement was
calculating the circumference of the
Earth within 185 miles! Today, we
compute it at 24,847 miles .
Eratosthenes calculated it as 24,662
miles.
He recognized that at noon during
the summer solstice the sun shone
directly into a well at Syene at the same
time th e shadow of an obelisk at
4 The Celator
Alexandria, 500 miles distant, cast its
shadow. Thus , by a method of
triangulation he arrived at the above
figure, indicating the world was round
about 21 00 years ago.
Zander H. Klawans
California
Thanks so much for publishing
Valentine Duval. Much to my surprise,
I found it to be one of the best reads I've
had in some time (and I read 4-6 books
per month!). Also, thanks for your fine
publication, The Celator.
GaryUming
Maryland
(And thank you forthenice testimonial.)
Please print both sides of any story
or issue that comes to your desk and
remain impartial. This will either aid the
public and your readers specifically, or
itwill encourage the dealers to clean up
their images and improve the hobby and
business conditions for everyone.
Richard Mantia
Illinois
(We have a/ways presented and will
continue to present impartial coverage
of issues as long as the views presented
do not ridicule, slander, demeanor cast
dispersions upon the character of
individuals, firms or groups.)
The cartoons by Parnell Nelson are
really funny and provide the comic rel ief
needed to offset the very serious
thoughts in the editorial column. Please
give him my congratulations on his fine
art work and great sense of humor.
Marvin Tameanko
Canada
In David Liebert's regular feature , he
wonders if the ancients were aware that
the Earth was round [December, 1991].
In fact. there is much literary evidence
that shows that this was indeed very
well known. Astronomy was advanced
in a number of cultures, including those
of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese,
and Mayans (0. Neugebauer, 1975, A
History of Ancient Mathematical
Astronomy, 3 vols., Springer-Verlag).
All made great strides in predicting the
positions of stars and planets, based on
a clever use of naked eye observations
and simple mathematics, and the most
obvious methods of determining the
Earth's shape (Le ., the apparent
elevation of stars near the north pole
depends on latitude, and when viewed
from a departing ship the top of an
island is seen last) probably imply that
there were Ihose in every culture with
Earth was a sphere.
The Greeks. however, were the first
to systematicaJly extrapolate from this,
and try to postulate the nature of the
Earth and the universe. In Greek
trad ition, Parmenides (c. 515 B.C.) was
given credit for first realizing the true
shape of the Earth, although he may not
have actually discovered this, but simply
been among Ihe first to discuss it in a
scholarly fashion. Eratosthenes (c. 250
B.C.) made clever use ofgeomelry and
observations of shadows in Syene and
Alexandria 10 first estimate the Earth's
circumference. He came very close to
the modern value, although this was
partly by luck, because of the large
uncertainty he knew he had to contend
with in the value for the distance between
Syene and Alexandria . Other Greeks
made equally clever attempts to estimate
the size and distance of the moon and
sun, which were less successful because
of the li mitations of naked eye
observations. The limitations of flat
maps were also realized, and Claudius
Ptolemy (c. A.D. 150) made great strides
in the use of map projections based on
conic sections, as w e ll as the
construction of globes, developing the
basis of modern cartography.
Mr. Liebert also wonders if a cabal of
intellectuals hid the truth about the
Earth's shape fro m the masses. He is
correct lhat at various times in western
history maps have been treated as state
secrets. Also, the Pythagoreans (c. fifth
century B.C.) did maintain a mystical
significance for some of their
mathematical di scoveries (which,
ironically, did not i nclude the
Pythagorean Theorem, already known
in Babylon!). In general. however, I do
not believe there was any attempt to
restrict astronomical knowledge. The
shape of the Earth was probably known
to educated people throughout the
ancient world, and to those of later ages
who were not exclusively trained in
religious matters. Although the Romans
were somewhat behind the Greeks in
their appreciation of astronomy, there
seems no reason to doubt that they
were also well aware of the Earth's
shape. The globes often depicted on
Aoman coins are no doubt exactly what
they appear to be, and as they are quite
common on bronze coins, we can
Please turn to page 35
 W E WISH TO THANK
ALL THOSE WHO
PARTICIPATED

IN AUCTION XXVII
AND HELPED TO
MAKE IT OUR
BEST SALE EVER

TOTAL PRICES REALIZED:

$2,622,040

January 1992 5
Construction of a harbor at Ostia
ensured the steady supply of grain to Rome
by Marvin Tameanko
Rome, at the height of its power, was
the greatest of all the ancient, commer·
cial emporiums . Products and materials
were brought to the city from every
corner of the known world. The most
important commodity was grain from
Egypt and North Africa. T his supply of
grain was called the " Annona", literally
the "annual produce", and it was dis/rib·
uled free to the unemployed and poor
citizens arRome. Annona, personified
by a woman holding ears of grain , is
depictcd as the grain harvest on the
reverses of coins. She is often coupled
with Ceres , the goddess of crops or
agricu lture, and both are portrayed with
the prows of the sh ips which carried the
grain to Italy, arthe container, called a
"modi us", used to measure portions of
grain.
Also imported into Rome were other
foodstuffs, wine, metals, wood, build-
ing slone, slaves, gemstones, furs, spices,
exotic animals, glass, pollery, c10Ih, and
even si lk from Chi na by way of India.
Publius AeliusArislides, A.D. 11 7-184,
If you aren't seeing this symbol on
catalogues you are currently receiving
Write for our membership list
Jean-Paul Divo
Secretary, I.A.P.N.
L6wenstrasse, 65
CH-8001 Zurich, Switzerland
6 The Gelator
the most celebrated rhetorician of his
lime, delivered a famous public speech
in A.D. 150, titled "To Rome". In Ihis
panegyric, he praised the Roman em-
peror and mentioned all these marvel-
lous, international goods brought to
Rome as an illustration of the magnifi-
cence, grandeur, and wealth of the Ro-
man empire.
T his extensive maritime trade re-
quired highly developed harbors 10 re-
ceive the ships and process their car-
goes. In Republican times, the main
port for Rome was located at Puteoli,
modem Pozzuoli , in the Bay of Naples,
150 miles away. Road transportation
was expensive, and often unreliable, so
small ships picked up goods al Puteoli,
sailed north, then up the Tiber River to
unload at the docks in Rome. In the
reign of Augustus, 27 B.C. - A.D. 14,
Ihe population of Rome expanded to
the extent that the supply of grain
from PUleol i became inadequate. A
new, larger port became necessary, at a
location closer and more direct to
Rome.
Because of the geography, the coast
of central Italy on the Tyrrhen ian Sea
did not have any natural harbors. A
proposed port, close to Rome, had to be
man-made, and that required extensive
and costly construction. T he mouth of
the Tiber River seemed to be the most
logical choice for such a harbor, and
both Julius Caesar and Augustus con-
sidered this site for a new port, but
abandoned the proposal because of the
high costs. T heemperor Claudius,A.D.
42-54, revived this scheme, and con-
slruction work o n a harbor at Ostia,
north of the mouth of the T iber, began in
A.D. 42.
Ostia was originally a coaslguard
station or fort (castrum), founded around
349 B. C. to protect the mouth of the
Tiber and access to Rome from invad-
ers. In about 80 B.C. , Ostia was pro-
vided with extensive fortification walls
by Sulla, and given the status of a com-
mercial port town, receiving goods to be
transshi pped to Rome. In those days,
Ostia also served as a summer resort for
wealthy people living in Rome, only 18
miles away . T he small harbor on the
Tiber catered mostly to small commer-
cial ships and pleasure craft. A large
port at Ostia was considered to be so
impracticable Ihat Roman civil servants
grossly exaggerated the costs in order 10
discourage the emperor. But Claudius
recognized the importance of a regular
supply of grain to Rome, and would not
be deterred. He took personal charge of
the project and began the construction.
Workers cut a large basin into the
flat delta lands two miles north of OSlia,
and constructed a canal from the Tiber
lathe new port . T hi s canal is now a fork
and second mouth of the river, located at
present-day Fiumic ino. For protection
of the harbor, engineers buill two break-
waters jutting OUi into the sea. To con-
struct these, the engineers dropped large
rocks into the sea ilnd poured concrete
over them, using "pozzuolana" clay, 1I
natural, volcanic cement which hardens
under water. The breakwaters were
then built on these foundations, and
faced with li mestone. For parts of the
breakwlller fou ndations, ships were sunk
and filled with concrete . Suetonius re-
ports that a large, famous ship was sunk
as a part of the north molc, and was used
as the base of an immense li ghthouse,
which was said to rival the legendary
lighthouse, the " Pharos", atA lexandria.l
Depictions of the new lighthouse often
appear in mosaics and sculptural
panels found at Ostia, and they show
the typical Roman lighthouse struc-
ture in the usual "telescope" form.
Th is consists of three layers of build-
ing. arranged as a tall tower. large at
the bottom and small at the top. A
fire on Ihe roof served as the beacon
which cou ld be seen far OUI al sea.
The large ship used as the founda-
tion for the lighthouse had been con-
structed during the reign of the em-
peror Caligula. A.D. 37-41 . to carry
an obelisk from Heliopolis in Egypt
10 Rome in A.D. 40. This obel isk can
sl ill be seen in front of SI. Peler' s in
the Vatican. The Roman scientist
and historian, Pliny the Elder, stated
that the ship required 300 rowers to
propel it, and that the obelisk weighed
330 tons.2 Archaeological excava-
tions of the breakwatersat Ostia have
revealed the outline of Caligula's
sh ip, and it measures 240 feet long.
ito except ional lenglh for ships of
those days)
When the port was completed. the
grain ships from Egypt and North Af-
rica bypassed PUleoli and sailed directly
to Ostia. These grain ships were re-
nowned for their size and carrying ca-
paci ty. They would be the ancient
equ iva lent of the "supertankers" wh ich
c" rry oi l today. The most f"mous of
these ships was named the "Isis", after
the Egyptian goddess, and it was re-
puted to be able to carry enough grain
"to feed everyone in AHica for a year".4
The Isis was 180 feet long, 50' wide, 44'
hi gh fro m keel 10 deck, and capable of
carrying 1,200 tons. People flocked to
the harbor when one of these grain ships
arrived, in order to admire their gigantic
size and to watch the unloading, which
took several days.
Most cargoes in those days were
c:lffied in amphorae. These were large,
clay jars used as storage containers and
pack ing cases. A dumping place for
broken and discarded amphorae in Ihe
ancient port of Rome now fomlS a large
hill ca lled the "Monte Testaccio", or
Hill of Sherds. This hill is fi ve-eighths
of a mile in circumference, and over 100
fee t hi gh . Modem excavations in this
hill provided archaeologists with a
wealth of informat ion about Rome's
foreign trade. S
Claudius did not strike any coins to
commemorate the bu ilding of this port,
perhaps because it was not ful ly com-
pleted in his short reign. The following
emperor, Nero, A.D. 54-68, instituted
several pol itical and administrative mea-
su res to assure a conSlant supply of grain
to Rome, and he struck coins to dedicate
This coin shows the port in great
detail by using an unusual Iype of
graphic view. The circular harbor is
drawn in plan, and then the buildings
around it are flopped down so that
their facades can be seen. This is a
clever adaptation of a "one-point"
perspecli ve graphic method to clearly
show all the elements of the harbor.
Several varieties of this rare and fa-
mouscoin were struck. From 7 to 12
ships are shown in the port on these
coins, and they are a veritable cata-
log of the diffe rent types of ships
used by the Romans. The buildings
are shown in great detail, and Ihe
arched struclure on the right side
may be a group of vaulted warehouses
located at dockside, or, more likely,
it is a depiction of the breakwater.
A rare and popular sestertius of Nero, struck in
Roman naval engineers had devised
A.D. 57. showing the Cfaudian port at Ostia. It
dedicates the port, and commemorates N8ro's
a type of breakwater constructed on
acts assuring a sl8ady supply of grain 10 Rome. the arches. These arches held bac k
RIC 178-183, 8MC 130-135.
the heavy waves, but pennilled the
currents of the sea toente rthe harbor
and flu sh out the accumulating de-
the port at Ostia as a new grain tenninal. bris and si lL7 As the arches on the coin
We can judge Ihe size and importance of are shown sitting directly in the water,
this newport, and perhaps its inadequacy the may represent an accurate portrayal
in design, by the fact that in A.D. 62, a of this ingenious structure. Neptune is
violenl Slonn sank 200 vessels in the shown seated at Ihe entrance to the har-
roadstead of the harbor.6 bor, appropriately holding a rudder and
THE SWISS NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
Founded in 1879
At the fOfefront of scientifIC and historical research fO( over one hundred years. the
Swiss Numismatic Society has established a wor1d-wide reputation by its work with
leading scholars, collectors and dealers diffused through Its well ~.nown Revue and
Gazette journals with articles in four languages. together with numerous monogra phs
and special publications In such series as Typos and the Catalogues of SWiss Cdns.
The Society itself owes its inception In 1879 to the piooeerlng spirit of Dr. Charles
Franyois Trachsel. Its founder and tirst president, but the Swiss numismatic tradition
goes bock to the earliest days of coin collecting In the Iote 15th century when
connoisseus like the Amerbach family of Basel. inspired by Renoissance humanists
such os Erosmusof Rotterdam then residing In the city, established important ca binets.
The Society continued from the old century under the guidance 0 1 Eugene DemoIe
and Poul Stroehlln, while the new was presided aver by eminent scholars such os
Dietrich Schwarz and Colin Martin.
The Swiss Numismatic Society remains today at the service of tne international
m.miSITlCltic CQl'TVnUnity. dedicated as It Is to the furtherance of the knowledge of
those SITIClft butlnvaluoble witnesses 01 art and history, the coins of Greece, Rome.
Byzantium, the Orient. the middle ages. the modem period ond Switzerlond itself.
By joining this leading society you will be able to participate directly in numismatic
research and moreover be eligible to receive the annual Revue and the Quarterly
Gazette. as well as members' discounts on most special publicatkms.
Applications fOf membership In the Society are welcome lrom all with on interest In
ancient and modern numismatics.
rhe membefshlp fee Is Sfr 100 per yeO( (Sfr 50 fOf members under 25) and Sfr
2000 for life membership. or a sponsoring m e mbership fram Sfr 250 per yeor.
Mak.e check.s payable to Swiss Numismatic Society, Credit Swiss Bonk. Berne.
Switzerland. olc 0094.100849·41 .
SWISS NUMISMATIC SOCIETY
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Niederdorfstrasse 43, CH-8001 Zurich
January 1992 7
 Ostia. A coin struck in A.D.
103 commemorates this work.
Earlier numismatists, such as
H. Cohen and S.W. Steven-
son, believed that this coin
depicted the port at Civita-
vecchia, but excavations at
Ostia revealed an inner harbor
basin with a hexagonal plan
and surrounding bui ldi ngs,
exact ly as shown on the coin.
The distinct hexagonal bas in
can still be seen today. II is
now a large pond, on the pri-
vate T o rlo ni a estate. con-
nected to the Tiber River.
Di o Cassius, A.D. 155-
230, the Roman historian, de-
A sestertius ofTrajan, struck In AD. 103, scribes the ne w harbor at Os-
showing a hexagonal plan of the harbor. tia a nd gives its name as
RIG 471 and BMG 770A. " Portus". He expla ins that it
was built, primarily, to assure
adolphin. A large statue of the emperor a beUer supply of grain to Rome, in a ll
placed on an elaborate pedesla l, at Ihe seasons and weather.9 The port was
top of the coin, dominates the port. The o riginally called the " Ponus Ostiae"
abbreviated legend is A v a vSTI POR and then late r Ihe name was changed to
OST SC, which can be translated as the " Port us Romae". By the time of Dio
"The Augustan Port of Ostia, by the Cassius, the pon had grown so large that
Authority of the Senate". it became an independent civic entity,
By A.D. 100, the port at Ost ia WllS ca lled " Portu s".
100 sma ll to meet the grow ing needs of Once again the .m ist who engraved
an enla rged Ro man popul ation, and the the coin chose an unusual g raphic de-
emperor Trajan expanded the harbor vice to depict the port in great detai l.
fac il iiies. Pliny the Younger. a Roman The hexagonal dock area is drawn in
admi nistrator, describes in his work The plan, the bu ildings. temples, and ware-
U Uers ofthe Younger Pliny how Trajan houses are drawn as nopped down fa-
bu il t a new port at anc ient Centum Cel- cades in pers pective. and the two bui ld-
lae, now Civitavecch ia, north of Ostia.8 ings in the fo reground, perhaps temples,
We also know from other sources that are rendered with an "oblique", or axo-
he constructed a harbor at Ancona, on met ric draw ing technique. This combi-
the Adriatic, and enlarged the port at nation of three graphic, piclOrial meth-
LIGHTHOUSE
ON CALIGULA'S
MEDIT ERRANEAN
SUNKEN SHIP
SEA
'IXIOYAAO$
CLAUD IAN
PORT
WALLS
TI BER RI VER
THE ROMAN PORT OF OSTIA (A.D. 110)
8 The Gelator
ods is common in Roman art, and it
produces an exceptional composi tion.
Three ships are shown in the ba~ i n, and
two statues on pedestals between the
buildings. The abbreviated legend i~
PORTVM TRA IANI SC , which can be
translated as "The r ort ofTrajan , by the
Authority of the Senate".
The construction of these ports had a
great infl uence on the Roman economy
in two ways. The pons provided the
commercial te mi nals to encourage for-
eign trade, and as large sca le public
works, they provided nume rous jobs for
the people. Stamped bricks fou nd by
archaeologists give some indication of
the importance of these construction
projects. Bricks were usually stamped
with seals, giving the name of the fac-
tory making the brick, orthe name of the
owne r of the kiln, or the name of the
consu ls in whose tenn the bricks were
made. Some times a sestertius was im-
pressed into the wet clay as a brick
slamp. Very rare ly were the br i c k ~
stamped with the name of the building
in which they were used. Bricks stamped
with bui lding names have been found in
only three projects. These bui ld ings are
the "Castri s Praetoris", the praetorian
camp headquarters at Rome, the "POTtus
Augusti", the Claud ian harbor at Osti a,
and the " PortusTraiani", Trajan'sport.IO
The hexagonal harbor basi n, buil t by
Trajan. connected directly to Ihe T iber
River by an improvement on the origi-
nal Claudian canal. conta ined in a new
stone embankment. The new port en-
closed many warehouses, shipping of-
fices, repair shops, buildings fo r port
authorities, guards, and even a palace
for the prefect of the port. It also con-
tained hotels or hostels, baths. restau-
rants, and brothels. Roman merchants
were given special privileges and tax
concess ions iflhey located in Ostia. As
it was an inte rnational port, many for-
eign merchants from S yria, Greece,
Africa, Egypt , and Spain established
wharves, storehouses, and offices in the
harbor area, o r in Ostia, where they
were also pe rmitted to erect temples 10
their various reli gions. Archaeo logists
have discovered tem ples to Bacchus,
Isis, Ceres o r Magna Mater, Serapis,
Mithras, and even the ru ins of early
Christian churches.
In 1963,constructing anewexpress-
way from Ostia to Rome, workers dis-
covered the ruins of a synagogue alt he
ancient port . While it is known that a
large communi ty of Jews lived in Rome
as earl y as the 2nd century B. C. , and
there are Jew ish catacombs and wri tten
records of I I diffe rent synagogues, this
is the on ly synagogue building --+
 <J~ cvu.;.ut a ~ f- 01
tire ~ ....d ~ CDUU 01 u.
Ponterio & Associates'
March 1992 CICF Auction
to be held at the
Hyatt Regency Hotel
in Chicago
Auction Oates :
March 20-21, 1992
Catalog & Prices Realized · $t 5

For additional information contact our office

PONTERIO
& ASSOCIATES
1818 Robinson Ave.
San Diego, CA 921 30
800-854-2888 A
or 619-299-0400 V
Licensed Auction Company #968
~~,~ Richard H. Ponterio - President
L. M. #2163

January 1992 9
 ever discovered in Italy. The founda-
tions of the original synagogue date to
ANCI ENT & the first century A.D., while the last
MEDIEVAL unique and imposing building dates from
COI NS, the 4th century. Archaeologists discov.
ered that the synagogue contained an
BOOKS & annex with several rooms, probably used
ANTIQU ITI ES as a hostel by visiting foreign mer-
chants. 11
As Rome declined, foreign trade
L.R. LANTZ moved to other harbors on Ihe Mediter-
ranean and Adriatic. The port of Os Ii a,
CMV NUMISMATICS abandoned in the 5th century A.D., silted
up and was overwhelmed by the ex-
PO BOX 1699, ALAMEDA, CA 94501 USA, 41 5 769-0137 panding delta of the Tiber River. The
site of the ancient port is now one mile
from the coast. Most of the harbor is
buried under Rome's international air-
port, Leonardo da Vinci, at Fiumicino.
On some of the runways, modem air-
planes taxi over buried, ancient wharves,
Bank Leu Ltd Zurich docks, and sunken ships . It is an inter-
esting coincidence that a twentieth cen-
tury international transportation termi-
Numismatics nal was built over the top of a similar
center dating from the first century -
poetic proof that past history often be-
comes the foundation of the present.

