guy

I've watched the first couple episodes. So far, so good. guy also known as gaius

This is a link to the excellent review article by David Vagi from NGC Ancients: http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?NewsletterNewsArticleID=1152 I found the article very helpful. guy also known as gaius

I was going to write a post on the series, too. I enjoy historical series if they have any semblance of reality. This helps me slog through non-fiction books about the period. Correctly or not, it helps me keep the true historical characters of any time period straight in my simple mind. Anyway, the series looks interesting. It might rekindle my interest in renaissance Italy. http://www.sho.com/site/borgias/home.sho (You can watch the first episode through the above link or click below.) http://www.sho.com/site/order/preview.do#/Borgias_s01_e01 guy also known as gaius

Well, at least both Noricum and Pannonia were partially in Austria. I've always been confused by ferrum noricum, however. If I read correctly, the iron in that region naturally contains manganese, which creates an alloy steel that is harder than the usual pure iron. This explains the popularity of the iron from that region. (I think even the Roman physician Galen mentioned a preference for scalpels made from ferrum noricum.) Is my understanding correct? http://www.alpine-space.org/uploads/media/IRONROUTE_Abstract_of_the_research_activities_WP5_PP3.pdf guy also known as gaius

No society exists in a vacuum. Remember, those areas of the Arabic Empire had previously been part of a greater Greco-Roman and Parthian-Sassanian axis of intellectual and cultural achievement. These ancient cultures and their intellectual traditions were subsumed by a conquering military force and its ideology. Did these ancient traditions and driving intellectual forces immediately disappear with the advent of a new ideology? Of course they didn’t.

It is, definitely. You didn't comment on my initial guesses of Carus or Decius (from post #481). guy also known as gaius

I still think it was one of the "third century crisis" emperors. Interestingly, it was only through numismatic evidence that historians were able to determine the images of many otherwise obscure emperors. They were able to match up the images on coins with unidentified busts. guy also known as gaius

Am I in the correct time period? Let me add Gordian I to the list of possibilities. guy also known as gaius

This might help to confirm Pliny's statement: This was written by Pliny the Elder and published between AD 77-79. If this coin traveled to India around that time, it is a nice confirmation of Pliny's statement. guy also known as gaius

Although it is always good to hear the non-Roman perspective, parts of the series are both sheer fantasy and sensationalistic. Jones, for example, insists on telling us that the Sassanians, who supplanted the weakened Parthians as a result of Roman aggression, were less culturally developed and more brutish than their Parthian successor. Oh, how simplisitic...and wrong. Not surprising, however, he fails to make the same criticism about the successors to the Sassanian Empire, the Arabs. Interestingly, it was the bloody and enervating conflicts with the Roman and later Byzantine Empire that weakened the Sassanian Empire and that led to its eventual decline and collapse. But let us not discuss that. It might upset some people's sensibilities. guy also known as gaius

I have missed this thread before, but I was intrigued by the bust. I'm sorry I missed the answer. Looks like one of the third century of crisis emperors. Two sons? Carus or Decius? Both of those emperors (like most the emperor busts of that century) have a scruffy beard and a worried look with the furrowed brow. And no wonder: Life expectancy for most emperors of the third century was very short. Decius: Carus: So who did everyone decide that this bust was? guy also known as gaius

Don't forget to look at the numismatic sources of Augustan art and propaganda: http://www.dirtyoldcoins.com/roman/id/Coins-of-Roman-Emperor-Augustus.htm guy also known as gaius

Well, I saw the movie. Despite the many historical inaccuracies and moments of pure fantasy (and there were many)...I liked the movie. The medical scenes could have been better portrayed, also. That said, I liked the film because it gave more than a Romanocentric view of the interactions between Rome and the indigenous populations. It also went beyond depicting the non-Romanized peoples as merely "noble savages." The movie gives a potential perspective from the invaded indigenous peoples, creating a more balanced picture of the relationship and tensions between Romans and indigenous peoples. (We never got the Germanic tribes' perspective in the movie Gladiator, for example. We just saw the Germanic tribes as giant brutish barbarians, with no attention paid to the Germanic tribes' motivations or grievances.) My inner-Scotsman and Roman enjoyed the movie. Question for the group: How far away are the mountain scenes of Scotland in the movie from Hadrian's Wall? (I assume they were filmed in Scotland, although parts of the movie were filmed in Hungary.) guy also known as gaius