Notes and BibJlography:

Every year we have an auction of very important ancient coins
in spring.
We issue occasional lists.
Our stock ranges from Hemitarlemoria to Dekadrachmai, and
from Ouadrantes to Multiple Aureus Medallions.
We actively buy and sell at afl price levels.
Bank Leu Ltd
In Gassen 20 CH-800 1 Zurich Switzerland
Telephone (from the US) all 41 1 2192406 Telefax all 411 2193306
10 The Gelator
I Suetonius, "The Twelve Caesars",
Claudius 20. Translated by Michael
Graves, Penguin Books, London, 1979.
2 Pliny . Natural Hislory. Book XXXVI.
xiv, 70-75. Translated by D.E. Eichholz,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
1962.
3 The Magic of Obelisks. by Peter
Tomkins, Harper and Row Publishers,
New York, 1981, p. 9.
4 Lucian of Samosata wrote a satire in
about A .D. 165, titled "The Ship", in
which he describes these grain Ships.
The Ship. i-ix,
5 Archaeology of Ancient Rome. by An-
thony King, Crown Publishers Inc., New
York, 1982, p. 37.
6 Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome,
Book XV, xviii, 3. Translated by M ichael
Grant, Dorset Press, London, 1980, p.
353.
7 A History of Seafaring, by Jose ph W.
Shaw, George F. Bass editor, Thames
and Hudson, London, 1972, p. 97
8 Pliny, The Letters of the Younger Pliny ,
Book VI, No. 31. Translated by B.
Radice, Penguin Classics, London, 1960,
p.181
9 Dio Cassius, Roman History, LX, xi, 1-
4, Penguin Classics, London, 1963 ,
10 Tile Ruinsalld Excavations of Allciel1l
Rome, by R. Lanciani, Bell Publishing
Co" New York, reprint of Ihe 1897
edition, 1967, p. 40.
II Judaism in Stone: The Archaeolog),of
Allciellt SYllagogues, by He rshel
Shanh, Harper and Row Publishers,
Ne w York, 1979,pp, 162-168.
 Ancient Greek and Roman Coins
A selection from our recent pu rchases. We will have all unsold coins from thi s ad as well as
h undreds of other u n usual ancient co ins for sale at th e New York In ternational Coin Convention.
Greek Silver Coins
1 CROTON, Bruttlum,51 0-480B.C., Stater. Obv.
Tripod-teres; to I., storti.. Rev. Incuse 01 tripod ·
lebes.. SNG ANS 308. Very Fine $295.00
2 METAP ONTUM , luc:an la, 350-330 B.C. ,
Oidrachm. Obv. Bearded head of Leuclppus r.
Rev . ear 01 corn. ct. SNG Cop. 1208. Superb
obverse with head 01 best style. in el<cep!ional
relieL Extremely Fine plus $1050.00
3 VEllA, Lucanla, 400-350 B.C. Dby. Head 01
IUhena r, wearing crested Athenian helmet.
Rev. lion walking t.;above, com ear. Excellent
style. Very Fine plus $550.00
4 MACEDON, Alnand.r III, 336-323 B.C "
Drachm. Obv. Head 01 Herakles r., in lion'sskln.
Rev. Zeus seated I.
nearly Extremely Fine $135.00
5 ATHENS, 449-413 B.C., Tetradrachm. Obv.
HeadofAthenar. Rev. OwIr. BMC62. Heavy
test cut on reverse.
nearly Extremely Fine $275.00
6 APOLLONIA, lIIyrls, alter 229 B.C., Drachm.
Obv. Cow r.• suckling call. Rev. Square con-
taining double stellate pattern.
Very Fine $65.00
7 TARSUS, Cillets, Mazseu s, Satrap, 36 1-334
B.C. Obv. Baal olTarsus enthroned I. Rev. Lion
attacking stag. Sear 5650. Heavy test cut.
Very Fine plus $225.00
Greek Bronze Coins
8 THE BRETTII. Brulllum, 282-203 B.C ..
Sextans. Obv. Head of Ares II. helmeted. Rev .
Bellona with spear and shield; Bucranium. At ·
tractive obverse style.Very FinelFine $195.00
9 SYRACUSE,Sicily,317-289B.C.,AE23.0bv.
Head of Kore I., wreathed with corn. Rev. Bull
botting I., dolphins. Green patina.
Very Fine $75.00
Lucien Birkler & Company, Inc.
1707 L Street, N.W., Suite 520, Washington, D.C. 20036 • Phone 202-833-3770
10 SYRACUSE, Siell y, 317-289 B.C., AE 21 .
Obv. Bust of Artemis r. Rev. Winged thunder·
bolt. Very Fine $45.00
11 SYRACUSE, Sicily, Hiketas , 288·279 B.C.,
AE 23. Obv. Head of Zeus Hellanios I. Rev.
Eagle. Sear 1211 var .
Very Fine plus $1 25.00
12 ATHEN S, 220·83 B.C., AE 18. Obv. Head 01
Athena r. Rev. Zeus hurling thunderbolt.
2
If,ll)
\
.
BMC 544.
Roman Empire, Silver Coins
Fine $25.00
13 MARK ANTONY, C. 31 B.C., Denarius. "Le·
gionaryTypes". LEG.VI. C.33.
Very Fine to Extremely Fine $275.00
14 AUGUSTU S, 27 B.C. - 14 A.D., Denarius.
Obv. Head r. Rev. Chariot surmounted by
small quadriga and Roman eagle. C. 279.
Oarldy toned . Very Fine $295.00
15 GALBA,Denarius. Obv. Head r. Rev. ROMA
RENASCENS; Roma stg. I. C. 208.
3 FinaNery Good $235.00
16 TITUS, 79-8\ A.D .. Denarius. Obv. Head r.
Rev. Curile chair. C. 318.about Fine $45.00
17 SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS , 193 ·211 A.D.,
Denarius. Obv. Head r. Rev. Alrica stg.; Hon
at feet. C. 493. Sharp porlrait.
nearly Extremely Fine $1 25.00
Roman Empire, Bronze Coins
18 SEVER US ALE XA NDER, 222·235 A.D.,
Drachm of Alexandria. Obv. Bust r. Rev.
Helmeted head 01 Athena r .. palm in Iront.
Year 10. BMC unlisted. Very Fine $295.00
19 PROBU S, Anloninianus . Obv. Bust r. in cui ·
rass. Rev. VICTORIA GERM; two captives
seated at loot 01trophy . C.766. Very sharply
struck. Extremely Fine $49.00
January 1992 11
Rise of Christianity led to
the final demise of the Magna Mater cult
(Part 1 of this article, printed in the
January 1991 issue, considered the In-
troduction of the cult of Magna Mater at
Rome. aspects of/he Phrygian cult, and
the Graeco-Roman synthesis of the cult.
Part 2, printed in the February 199/
issue, considered the socia-political
history of the cult during the Republic,
and its transformation during the early
Empire. Part 3, printed in the May 199'
issue, considered the developmen t of
the Magna Matercultdurjng the Empire.
This, the fourth and final part, considers
the final transformation and demise of
the Magna Mater cult.)
by James Meyer
IX LATER HISTORY
AND FINAL DEMISE
Spread into
the Western Prov inces
As noted in Part 3 of this article,
Magna Maler's appearance on second
centu ry (A.D.) coin;lge s ignaled he r ;lC-
ceplance by the uppct cl asses . Ass isted
by this offi cial recognit ion, her cult
spread unimpaired, even to the remote
and less civili zed comers of the Empire.
For exampl e, in the province o f
Gennania alone, remains of her cult
(temples, sacrific ial pits, ex-votos, al-
tars ... ) have been excavated in thirty-
seven sepafllte locations. Of course,
these chance finds represent but a fra c-
tion of the original number. Usually,
the re mains were centered around mil i-
tary camps, and the c ivilian settlements
attached to them. At the fo rt at Saalburg,
a centurion had erected (at his expense)
a small temple for Magna Mater. The
dedicational inscription infonns us it
had been built both fo r the goddess and
the well-being of emperor Antoninus
Pius. At the legionary fort at Neuss, a
well preserved stone baptism pit dem-
onstrates that the blood purification rite
was common enough to require a per-
manent structure. l
While the cult was spreading west-
ward, both its conte nts and the type of
follower it attracted were c hanging. A I-
ready, by the second centu ry A. D., the
clergy of other fert il ity goddesses were
attempting to capitalize on Magna
Mater's success. The Syrian goddesses,
Ma-BeUone and Atargatis, were being
presented ei ther as close assoc iates of
Magna Mater, o r mere ly d ifferent mani-
festations of the same divinity. Apart
from fertility goddesses, a "new" god
called Mi thras was creeping in from
Persia. The earliest known Roman
Mithras temple in the West dates to
A.D. 142 (re ign of Antoninus Pius). It
was located in Ostia (a port city), and
was tucked behind a temple of Magna
Mater. Just as Magna Mater presently
attracted mostly women, Mithras at-
tracted men, espec ially soldiers. Yet,
many aspects of these cults were the
same . The blood bathofthe taurobolium
was the same, while artistic representa-
tions of Mithras are almost identical to
those of Allis. Just as Attis was the
"junior" companion of Magna Mater,
Mithras was the junior compan ion of
the "Inv incible Sun". Anotherparallel-
ism is visible in the theologies: in both
cases the followers supposedly received
the benefi ts of the senior god thro ugh
the intervention of the junior god. 2 By
the mid-th ird century, both the syncre-
tism of all ferti lity goddesses with Magna
Mater, and the polarization of men and
women to Mithras 3 and Magna Mater,
were nearing completion.

Third Century Co inage

As we have seen earlier, the Severan
dynasty had promoted the Magna Mater
cult, to the point of overtly identifying
the empress with the deity. Yet, the last
representatives of this dynasty, such as
the perverted Elagabalus(A.D. 2 18-222)
and the henpecked Scverus Alexander

Jean ELSEN, s.a. (A.D. 222·235), had indirectly hanned

all Oriental re ligions. AfterElagabalus'
display of (Oriental) religious excess
and his subsequent murder, succeed ing
• Pu blic Auctions emperors were careful not {O open ly
d isplay any nontradit ional tendencies,
• Numismatic Literature even if, in private, they d id favor some
Oriental c ult .
• Monthly JIlustrated Fixed Price Lists As for Severus Alexander, he had
been perceived as a mere figurehead:
• Ancient, Medieval, Islamic and Modern Coins the real power had remained with hi s
mother and grandmother. Therefore,
subsequent e mperors were also careful
Avenue de Tervueren 65 no t to use coin types more suitable to
1040 BRUSSELS-BELGIUM women than to men (such as Magna
Mater had become), o r to place too
Tel: 011-322-734-6356 much numismatic emphasis o n the
Fax: 011-322-735-7778 women in their families. The result of
all this was that Magna Mater disap-
pears from Roman coinage altogether.
12 The Celator
When, in the later part of the third cen-
tu ry, the soldier emperors seized power,
they still disguised their affiliations with
Mithras by dwelling on his companion.
Indeed, the "Invincible Sun" could be
regarded either as the traditional god
Apollo to the population at large, or as
the Persian sun god to the in itiated.
New Interpretations
The Ialer third century was a period
of change for pagan religions in general.
All the misfortunes suffered by the Ro:
man empire eventually had an effect on
how the citizens viewed theirtraditional
gods. Even though both the State and
the ordinary citizens had performed the
required rituals and sacrifices, as they
always had for the past thousand years,
the succession of calamities made it
clear that the gods were not holding up
to their side of the deal. Many persons
concluded that the traditional gods (Ju-
piter, Mars, Apollo, etc.) were no longer
int e re sted in humanity, and they
switched to the "new" Oriental reli-
gions (Magna Mater, Mithras, Isis, Ju-
daism, Christianity). Others believed
the gods were angry because of the
attention paid to these new cults. In this
frame of mind emperor Trajan Dec ius
ordered that everyone in the Empire
should make a token sacrifice to the
trad itional gods, in front of officials.
Certificates were issued to those who
complied, while those who refu sed were
punished in various ways. Still other
persons (such as emperor Marcus
Aurelius) speculated that there might
not be any gods at all. Forthese reasons,
a growing number of people were for-
saking the old gods. Those who needed
something to believe in preferred join-
ing Oriental religions, which offered
personal salvation rather than protec-
tion for the whole comm unity . In an
effort 10 stop this trend, some ph iloso-
phers, who considered the old cults a
necessary partof civilized life, began to
rei nterpret the old rel igions by givi ng
new " profound" meanings to the various
aspects of each cult. One such group of
ph ilosophers were the Neoplatonists.
The most infl uent ial third centu ry
Neoplatonist was Plotinus (flourished
under emperor Gall ienus). He taught in
Rome, and had some influe nce with
both the empero r and his wife, Salonina.
In a nutshell, Plotinus preached that all
the old divinities wcre in facl different
manifestations of one supreme deity,
known only as "the One". In spite of
these revisions, the Neoplatonists were
powerless to stop the flight away from
the traditional gods. This somewhat
cold and pse udo-rational philosophy
appealed to only a tiny minority of "in- the traditional gods. In 341, Constans
tellectua!s", namely those with a bend condemned the "folly of sacrifice" and
towards mysticism. Magna Mater and ordered the abolition of all "supersti-
similar redemption religions continued tions". In 346, a new law imposed the
to gain ground with the masses. death penalty on anyone caught sacri-
ficing to the gods. Still, the emperors
The Fourth Century: Christianity kept the title PONTIFEX MAXIMUS,
Becomes the State Religion which identified them as heads of the
The process by which Christianity pagan religions. In that capacity, they
became the foremost religion of the also permitted the continuation of many
Empire is complicated and important state sacrifices to the old gods, made for
enough to warrant a detailed explana- the preservation of the state. Thus, the
tion, which would exceed the scope real target of early Christian persecu-
available here. To resume, emperor tions was the repression of private wor-
Constantine came to power and pro- ship. As Magna Mater and similar mys-
vided support to the church, panly to tery cults involved active participation
satisfy his own political needs, partly in at a personal level, they were rivals to
response to pressures from his mother Christianity. The laws forced these ri -
(Helena), who was truly Christian. Hel- val cults to go "underground". Local
ena is most likely the one responsible temples and their properties were given
for insuring that Constantine's sons were to the church to be used (orto be sold) as
raised and taught by priests. 4 Though building material.
Constantine granted tax indemnities and The details of various mystery cults
special privileges to Christian priests, (including Magna Mater) have been
he tolerated the other religions, contin- transmitted ina most unusual way. These
ued the traditional state rites to the old details were secret, and available only
gods, and even pennitted emperor wor- to the followers, who were sworn to
ship.5 When his sons succeeded him in keep silence. Firmicus Matemus, a
A.D. 337, they soon became far les ~ writer of pagan literature, "turned his
tolerant than Constantine. Through leg- coat" when it became apparent that po-
islation they first tried to discourage, litical advancement would be barred or
and later forbid all private worship of hampered to non-Christians. Since he
0,---------------------------------------------___ 0
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T~ I: 07\ -930 7S83. F... : 07) ·839 4853. r.le..: 9! 671l .
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January 1992 13
had compromised himself by his earl ier
writings, he composed a virulent book
called "On the Errors of Pagan Reli-
gion ". In his allcmpt to be more Christian
than the Christians, he broke the taboos
by revealing the details of worship and
the various passwords used by the most
popular mystery religions . In his zeal
for his new founded fa ith, he foreshad-
owed the Spanish Inquisition . Forthose
who would not convert, he exhorted the
sons of Constantine in these words:
.. These practices, most saintly
emperors, must be radically sup-
pressed and annihilated. They must
be punished/ollowing the most se-
vere dispositions 0/ your edicts so
thai this deadly error of Ihis vile
prejudice no longer infeclS the Ro-
man world . .. Certain refuse and
rebel: they are aspiring to their
own doom with a passionate ardor.
Yet, come to the rescue 0/ these
poor deluded fools, deliver them,
as they are already dead . . . The
penalties oftheirefrors arc known:
beller il is to deliver the.~e people in
spite o/themselves rather than let
them be lost on their own.
Para XVI, 4.
In other words, if the pagans will not
voluntarily convert, beller to apply the
law (the death penalty) and save the sou l
of the remainder through fear, than let
them continue to infest the planet.
Firs t Paga n Revival
At the death of Constantine in A.D.
337, Conslantius II made sure that apart
from his brothe rs, Constans and
Constantine I I (who were in league with
him anyway), there would be no other
members of the Imperial fami ly to op-
pose them . Delmatius (a Caesar),
Hanniballi anus (a Roman king!), and
Julius Constant ius (the half brother of
Constantine) were all murdered. l ulius
Cons t an ti us' two small sons
(Constantius Gallus and l ulianus) were
exiled and placed under house arrest.
They were both given a Christian indoc-
trination in the hope they might become
priests (and thus cease to be a political
threat). Eventually, Constantius II tried
to use Gallus as a junior partner, but
being dissatisfied with his perfonnance,
had him put to death. Inlulianus' mind,
Christ jan i ty , as em bod ied by Constant ius
II. was a hypocritical reli gion which
preached tolerancc but practiced terror.
As a result, Julianus turned to the old
religions, which he perceived as the
necessary component of Roman civili-
zation. When l ulianus finally acquired
supreme power, he attempted to revive
the old religions, and wrote a number of
religious essays in an attempt to justify
renewed government support for the old
religions. In particular, he wrote acorn-
plicated and somewhat obscure treatise
on Magna Mater, in which the various
aspects of the cult were explained in
Neoplatonist teons. Attis is represented
as a force of intelligent ferti lity, respon-
sible for the creation of all things. He
arrives on Earth as the embodiment of
the fertility ofthe sun god (the sun being
the visible part ofthe otherwise invisible
Neoplatonist "One" god) . Magna Ma-
ter is the generating force of the inv is-
ible gods (which are still only a mani-
festation of the one supreme god), and
who reveals herself through the visible
gods. It is all rather fuzzy. The follow ing
extract gives an idea of his book:
. . . Thus, in view o/the number 0/
substances and particularly those
offertility, the essence of the third
creator, who possesses the abstract
reasons o/the ma/erial shapes and
the connected causes, this ultimate
essence which descends from the
heaven.s to Earth under the effect of
a surplus of fertility, is Aftis, the
one whom we seek. 6

C./. Martin (Coins) Ltd lulianus died during his campaign

against the Persians. After a series of
of London, England. victories, rumor had it he was fatally
wounded by one of his own soldiers .
With him died his dreams of a pagan
Our current 24 page Roman Empire.
ca talogue contains Chri s tian Emperors Return
about 500 Greek l ulianus was succeeded for a short
and Roman coins, while by the moderate Christian Jovian.
Christianity again became the state reli-
200 English gion . He was fo llowed by two brothers,
Hammered Valentianus and Valens, who were far
and a wide from tolerant. In a bout of Christian
zeal, they organ ized a number of book
range of burnings.
antiquities. According to the Roman historian
Marcellinus, anyone who was consid-
ered literate, orwho possessed a library
C.J. Martin (Coins) Ltd (which would by necessity have con-
8 5, Th e Vale , S o uthgate, tained classical, hence pagan, Ii teratu re ),
was in great danger of being tortured
London N14 6AT, England and executed, or at the very least tor-
Established 20 years tu red and stripped of all belongings.
They were succeeded in the West by
Tel: (0)81 8 82 1509 Fax: (0)81 8865235 Valentianus' son Gratianus, who asso-
Telephone Visa & Mastercards accepted ciated Theodosius to the eastern throne.
OUR CATALOGUES INCLUDE ANCIENT GREEK BRONZE, GREEK SILVER, A landmark event was Gratianus' resig-
ROMAN SILVER & BRONZE, BYANTINE, CELTIC , ANGLO SAXON, NORMAN, nation of the title PONTIFEX MAXI-
HAMMERED MEDIEVAL, ANCIENT ARTIFACTS, HOARDS & SPECIAL OFFERS MUS (A.D. 382) and the halting of all
pagan state rituals.
14 The Celator
 Last Pagan
Renaissa nce in Rome
At the end of the fourth century, the
last literate bastion of the old religions
existed covertly at Rome among some
members of the upper classes. When
Gratianus was murdered in Gaul in A.D.
383, power was usurped in the West by
Magnus Maximus . Theodosius re·
mained the ruler in the East, while Italy
fell into a sort of no man's land, nomi·
nally ruled by the child Valentianus II .
The pagan group in Rome took advan·
tage of this situation by attempting to
gain some religious toleration from the
weak ltalian government, but without
success. When Magnus Maximus in-
vaded ltaly in A.D. 387, thoughaChris·
tian, he managed to gain the support of
the pagan group, presumably by grant-
ing the pagans some religious freedom .
But Theodosius soon recaptured Italy,
and restored Valentianus II to power.
Theodosius instigated a purge of all
those who had cooperated with Magnu s
Maximus . As a resu ll, pagans were
severely repressed as traitors to the state.
In A.D. 392 the weak ruler Valentianus
II was murdered, and power in the West
was usurped by Eugenius . Two years
later, when Eugenius (a Christian) felt
the need for mQre allies among upper
classes, he gave the pagans in Rome full
freedom to exercise their cults, and a
veritable explosion of old rituals and
festivities were to be seen . The proces-
sions of Magna Mater were again eel·
ebrated with an enthusiasm heightened
by years of repression.
Contorniates
With the first gains of Christianity in
the fourth century A.D., a new type of
medallion (know n today as the
contorniate) came into ex iste nce.
Whereas official Imperial medallions
of the firs t three centuries were of the
highest quality, displaying an equal or
better level of dexterity than the regular
coinage, contorniates were often of the
poorest quality. These medall ions con·
centrate either on pagan religious sub-
jects or on the public games. Emperors
Nero and Trajan fi gure prominently on
th e obverse. The production of
conlorniates appears to be one of the
methods used by the pagan members of
the upper classes in Rome to keep pa·
ganism alive. They were minted at least
into the mid·fifth century A.D., and
were no doubt issued in some numbers
during the last pagan revolt. It is in the
contorniale series that Magna Mater re-
appears in a numismatic context, in this
case for the last time. She is shown
seated in her shrine, flank ed by lions
and accompanied for the
first time by Attis - the
taboo surrounding the
depiction of Attis (and
what he represented) had
finally been broken.
Magna Mater's pose and
attributes are identical to
the cu lt statUe on the
Palatine (See Figure 1).
It is difficult to detennine
just when thiscontorniate
was minted, bUi its lack
of spelling errors and its
relatively good style point
to the early fourth century.
Final Triumph
of Christianity
The pagan revival was
short·lived. The eastern
Emperor Theodosius re·
tu rned in A.D. 394 to re·
take the West a second
time. Eugenius was de·
feated and killed. By
siding with fallen usurper Eugenius, the
pagans had again made themselves dou·
bly despicable to the very Christ ian
Theodosius. The Greek historian
Zos imus paints the sce ne after
Theodosius ' entry into Rome:
. .. Theodosius called a meeting of
the Senate, which still clung to the
old tradit ions oftheir ancestors and
had not chosen to join those who
despised the gods (the Christians).
He helda speech in which he pressed
them to renounce their error, as he
called it, and mentioned that the
Senate in the past had preferred the
belief~ of the Christians, a belief
which holds the promise ofdeliver·
once to all sin and all impiety. But
none oflhe Senators would obey his
commands to renounce their an-
cestral traditions. . Theodosius
declared that the Empire was bur-
dened with the expenses necesmry
to pelform the state sacrifice.s and
he would abolish them, since he did
not approve of them anyway, and
since the military budget needed to
be increased . .. The rites of sacri·
fice were therefore slopped and all
the religious ceremonies inherited
from Iheirancestors were neglected
This ban meant the fina l closure of
all temples in Rome. The Vestal virgins
put out the eternal fi re and went home
with the talismans, which their order
had kept for more than a millennium .
As the external military situation of the
Figure 1
Contomiatedepi'cting
Magna Maler accompanied bY.Attis
Roman Empire was very poor, and was
soon to get worse, many pagans be·
lieved that the complete halting of all
sacrifices to the traditional gods was the
reason the Empire was falling apart.
The extract of Zosimus given above
continues :
.. . so that the Roman Empire has
become progressively weaker, and
the abode of barbarians. It was
finally stripped of its inhabitants
and reduced to such a state that one
could not even recognize the loca-
tions where the cities had once been.
In fact, twelve years after
Theodosius' ban, Rome was sacked by
the Goths. The western part of the
Roman Empire was nearing its end. The
sack of the city had rocked the Roman
world, and the belief in eternal Rome.
The pagans blamed the Christians for
this calamity. Saini Augustine felt
obl iged to calm both the pagans and the
Christians by writing a Ihousand·page
rebuttal to pagan allegations called the
"City of God". In his book he reviews
and refutes the pagan arguments, in·
structing men to look for salvation in
God, rather than in a city or political
system. He attempts to debunk all pa-
gan cults and religions, including that of
Magna Mater:
.. When I was a young man, I
would go sometimes to the sacrile-
gious rituals and spectacles where
I would see the priests raving/rom
religious excitemenf . . . Itookplea-
January 1992 15
 sure in the shameful game.~ in honor
of . . . and Magna Mater. On the
holy day consecrated to her purifi-
cation, they sang in front of her
reclining statue songs so obscene
andfillhy 10 hear .. . that not even
the mother of those foul players
would have consented to be a part
of the audience . .. Would it not be
better to read PlalO in the "temple
of Plato" than to be present in the
temples of devils to wilness the
priests of Magna Mater mutilating
themselves? . . .
The problems faced by the Christian
Roman Empire in dealing with the last
pagans in Rome turned out to be a simple
one. The continuing food shortages of
the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries,
coupled with epidemics which follow
famines, meant that the population at
Rome fell dramatically. According to
various archaeological estimates, there
were between one and four million
people li ving in Rome under Augustus.
According to Lanciani, by A.D. 1377,
there were but 17,000 persons left, or
ilbout one thousilnd times less. This
schemil was repcated in most cities of
the western Roman Empire, depriving
cults such as Magna Mater of literate
supporters. In the cities, the memory of
specific mystery cults finally drifted out
of a society too preoccupied with sur-
vival to worry about old books and cus-
toms.
Afterglow
When, from the second century D.C.
to the first century A.D., the Romans
conquered the western provinces, they
foundnativeCcitic religions, which they
quickly attempted to equate with their
own.? After a number of years of per-
manent Roman occupation, as the na-
tives became Romanized, they clothed
their local prehistoric superst itions and
beliefs in Graeeo-Roman form. In the
CALVIN J. ROGERS
Ancient &
Medieval
16 The Gelator
small rural backwaters, even when crude
Roman iconography appears, it was the
old prehistoric gods that were being
venerated, rather than their Roman
equivalents. In some cases, as at
Bliesbruck,8 the locals even mixed up
the representations, depicting their
"Ceres" in the shape of Venus. It was
not really important, as these local gods
were both shapeless and capable of as-
sum ing any shape. Thus, though the
Romans thought they had displaced the
native gods in favor of their own, the
local population (especially rural) con-
tinued much as before.
The Christians coined the word "pa-
gan" from the Latin word "pagus", which
means village. This designation SIems
from the difficulties encountered by the
Church in converting rural areas, which,
until our century, contained the bulk of
the population. In the Middle Ages
there were still large areas in Europe
where certain pagan rites (of a non-
speci fic nature) continued. Eventually,
the Catholic church felt obliged to adopt
(and thus disguise) certain rites which
were too anchored in the minds of the
peasants to be eradicated. One would
think that in this century, the various
superstitions and beliefs held over from
prehistoric times would long have dis-
appeared.
Yet , just as the Romans never man-
aged to completely impose their beliefs
over some local superstitions, the Church
has also fa iled to destroy them com-
pletely. For example, there are certain
fertility rites which have survived . As a
young boy living in a small village in
France, I witnessed such a ceremony.
The village priest was present, of course,
to give the whole affair a Christian stamp.
A bonfire was lit in the middle of the
village. As the fire burnt high, the most
daring young men would leap over the
fire to demonstrate their courage. After
the fire had burnt down to knee level,
the remaining young men and all the
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Fully illustrated
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Redwood City CA 94063
(415) 369-1508
young girls (in dresses or skirts!) would
leap over the fire, either singly or in pairs.
This ensured, the farmers informed me,
that the fields would bring good har-
vests, and that the future couples would
have many children (still a desirable
condition in France in 1962). The
Catholic name for Ihis ceremony is "Les
feux de la Saint Jean" (Saint John's
fires), but the fertility connotation be-
trays its prehistoric origin.
Another example of continued pa-
gan influence can be seen in Italy. As
we noted in Part I of this article, Magna
Mater (as well as other female fertility
divinities) was a creation of an agrarian
society in which women were consid-
ered to have superior magical powers, a
power clearly demonstrated by their
ability to bring forth children. In rural
Italy today, it is customary to pray not to
God, or even Jesus Christ, but to the
Virgin Mary. Also, in some churches,
persons will bring wax facsimiles of
various body parts, representing the limb
or organ which is giving them trouble.
These facsimiles, which are nailed on
the church walls, are the exact counter-
part of the terra-cotta body parts which
the Romans nailed to the temple walls.9
Both examples of this behavior today
appear to be drawn from a collective
rural conscience dating back to pre-
Roman times. In a sense the Virgin
Mary has replaced Magna Mater. With
the widespread use of radio, and espe-
cially television, these superstitions are
finally disappearing from rural western
Europe.
Notes:
I Vermaseren, M.J., Der Kull der Kybele
ul/d des Altis im roemischen Germanien,
Gentner Verlag. Stuttgart, 1979.
2 The same could be said of Christianity.
The suffering of Christ redeems mankind
in the eyes of his father, God.
3 The Mithras cult was not open to women.
4 Unfortunately , these priests were of dif-
ferent Christian persuasions (Arian and
Orthodox), and civil wars broke out soon
after his sons came to power.
5 Corpus lllscriplionum Latinarum. Vol XI,
n5265.
6 In order to make any sense of these meTa-
physical reasonings, it is often necessary
to have read earlier mystic writers, such
as Plotinus.
7 Julius Caesar, in his book on the Gallic
Wars, describes Celtic gods which he
identifi es with Mercury, Hercules,
Minerva, Mars, etc.
8 Pelit, Jean·Paul, Puirs et Fosses Rituefs
ell Gmlle d' opres r EXample de Bliesbruck
(MoeseHe),1988.
9 See Coarelli. F.. Rossi, A., Templi
dell' Italia Antico, Milano, 1980.
 NUMISMATICA
ARS CLASSIC A AG
AUCTION 5
February 25, 1992 An important collection of
Greek and Roman coins

February 26, 1992 A large selection of interesting and historical

Celtic, Greek, Roman and Byzantine coins
with many rare types in attractive condition
at accessible prices

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Telephone 012611703 Fax 012615324

January 1992 17
Evidence for the invention of coinage:
Artemision hoard launches debate
by William E. Daehn
In 1863, the archaeologist John T.
Wood set OUIIO locate one of the Seven
Wonders of the ancient world, the
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.l The
fam ous temple, kno wn as the
Artemision, was bu ilt during the reign
of Croesus, was burned to the ground
perhaps around 350 B.C., and was re-
built and still stood during Roman times.
In fact, the temple was depicted on sev-
eral Roman coins minted at Ephesus.2
Unfortunately, the rebuilt temple was
destroyed completely in A.D. 40], and
"all trace of it above ground had disap-
peared, and many even doubted whether
such a building ever existed.")
In [896, Wood's years of searchi ng
p,lid off when he located the ruins of the
temple buried 20 feet below the su r-
face. 4 Wood concluded his work in
1874, and David G. Hogarth resumed
work at the site on behalf of the British
MU;;CUITI during 1904 and 1905. 5 Dur-
ing his excavations, the foundations of
three earlier structures were found be-
neath theCrocsus-period temple. It was
in these foundations that 95 electrum
coins were found, touching off a still-
continuing deb.lte over the date of the
invention of coinage.
A complete catalog of the hoard coins
was compiled by BarchlY V. Head, and
was published in 1908 as a chapter in
Hogarth's British Museum Excavations
at Ephc.ms - The Archaic Al'temisia.6
The publishing ofthc Artemision hoard
led to a reassessment of the chronology
of the earliest coins. A reference to the
hoard in SOlheby's sale catalog of the
Nelson Bunker HUllt collection of Greek
coins slates: "this is the most important
find of early coinage, and the date of the
earliest coinage depends on the date as-
18 The Celator
signed to thedeposit. This is a controver-
sial question, and dates from about 650
to 600 B.C. have been proposed."7 This
paper will trace the debate over the inter-
pretation of the Artemision hoard coins.
Twenty-four coins "were extracted
from between the evenly laid slabs of
the small rectangular basis, which ap-
pears to have been the center of the
earliest temple or shrine ... "8 Another
Artemision Tetnplii-af Ephesus
19 coins were found in a small pot, and
10 others in various locations. Of these
53 coins, Head states these "must have
been originally deposited where found,
during the period of construction of the
First Temple."9
In addition, two coins were concealed
and later sold by workmen at the site.
The find spots of the remaining 40 coins
"cannot be so precisely identified, as
these coins came to light among the
results of dredging operations."10
Head believes all these coins must
have been cu rrent in and around Ephesus
when the first Temple of Artemis was
built, and he suggests they were a single
votive offering to the goddess. Such an
offering would "probably consist of a
round sum of money, equivalent to a
definite number of staters without frac-
tions ... " !! This hoard contained no
staters, but included all the fractional
denominations from 1/2 stater through
1/96 stater. Head calculated the total
weight of the hoard coins, and con-
cluded that the offering consi ~ted of two
silver minae. The presence of the very
small fractions supports his "round sum
of money" theory. "Such infinitesimal
pieces could ... have been of very little
practical use except as make-weights
for money changers .. ." These would
have been " thrown into the scales to
make up for the deficiencies in the
weights of the larger pieces, such as half
staters ... which arc .. . under the ir
proper normal weight ... " 12
Head arranged the coins into five
classes, based upon the sophistication
of their designs. Class I includes the
earliest specimens in the hoard, denoted
as primit ive issues. He suggests these
may belong to the time of Gyges (c.
687-657), although he admits this is
largely conjectural.
Of the primitive issues, five are de-
scribed as "mere bullets of elcctrum
with a rude punch-mark on the re-
verse."!3 One is a flat flan, plain on
both sides. The others show rough stria-
tions, indicating that the dies were
ro ughened in order to keep the pieces
from slipping wh ile being struck. Due
to their lack of recognizable types, Head
regards these primitive issues as money
changer's weights rather than true coins.
Class II contains true coins, bearing
types including goats, cocks, and lions.
These "seem to follow immediately after
the striated pieces of Class I. This is clear
from the fact that the striations across the
field of the obverse are still retained, the
goat's head having been engraved on
dies previously striated ... "!4
Class III coins also have lion Iypes,
but do not show the striations found on
Class I and II pieces. Class IV is com-
posed of three co ins with a lion's head
and a Lydian inscription WALWEL,
later interpreted as the name of the Lyd-
ian king Alyalles, who reigned c. 610-
560 B.C. Class V is made upof 14 small
coins bearing more familiar types, which
head attributed to prominent Greek cit-
ies such as Ephesus, Kyme, and Phokea .
These latest spec imens he assigned to
the period 602~569 B.C.
 None of the pure gold or silver Lyd·
ian coins introduced by Croesus were
present in the hoard. The absence of
these coins may indicate that the votive
offering "was dedicated in the reign of
Al yanes before the re form of the L yd ian
coinage and the substitution of pure
gold for electrum .. ." IS
It is important to note that Head
made no attempt to establish a new
chronology for the hoard coins. His
dates were largely based on the prev i·
ous ty accepled chronology. Prior 10 this
discovery, the consensus of opinion
placed the invention of coinage du ring
the reign of Gyges. 16 This attribution
rested on vague considerations, such as
Gyges' wealth , the init iat ive he showed
in usurping the Lydian th rone, and also
on Herodotus' statement that the Lyd ians
were the first 10 issue coins.17
Although when Head catalogued the
British Museum collection of Lydian
coins, he did suggest a reason to place
the earl iest coinage o f Lydia into the
fi rsl half of the 7th century B.C. He
notes "among the early e iectrum coins.
.. there are a few spec imens which
differ remarkably in style from all ihe
rest." He attributes Ihesespecimens"to
the Cimmerian barbarians who overran
Asia Minorand a great part of the Lydian
empire" caplUring the Lyd ian capi tal
about 652 B.C.18 Head concluded that
the range of dates poss ibly represented
by the coins in the hoard is 700·560 B.C.
Hogarth orig inally concluded that
the earliest temple foundm ion was closed
c . 700 B.C.19 The inconsistency be·
tween Hogarth's date for the c losing of
the foundat ion, and Head's date fo r the
latest coins found within the fou nda·
tion, largely stems from Hogarth's reo
jeclion of the theory that the W AL WEL
coins can be attributed to Alyanes, a
theory he ca ll s " ve ry doublful."20
However, Hogarth eventual ly changed
hi s opinions regarding the date of the
foundation - in the chapter he wrote
for The Cambridge Ancienr Hi.frO,.y, he
attributes the foundation artifacts to the
6th centu ry rathe r than the 7th century
B.C2 1
Later scholars have used the evi·
dence set forth by Hogarth and Head to
revise the chrono logy of the earl iest
coinage. Pau l Jacobsthal. writing in
TheJournal ofHellenic Studies in 195 1.
analyzed the pottery, scara bs, figurines,
and other objects wh ich were found
along with the coins in the foundat ion of
[he [emple. 22 Basedon acomparisonof
the artistic style of these objects with
others of know n dates . he concluded
that most are from the 7th century B.C,
and a very few are later.
• January 1992
E.S.G. Robinson was the next to
examine the evidence, presenting his
conclusions in the same issue of The
Journal of Hellenic Studies. He agrees
with Head that the coins in the deposit
represent those which were in use at the
time of the firs t temple's construction,
but he sheds doubt upon Head's theory
that the votive offe ring was a round sum
of money. Instead, he suggests theeoins
may have been "buried in a communal
ceremony in which those assisting threw
into the fo undations each his gift ac·
cording to his ability."23
Robinson agrees with the interpreta-
tion ofthe inscribed coins as belonging
to Alyattes, and dates these to c. 600
B .C. Based on a stylistic analys is of the
coins in relation to othe r art objects.
Robinson concludes that no ne o f the
coins must be placed earlier than "well
within the second half of the seventh
century."24 The fac t that unmarked
silver dumps were fou nd along with the
coins is important 10 Robinson, and he
remarks :
. the high proportion of those
pieces ... which represent the slages
immediare/y preceding rrue coin·
age compels the conclusion thor we
are very near in time 10 ils inven·
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lion. As one passes/rom the mere
dumps. through Ihe punched and
striared dump with a type cut into it.
to the normal coin. and all lying in
nearly contemporary deposits. Iirtle
if at all affected in appearance or
weighr by wear, one has the feelin g
ofassisting at the very birth ofcoin·
age. 25
Relying on Jacobsthal's statement
that a few of the objects found in the
fou ndation are olde r than the 7th cen·
tury, Robinson concludes the closing of
the deposit "cannot be earlier than the
fi rst decade of the sixth century" ,26 and
the invent ion o f coinage "can hardly
have take n place much more than a
generationearlier."27 He therefore dates
the first coinage to c. 640-630 B.C
Charles Seltman was the next au·
thori ty to vo ice his opinio n o n the
Artemision coins. In the second edition
of his book Greek Coi ns. published in
1955, Se ltman remained a staunch sup·
porter of the high chronology.2 8 AI·
though he doesn' t dispute the c. 600
B.C . da te fo r th e clos in g of the
Artemision deposit, he believes the first
mint was established during the reign of
Gyges, c. 685 n.c. The coins from the
Artemi sion foundation date from this
19
period, and were original ly placed along assertion now made its way into many
with othe r objects as vot ive offerings in standard numismatic books and history
a different temple near Ephesus. This texts. But the controversy did not end
temple, Sellman suggests, was burned here.
and destroyed by the Kimmerians dur- In 1966, Margaret Thompson, then
ing an invasion in 652 B.C. The CuratorofGreek Coins at the American
Ephesians gathered up the votive ob- Numismatic Society, published an early
jects from the ruins of the temple, and Greek electrum coin with an inscript ion
buried them nearby tokccpthcm in holy later determined to be KALlL.3 1 This
ground. A new temple was built on top coin shares a reverse punch with a
of these buried objects. Thus, the foun - WALWEL-inscribcdcoin. Because the
dation coins were not taken from ci rc u- name KALIL has no known connection
lation when the Artemision was built, as with the royal line of Lydia, the theory
Robinson asserts, but were accumulated that these names referto private citizens
al an earlier date. gained new respect, and the attribution
Robinson responded in Th e Nrunis - of the WALWEL coin to king Alyattes
marie Chronicle in 1956.29 He argues became less certain. This weakened
that there was no temple nearby at the onc of the numismatic links supporting
time of the Kimmerian invas ion, and the new low chronology.
therefore the literary accountsofthe sack Then, in 1975, Liselotte Weidauer
must refer to a temple at some othercity. entered the debate. In Probleme der
Robinson also emphasizes Hogart h' s fruhen E/eklronpragung she presented
statement that the filling in which the a die study of early electrum coins,
deposi t of coins and other objects was show ing that for many of these issues,
laid was necessary to the stabi lity of the very few dies were used, and they are
structure, "so that the deposit was pro- closely interlinked.32 Weidauer also
gressively placed in position as the walls presented a stylistic analysis of the
rose which contained it ... "30 Sehman' s coinagc in comparison to other art ob-
theory wa.~ thus refuted. jects. Shc concluded that most of the
Thu s, the new low chronology had early electrum coins belong to the 7th
been defended once again, placing the century B.C., with the first coins minted
inventi on of co inage ate. 640 B.C. Thi s c. 680 B.C. 33
I 988 - 8 e!it o f The Celator
1909 - Oest of The [elator
!But !J~~u~ - '1V",CJ tl"'''''lt,du.t .dVumi~mu.ti" a1tI"~Q; llnU
- Th e Nilmismaric Literary Gilild
1990 - Best of The [elator
!But !Juu£ - <liVo,lJ Comml,dat .:::Numbmalic d1!fa9azinu
- The NlImi.wnaric LiTerary Guild
1 991 - Best of The [elator
Better Than Ever
8es[0/ 1991 $6.95 postpaid
Best of 88,89,90, Gnd 91, $20.00 postpaid
'I'he CeCator
P.O. Box 123, Lodi, W153555
(608) 592-4684
20 The Celator
Late r in 1975, Martin Price and
Nancy Waggoner published their study
of the Asyut hoard, which provided fresh
evidence for the chronology of archaic
Greek coinage. This hoard was di scov-
ered in Egypt in 1969, and contained
about 900 archaic Greek silver coins.
Their ana lysis of the Asyut hoard re-
sulted in a "downdating of important
series from the late 6th century to early
5th century" and "may even requ ire a
downdating of the introduction of coin-
age from c. 640, now normally accepted,
to the last quarter of the 7th century. "34
Commenting on Weidauer's stylis-
tic analysis, they sa id "the stylistic com-
parisons do not seem to us to be a con-
clusive base on which to propose an
earlier date for the introduction of coin-
age. The chronology proposed by the
electrum leaves a void in coinage be-
tween c. 600 and 560 which is in direct
contrad iction to ou r find ings from the
Asyut hoard."3S In his review of the
Asyut book, Colin Kraay concurs, say-
ing " ... the authors rightly reject the
thesis of L. Weidauer . .. "36
Marlin Price again rej ec ted
Weidauer's dating in hi s review of her
paper for The Numi.fmaric Chronicle in
1976. Because her die study "has shown
that the early electrum series were struck
from a remarkably small numhcrof dies"
and that "few can be placed togethe r as
successive issues of a single mint", Price
concludes "the whole of the electrum
issues were struck overa relatively short
period of time. perhaps fo r on ly half a
century before Croesus."37
Weidauer was unswayed by the
criticism, and in a 1981 paper she agHin
supported "a date in the first half of the
7th century B.C." for the beginning of
coinage)8
This high chronology was supported
byyetanotherresearcherin 1982. Writ-
ing in the Americanlournal of Archae-
ology. Donald Kagan supports a date of
c. 700 fo r the introd uction of coinage.39
His paper provides a comprehensive
reassessment of the Anemision evi-
dence, and a cri tical examination of tile
theories const ructed by Robin so n,
Seltman, and Weidauer. His reassess-
ment of the arch itectural evidence for
the temple's foundat ion points to a clo-
sure date no later than c 650-625. He
asserts that the Kimmerians did indeed
destroy the temple at Ephesus, and he
emphas izes the literary-historical evi-
dence which places this event no later
than 626 B.C.
H is reassessment of the stylistic evi-
dence of the various objects accompa-
nying the coi ns in the foundation depos-
its points out many ambiguities -+
 TREASURES FROM ANTIQUITY

BII ONZf. A N IM. ALS jUlHl ......· J UGLETS EGYPTIAN HEA l) FRA G M Er"'TS PH OEN IC I AN FU.SKS

N~ar East, c. 800 Be, Terra cotta, c. 1000 BC, 5"-6", Terra rotta, Ptolemaic, c. 300 Be, Terril cotta, c. 700 BC, 5"-6", 5200
small ceremoniailions, horses, $95 each height 2"-3", each
oxen, T length, S75-$15O each dep. on size and
595 each ty""

MOHIEII GODDIlSS
STATUES
AMPH O R AE
Terra cotta,
Terra colt,], c.
Carthag inian, c. 300 SELEUC I D S ILVER HItONZE AIUIO'Ol' II EAUS 100-200 AD, N ,
Be, 4S, 575 each TETK AOK,\ C IIM S Greek, Roman, Persian, 1200-100 w / stcellripod
6", S125 eilch

- Tyre, A ntioc hus VII,

138· 129 Be, Call fo r price
Be, 3"-6",
$100-5500 each dep. on type and
condition
s tand, 5595 each

EGYP'fIi\ N
FA IE NCE '.
U SA BTIS '1..",tf
Servants for
the afterlife.
R OMA ... M UMMY B EAD P ERSI AN MI N IATUR ES
26th Dynasty,
First· Fourth (cn lury AD. We NEC KLACES
6OOBC, Bone, 19th c., very colorful, diU.
have many types and sizes, inscribed, 5~, Egypt, 26th Dyn., (. designs & shapes, "' l or "'l out
Please call 600 Be, faience, 24" (wearable),
w / lucite b.1se, setting, 510 each
5275 each w / ou t amulet, $39 each
w / amulet, 575 each

P"'LlST I"' E NECIU~CES AI.EXANDE R Till: GREAT
Ston e beads, c. 1200 BC, 24" S ILVER DRA C IIM S
(wear.lble), 539 each
336-323 Be, suitable for setting.
Call for price
• •
,
~
~)! .
A START ES & BAALS 8 1'ZANT. GOLD NOM ISMA
Terra rotta vo tive statues, Syro- W/ F IGU RE OF CIIRIST
H ittite, Canaanite, Ph()(>nician, 11th c. AD, Nimbate figure of
2000- 100 Be, 3"-8", w 1b.15e, C hri st, cup shaped flan, Ca ll for
5200·$600 each price
dcp. on type

303 Fifth Ave., Sic. 1603, N.Y., N.Y. 1 00 16

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January 1992 21
in Robinson's interpretation of the evi-
dence. Kagan also mentions new ar-
chaeological evidence supporting a date
well before the 6th century for the ob-
jects which lacobsthal had placed after
c. 600 B.C . This removed the primary
argument upon which Robinson con-
cluded the foundation cou ld not have
been sealed prior to c. 600 B.C.
Kagan concu rs with Price and
Waggoner when he brushes aside
Weidauer's stylistic comparisons of the
coins with other objects as being "not
convincing".40 Regarding the coins with
the WALWEL inscription, Kagan men-
Tions Weidauer' s recent studies of other
such coins in which she concludes "the
coin inscription can nol name Alyattes
the Lydian king."41 This removes any
closely dated numismatic evidence for
the low chronology, and combined with
the other evidence, Kagan concludes
that a mid-7th century closure of the
foundation deposit is probable.
Because other hoard evidence sug-
gests that early silver coins commonly
circu lated for more than a century, he
concludes that the eJectrum coins in the
hoard could easily have been minted as
early as 700 B.C.,and deposited into the
foundation later. He emphasizes that
such a date for the first coi nage would
not necessitate a discou nti ng of the
statements of ancient writers, as would
acceptance of the low chronology. It
should be pointed out , however, that
Kagan's theory, which assumes that
these coins may have been in circulation
for half a century, ignores the fact that
the Artemision coins show little or no
wear.
But we still haven't heard the last
from the proponents of the low chronol-
ogy . Martin Price contributed a paper to
Studies in Numismatic Method Pre-
sented to Philip Grierson in 1983, in
which he reaffinns his belief in the low
chronology.42 Price primarily bases his
chronology on the lack of development
between the earliest issues of the
Artemision coinage and the later coins
of Croesus: " there is very little sign of
development in technique and fabric
between the earliest eJectrum pieces and
coinage attributed to Croesus ... and
this alone makes a date before 650 ex-
tremely suspect."43 He ment ions
Robinson's comments of the observed
progression from crude dumps to recog-
nizable coins, upon wh ich Head also
bascd his arrangement of the coins. But
Price suggests that viewing this as a
paUcrn of progression " is an unneces-
sary rationalization." He suggests in-
stead that coinage in these various fonns
"clearly circulated together and may
have been made at different places at the
same lime."44 He asserts that the foun-
dation deposit could have been closed
as late as 575 B.C., and if so, "even the
traditional date of c. 640 .. . may prove
to be too early" for the start of coinage.
Overall, he concludes that a date be-
tween 625 and 600 for the invention of
coinage "seems very probable."45
Undoubtedly, the debate will not end
here. The Artemision evidence will be
analyzed again and again. For many
years, this debate also influenced the
dates assigned 10 the first coins of Ath-
ens, Aegina, and Corinth. And although
there is still some debate on these dates,
a 1984 paper by John Kroll and Nancy
Waggoner concluded that the date as-
signed to the first coins of the European
Greeks does not depend on the date
assigned to the first electrum coins, but
can be determined independenlly.46
Although the consensus is definitely
building for the low chronology, only
the discovery of a coin hoard positively
dated prior to c. 650 B.C. will seule the
debate once and for all. And, of course,
there are still those who atlribute the
first coins to China o r India. Keep
digging!

Ylncient (jreel0 2\9man & 13yzantine

COINS

( Send Today For Free Illustrated List)

TOM CEDERLIND
P.o. Box 1963-C, Portland, OR, 97207
(503) 228-2746
22 The Celator
Footnotes:
1 John T Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus
Including the Site and Remains of the
Great Temple oiDiana (Boston: James
R. Osgood and Co., 1877) vii.
2 Bluma L. TreH, "The Temple of Artemis
at Ephesos," The Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World, Peter A. Clayton and
Martin J. Price, ed. (London and New
York: Routledge, 1988) 91 .
3 Wood vii.
4 David G. Hogarlh, Bri/ish Museum Ex-
cavations at Ephesos - The Archaic Ar-
temisia (London: Trustees of the British
Museum, 19(8) 9.
5 Ibid. iii.
6 Barclay V. Head, "The Coins," Chapter
V in Hogarth 74-93
7 Sotheby's The Ne/son Bunker HuntCo/-
lection, Highly Importafll Greek and Ro-
mall Coins, Sale 6043 (New York :
SOlheby's, 1990), lot 56.
8 Head, "The Coins" 74.
9 Ibid. 75,
IO Ibid.
11 Ibid. 76.
12 Ibid. 78.
13 Ibid. 88.
14 Ibid. 89.
15 Ibid. 91-92.
16 Barclay V. Head, Historia Numorum
(19 11: rpt . Chicago: Argonaut, 1967)
643.
17 Donald Kagan, "The Dales oflhe Earli-
est Coins," American Journal of Ar-
chaeologyJuly 1982: 343.
18 Barclay V, Head, A Catalogue of the
Greek Coins in the British Museum:
Volume 22 Lydia (London: Trustees of
th e British Museum, 1901) xx.
19 Hogarlh, British Museum Excavarions
239-240.
20 Ibid. 240.
21 David G. Hogarth, "Chapter XXI, Lydia
and Ionia," The Cambridge Ancient
History, Vol. III, Th e Assyrian Empire,
\ st ed . (Cambridge: University Pre ss,
1960)5 17-518.
22 Paul Jacobsthal, "The Date of the
Ephesian Foundation-Deposit," The
Journalo/Hef/enicStudjes 1951: 85·95.
23 E.S.G. Robinson, "The Coins from the
Ephesian Arlemision Reconsidered,"
The Journa/ of Hellenic Studies 1951:
158.
24 Ibid. 165 .
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid. 156 .
27 Ibid. 165.
28 CharlcsSeitman, GreekCoins(1955; rpt.
London : Spink & Son Ltd., 1977) 15-17
29 E.S.G. Robinson, "The Date of the Ear- '
liest Coins," TheN umismatic C hronic/e.
Shth Series, Vol. XVI (1956) 1-8.
30 Ibid. 3.
31 Margaret Thompson, "Some Notewor-
thy Greek Accessions," Museum Noles
XII (1966) 1-18.
32 M. Jessop Price, review of "Prob1eme
der fruhen Elektronpragung" by
Liselolte Weidauer, Th e Numismatic
Chronic/e, 71h Series , Vol. XVI (1976)
273-275.
33 Martin Price and Nancy Waggoner,
Archaic Greek Coil/age: Th e Asyur
Hoard(London: V.C. Vecchiand Sons,
1975); addendum to note 24 1; 139.
34 Ibid. 122-123.
35 Ibid. 139.
36 Colin M, Kraay, "The Asyut Hoard:
Some Comments on Chronology," The
Numismatic Chronicle, Series 7, Vol.
XVll (1977) 198.
37 Price, review ofWeidauer 275.
38 H. Bloesch, abstract of "Di e
Elektronpragung in de!
orientalisie rend e n Epoche
fruhgriechischer Kunst"by L. Weidauer,
item number 151 in Numismatic Lit-
erature No. 109 (March 1983) 25.
39 Kagan 343-360.
40 Ibid. 357.
4\ Ibid. 358.
42 Marlin J. Price, "Thoughts on the Be-
ginnings of Coinage," Studies in Nu-
mismatic Method Presented to Philip
Grierson, c'N.L. Brook at aI., ed.
(Camb ridge: UniversicyPress, 1983) \-
ID.
43 Ibid. 4.
44 Ibid., note 17; 9.
45 Ibid. 4.
46 John H. Kroll and NancyM. Waggoner,
"Dating Ihe Earliest Coins of Athens,
Corinth and Aegina," AmericanJouma!
of Archaeology, Vol. 88, No.3 (July
1982) 325-340.

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January 1992 23
 People in the News
Milavic discusses the games at ancient Olympia
Anthony Milavic, a colleclor special- aspects of competition and the events were eventually abolished during the
izing in Games-related coinage from that were held. References from an· late Roman empire as pagan events .
the ancient world, delivered a compre - cient literature were used to comple· Portions of Milavic's lecture were
hensive address on the subject of -An- ment the visual allusions lound on these previously published in his arlicle about
cient Olympia: the Place -the Games· coins. resulting in a very convincing the Hoplitodromos (race in armor), which
as part of this year's New York Interna- analysis of the contests. appeared in the August 1991 issue of
lional Numis matic Convention. The The games were held every four The Cefator. A broader treatment will
educational forum lecture was thor- years, during a period of universal sanc- be included in a forthcoming article. to
oughly illustrated with slides from the tuary, so that even during times 01 war be published in The Cefator, as a pre·
site. as well as slides of coins relating to the contestants could pass freely to lude to the 1992 Summer Olympic
the place and the games. Olympia to compete. Theancientgames games .
Milavic introduced the setting of the
games by reviewing the archaeolog ical
records, and showing reconstru ctions
of the site as it existed from the eighth
Brass tokens advertise
century B.C. Emphasizing the religious
nature of the site and the games , he
1992 London Coin Fairs
discussed the various temples and A new token in the old tradition of the 18th century merchant tokens, it
statuary which were constructed and advertising has been issued to mark the gives the dates of all the shows in 1992,
used over a millennium of competition. new 1992 season 01 london Coin Fairs the next date being scheduled for
Also detailed. with the aid of depictions at the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch, February 8th.
on a variety of ancient coins, were the london, England. Made in brass, like From the thirteenth century British
Irademen have issued token coinage to
promote their business, and in the last
century particularly, such pieces were
given out to advertise anything from
'tufHes in braces t o um bre llas, theatr ic al
productions and groceries. The new
brass token was made forthe organizers
~umismllfits by Charles Neal and Son of Finchley,
who used to make many of the old
Sir Hermann Weber london market checks and tallies used
by porters in Billingsgate, Covent
(1823 - 1918) Garden, and elsewhere.
Four coin shows are being organized
130m at Holzkirchen in northern Bavaria,
I-Iemlann Weber spent his earl y years on his by Howard and Frances Simmons over
f",her's fann.leaving foredu cmion in a private the next year at the Cumberland Ho tel ,
school at the age of nine. He went on to become and the dates for these are on the token .
the size of the old pre-decimal penny.
a physician. Taking up a practice in London and
Only a limited number of tokens (750)
marrying an English lady, he became quite well
3cquainted with the Engli sh nobility, and were minted, and one each was given to
paying visitors at the November 1991
served no less than five British Prime Ministcrs. I n I R99 he was knighted by
Queen Victoria. H is interest in ,IJlcient numismatics came in the later years of his show on a first come first served basis.
life, nearly age RO, and he began by coHecting coins related to the medical Some eighty dealers in world coins,
profession. His best friend s and adv isors included some of the top numismatists tokens, medals, noles, and antiquities
exhibit at each show. With the opening
of the day, and his collec tion was enriched by personal visits to the classical sites
in Greece. Asia Minor, Sic ily, Tunis, Egypt, Turkey, and Palestine. He was five of borders in the European community
in 1993. indications are that a number of
ti mes vice-president of the Royal Num ismat ic Soc iety, contributing several
overseas dealers will join their English
p:lpers l o the society's j oumal, and received the M cdalof thc Society in 1905. The
Romancoins ofWeber'scollcction were sold at auction in 1893. Some of the finer colleagues at th is popular collecting
event .
Grce k coins were sold through special treaty to the British Museum.
For further details, contact Frances
Simmons at P.O. Box 104, leytons tone,
This feature is provided courtesy of london, Elll NO, England. Simmons
The C.B. Byers Coq)oration, Newport Beach, CA may also be con tacted by phone at 81
9898097 or Fax at 8 151 88421.
24 The Celator
 is pleased to announce its WINTE R MAIL BID SALE

ANCIENT AND MODERN COINS OF

THE WORLD
AND THE UNITED STATES
Closing Date: Wednesday, February 12, 1992

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Profusely Illustrated Catalogues Ayailable Now!

~ _ n"pc;coof$10.00 ~
~ ~ Includes the Prices Realized ~
Coin Galleries has been conducting Mail Bid Auctions featuring Ancient coins for over 35 years. ~
Our sales are quarterly, in the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, with the next one scheduled for
February 12, 1992. Those wishing to consign material for that sale should contact us as soon as
possible. Coins for inclusion in our February sale should be in our hands no later than October 15.

r-------------------,
: ftubi{J1oin (§allcrh~s :
, 123 Wes1571h 51. 1
1 New York, NY 10019 1
I Enclosed please find $ 10.00 for your February 12, 1992 Mail Bid Sale I
I Catalogue and list of Prices Realized (after sale). I
1 ,
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Telephone (212) 582-5955 FAX: (212) 245-50 18 L ___________________ ~
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January 1992 25
 Art of the Ancient
World contains an
Coming Events •••• impressive display
Jan.8-12 FUN Show
Orlando, Florida
of antiquities
San Jose Coin Show by Steven A. Sayles
Old Convention Center, San Jose, CA Royal Athena Galleries is celebrating
the 50th anniversary of their Art of the
Jan. 18 -19 Maine Numismatic Assoc. Show Ancient World catalog . This 96-page
Portland, Maine
fu ll color brochure, offers a vast array of
Jan. 23 - 26 Houston Money Show exceptional antiquities from many
Houston, Texas cultures.
Jan. 31 - Feb. 2 Golden State Show An impressive selection of Greek
Pasadena, California and Roman marble artifacts includes a
Jan. 31 - Feb. 2 Tucson Coin Show varied assortment of marble heads,
Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, AZ torsos, and divine figurines. Ancient
Greek and Roman bronze offerings
Feb. 4 Malter Auction
Los Angeles, California consist of a virtual gamut of divinities,
with many animals and other figures
Feb.6-9 Long Beach Numis. ConY. represented.
Long Beach Cony. Center, Long Beach, CA
Pottery is highlighted by an exquisite
Feb.S London Coin Fair assortment of Greek, South Italian and
Cumberland Hotel, London Etruscan vases, with a few select items
Feb. 20 Singapore Coin Auction of ancient glass featured as we ll.
Raffles City ConY. Glr., Singapore Examples of Cypriot and Near Eastern
Feb. 21 - 23 Singapore Int'I Coin Cony. art cater to collectors of these cultures.
Raffles City Cony. Glr., Singapore Egyptian artifacts are represented
by faience ushabtis and other items,
Feb. 25 - 26 Numismatica ARS Classica AG Auction 5
Zurich, Switzerland bronze figurines, Coptic textiles, and a
small variety of other unusual pieces.
Further topics of interest are Iran ian
bronzes, Islamic, Japanese and Chinese
art.
Malter Galleries, Inc. The catalog also offers collectors of
antiquities a wealth of information.
Proudly Announces Sections titled "Why Collect Ancient
Art?", "How to Collect Ancient Art", and

AUCTION XLVII "Ancient Art as an Investment" provide

A Sale of Ancient Greek and Roman
Coins and Related Literature
To be held:
Tuesday, February 4th, 1992
in Los Angeles
Illustrated Catalogues, $10 U.S., $15 all others
Malter Galleries, Inc. •
P.O. Box 777, Encino, CA 91316
(818) 784-7772
Please make your plans to attend now! The auction
will take place the day before the Long Beach
Convention set+up and will immediately follow the
Pasadena Golden State Coin Show and the
San francisco Historical Numismatic Guild Show.
26 The Gelator
pertinent suggestions for begir:ming or
advanced collectors. Other topics
indude the antiquities market and
corporate collections. A useful diagram
picturing the principal names and shapes
of Greek and South Italian pottery
provides assistance to the novice.
Concluding this impressive publication
are a glossary of Greek, Roman, and
Egyptian mythological terms.
The photography in this publication
is extraordinary. ArtoftheAncient World
is not only a sale catalog, but a beautiful
reference as well. At $10 postpaid, no
antiquarian should be without it.
~ Copies of the 50th Anniversary
Edition of Art of the Ancient World may
. be obtained from Royal Athena
Galleries, 153 East 57th Street, New
York, NY 10022. Phone requests may
be directed to (212) 355-2034, Fax (212)
688-0412.
Say you saw it in mie Ce£ator I
 Pegasi Coins
"Quality Coins for Discriminating Collectors"

Macedon Kingdom. Philip II, 359-336 Be.

AR Tetradrachm. Laureate head of Zeus to right /Naked
youth riding a horse bareback, holding a palm branch.
Wreath below. S.6683v. aXF, good style and old
collection laning_ Perfectly centered. $1450.

Macedon, ' Lcte'. 520-500 Be. AR Stater.

Ithyphallic satyr tickling chin and grasping ann of fleeing
nymph I Large oblong-rectangular meuse. SNG.ANS.953
VF in early style (in cOnlra.\', to recent "hoard" examples).
Old collection toning. RARE. $ 1400.

Bruttillm, Kroton. 360-330 Be. AR Staler.

Head of Hera Lakinia facing, wearing a richly decorated
stephane I Herakles reclining with wine cup, above him
are his bow and club, below a forepart of a bull. S474v,
BMC.l.353.88 . VF. nicely toned. Scarce. $900.

Phoenicia, Byblos. King Azbaal. 4th Cent. BC

AR Dishekel. Warship containing three hoplite-equipped
marines, hippocamp below / Lion attacking a kneeling
bull. VF+. Belter die·stale Ihan usual. $900.

BruUium, Kaulonia. S(}()-480 BC AR Stater.

Apollo Catharsius with running figure on outstretched
ann, stag before /Inc use of the same, except no running
figure and a stork (in relief!) behind Apollo. Weber.984.
VF, very rare "'ith a re/ie/figure on reverse. $ 1000.

Subscriptions are available to our publications: $30 in the US and $40 for foreign addresses. Subscription
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Pegasi Coins
P.o. Box 4207, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Visa & MasterCard Postpaid. IS-day return period. Phone: (313) 434-385 6

January 1992 27
 ., ! ! , ....

Art and the Market'

TE. E

Auctions highlight events at NY International

by Wayne G. Sayles held at the Sheraton Centre in Manhat- Vice-Pres ident ; Dr. Arnold Sas low,
With a major change in venue. a tan, the NYINC developed a reputation Secretary; and Harlan J. Berk. Trea-
shaky economy, fewer dealers, and a as one of the pre-eminent shows in the surer. A five member Board of Directors
multitude of competing auctions, the world for collectors of world coins, and was also elected, and an auction advi-
20th an nual New York International particularly ancient coins. A move, last sory committee appointed. A spokes-
Numismatic Convention opened under year, away from the Sheraton resulted person for the group said, ~We realize
what CQuid only be described by the in major discontent, and the show was the trying conditions that both collectors
optimistic as a cloud of uncertainty. New ultimately sold ... The new owners. a and dealers had to undergo. and appre-
York is a city where aggravation can consortium of dealers, were unable to ciate everybody's patience and coop-
only be lopped by insult, and the human negotiate a return to the Sheraton, due eration this year. Next year, things
element could easily have played a di- to rennovations in progress at that site, should be back to normal. and we look
sastrous role i n the week's turn of events. but they did effect a return in 1992. forward to continued participation. ~
Surprisingly, and happily, it was a rare Rather than cancel the show this year, The lead-off event of the week, on
display of the resilience of that human the organizers chose to hold it at the Tuesday, Oecember3, was an auction of
spirit that made this year's show quite Drak e Hotel, which required the use of Ancient and Medieval coins by Classical
memorable. Congestion and confusion many smaller rooms rather than a single Numismatic Auctions of Quarryville, PA
were commonplace, as might have been convention hall or ballroom . The traffic and other lesser known cities (Beverly
expected , but most of the 1 ,200 visitors flow was difficult, to say the least,. but Hillsand London). The sale consisted of
and 100+ dealers took it all in stride. It the general mood was upbeat, and some 11 06 lots and netted gross receipts of
was a "make do" situation, and the end even seemed to enjoy the challenges- over$340,000.Ofthecoinsofiered,87%
result was very positive. realizing that they were temporary. were actually sold to bidders. with one-
This whole scenario came about be- At a business meeting of the owners, third of the winners bidding from the floor
cause of the difficulties of organizing a lucien Birkler was elected president of and two-thirds on mail orders. Floor
major show in the Big Apple. Formerly the group; Glenn Schinke was elected participation was extremely good. The
firm 's previous record was tied with 70
different floor buyers registering winning
bids. Highlights included the sale of a
Are you interested in choice Syracusan decad ra chm at
$15,500; a superb EF sestertius of Aelius
CHOICE WORLD COINS? at $t 2,500; and a rare sestertius of Oidia
Clara at $5.000 (prices less commis-
You should be receiving our publications sion). Bargains were to be found in
medium grade sestertii and coins of Ro-
MORE THAN THREE man Egypt, with collectors obviously
searching for good buys.
MAIL BID CATALOGUES ANNUALLY On December 4th and 5th, Numis-
matic Fine Arts conducted its 27th pub-
lic auction of Greek and Roman coins,
Featuring RARE and CHOICE gold and silver coins of featuring an important collection of Ro-
the world as well as ancienl coinage and world paper man Republican and Imperatorial sli-
money. A sample catalogue is $15.00 postpaid. ver. All categories of coins in the offer-
ing fared extremely well, with approxi-
mately 92% of the lots selling at a total
Includes Prices Realized realized price of $2,884,244 including
buyer's fee. Among the Greek lots, the
electrum performed particularly wen,
An annual subscription is also available. The cost is $45 paced by lot 59, a slater of Dardanos
within the U.S. and $60 outside the U.S. which brought $52.000, and a slater of
Chios which realized $44,000. A

Ponte rio & Associates, Inc. charming hecte of Cyzicus depicting the
half-man, half-serpent Kekrops brought
$8.000. Also featured was a large se-
1818 Robinson Ave. leclion of signed die varieties from
r::::' ""'' ::2:1 San Diego, CA 92103 Syracuse, among which an attractive
decadrachm by Euainetos fetched
.r:"" ~~,'.'~'~' 1-800-854-2888 or 619-299-0400 $54,000.
~ e_ Licensed Auction Company #968 A small but select group of Roman
PN.G.#308 Richard H. Ponte rio - President L.M.H2163 Imperial lots in all metals sold extremely
well. A superb aureus of Vitellius realized
$32,000, while an extremely rare -+
28 The Gelator
 Art and the Market
aureus of the usurper Laelianus fetched
$80,000, and another of Saturninus
brought $180,000 from the floor. . A
"Judaea Capta~ sestertius of Vespasian
brought $17.500, and a marvelously de-
tailed Caracalla seslertius showing the
emperor addressing his troops sold lor
$29,000 against an estimate of $14-
16,000. Over 400 Republican and
Imperatorial silver coins comprised the
final group offered for sale. The collec-
tion wa s compiled by a single collector
over a period of twenty years. It must
certainly rank among the most important
Republican groups ever assembled lor
auction. Floor bidding was very competi-
tive, and most hammer prices far ex-
ceeded the published estimates. An early
didrachm with head of Mars and head of
a horse realized $7,500. Highlights of the
later Republican lots included adenarius
olC. Poblicius Malleolus depicting a w ar-
rior holding a vo ting tablet, which sold for
$2,700, and ade narius of L. Pomponius
featuring the muse Erato, which sold for
$9,000. Lot 612, the first Caesar denar-
ius with the likeness of the dictator, brought
$7,500. Perhaps the most important piece
in the conection, a denarius of Brutus with
reference to the Ides of March, sold for
$81,000.
Thursday evening , December 5,
marked the sale of Part I of the Abraham
Bromberg collection of Jewish coins by
Superior Galleries of Beverly Hills, Cali-
fornia. The auction room was electric -
rekindling memories of the first session of
the recent Hunt sale- in spite of intense
competition from the nearby "Ibero·
americana" cocktail reception. Imagine if
you will, an anxious group of Jewish
American, Israeli, Middle Eastern and
European dealers and collectors com·
mandeering the CafeSuisseofthe Drake
Hotel on Park Avenue in Manhattan,
fighting desperately to break through the
din of an overflow crowd of world numis-
matists who are struggling to get through
the doors of a free cocktail party hosted
by a Spanish-American cooperative ex·
hibition in the hotel's Lafayette Restau·
rant. How's that for inlernationalflavor?
If anything, the congestion seemed to
heat things up even more, with floor and
telephone buyers bidding feroc iously at
times. David Hendin covers this sale in
detail in his regular column (page 38) this
issue. Superior's second session, on
Friday evening, contained over 500 lois
of ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
coinage, with bidding generally strong
throughout. Surprisingly, bargains were
to be found in the Judaean coinage sec-
tion, as it fell an anticlimactic victim to the
previous night's exuberance .
The Kolbe/Spink auction of 550 lots
of "Important Numismatic Books· was
held on Sunday morning and netted
$279,648, an average of nearly 40%
above estimate, in a very strong show-
ing 01 inlerest for traditionally popular
and d ifficult to obtain tilles. For ex-
ample, an eleven volume set of
Babelon's Tra it e de s Monna ies
Gracques at Romaines was bid to
$16 ,500 on a $1 0,000 estimate. A nine
volume Heiss work on Renaissance
Medals brought $17,600 against an
$8,500 estimate, and a six volume set of
the periodical LeMusebrought $5 ,500 ,
shattering an $800 estimate .
A number of special events were
held in conjunction wi th the show, in-
cluding meetings 01 the French, Orien-
tal , and Russian Numismatic Societies ,
along with severalleclures (see related
story in ~ People in the News").
On Monday, December 9, Christie's
offered 177 lots of ancient coinage , in-
cluding an impressive collection of Ro-
man gold portrait coins. T he sale was
very well attended by European, as well
Stack's auction closes
week of activity in New York
On Monday, December 9, following
the close of activities 01 the NYINC, 307
ancient coins were sold at public auction
by Stack's, of New York. The sale, held
at the Omni Park Central Hotel, included
a wide rangeo! Greek, Roman, and Byz-
antine coinage. Among the highlights
was a rare and extremely line gold aureus
of Plautilla, which opened at $16,000and
was bid up to $19,000, with a $20-25,000
STEPHEN M . HUSTON
San Francisco. CA 94119 USA
'£very coill if{ustro tu{ ac.truu sizto
7Vritefor a copy ofour IIl J(j catalogue.
as American, buyers. An extraordinary
number of lois d rew very active floor
bidding, only to succumb 10 a very per·
sistent telephone bidder. l ot #88, a
gold aureus of Numerian estimated at
$18·25,000 , sold for $30,000 10 a floor
bidder, finally breaking the mysterious
telephone hegemony, and causing a
stir of appreciation on the floor. The
cover coi n, an exceptional a u reus of
Clodius Albinus, w as hammered down
at $125,000.
The very l irst lot, #1 , climbed qu ickly
past the $1 ,500-2,500 estimate to a bid of
$3,200, and that seemed to set the tone
for the sale. Many lots greatly exceeded
estimate amidst active bidding. An EF
denarius 01 Otho brought an incredible
$6,800 + commission against a realistic
pre-auction estimate of $1,500 to 2,500.
Even the bargain hunters were fighting
for lots, as a group of approximately 300
mixed ancients with an estimateof$1 ,000-
1,500 was bid up to $3,800 with no sign of
resistance .
The next New York International Nu -
mismatic Convention will be held De-
cember 8-11, 1992, at the Sheraton
Centre in Mid-Town Manhattan.
estimate. A very rare denarius of Brutus
(lot 215) sold for $600 to an astute floor
bidder. and a rare EF siliqua of Eugen ius
was hammered down at $1 ,050. Al-
though floor bidding was not a major
factor in the sale, Roman lots and Byzan-
tine gold lots were aided by a strong
book. For inlormation about fut ure auc-
tions write to Stack's at 123 West 57th
SI., New York, NY 100 19.
C(assicai ~mismatist
P.O. Box 193621
(415)781·7580
January 1992 29
A coin's point of view
Even the darkest of clouds is lined with silver
by a Brutus Denarius
as told to Bob Levy
"So you humans think that you have
problems, right? Let's see - you say
you're not making enough money at
your job. Your house is smaller than
you wou ld like it to be . You're often at
odds with your relatives. You have tried
to do a good job in raising your kids, but
they just haven', become the well-
mannered geniuses you had hoped for.
On top of that you
don't seem to have
many friends and
you're not happy
with your appear-
ance. Hey - relax!
Things won't seem
nearly so bad as you
think once you've
hea rd about my
problems - from
the coin's point of
view ,"
"My problems
arc so numerous, it's
a real puzzle to pick
a starting point. But
perhaps, I guess, I
should fir st introduce myself. I am an
ancient Roman denarius of Marcus Jun-
ius Brutus, the thought-to-be esteemed
friend of JuliusCaesar, whoplungedhis
dagger, along with that of others, into
the dictator on that fateful Ides of March
in 44 B.C. My particular coin type is
considered by most everyone of
knowledge in the world of ancient nu-
mismatics to be one of the most his-
torically important in all of ancient
Roman coinage. The reason for that is
simple. On the one hand, my type ex-
hibits on its obverse a portrait of Brutus.
Julius Caesar had been the first living
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30 The Gelator
Roman to place his own portrait on
coinage, an act considered as monarchi-
cal by Brutus and others fond of the
Roman Republican traditions, and
proper grounds in their minds for their
act of tyrannicide. Yet, for him to !Urn
around and place his own portrait on
coinage within a short two year's time is
a seeming contradiction of his own al-
leged beliefs. On the other hand, my
type has the extraordinary reverse of the
cap of li berty between two daggers,
celebrating Brutus' hand in the assassi-
nation of Caesar, with reference to the
exact day of the deed, 'Em MAR'
(Eidibus Martiis - The IdesofMarch)."
"Having explained all this, I'm sure
you arc saying, 'History is fine and
dandy, but what problems does this coin
have that he's so concerned about?'
Well, two of my problems are my un-
sightly appearance and my weight. 'Big
deal', you answer, 'a lot of humans are
ugly and overweight to boot!' It 's not
the same with me. You see, my ap-
pearance and we ight donot reveal what
I am, but rather what I am not - that is,
authentic. In actuality I am a 'fourree'
denarius of Brutus. Now don't get me
wrong. I am not a modem fake by any
means! I am over 2,000 years old. To
better explain, let me till you in on what
a fourree really is."
"Just as modem-day counterfeiters
print paper money, ancient counterfeit-
ers had to 'mint' coins. Often the same
dies that were used to make a regular
issue of a coin type
were used to make
fourrees. The
original dies were
smuggled out of the
mint, or the en-
gravers made addi-
tional dies. This
was not a very
common practice,
as the penalty for
counterfeiting was
a bit more stringent
in ancient times
than it is today -
death. Fourrees are
known to be an-
cient, rather than
reproductions from some other time in
history, such as the Renaissance, for
one rather simple reason: the commer-
cial motive for profit. The only way to
make a profit in ancient times would be,
in the case of adenarius, to shortchange
the silver content of a counterfeit. La-
borwas so inexpensive that it was hardly
a factor to consider at all. Labor was so
inexpensive that it was hardly a factor to
consider at all. During the Renaissance,
if someone wanted to reproduce an an-
cient coin, the counterfeit would have
been made entirely of silver,just like an
original. Labor, however, would have
been too expensive to justify the cost."
"My actual composition is very
simple . I possess a copper core covered
with a thin plating of silver. I was quite
a handsome piece when first struck, if I
do say so myself. I looked very much
like the other coin which accompanies
this text. Quintus Arcanius, a subordi-
nate under Lucius Plaetorius Cestianus,
the quaestor under Brutus who had the
fiscal responsibility forthe management
of Brutus' forces against the triumvirs
Mark Antony and Octavian, had struck
me and a number of other fouTrees from
official mint dies that he had smuggled
from the minting facility in 42 B.C.
This occurred a short time before the
 Battle of Phil ippi on October 23rd of
that year, which signalled the defeat of
Brutus and his ally's, Cassius. Republi-
can troops. Arcanius lost his head in
that bait Ie, but I fared much better. In all
the con fu sion of the conflict, I slipped
quite easily into circulation. After all, I
did look like other denarii with the
exception, o f course, of my rare portrait
obverse and the political message of my
reverse. It was o nly aftercirculating for
about e ight years that my silver plat ing
began towearoff. As the centuries have
passed, my base metal core, now ex-
posed to the air and elements, has fonned
a pat ina o f dark and li ght green shades,
like sestert ii o ften
possess. It 's actu-
. allynottoobad- I
prefer to think of it
as helping to give
me 'character'. The
well ring off of my
obverse plming has
almost obl iterated
the portrait of Bru-
tus on my obverse.
Tlwt accounts for
my concern over
my less-t han-
ple asi ng appear-
ance. Not all
What the (ouree looked like ~when first struck~ (2.5:1)
fou rrees turn out
like me. Many, in
fact, can onl y be detected by thei r light
weight when compared 10 regular de-
narii, since base meta ls, such as copper,
are lighter than silver. Others have been
detected by a small edge filing on the
side on their nan (That is not done in
modern times. since man's technology
has become so advanced in terms o f
weigh t-measu ri ng devices) ...
" Fourrecs are actually very rare -
there arc only a minute number of us left
in the world when compared to the po-
pu lation of regular silver ancient Ro-
man denarii that still exist. And, if one
would look only 300 10 400 years after
my minting. it would be found th,lt regu-
lar iss ue 'silver' coins had been so de-
based that most had less silver than even
I had when struck! Oftentimes humans
don 't hold me in the same esteem that I
th ink I deserve. Thai is one of my big-
gest problems. I 'm nOltaken asseriously
as a regu lar issue ancient coin of mye ra .
Writing for The Celator
is easy and fun.
Don't be afraid
to give it a try!
To many people I'm nothing more than since 1964. How about England? Of
a conversation piece , not un like a freak course not. France? Switzerland? Ger-
in a c ircus sideshow. To them I' m a many? Don ' t waste your time. Japan?
pretender to the throne of ' mosl famous Italy? Canada? Spain? Not a chance .
ancient denarius' - a jester in the court What about Mexico, Brazil, Chile , and
of the king." other South American countries? Why,
"Most of the problems I have thus thei r base metal coinage is almost
come from the way in which I am per- worthless! In fact. of all the countries of
ceived. Th is path I must take through the world, I'm not aware of even one
life would be much easier and more that uses a circu lating coinage that is
rewarding if only more humans would made of prec ious metal! That makes me
realize a very important facet of exist- feel bener than all of these present-day
ence - life can be cherished and appre- coins, even if I am an ancient counter-
ciated, or ignored and d iscarded . In my feit."
case, my unsightly appearance and in- " In closi ng, let me remind you hu -
ternal make-up cannot hide my good mans about one of your old sayings that
I oftentimes hear
repeated: 'Never
judge a book by it s
cover.' A book' s
rewarding contents
may be obscured by
a chipped. faded, or
frayed cover. In the
case of us anc ient
coins, we may be
excessively wo rn,
counterSlamped,
have a filed o r
cl ipped edge, ex-
hibit a f1an crack,
or. in my case being
a fourree, possess a
thin plating of silve r
points. which may not be noticeable at covering a base core which has, to a
first glance. First of all, I am histori- great degree, eroded away. Don ' t let
cally important. as I have prev iously o utward appearances fool you - 'Ip-
pointed o ut. Secondly. J am educa- pearances can o ften be deceiving. Hid-
tional. Have you not learned a thing or den within can be history to be learned,
two about fourrees and ancient counter- a story to be enjoyed, or a un iqueness to
feiting? Lastly, I am valuable not only be apprec iated. In any encounter that
from a collecting standpoint, but intrin- you may experience, look below the
sically valuable as we ll. After ali, I do surface. You just might find that within
have a silver coating over my copper a part icular person, inside those frayed
core. Let my pose a lill ie question to pages of a book, o r deep within the base
you involving the intrinsic value of metal core o f a coin hides a sto ry ob-
modern-day world coinage. Does the scured by outward problems that not
United States have any circulating coin- on ly is li ned wi th s ilver, but is worth its
age that possesses precious metal? Not weight in gold." ~
Maine Classical Numismatics
New England's largest ancient coi" inventory
Bowley's Route #1 , Warren , Maine 04864
Ph. Bowley's 207-273-3462 - Home 207-273-2653
Sorry, no lists available. Write for our show schedule
Buying and selling at competitive prices
Barrie Jenkins Upcoming Shows
Classical Jan IS-J9-Maine Numisml1lic Assoc., Portland ME
Numismatist .Ian 3 1 - Feb 2 - Tucson Coin Club Show , Tucson AZ
January 1992 31
Antiquities
Eagles were powerful symbols in ancient cultures
by David Liebert regularity in western Asi-
The maj es tic eagle, atic art. Often the eagle is
though a bird of prey, had depicted grabbing its prey
long been admired by man. and carrying it off, a con-
Early man probably ob- vention which lasted into
served its grace and beauty classical times, as we can
in flight, and its strength in see on some Gree k coins,
attack. parli cu larl y tho se of
Pe rhaps the first crude Akragas in Sic ily.
represenlat ions of eagles are The bird of prey, in-
found in prehistoric rock cluding the eagle, was much
paintin gs, although the admired in ancient Egypt,
sty lized nature of much of although it was gene rally
Ihis art makes it difficult to depicted as a falcon. in def-
be certain . Nevertheless, erence to Horus. In the
an early hunter, observing classical period the eagle
the cagle sweeping down was frequently depicted in
fro m great height to grahils various art fonn s. As al-
prey, and carry it off 10 i ls ready noted, it appears on
nest on some high crag, must Greek co ins wi th some
have desired to obtain some regularity, as it does in other
of its "magic" fo r himself. forms of Greek. art.
and that was indeed the In the Roman period.
purpose of this early art. ho wever, the eagle ttuly
Whatever the origins, by comes into its own as the
the second millennium B.C. very embodiment of the
Roman bronze Pha/era of an eagle. Photo by Donald R. Simon.
eag les appear with some empire. GreatZeus himself
is oft en depicted as riding
an cagle, as he is on many oil lamps
from the Ro man period. The eagle was
The Time Machine Company
is always eager to aid beginning collectors with moderately priced coins and antiquities.
Call David Liebert direct to discuss your interests and needs.

Scarce Roman
bronze medical
implements.
Only 10 available
on a first come,
first served basis.
A fare early westem Asiatic
$75.99 pottery eagle sculpture,
ca. 2nd millennium e.c.
each a state symbol, and representations of
eagles on relief sculpture and in the
round often appear on the antiquities
We have many more interesting antiquities and ancient coins in stock. mark.e t. The mate rials used range from
If you are not on our mailing list, you are missing some of the best buys in slone to bronze, and the tradition con-
ancient art. Send for your free catalog today. For more information contact: tinues into the Byzant ine period. In
fact, the eagle continued as a powerful
The Time Machine Co. symbol into our own time. ~

P.O. Box 282, Flushing Station,

Queens, NY 11367 Say you saw it in
(718) 544·2708 'ITie Cdator
32 The Celator
WTB: A Faster
and Easier Way
To Get More Cash
For Your Ancients
Have you ever thought about sellin g
your coins? Maybe you have dis-
missed the idea because it seems like
such a hassle. Well , it all depends on
how you go about it.
If you attempt 10 sell your coins
through an auction house, you will
have to send them off several months
in advance. After the auction, you
may have to wait six weeks or mo re to
receive your check- min us the com-
mission of course. Worst of all, your
coins may bring in even less than the
ridiculously low estimate o ften set by
many auction houses .
So how about calling up your friendly
dealer? Unfortunately , a lot ofdealers
seem friendlier when they are selling
than when they are buying.
Fo rtunately, there is a third alterna-
tive- WTB. We bel ieve that we sell
more ancient coins than any other
company in the world- which natu -
rally means that we have 10 ~ more
than anyone else. We always need all
types of Greek and Roman coins-
everything from choice gold au rei to
low-grade bronzes . We are willing to
pay well for everythi ng that you want
to sell because we can probably use it
all.
There is absolutely no risk. Just
pack up the ancient coins you'd like to
convert into modern currency and
ship them off 10 us by registered .
insured U. S. mail. We will give you
our offer within 48 hoyrs after we
receive the coins. If you accept our
offer, we will immediately send you
our check.
So, when you send your coins to us
you will know exactly what price you
will get for your coins and receive
payment in full - all within a period
of a few days, not four to six months.
If you decline our offer. we will im-
mediately ship the coins back to you
by registered. insured U.S. mail at
our expense. If you have any ques-
tions. please give us a call.
WORLDWIDE TR EASURE BUREAU
2230 W. Sunnyside Ave .. Suite 2
P.O. Box 5012
Visalia. CA 93278-5012
Phone toll-free: 1-800-437-0222
JUST FOR BEGINNERS
by Wayne G. Sayles
Questions Answers
What is the The difference is analogous to the difference
difference between a Ford and a Mercury. Take away the
between Greek hood ornament and one would be hard-pressed
Imperial and to distinguish between the tWo. The term "Greek
Roman Im perial~ is a commonly accepted name for the
Provincial series of Roman coins which were struck in the
coinage? provinces of the empire, and usually bore
inscriptions executed in the Greek language, or
a combination of Latin and Greek letters which
formed a phonetic equivalent language. Most of
these coins were struck in Greece, Thrace,
Anatolia, and the Middle East. The coins of
Roman Egypt are usually separated as a distinct
series, but still fall under the umbrella of Greek
Imperial coinage .
There are, however, provincial coins that do
not bear Greek inscriptions, notably th'ose locally
issued Roman coins from Spain, Gaul, and the
Western Mediterranean area. Although these
have still been referred to traditionally as "Greek
Imperial", the current trend is to refer to them in
the broader context of Roman Provincial coin-
age. David Sear, in Greek Imperial Coins and
Their Values, reters to this series as "local
coinages of the Roman Empire issued by Greek
cities and Roman colonies throughout the
Mediterranean world.~ Kevin Butcher subtitled
his Roman Provincial Coins with the obligatory
!* phrase An Introduction to the Greek Imperia/s.
Ot course, he also discusses coinage from the
non-Greek Western Mediterranean cities, and
distinguishes between the two. Don't be con-
fused by the titles. Although the two books
mentioned above differ in their treatment and
purpose, they discuss the very same series of
coinage.
For the sake of accuracy, we prefer the term
Roman Provincial coinage since it more or less
accurately describes the entire series. I say
~more or less· because there are a few odd
pieces that don't really fit anywhere else that
tend to be considered Roman Provincial, At any
rate, the Roman Provincial series is a fascinat-
ing series to collect. There are plenty of oppor-
tunities for meaningful amateur research, and it
is not a particularly expensive series for the
beginner who is willing to dedicate some time
and study. Don 't expect little pearls too often
though, this series (especially the bronze) is
notorious for its bad strikes and poor state of
preservation. Gem-like Roman Provincial coins
are a real rarity and comr:nand exceptional
premiums .
January 1992 33
Examination of literary evidence points to
heart failure as the cause of Herod's death
by George M. Burden, M.D.
King Herod the First (the G reat) is
well known to most aficionados o f an-
c ient numismatics. His history and his
coi nage have been dealt with before in
The Celalor by individual s far more
knowledgeable on the subject than my-
self. Most will reca ll that Herod ru led
from 37 to 4 B.C.E. as the Roman-
appointed king of Judaea. Most Chris-
tians will recalltha! the birth of Christ
occurred during his reign. To Jews of
the lime he was detested as a Ro man
collaborator. who first gained powe r
under Mark Antony, and then deftly
changed his allegiance to Augustus at
the time of the latter's triumph over
Antony and Cleopatra. A photo of one
of hi .~ fairly copious bro nze issues is
seen at right.
Though a political success, Herod' s
domestic life was a shambles, and he
was a de pressed, unhappy man in his
later yea rs, when "he was in a me lan-
choly cond ition" and had " .. . no plea-
sure in life ... ". Herod was "almost 70"
at the time of his last illness, and Jose·
phus descri bes his symptoms graphi ·
call y as follows " .. . there was a gentle
fever upon him , and an into le rable
itching a ll over the surface of his body,
and cont inual pains in his colon and
drops ica l tumors about his feet, and an
innammation o f the abdome n and a pu·
trefaction of his privy member that
produced worms . Besides which, he
had a difficulty of breathing upon him
and he could not breathe but when he sat
upright ... ".
Perhaps the king's domestic unhap.
piness and consequent depress ion low·
ered his resistance somewhat to illness.
For whatever reason, Herod's condition
deteriorated, and he developed rather
Ancient Coins • Mail Bid Sales
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34 The Celato(
classical symptoms ofa medical condi-
tion called congestive heart failure. This
results when the heart is no longer ca-
pable of pumping the load of blood
required, and it backs up into the lungs,
and on into other organs as the disease
worsens. The symptoms include swell-
ing of the ankles ("dropsical tumors") ,
and a classic sign is inability to breathe
when lying flat (orthopnea), as Jose-
phus describes clearly. Pains in the
Herod I (the Great) 8 prutot
AE 24mm. Obverse: Incense
burner, dated L. Rev; Helmet with
star above. Hendin 1139.
abdomen can occur when the back-up of
blood reaches the liver, stretching its
tough outer capsule and activating pain
fi bres. This in tum causes bile to back
up, and to build up in the bloodstream,
which would cause his "intolerable
itching". The "gentle fever" and "putre-
faction of his privy member" are a bit
harder to explain. However, in times of
poor sanitation and in a generally de-
bilitated condition, one could speculate
that Herod's immune system would nO(
be able to fi ght o ff various infections
and infestations.
or interest also was the treatment
prescribed by He rod's phys icians. who
" ... tho ught proper to bathe his whole
body in warm oi l, by lelling it down into
a large vessel full of oil; whereupon his
eyes failed him and he came and went as
ifhe was dying." There may have actu-
ally been some logic to this treatment.
Immersion in warm oil would open up
the body's blood vessels, and decrease
the flow of blood into the heart, theo·
retically resulting in improvement of
his symptoms by decreasing its work
load (nitroglycerin works in this man·
ncr, as do other medications presently
used to treat heart failure) . The treat-
ment didn't seem to work in this case,
however, probably because the associ·
ated drop in Herod's blood pressure,
which would also occur with thi s treat-
ment, caused him to start to lose con-
sciousness.
King He rod realized that he was ap-
proac hing his end, and also realized that
there would be very lillie but rejoicing
at the news of his demise. In fact, a
premature rumor ofhis death had already
caused some c ivil unrest. For this rea-
son he had some of the foremost c itizens
of the city gathered together in an am-
phitheater, and had them surrounded by
hi s heavily bribed soldiery. His in·
structions were that on the news of his
demise. these c itizens were to be ex-
ecuted by the soldiers " ... immediate ly
upon my death. and then all Judaea and
every fami ly of them will weep at it,
whether they will o r no."
Herod died five days after ordering
the execution of his oldest son. Anti pater,
and after thirty·seven years of reign as a
Roman·appointedking. Fortunately for
the leading citizens of Jerusalem. his
sister Sa lome went to the amphitheater
where they were being held, prio r to the
death of Herod becoming ge nera l
knowledge. She indicated that the king
had changed his mind, and had decided
to let these people go. Despite some
very solid accomplishments. which in-
cluded rebuilding the Temple inJerusa-
lem and uniting a rather fragmented
Jewi sh nation, Herod'sdeath was, as he
predicted, not widely mourned .
Bibliography:
Harrison's Principles 01Jnternal M edicil1t! .
Flav ius Josephus, The Wars olthe}e.....s.
Say you saw it in
%e Cefator
Letters
surmise that the reference was well
known. As for Columbus, despite other
difficulties he had, he almost certainly
did nol have to convince learned
members of the Spanish court that the
Earth was round .
The influence of Greek knowledge of
the Earth's shape cannot be
underestimated, and formed the basis
of their idea that the planets travelled on
spheres. The special place of spheres
and circles in astronomy was not even
challenged by Copernicus, but by Kepler
and Newton, and the use of symmetry in
physical laws remains important in
modern cosmology.
Ron KolIgaard
Pennsylvania
I wish to respond to the rather vicious
letter by Richard Schaefer in the
December issue. Mr. Schaefer seems
10 nol be aware of the difference between
popular journals like The Gelator and
Goin World, and scientific journals. A
scientific publication placed in a popular
journal would be about as appropriate
as one placed in the evening newspaper.
Very few readers would want to read or
would be able to understand page after
page of complex scientific methodology.
I somehow doubt that Mr. Schaefer
would understand the significance of
the fact that I used both standard ZAF
correction and ZAF combined with
PhiRhoZ correction of the k ratios
obtained from the x-ray microanalysis.
Coin World even omitted the numbers
and magnifications I supplied with all
photos because they thought they were
not essential.
Mr. Schaefer states that he ~knows
nothing about the Black Sea coins" and
that he is not aware of any other of my
writings. He then is not aware of: 1. the
21 page (single spaced) report with
several dozen photos that was sent to
numerous other scientists, museum
curators. and museum laborato ry
specialists; 2. the comprehensive article
that appeared in World Goin News, May
28. 1990; and 3. the latest summary of
the analysis. which has been distributed
at several international numismatic
meetings and sent to numerous
individuals.
In reference to reproducibility of data,
it is most unfortunate that Mr. Schaefer
apparently did not even bother to read
the article in Coin World in its entirety,
forif he had, he would have noticed that
my results have been confirmed by five
independent laboratories in Europe.
I find it very ironic that Mr. Schaefer
has neverwriUen to me for information.
even though many others have. Mr.
Schaefer appoints himself supreme
judge and states that I am "not free to
claim this is science~, and lays down
criteria if I am to be taken seriously. I will
leI the readersof TheGelatordecide who
has been seriously pursuing the matter
and who has not.
Stanley L. Flegler
Michigan State University
While recently looking over a back
issue oftha journal Archaeology, I read
about the find of a coin of Claudius II in
an unexpected archaeological context
- a colonial American site. This
reminded me of several instances
brought to my attention of ancient coins
found in unlikely locations, which might
be of interest to the readers of The
Gelator.
I am Assistant Head of the library of
the Classics Department at the
University of Cincinnati. Ourdepartment
has a close working relationship with
the Cincinnati Art Museum, and, as a
result, the museum refers patrons'
questions about ancient coins to me .
Typical questions usually center around
the occasional coin given to them by a
friend or relative who acquired it
overseas. etc., namely. its attribution,
authentication, or evaluation. I'm sure
that many of us who are involved in
ancient coins have had similar
experiences.
Butthere have been a few instances
where ancient coins have surfaced in
unexpected places. I recall a delightful
lady who in 1986 brought to me a
reduced follis of Constantine I (Gloria
Exercitus type). She had dug it up in her
garden in northern Kentucky a few years
before. and had forgotten about it until
seeing a coin dealer on a talk show
display what she thought to be the same
coin, which he said was worth $10,000.
She was certain it was the identical
co in, as it too had a bust with a wreath
and some Latin around the portrait! 1
explained to ner that the coin was
authentic, but worth no more than a few
dollars in its worn state. She was so
sure her fortune was made that nothing
I could say would convince her to the
contrary. Even Sear's Roman Coins and
Their Values, and numerous coin
catalogs couldn't convince her. She
was ready to sell it and retire! So, doing
my best to suppress agrin, I gave her, at
her request, the names of severa! local
dealers and told her to let me know if
Continued from page 4
they bought the coin at her price, as I
mentally calculated how wealthy I would
become by then selling them a few of mr
Constantinian du plicates.
A yea r o r so late r an elderly
gentleman and his son brought to me
another Constantine, this time with the
ProvidentiaAvggcampgatereverse. He
found this coin, again . in no rthern
Kentucky, while ptowing a field in 1932!
From these two instances, I'm not
ready to propose that the Romans
colonized Kentucky. My training has
bee n in late Lati n lite r ature , not
archaeology, but f know enough about
that discipline to know that unexpected
objects can turn up in the unlikeliest of
contexts . Years ago, a friend of mine
lost a Byzantine coin on the streets of
New York. I would not take its recovery
to be a signal that Byzantine
expansionism in the 10th century pushed
that far west! And someday, someone
may discover several ancient coins
buried in a backyard in Dayton, Ohio.
They were certainly not lost by a Roman.
They are there because a friend of mine
once cleaned a few coins, buried them
behind the house to ~retone~ them, and
forgot where he dug the holes!
Still, it's fascinating to consider what
does turn up . Several years back a
construction worker who was taking
evening classes at a local college
brought me a dozen or so folies of the
tetrarchy, which he said he found in a
roll behind a wall of a house that was
being demolished.
But so far, the strangest story came
to me from a gentleman who brought to
me an Indo-Greek te trad rachm of
Hermaios, which he said he received in
change from a coffee shop in Cincinnati !
The coin was genuine, but fairly worn.
and as such, of little worth . When I
explained this to him he was crestfallen,
as he'd had visions of selling the coin so
he could buy a new truck! He just
couldn't understand how a coin 2000
years old could be of such little value.
As I explained, if only the waitress had
given him back a Demareteion when
he'd paid his bill .
These incidents of course contribute
nothing to the scholarship of our
avocation/hobby, but they do provide
human interest, and add perhaps to the
fascination of what our coins could tell
us if they only could talk.
Michael Braunlin
Ohio
(See Vol. 4, No.3, March 1990 for a
delightful article by Marvin Tameanko
about ancient coins found in America.)
January 1992 35
 Book News
Heads or Tails (A Testa 0 Croce),
by Giovanni Gorini, Robert Parise
Labadessa, and Andrea Saccoccio
Catalogue of the exhibit at the Musei
Civici of Padova (Padova 1991), 120
ANCIENT pp., plates.
Anyone who travels in Italy and stops
at Padova , for whatever reason, w ill
GREEK and ROMAN enjoy a discount on the round-trip train
ticke t, from now until May 17,1992. The
date coincides with the closing of the
exhibit ~ Da Bellino a Tinloretto~ at the
Civic Museum in Padova; and, whi le the
tacit understanding is that travellers to
Padova will view the exhibit, no proof is
AND required. This is, in every sense of the
word, a gentlemen's agreement.
More than that, the strong but under-
BOOKS ABOUT stated support of the arts in Padova is a
natural element in the life of the com-
munity. In the words of the President of
Cassamarca. the local bank that spon-
sored the exhibit, ~E verybank that sees
itself as a part of the community where
it operates finds it natu ral to do so", i.e.,
to lend support to the arts. Such
gentlemanly understatement should not
be limited to the exhibit, but could be the
Fixed price catalogs Leitmotiv for the Muse i Civic! and all
of top quality coins. community life.
Padova has been for centuries a
university center, home to prestigious
Buy-bid mail auc- academic chairs. Yet its tranquil ap-
tions of coins and pearance bel ies the intellectual fervor
which is. and has been for a long time.
books. part of city life. The same could be said
for economic life: business is thriving,
Lists of basic, ad- but discreet. Oillo for the Muse i Civici:
many sections are brand new and ex-
vanced, and rare, out- panding, but modern restructuring is
of-print books. planned so as to respect the pristine
character of the building, the former
home of a country gentleman. As a
Free Sample Catalogs result, the museum is an island of
peaceful greenery in the heart of town.
only a few minutes away from the busi-
THOMAS P, MCKENNA ness district.
Gentlemanly understatement is not
limited to coins. but could be the theme
P.O. Box 1356·K
for the whole exhibit. A look at the
Fort Collins, CO 80522 catalogue suffices to show the impres-
303·226·5704 sive amount of material, which consti-
tutes a synthesis of the arts, from the
Greeks to the Renaissance. Coins and
medals are presented in the context of
Renaissance art. Thus they become
part of a larger exhibit, just as the coin
cabinet is part of a larger museum. There
are hundreds of pieces featured in the
36 The Gelator
catalogue (not counting photos of the-
matically related works in the major arts).
yet the title Heads or Tails is almost
jocular, and totally void of pretense.
Somehow this is not surprising, because
the symbiosis between money and arts
has a long tradition in this area: Padova
is located between Venice and Milan .
both artistically and econom ically
prominen t in the Renaissance. Seen in
this light, the support lent by Cassamarca
to the exhibit can truly appear a natural.
Giovanni Gorini , who inspi red the
project and contributed an essay to the
catalogue, is not new to the Un ited
States. He has been a frequent visitor
to the ANS, and other academic institu -
tions in this country, yet (like many of his
Eu ropean colleagues) his works are still
lillie known for lack of translations to
English. Professor Gorini is a specialist
in Greek numismatics, but has been for
many years a generalist as well, re-
sponsible (among otherlhings) for iden-
tifying and publishing in an interdiscipli-
nary context just about any coin newly
found in his part of Italy; 1/ Carso
goriziano, reviewed in The Celator in
November of 1990, is a good example
of this type of activity, Obviously Gorini's
interdisciplinary interests and his expe-
rience as a generalist served him well,
for he discusses the relationship be-
tween Renaissance coins and their
G reek prototypes with consumate ease.
Thus, although ready to point out the
striking stylistic similarities between
Greek and Renaissance coins, Gorini
does not base his conclusions loosely
on style, but relies on carefully docu-
mented collections dating from the Re-
naissance, and from numismatic books
of the same period. By the way. interest
for numismatic books is in the air: Brit-
ish numismatists are also gathering a
bibl iog raphy of early numismatic works,
and numismatists from other countries
are interested as welL This was the
message at the bibliographic session
chaired by Francis O. Campbell (ANS)
at the recent International Numismatic
Congress in Brussels. Consistent with
the interd isciplinary character of "Oa
Bellino a Tintoretto", Gorini touches upon
themes of interest to economic histori-
ans (trade and exchanges between
Venice and the East, p. 67, sundry frauds
and forgeries, p. 68) and art historians
(portraits in the Renaissance, p.70) .
 A similar interdisciplinary approach
is also present in the contributions of
Roberta Parise Labadessa and Andrea
Saccoccio In heressay on Renaissance
medals Parise Labadessa focuses on
the relations between medal and por-
trait. The result 01 her research is an
intriguing gallery of Renaissance por-
trait, allUed to medals in some (often
unexpected) way .
Andrea Saccocci contributed to the
catalogue both as an editor and an au-
thor. As editor he is responsible for the
general introduction; as author he writes
on "Artistic Aspects of Ital ian Coinage in
the Renaissance". Saccocci is the suc-
cessor of Gorini in the position of Cura-
tor of Coins at the Civic Museum of
Padova. Gorini began his academ ic
career as a student of Bernareggi. Th us
the present curator is heir to a distin-
guished numismatic tradition, wh ich
underGorini's direction branched out to
related disciplines. Like Gorini, Saccocci
is well aware of the interdisciplinary
potential of numismatics, and his essay
shows it. It also shows a new devel-
opment, attuned to contemporary con·
cerns and the new generation 01 scholars
that Saccocci represents: the author's
interest in the relationship between coins
and medals and the major arts is paral-
leled by a keen interest in economic
history. For Saccocci numismatic his-
tory borders on economy, and economic
and sociological factors which underlie
mo netary productio n deserve to be
studied in depth. Thus Saccocci is in-
terested in new developments, but also
in traditional questions of chronology
and attribution; particularly interesting
Rossi Numismatica catalogue
features rare numismatic literature
Rossi Numismalica, in their Libri e
Cataloghi di Numismatica, present a
varied selection of numismatic literature
at fixe d prices . Both books and auction
catalogues are ollered, with most 01 the
titles pertaining to ancients.
Common and standard references
are included, such as Ihe Sear and
Seaby books , as well as various BMC
catalogs and SNG's. A (are original
edition of A. Armand's Les Medaillaurs
Italians des quinzieme et seizieme
siec/es, a copy of E. Boehringer's Die
miinzen von Syrakus, and H. Cohen's
Description historique des monnaies
fra ppees sous I'em pira romain
in this respect is the attribution 10
Pisanello 01 a grosso 01 Mantova.
Continuity with the past and innova-
tion ble nd in this volume and in the
exhibit: paraph rasi ng the President of
Cassamarca we might say that this, too,
is a natural - and a happy one
Luciana Cuppo Csaki
communement appellees medailles
imperiafes are just a few of the highlights.
Other items of note are W. Hahn's
Moneta Imperii Byzan ti ni (three
volumes), a complete set of Roman
fmperiafCoinaga, and F. Poeyd'Avanl's
Monnaies Feoda/as de France.
Auction sale catalogs feature sales
of Bank Leu, Hess, Kunst und MOnzen,
MOnzen und Medaill en , Sternberg.
Titano, Rata and Naville-Ars Classica.
For copies of the latest numismatic
literature offerings, con tact Rossi
Numismatica, via Roma 2JA, 46100
Mantova, Italy, phone (0376) 365.816,
or FAX (0376) 223. 133.

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Li .C., New York 11101
1·718·706·0303
De WrII •• Coin Type.l~al Rome $15.00 Be ",), . Med;,..al Engli. h JttIOnS $10.00
Hi~. Col". 01 S <tptin1iu. Sev."", $11.00 BrGOl<e. Eng""" CoN (F,om SOOA.D./ 515.00 FAX 1·718·706·0891

January 1992 37
Coins of the Bible
Superior's Bromberg sale makes numismatic history
by David Hendin Jerusalem was able to expand its coin collection as having been "filled with
Regular readers of this section of collection at this sale (the museum bid great excitement and some intrigue."
The Celalor know that we le nd to con- through an intermediary). The most exciting bidding duels at
centrate on the history, instead of the this auction were between floor bidders
marke tplace, for anc ient Jewish coins and two extrao rdinarily aggressive tele-
and ancienlcoins re lated 10 the Bible. If phone bidders, According 10 Superior
ever an except ion was wllrr.tntcd it is the Galleries' President Ira Goldberg, who
occ asion o f Pari I of the Abraham was also the auctioneer, one phone bid-
Bromberg Collection of Jewish Coins, der was "a Beverly Hills collector" and
which took place Dece mber Sih at the the othe r was "an American who hap-
Drake Hotel in New York. Not only pened to be traveling in Paris at the
were record prices sel - in the midst of Figure 1 time." "That was a three-and-one-half-
a serious economic recess ion - but the Prototype Shekel. First Jewish War hour call," said Goldberg, " I can't wait
depth of interest in Ihi s specia lized field ( ~. OC.E.),oneoftwoknown, to see the bill ."
of ancient numismatics seem s to be un- 42,000 (lot 56. Many veteran collectors of ancient
precedented . Jewish coins could only gasp at some of
The auction itself was exciting and Many of Bromberg 's coins were used the prices hammered down by Goldberg,
lengthy, due to extremely active bid- to illustrate Leo Mildenberg 's book The who conducted the auction in a rather
dingon the fl oor. Among the ncarly 100 Coinage of the Bar Kochba War . Some noi sy section of the lobby of the Drake
person .~ anending the auction were at coins were also used to illustrate Ya ' akov Hotel (Goldberg's voice held "out, and
least half-a-dozen Israeli dealers, as well Meshorer'sAncient Jewish Coinage. as so did his patience and good humor,
as dealers and advance-level collectors well as my own Guide 10 Biblical CoinJ. right up to the last lot sold). Of course,
from several European countries, o ther In an introduction to the Bromberg cata- not every coin sold in this auct ion
Middle Eastern nations, and 'III.-cross log, Dr. Mild e nbe rg sa ys that brought a record price. Very lillie, how-
the United S tates. Becau se of the un - Bromberg's " holdings may constitute ever. went "cheap", and I don' t think
usually high qual ity o f Bromberg's col- the most important collection ever. " that there were more than two o r three
lection, e ven The Israel Museum in Bromberg himself descri bes his own lots of the 315 offered that did not selL
Among the coins that brought very
strong p rices was a simple but lovely
lepton of Herod Archelau s (lot 28) in
about EF condition , which was esti-
mated at $200 to 5250, but brought
SI,045 (all selling prices cited include
the to percent commission). Other rare
and beautiful bronzes of the Ag rippas
brought strong prices, but the real money
he ld out for the excessively rare First
Revoltcoins and those of the Bar Kochba
War.
A prototype shekel of the first Jew-
ish war against Rome (66· 70 C.E,), in
EF condition, one of two known to exist
(lot 56, see Figure 1), was estimated to
AustralIa's largest dealer in ancient
ceNns Is DOWNIE'S.
iii!;;;;;;;;-, bring $150,000 to $200,000. " sold
We pubUsh a qual ity catalogue cailed quickly for $242.000. A silver quarter·
ClassIcal which has literaily hundreds shekel o f the same year. in choice VF
of ancient coins tochlose from. and also one of two known (lot 62, see
Our grading is strict, and most COiM offered are photographed, Figure 2), was estimaled al $ 100,000 10
so YIMI know wbat you're ltuylng, This magazine is the mISt
pOjhllar "anclents" catalogue down under, $150,000. It sold for $253 ,000. One
Get yourself a copy: with the advantageous excbange rate New York colleclor who very much
between the USA and Australia, you really should consider wanted this coin for his colleclion pushed
buyIng 'ram us. his own bid 10 $ 190,000. He later told
For a complimentary copy ES TAB LIS HED 1932 me, " It was amazing. I was ready to
of this 32 page catalogue,
fax Of write to any one of
our 3 offices:
DOWNIE'S spend that kind of money, and I only had
my hand up once. There were three or
COINS.\ COLLECTABLES four other bidders. Everyone was ag-
Michigan Office There's 22 Greek. 50 mediaeval
MeIllOllIAe' Head Office English. and OVllf 240diflmn/ gressive. and it went by in a second.
P.O. Box 22026 308 High Street, Kew, 3101 Australia
Phone 6t ·3-8~ 0500 Fax 61-3-853 0050
Roman coins to chOose from.
Onr; quality coins. all at
What a letdown. "
LanSing, MI48909 Sydneydore
prices trom $40 to$4.250. A Bar Kochba tetradrachm of the
first year in superb condition (lot 79, see
Fax 517-394 5510 ShOp 18. Town Hall Arcade, 2000 Austral~ Send for a copy today!
Figure 3) was estimaled at $40,000 10
38 The Gelator

Figure 2
Ouarter-shek91. First Jewish War,
(66·70 C.E.), OM of two known,
realized $253.000 (lot 62).
$50.000, but sold for $79,750. It was
not unusua l for some of the other Oar
Kochba tetradrachms toscll for between
two and three times their estimates. A
few also sold below estimates. The
price of the Bar Kochba denarii were
also exceptions. Many of the denarii
sold for between two and five times the
estimates. Ayeartwodenarius(lot 134)
in EF condi tion. one of two known ex-
amples from these dies, sold for $22.000
against an estimate of $3,500 to $4,000.
Another year two denarius (lot 142) had
a ch ipped edge. but was otherwise in
mint state. This coin was one of four
examples from these dies, and sold for
S 11 ,550 against an est imate of $800 to
$1,200. An undated Bar Kochba
denarius of a rathcrcommon type, but a
rare die variety (lot 172), in EF condi-
tion, was estimatcd at $ 1,200 to $1 ,500
but sold for 512.100. There were many
examples of Bar Kochba coins that sold
for multiples of thei r estimates. Many
others sold within or reasonably above
the range, and very few actually sold fo r
below estimated value.
Figure 3
Bar Kochba tetradrachm, Year One,
(132~135 C.£.J. in superbconditfon.
,-_<~eMzed $79, 750 (lot 79).
The Judaea Capta series also sold
quite strongly. Many of the aurei and
sestertii sold below estimates, but still
to very strong prices, well into five
figures. One rare aureus of Vespasian,
in "superb and nearly mint state", witha
reverse design showing ,I Jewess, hands
bound, seated beneath a palm tree (lot
286), sold for $60,500 againsl an esli-
mate of $30.000 to $35,000.
It was clear to experts attending the
auction that several of the bidders -
both on the noor and on the phones -
would not be deterred, and were will ing
to pay almost any price for the coins
they wanted to buy. Th is factor is sig-
nificant in the psychology of auctions.
One may interpret the effect of thi s type
of bidding in seve ral ways. One collec-
tor said it caused him. as well as other
potent ial bidders, to back away from
certa in bids and avoid pushing prices
even higher, which, in turn, could push
open market prices s ignificantly higher.
One the other hand. some be lieve that
this type of spirited bidding on ly adds to
the "feeding frcnzy" and causes more
bidders to become more aggressive.
All of the proceeds of the Brombers
sale will be given to Jewish institutions,
the collector sa id. "While I am sad-
dened by the loss of the coins thelll-
selves. this scholarly rcference cllllliog
will provide me with great pride. Also.
I will feel satisfact ion that other collec-
tors will fi nd new treasures," Bromberg
added. He is no doubtcorrecl. I bought
several coins just to be able toown a part
of this pieceof numismatic history . Stay
tuned to this station. The auction of Part
II ofthe Abraham Bromberg Collection
of Jewish Coins is due to take place next
December.
itl I 992 by David Hendin

Have your coills professionally researched and catalogued through the

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Ancient Coin Certification Service (A.C.C.S.)
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Seaby Coins, 7 Davies St reet, London, WIY ILL, E ngla nd

'll'}.(JQJ1'E gIrT I'lYD'I

'JI~y IIOt ,give one or mort of tlit fDmou.s Staby CalltctOr'5 Mm'bOOQ, cowring aff 4fputs of(jruK,. <;tomDn am''Bywntilll toina,9(, pmonally autOlJrapfretf 6y
tfrtautfror, 'J)avUf~ ~Dr(5pc,ial tklicatiDrIS avai/a6ft upon rtquutJ '11ie cost is 110 more dian tlie normal rttai/ pritt arul tlie fallO'wing titUs Drt Dwi/a6ft:
ROMAN COINS & TI IEIR VALUES, ($70.00); GREEK COINS & THEIR VALUES, EUROPE ($50.00);
GREEK CO INS & THEIR VALUES, ASIA & AFRICA ($50.00); GREEK IMPERIAL COINS & TlIEIR VALUES ($80.00);
HYZANTINE COINS & THEIR VALUES ($ 100.00) plus $4.00 postage per order.

January 1992 39
Reference Reviews
Books on The Coinage of the CITY of ATHENS
by Dennis Kroh
There {lrt 20 rimes more reference works and
a/her bO<Jks on Ancient Coins avai/(Jble roday
than just (Went)' years ago. Very few numis-
matiSis know how /0 utiliu these references , or
even where /0 start looking for "erwin items.
Many of Ihue books Or<! essential for the
collector /0 own, others worthy of one reading
(and art! never again consulted), and S01Tll! are
obsolete and ponderous exercises in jurility.
This momhly column explores most references
on Ancient Coins (by city-state or time period).
and will rate Ihem according 10 'heir useful-
ness, clarify , illustrations, and availability,
utilizing a five-star syslem similar /0 that uud
for movies, restaurants, and hotels. Prices are
also given wherever available. [/ is highly
recommended thaT alleast 10% a/your col1eet-
ing budget be inve$ted in refuenu booh.
This Cradle of Democracy has long becn an
extremely popular city to collect, and it is
safe to say that virtually every collection of
ancient coins contains at least one "owl" of
Athcns. The coinage of this city is not as
rudimentary as it may look at first glance,
and this column wi!! explore many referen-
A NCIEN T COIN SPECIALIS T
GREEK, ROMAN, BYZANTI NE COINS
AND CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES
!P .....> " ,
, ;, ~ ..,
ces as wcll as major articles of importance
that will shed some light on the subtleties of
collecting Athenian coins of all periods.
"Wa ppenmiinzen"
This very controversial and rare coinage,
struck on the didrachm standard, was
allributed Uy most English numismatists
(such as Head) around the turn of the
Cenll/ry to various cities in Euboia .
Seltma n
**
HAlhens, lis Hislory and Coinage Before the
Persian lnvasion~ by Charles T. Seltman
(Cambridge, 1924) is essential for the study
of the history of this period. This was the
first reference to put forth the theory that
the designs on the "wappenmiinzen" coinage
were heraldic badges of the prominent
Athenian families of the pre-Solon era. This
is in essence a die-study that is still very
useful for its illustrations although his dating
throughout is much too early. 247 pages,
24 good plates . Originals are very rare and
expensive (e.$500), but a decent Ares
reprint (Chicago, 1974) can still be found
for around $30.
"Me, Attica - **
Forget about it! The "wappcnmunzen" arc
not included in this BMC volume at all.
"From Wappenmi1mtn to Gorgoneia to
****
Owls" by John H. Kroll (ANSMN 26, 1981,
pp. 1-32, with 2 plates) put the study of the
Wappenmiinzen coinage on a finn footing,
clearing the air of over 100 years of
misunderstandings and misconceptions. $30.
Haymes
*****
"The First Coinage of Athens" by Christo-
pher Haymes (SAN Journal Vol. XVIU-2,
May 1991, pp.28-36) studies the "wappen-
miinzcn" coinage in extreme detail, with
very good illustrations. His revelations and
conclusions are imperative reading for all
interested parties. His extensive analyses of
all other articles on the subject make any
further listings in this section unneeessary.
"Owls"
Probably the mosl typically depicred ancien!
coin, it was struck with virtually Ihe same
design for around 350 years. The subtleties
in design make precise dating difficult for
most collectors, although most of these
references will help considerably.
"Les monnaies d 'Athenes" by E. BcuM *
(Paris, 1858) was the first specialized work
on the Athenian coinage, written by a
professor of Archaeo10gyat the Biblioth~uc
Imperiale. It contains 420 pages of text,
with line--drawings throughout. Only 300
copies of the original were printed, and it is

-.~"
~
"
quite rare, a FORNI reprint is about $100.
J - ~ l" ~ This is really of interest to fanatics only, as
'P
., ,~
.
• most infonnation has been long superseded.

7:':1' , ---.
,
•• , . " . "
••
~.

.. •• ••• Hoard ~ by
****
•Archaic Greek Silver Coinage, The NAS)'Ul
Martin Price and Nancy
Waggoner (London, 1975) is a study of a
H

reconstructed hoard (burial date c.485 BC)

SAMPLE CATALOG UPON REQUEST of nearly 900 coins found in lower Egypt . at
lcast 164 of which were of Athens . The

EDWARD J. WADDELL, Ltd. composition of this hoard resulted in a

radical revision of the chronology of many
archaic issues. Now OP, this can still be
7910 Wood mont Avenue, #1104 found with some difficulty for $50 or so.
i"i Bethesda, MD 20814
~ . (301) 654·0470 FAX: (301) 654·0730
••
Sellman **'h
"Athens, lis History and Coinage Before the
Persian Invasion by Charles T. Sellman
H

(Cambridge, 1924) is an early die-study of

40 The Cefalor
the archaic owls, and is still heavily utilized
as such although it is vastly incompletc, his
dating is now considered to bc much too
early, and his chronology of many issues is
out of whack. Much useful historical
information is provided in the first part of
this volume though, making having this a
very good idea for all collectors. 247 pages,
24 good plates. Reprint about $30.
****
·The Archaic Owls of Athens: Classification
and ChronoWgy·by Colin Kraay (1956 NC,
pp. 43-68) is, perhaps , one of the most
exciting articles of its generation. Kraay
carefully and methodically reworked
Seltman's classification of the Archaic owls,
putting them into a new order, still accepted
as correct today. His conclusions are those
followed in NAsy ut", and can be found there,
but thc elegance in which thcy are expressed
makes this article a mus t fo r any serious
collector. Kraay's conclusions are also
nicely summarized byW.P. Wallace in -The
Early Coinages of Athens and Euboia -
(1962 NC, pp. 23-42), but Wallace then
proposes some majo r adjustments to Kraay's
chronology that was rapidly disputed by
Kraay on pp. 417-423 of the same issue.
A very informative but brief article on this
series is •Problems of the Earliest Owls of
Athens by E.J.P. Raven in Essays In Greek
H
was not published until 1923-5 (in three
parts) by Behrend Pick, a few ycars after
the death of Svoronos. This is indubitably
the most useful reference on Athenian coins
ever published, as it included illustrations
(from casts) of every coin (us ually with their
weights in grammes) that was in all known
public o r private collections at the time,
from "owls " through the Imperial period.
The 114 large plates contain only minimal
text, and this form at (a bit more expanded)
was later adopted for the SNG series. There
were only 500 eopics of the originals
printed , and they arc extremely rare and
virtually unobtainable (and $1500 + if you
do come across a copy). Fortunately , a
very convenient rep rint with decem plates
was published by Arcs in 1975 with an
English translation of the introductions and
text as "Corpus of th e Allciellt Coin s of
Athens", and while it now is also out of
print, it can still be found with little
difficulty for $100 or 50. This edition has
114 double-page plates, an added plate of
forgeries, and 7 indices. Essential!
UMC, Attica
Written by Barclay Hcad in 1888 (as the
eleventh volume in the 30 volume series),
this BMC vol ume (which also covers
Megaris & Aegina) is still useful as a souree
of illustrations and immediate classification
of many issues, but its dating cannot be
relied upon. 166 pagcs, 26 plates , o riginals
are rarely encountered ($2-300), and the
FORNI reprint (with plates of lousy but
useful quality) now sells for about $90 new.
**
"Coinage and Administration in the Athenian
and Persian Empires, The Ninth Oxford
Symposium on Coinage aruJ Monetary
Hislory« (BAR 343, Oxford, 1987) is a
collcction of papers by various scholars, six
of which related to the Athenian issues.
Four of lbcse (by Sallie Fried , Jonathan
Kagan, Jeffrey Spier, and Martin Price)
delve on aspccl$ of NThe Dekadrachm
Hoard - and its wide-ranging repercussions
on numismatic and historical studics
(including the timing of the Athenian
coinage decree). While much of the
research covers coins othe r than Athenian
issues, there is still mueh knowledge to be
obtained fro m it. Out of print, about 535 .
ACGC ***
The early Athenian coinage (c.550-350 BC)
is very well reviewed by Colin Kraay in hia
classic "Archaic and Classical Greek Coins·
(London, 1976), pp. 55-77, with 59 choice
examples illustrated on platcs 9-12.

Coinage presented 10 Stanley Robinson

(Oxford, 1968), pp. 40-58 . In it Mr. Raven
discusses hoard evidence, the die-linking and
low survival rates, and arrangement and
Miinzen nnd Medaillen AG
interpretation of abnormal issues among 1942-1992
other things. Unfortunately, the Essays For 50 years we have been serving
Robinson has not yet been reprinted, and
originals are quite elusive (about $200). collectors of Ancient Coins ...
and we would like to serve you too!
-Alhenian Coinage 480-449 B. C." by
****
Chester G. Starr (Oxford , 1970) concen-
trates on the early posl-Archaic issues of
Athens, and is a die-study for these issues
that is still valid in most respects. Starr's
material comprises 235 specimens of denom-
inations fro m the dekadraehm down to and • Monthly Illustrated Fixed Price Lists •
including the drachma , plus a number of
rather rare smaUer denominations. He • Public Sales· Appraisals· Buying and Selling·
essentially distributes over thrcc decades • Large Stock in All Price Ranges ·
(478-449) the issues which Seltman in his
Groups Nand 0 had attributed to one (490- Please send us your want Jist. We will fill it!
480) . There is much useful infonnation to
be gleaned from thili modestly sized book
(97 pages, 26 plates). Originals are now
Please contact:
elusive (around S40-50), but are preferred to
the inferior 1980 Durst reprint at S25.
Miinzen und Medaillen AG
P.O. Box 3647 • Malzgasse 25
SVQr(lnos
****
-Trbor des monnaies d'Alhines, Tennini CH - 4002, Basel, Switzerland
apris la mort de I 'Auteur par Behrend Pick~ Tel. (061) 272 75 44 Fax. (061) 272 75 14
was prepared in 1914 by I .N. Svoronos, but

January 1992 41
Regrettably out of print, this work is very
muc h in demand, and $150 would still be a
tlNew Style tl Coinage S,oronos
This reference (reviewed in full in the
***
Th ese impressil'e coins, called at the time
ba rgain at the present time. wOwls wsection above), dedicates plat« 33-
-stephanophori - (the wreathed ones), were
strllck on broad, Ihin jhJns and indicated th e 81 to the wNew Style coinage. No dating
W

Kraay **
· Coins of Anci(nt Athens · is the title ofa 39
page pamphlet by Colin Kraay (Newcastle,
1968) that serves as a general introduction.
78 coins are nicely illustrated on 7 platcs
with facing explanatory tex\. Once only 12
shillings, sixpencc, it is now out of print &
elusive, although it will still be inexpensive.
***
WDe I'ande n au nouveau style athinien: une
continuitU- by Helene Nicolet-Pierre (in
Studia Paulo Nastcr Oblata I , Numismatica
Antiqua, edited by S. Sehccrs, Louvain
(BelGium) 1982, pp. 104-114, 2 good plates)
is an article of trcmendous importance
concerning the very rare Athenian silve r
issues of the latc owl type that bear symbols
in thc reverse field . These coins fonn the
link between the old and new style Athenian
tctradrachms and can no w be dated to the
first quarte r of the 2nd Century B.C.
About $85. Martin Price also studies this
intercsting series in some detail in
Nllmismatic Studies in the Memory o/ Colin
M. Kraay and 0110 Morklwun (1988).
magistrates responsible for their issue first
Uy monograms, and eventually Uy their
names in full across the reverse field.
Thompson
*****
One of the most meticulous studies ever
wriuen, -Vre New Style Silvt r Coinage of
Athens ~ (New York, 1961) by Margaret
Thompson is a intrieate analysis, corpus and
d ie-study of this long and involved series.
Even though her dating (196/5 to 8817 BC)
was disputed from the ve ry beginning, her
arrangement and sequence of thc issues still
is unquestioned. 6,193 tetradrach ms, 701
drac hms & 94 hemidraehms were examined
by the aUlhor, and 1,136 obverse & 3,644
reverse dies were idenlified and divided inlo
109 regular and two supplementary groups
(inscribed with the names of no less than
634 magistrates). The month-dates on the
overtu med amphorae convi ncingly show that
these are yearly gro ups. The teXI volume
contains 747 pages, includ ing many charts
and extremely use ful indices . The plate
volume features 202 plates (Plus 24
accordion plates) of superb illustrations.
Now out of pri nt and very elusive, this will
cost something like S200+ when found .
is givcn , but the Index is very uscful for
attributions, and this is by far the best place
to look fo r the elusive IE issues of this
period (not covered at all in Thompson).
Lewi~ ***
-The Chronology of th e Athenian New Slyle
COinage- by D.M. Lewis was the first of
man y articles to criticize Margaret
Thompson's annual dating of these issues,
and appeared in the 1962 NWnism(Jlic
Ch ronicle, pp. 275-300. In his opinion, the
dating of this series should be moved
fOl"Vo'ard to 164 BC - c.50 BC or a little
late r. A slightly longer article in reply by
Ms. Tho mpson (-Athens Again -, pp. 303-
333) follows, where she defends to a
considerable degree her initial conclusions.
M9rkholm
****
T he second major challenge to Thompson's
arrangcment was - The Chronology of the
New Sly/e Coinage of A/hens ~ by OtlO
M0 rkholm in ANSMN 29,1984, pp. 29-42.
Written shortly before his death, he
proposes that the first nincteen issues
appeared with gaps from the 180's to 145 ,
and then issues were struck without interrup-

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42 The Celalor
tion from 145 to 78 BC. In this article
(intended for inclusion in his recent
posthumous NEarly Hellenistic Coinage"),
he presents for the first time a balanced
analysis of the controversial chronology,
taking into account all pertinent factors : the
overstrikes, the testimony of both early and
late hoards, and the historical evidence.
Ms. Thompson deemed his conclusions so
valid that she declared in an editorial that
the controversy was at an end. Not quite!
Mattingly
****
~ T1u Beginning ofAthenian New Style Silver
Coinage" by Harold B. Mattingly (1990
NC, pp. 67-78) res umes the above debate by
proposing alternate dates for many of the
issues, and offers evidence (with the
assistance of Martin Price) that c.168 Be
should be the starting point for thc
found in the American excavations of the NEXT MONTH:
Agora at Athens (the Roman and Islamic
coins we re published long ago in books by
The references on the very popular
Margaret Thompson and George Miles). Coinage of The Macedonian Kings
Written by John Kroll and Alan Walker, this will be explored in detail.
volume provides a complete monetary his-
tory of Athens with full dating criteria , but
will doubtless be most exciting for its Denni.\" Kroll is a filII-time dealer of Gnciel1l
exhaustive treatment of the bronze coinage, coills and books about tllem, as well as afree-
of which thousands were found in the exca- fallce cata/oglle writer who maintains a I'ery
vations. Coins of over 100 other Greek large working library and utilizes many coill
states are included as well. To be published references every single day. Queries alld
(hopefully by 1992-3) by Princeton Univer- comments 011 the subject of tltis column are
sity Press on behalf of the American School
of Classical Studies at Athens. Not cheap.
very welcome. Please enclose a SASE Gnd
write clo The Celator.
NUMISMATIC VID EO TAPES
Produced by David Lisol , an award-winning journalist and multi·media specialist, the following titles
present lectures given at ANA Conv6ntions by experts in a particular field. Many presentations include

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stephanopllOri. His study of many factors, excellent color sl ides and represent an excellent way for people to learn a bout coin collecting.
including recent hoards, is also convincing. A portion o f the proceeds from the sale of each tapes goes to the American Numismalic Association.

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The Oriental Puule

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Early C"rislian Symboliom on CoOns
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the IE coinage of Athens of all periods
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Video Guido 10 Slamp Collecling BurghoH
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COinage ollhe Roman WofId A Ty"" Set of AMOlenl CoIns
R<>bert HoQe. ANA Museum OI.Irolor. p<esents a P<09 ram Many new collectors donl know wher. 10 begin in .U"Ch
lhal locus ... upon inle'P«'lir">Q ancienl Roman coin. e varied lield . Til<. P<09ram helps intro<lu<:" lhe
ll"1'ough Iheir inseriptions. II include. discussions 01 beginner 10 ancie nts by deiining a 1)'1>1' se l 0140 coins.
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marl<ings; P""rtinenl Latin 9,ammalical "[\)CIU",,: contomporary eiv"zatk>ns. The ... coin. hl... been
gove rnmo ntal oW ..... and ~lu l a\U(e: denom inalional ... lected for their historical sign~ica""". beauI)'. and
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E.lrty Chnstlan Symbolism on CoIns

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10< s Nu mlsmatk: COn.u ....... This comP""iOng video lecture use. beaUlil~1 color slides
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Greek coins (including Greek Imperial)

January 1992 43

TRlVIAQillZ
What famous object, suspended on an
oak tree in the grove of Ares, caused
fifty Greek heroes to brave unspeakable
dangers in an attempt to fetch it?
(Answer on page 52)
QUOTES FROM THE PAST
"Audentis Fortuna iuvat. "
(Fortune always fights for the bold.)
Publius Vergilius Marc (70-19 B.C.)
Phoenicia catalog
offers something for
every collection
In Phoenicia's Fall!Winterantiquities
catalog, the collector can lind numerous
examples of ancient art priced from $1 0
to $1500. Collectors at all levels oltheir
pursuit should find something of interest
here.
A variety of Sumerian bead necklaces
and earrings begin the selections,
accompanied by an assortment of small
bronze weights and bells, Other items
in bronze include crosses and buckles,
bracelets, fibulae, and a bronze ladle,
Featured in the group is a set of to

r------------------------,
I Clip & Save I
leather working tools, needles and awls,
priced at $195.
The majority of the artifacts in the
catalog are terracotta. Assortments of
I o I Holyland and Christian oil lamps are
I
I Coin File I
I
prominent, but cocked hat types are
included as well. A nice variety of

~-----------------------~
dippers, flasks, and jugs should provide
something of interest to any collection.
Constans II Idols are represented by examples
of the Phoenician goddess Tanit, the
AE - Follis, Constantinople Syro·Hittite goddess Astarte, and a
A.D. 641-668 pregnant female deity. The highlight of
Sear 1013 the offering is a mask of Dionysos, the
Conslans , the son of Heraclius Constantine, was born in A.D. 630, and elevated to
Greek god of wine and merrimen!.
the position of co-emperor w ith his father's half-brother Heraclonas al the age of 11 . Several unusual items are featured,
Shortly thereafter, Heraclonas was deposed and Constans became so[e emperor. including a Syro-Hittite animal vessel , a
He associated his sons Constantine IV, Heraclius, andTiberius with his ru le, and they bronze sandaled foot, and a beautiful
are depicted on the reverse of this bronze coin. The reign of Constans was marked lead sarcophagus panel. A Mycenaean
by wars with the Arabs and Slavs, to which he responded with varying measures of stirrup jar, a bronze thimble, and various
success. He ruled for over a quarter century, but became increasingly despotic, items in bone, ivory and other media
eventually moving his residence and the capital of the empire to Sicily, while his conclude the selections .
family remained in Constantinople. As a result, Constans was assassinated in the Copies of the Fall!Winter antiquities
summer of 668, through a conspiracy of the nobility, and his son Constantine IV catalog may be obtained from Phoenicia
L ________________________
became the senior Augustus.
~
Holyland Ant iquit ies, P.O. Box 692,
Gracie Station, New York, NY 10028.

l-10W 11-IE ROMANS 17ISCQVfREI7 Tl-IA-r .HE ri:'J

REGESSION WAS 8ElflN0 FAI7 ... -;,pr

44 The Gelator
Professional Directory
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January 1992 47
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Phone : (313) 434·3856
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beginners thru advanced collectors
BILL MCDANIELS
Classical Greek, Roman, Ancient and
Byzantine, and Medieval Price lists issue(J regularly, Medieval Coins
Coins, Books & Antiquities available upon request (Greek, Roman, Indian,
Free illustrated catalogs Is/amic, Chinese,
STEPHEN ALBUM Early European, Etc.)
Specify: Ancient or Medieval P.o. BOX 7386
Wllnt lists serviced. Consul/II/ions availabl". SANTA ROSA, CA. 95407 U.S.A. P.O. Box 2273
Appraisals and es/ale eva/ualioM performaci. phone: 707·526·3421 Albany, NY 12220
ACtiv6 bUy6r of all rna/6rial.
fax, 707·526-3266

January 1992 49
Professional Directory
( Coins & Books ) ( Equip. & Supplies ) ( Shows & Services )
FINE NUMISMATIC BOOKS PHOTOGRAPH GAIN MARKET INSIGHT
Bought and Sold COINS & BILLS Clie ntsjind our Database. with
Numismatic Arts • Instant Polaroid Prints
• Color or Bla~ & White
J5 ,(X)(J+ wt Descriptions and
of Santa Fe • Same Size or Enlarged
Prices Realized. gives critical
P.o. Box 97 12. Sante Fe, NM 87604 knowledge ofpast hammer prices
Phone or FAX · 505-982-R792 for any Roman Imperial Gold.
Silver or Bronze coin. Use our
We are always keenly interested in buying
important Antiquaria n and Out-CI-Print Call or Send for
Free Brochure
~ Service when plotting auction
Numismalic Books and libraries in all
languages. Ancie nts Catalog $5
~ bidding strategy or valuating
P.O. Box 2937 your holdings.
Redwood City, CA 94064
NUMISMATIC
ANC IENT COINS
o AR C HIVES
BOX 173
AR C H EOLOGI C AL
ARTIFACTS Imj~
ARIES PHOTOGRAPHIC
(415) 854·7662
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80 160-0173 USA
Greek. Roman, Byzantine
Auctions
INTRO IJUC ING
Blly and .~elJ high grade coins,
GREATER
Glas rubbc r
entire colfeerions. {ol.". NEW YORK

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ancianl bronz9 coins and ani/acts
DEALER S ARE KI NDLY NUMISMATIC
O",..U,,'
REQUESTED TO AS K FOR CONVENTION
OU R SPEC IAL OFFER S.

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(7 18) 634·9266
INI>I A, I' t; RSIA, C lII NA a nd EU ROI' E
i.uxptnsi'"e torly CO;IIS
( Shows & Services )
Fru Lis', $ pa)'mml facility.

Robert Tye
BOSTON ...
Locheynort , South Vis! Ancient and Foreign Coin
Scot land, PAS ! 5$1, Un ited ATHlE NET Mecca o/The Northeast!
Database of Dealers in BAY STATE COIN SHOW
Ancient Coins and Antiquities A pril 10, II . 12, 1992
Ancient Coins We can help you find the dealers whose Nove mbe r 20, 21 , 22, 1992
Antiquities, Fossils location. specialization. price range, and
expertise match your collecting needs. " 57" PARK PLAZA HOTEL
at keenest prices
Write for tree brochure.
Room r~r ..alions: 61 7-482·1800
Send for ilfllslrated Ii.tt
O~'er 25 years ...
P,O. Box 1127
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866-0889
NNew England's Largest Coin ShOW!!!H
Bourse space $195 and up.
Antiquities C hairman: Ed Aleo
19 Llandudno Road, Penrhyn Bay. Box 400, Winchester, MA 01 890
Gwynedd, LL30 3EP Wales Say you saw it in '11ie Cefator 6 17·729-9677

50 The Gelator
 Paid ~rtisement
THE BACK PAGE .
Dear Celator Reader:
By this time. neither Erik nor I want to think about coins,
look at coins, discuss coins, view coins, or in fact do anything
with coins. You can tell from this extreme reaction that we
have just lived through THE N.Y. INTERNATIONAl.
To say it was intense would be a vast understatement as
we started with auction viewing the Monday befOre the show,
and as of last night, the Wed. after the show, Erik was still
attending auctions. It was doubly intense for us since
besides the coin auctions held, we also follow the antiquity
auctions. So you view, go to brunches, go to cocktail parties.
attend the sales, pick up coins, and then go on to the next
auction on the list, and it seems that we did It endlessly.
How did it all go? I would be less than honest not to say
that we had some very trepldatious feelings going Into this.
The economy is still soft, the dollar is still fairly strong, and
the auctions were introducing literally millions of dollars
worth of ancients and antiquities into the marketplace, in
direct competition with the largest and most important show,
world·wide, for the sale of foreign, medieval, and classical
coins. Would it all be a disaster? Would the collectors still
show up since we had a new venue? Would the Europeans
attend? Would they buy? Would collectors have any
interest in show merchandise after all the material that was
up for auction? Would the non-U .S. market begin to show
the continued weakness of American collectorlinvestor coins?
These were all serious Questions that came to mind going
into the show-week.
Well the answers are. it was wonderful!!! We actually
managed to fit the 108 dealers in attendance into the space
that we allocated, and even though the aisles were rather
closely spaced, and in some cases, I began to forget in which
mini-bourse room, which dealer had been placed, one could
find who you were looking for and usually manage to get up
to their table, although in some cases it took a few tries. The
collect ors c ame in droves, as we had 1200 paid regis-
trations. We also had quite a number 01non-table holding
dealers come in !orlhe preview (dealer) day at $200 a pop.
The idea 01 holding a preview worked well, and this may
continue, as just about any major antique or art show has this
leature, the idea beinglhat bycoming in early, one can easily
make the entrance fee by "doing deals".
let's talk auctions lor a minute. Certain auctions imme-
diately stick in one's mind due to the material offered, the
intense bidding that took place. and the prices that were
realized. NFA had a three session sale, all 01which showed
incredible strength, with a l inal sales total 01 2.7 million.
Greek silver was hot as a pistol, but the real furious bidding
came on the fantastic European collection 01 Roman Repub-
lican & Imperatorial silver. Much of this materiai went back
to Europe as the strength shown by the Spanish and italian
dealers, all of whom were representing multi-clients was
amazing. I was told by one dealer, that lor certain coins, his
collectors told him to -buy the coin, and forget about what it
costs". On Thurs. night, Superiorsold the Bromberg Collec-
tion of Jewish coins. This was in direct competition to the
deale(s cocktail reception, being held just around the cor-
ner, so I keep going in and out olthe sale trying to keep track
of what was going on. I left my "flower" behind at the
reception. Anyway, this sale broke every price record for
every Jewish coin, in any category imaginable to make a
record 1.9 mill ion lor the 3151ot5 being offered, which makes
each lot average slightly over $6,OOO. One normally thinks
of silver denarii of the Second Revolt as being worth $450-
$600 a coin . Except in this sale, where scarce die combina-
tions made $10,000-$14 ,000 per coin. I have followed Su-
perior auctions fa r well over 15 years and I have never seen
such tenacious bidding in my life, and wonder if I will see it
yet again, next Oecember, when the second part of this
collection comes onto the marketplace.
Skipping along to the Christie's sale on Mon. morning, I
again saw something that I have never seen before. A
telephone bidder, who began to bid with the first coin offered
an aureus of Augustus and continued on to a solidus of
Constantine the G reat, and was consistently able to o.u1bid
the entire room . No matter who you were or what you bid,
this phone bidder went higher. When a European dealer
actually managed to secure a fantastic gold aureus of
Numerian for $30,000 against the phone. the room erupted
in applause. I have no idea who this mystery person was, but
he certainly caused chaos in the saleroom.
The show was excellent for us. The big problem was not
finding enough new material to buy, as what the Europeans
brought was very expensive. and did not have enough of the
-meat& potatoes" that we all need forclienls. We were busy
to the pointol exhaustion, with collectors often coming back
all three days. Well next year it will be easier for all, as it is
now official. The N.Y. Int. will move back to the newly
remodeled Sheraton-Centre and be from Dec. 8-11 , 1992.
FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY
CONTACT US AT OUR N.J. OFFICES
Show Schedule:
E.U,N, Show Orlando. Ela .. Jan, 9-12tb, at the Orange
CountyConvenlion Center on International Drive. We have
table '1020 in the newly created Foreign & Ancient section.
Usual show hours, wi th a Thurs.-Sun. show.
San Jose, CA Show. Jan. 17lh-19Ih, this show has now
moved back to the Old Convention Center (next to the Holi-
daytnn). Fri.-Sun.showwithnormalshowhoursof 10-7, 10-
4 on Sun. We will have a corner table & this is an excellent
show.
G.olden State Sho w. Pasad ena, CA, J an 31 -Feb 2nd. put
on by CSNA, COIN , NASC, & SIN excellent show, Fri.-
Sun. with many foreign & ancient dealers, we have a corner
table, & usual show hours. This is a great show to support.
Rare Coins & Classical Arts Ltd.
·Specialists in Museum Quality Coins "
Member: ANA, ANS, SAN, AINA, INS, Ex- Fellow RNS
P.O_Box 374 P_O. Box 699
South Orange, NJ 07079 Palm Desert, CA 92261
Phone: (201 ) 761-0634 Phone : (619) 345-7161
FAX: (201 ) 761-8406
January 1992 51
 INDEX OF DISPLAY
ADVERTISERS
Celator Classifieds
Ailla; Numismatics
Rates:
Album, Stephen "" $5.00 for the first 20 words, 20e each additional word.
Amphora
Ams.uem, Claude "
18, 46
Free list of Roman and Greek coins at Connoisseurs a nd romanticswilllovc
Ancient World Arts, Lid.
Antiqu1till$
Aries Photographic
"
50
50
reduced prices. Claude Lelievre. 2 Capri. Valentine Duval: an autobiography.
Athe" ... GmbH 50 Dollard-des-Ormeaux , P.Q. , Canada. The Age o f Enlightenment is brought to
AtheNer 50 H9B 212. life as the ant iquarian Duval relates his
Bank Leu lid

"""
eay State Coin Show
personal expe riences as numismatist to
Beach, 090'9" M. Dealer wants ancient Greek silver coins. Maria There sa. Send $19.95 for your
Ber k. Harlan J. Ltd .
Birld'r, Lucien & Co.
810m, Christian
Byers, C.B. Corp.
Ce<l&r~nd, Tom
Cover, 48

."
11 , 46

22
Auction prices paid withoUi the auction
wait. D. Bakke r. Box 968, Orleans. MA
02653.
hardback copy toTheCelator. P.O. Box
123. Lod;. W I 53555. (608) 592-4684.
Visa and M/C ok.
C.lator 20,43
, Computer filin g (lBM): List, Sort, Print Greek, Roman, 8yzantine coins. Free

.."
Christie's
Classical Numismatic Group Cover oul your collect ion. Easy, powerful.
CMV Numismatics, L.R. Lantz
list upon request. Reasonable prices;
Coen, Joel O. Shareware. $15 postpaid. Bob's. 100 something for any budget. Want li sts
Colosseum Coin Exchange
Cummings, John Ltd.
Davissons lid.
Oowrli,'s Coins & Collectables
Durst, Sanford J .
." Overlook, WiJlow Grove, PA 19090.

BOOKS · Anc ient history and archae-

serviced. GuyClark,c/oCANDLCoins,
373 Independence Bl vd., Vi rgi nia
Beach, VA 23462.
Economopoulos Enlerp<ise, "" o logy (no co in books) . Free list 10
Cela/or subscribers. A lbert Le ibs. Celtic - M edieval English gold , silver
"""
Elsen, Joan SA
Empire Coin s Inc. Drawer 460. Oriskany, NY 13424. for sa le . Write, Brian Yarwood,
Fagan, W. & Co.
Yarwood H:dl, Luttongate Rd., Sutton
G reater New York Numismat ic Conv ,
Hamidi.Oma' "" The other ancients : Africa, M ideast. St. Edmund, Spalding, Lincs., PEI2
Havandjian, Vike " 1.4 ,
"" In dia. Southeast Asia, the Orient. OLH, England.

.
Helios Old World Antiquities
Huston, St&ph8n M .
IAPN
29,47
, Primitive Mon ies. Books too. Free list.
Semans, Box 22849P, Seauie, WA STILL LOOKING for a special book
Imperial Coins & Antiquities
98 122. on ancient or foreign coins? We stock
Ken'!, Jonathan K.
Kovacs , Frank l. "" over 1000 different titles. Please write:
Lanz, Hubert
Laurlon Numismalics
link, Arthur J.
"" Greek, Roman, Medieval co in s.
Monthly catalogs with very reasonable
A. G. van der Dussen, Hondstraat 5.
6211 HW , Maastricht, Netherlands.
london Coin Galleries 30, 47 " prices and discou nts issued for 24 years.
Maine Classical Numismatics
Malloy, Alex G. Inc.
Maher, Joe.J & Co_ 26 , 45
"" Francis J. Rath , Box 266, Youngstown,
NY 14174.
Syrian terracotta oil lamps, 3rd 10 7th
cenlU ry A.D., completely inlact and at-
Martin. C.J. (Coins) L1d.

""
Mc Daniels, aiM
tractive. Guaranteed authentic. $35
McKenna, Thomas P. 36,47 ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN postpaid. Somewhere in Time. P.O.
Minerva
Milnzen und MfKlail len AG
M & R Co ins
"" COINS_ Quality G reek silver and
bronze at reasonable prices. Most Ro-
Box 123. Lodi. WI 53555 .

Numismalic Arch ives

Numismatic Arts 01 Santa Fe
"
50
50
man coins under $100. Conservative
Numismatic Fine Arts 5 grad ing and satisfaction guaranteed.
January 92
Numismatica ARS Classic. AG
Oracle Ancient Coins
Pega~ Coins
...
17, 49

27, 49
Individual needs catered to, and begin-
ni ng collecto rs encou raged. Free lists Trivia Answer :
upon request. D. Bakker- Ancient Coins , "The Golden Fleece"
Ptlillips, Wayn. C.
Phoenicia HoIyland Antiquities
PonterKl & Associates
"
45,50
9, 28,48
Box 968, Orleans. MA 02653.
Roge,s. Calvin J .
Ro senblum, William M.
Royal Ath&na Galle,ie s
34,49
Cove.
" If you buy or sell ancient coins or classical antiquities
Rubin. Michael
Ry .... ars.on, Paul
Sadigh Galleries
""
21, 45
You should be subscribing to the Popular Award Winning Periodical
Specializing in Ancient Numismatics and Antiquities:
Saslow. Arnold R.
Schinke. Glenn ""
Sear. Oavid R.
Shore. Fred B.
Singer, Gordon Andreas
Spink & Son, L1d.
""
"
%e Ce{ator
Stack'slCoin Galleries
Sternber9 . Frank
"
25 Offering Monthly:
Superiof Galleries
Swin Numismatic Society
n"... Machir>e Co.
""
7
32.45
• News ' Fealures • Commenlary • Book Reviews ' Coming Events'
• Letters and Notices· Display and Classified Ads ' And much more ! •
Treasule Island
Twen'e, John & Janet
Tye . Robart
""
50
ONLY $24.00 Write to:
Waddell, Edward J. L1d . 40 ,45 for twelve issues (U.S. addresses)
The Celator
Warden, William B. 19,48
Wall , Michael & Sandr. (Canada - $30, All other addresses $48, P.O. Box 123, Lodi, WI 53555
Worldwide Treasure Bureau
"" payable in U.S. funds) (608) 592-4684

52 The Cefalor
 " , ,

• A Mail Bid Auction Sale of

• BYZA NTINE COINS •
• Featuring
• BRO ZE
• SILVER
• GOLD
• Over 2,O()() Pieces from one consig nment a lon e
• (A Co ntin enta l C o ll ec ti on formed in th e 60' s and 70's)

• CLOS I NG DATE
• WEDNESDAY
• FEBRUARY 19, 1992

• SALE XIX
• Catalog ue with prices realized $10.00
• Write today
, .,.A'
....~ M ~
),.iW- "

(j) Classical Numismatic AuctiO~~;' ~ _I

Box 245, Dept. A

Quarryville, PA 17566-0245 USA
(717) 786-4013, Fax (717) 786-7954
 Gold cOins of
Exquisite Rarity & Quality
Including th ese pictured
have been so ld by us to our clients.

Can we help you?

~1)e are active 6uyers ana sef[ers of
allY ana a[[ coins, espeCla[[y gora coillS.
'J{p group is too farge or too smarr.
Private treaty• .9iuctlon repri'-,wtatwn, or our wer[
f(llOwn 'Buy or 13ia safes are avaifaMe to you for
acquisition or fiquiaation .

Our 7000 vo(ume reference fiGrary (ocate a . f m•• ~

in our store at 31 'J{prth. ((arfcStreet in {~j
Ch.icago ·s ',Jinancia( 'District is avai(aMe ~
for our dients use.

HARLAN J. BERK, LTD.

~&
31 N. Clark Street, Chicago , Illinois 60602 ._,.
• ,
,~
""'-.....
"""
~UM IS M R1ISI!
~ (312) 609-0017 FAX: (312) 609-1309 !__ '""0""
~ ~.1 ®
• #178