I certainly enjoy a good discussion. First, the "Gracchi" coin refers to the possible moneyer (the person who physically makes the coin), but does not have the image of the any of the Gracchi. Interestingly, the coin description is incorrect: http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=416217 The reverse appeared with Rome's first gold coin minted during the darkest hours of the second Punic War: We discussed the significance of this image on a previous post: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11283 The obverse of the coin is an image of Mars, not one of the Gracchi brothers. Second, all the coins minted in Rome with a living human portrait were made after the infamous Julius Caesar coin. Once the taboo against portraits was broken, coins portrayed various images of Romans. (Note the dates of the coin in your post.) The Sulla coin is almost an exception to rule: http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=3999 Although the obverse of the coin is an image of a helmeted Roma, on the reverse of the coin Of great significance was that this coin was probably made by a traveling mint outside of Rome. Even Sulla had a limit to his ego. guy also known as gaius

Not being a coin collector, I'm not writing this with any authority. First, there was no "Gracchi" coin. Portraits of living Romans didn't begin until Julius Caesar and we all know what happened to him. (The one notable exception was the Roman General Flamininus 150 years before on coins minted in Greece.) Second, your older Roman Republican coin was relatively pure silver. After Gordian III in AD 240, the increasingly debased denarius would have been replaced by an increasingly debased double-denarius (antoninianus) and later, the billon "radiate coin" also called an aurelianianus. Later coins had a lower and lower amount of silver until they were only coated with a trace amount of silver wash (less than 5% silver). So if your merchant were savvy enough, he would recognize the coin's inherent value despite the coin's no longer being seen in circulation (as a result of coin hoarding and its demonitization). guy also known as gaius Source of the last graph: Brown, Augustus. (undated booklet) The Financial Collapse of the Roman Coinage in the 3rd Century A.D. 20 pp. 1 plate. Published by Augustus Brown, Kyrenia, Kingston, Canterbury, Kent. extracted from an article Crisis of the Third Century by Hugh Kramer at the Ancient Coin Club of Los Angeles site. http://www.accla.org/actaaccla/kramer.html#Brown, Augustus

Thank you for reading my post and responding. Being neither a coin-expert nor British, I might be wrong on this one...but that never stopped me from commenting before. You are correct that the image of Britannia is no longer used on coins meant for circulation. I, too, miss the classic image of Britannia on British coins. The more modern image of Britannia is still used on bullion coins, however. These are coins are collected for their precious metal content (gold or silver, for example) and are not meant for general circulation. I admit that I'm slowly warming up to the more modern version of Britannia. See the coins above and the last three coins from my initial post. Here is an interesting article on the subject: http://www.coinlink.com/News/world-coins/royal-mint-unveils-new-britannia-coin-design/

Although I am not a coin-collector, I am always interested in the messages coins attempt to convey, whether it is one of national culture and mythology or one of official government propaganda. When looking at my daughter

Alhtough I can't comment on your point about Roman sculpture, I have to agree that Professor Garland's course is a great one, one of the best that the company has to offer. I feel that this particular course is sort of the "graduate level" course of all the numerous Ancient courses offered by The Teaching Company. guy also known as gaius

Thank you for reading and responding to my post. I agree that Suetonius, a Flavian apologist, must be approached skeptically as he had an agenda and he wrote this rendition of events more than a century after they occured. Cassius Dio, who wrote after Suetonius, at least seems to agree with Suetonius about many aspects of this story. I agree, however, that we should approach with caution any source and not accept it as unbiased dogma. I have written several times before on this forum about my skepticism concerning other long held "truths," including: http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11470 http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10381 guy also known as gaius

Most of us know that Augustus was a sickly man. Surprisingly, he lived nearly 77 years. But what were the maladies he suffered? Suetonius gives us some insight. Writing more than a century after Augustus' death, Suetonius describes Augustus' health in his sometimes scurrilous Lives of the Caesars. [My comments are listed below]: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/suet-augustus-rolfe.html LXXX. It is said that his body was covered with spots and that he had birthmarks scattered over his breast and belly, corresponding in form, order and number with the stars of the Bear in the heavens [ursa Major, aka "the Big Dipper"]; 1 also numerous callous places resembling ringworm, caused by a constant itching of his body and a vigorous use of the strigil.2 He was not very strong in his left hip, thigh, and leg, and even limped slightly at times; but he strengthened them by treatment with sand and reeds. He sometimes found the forefinger of his right hand so weak, when it was numb and shrunken with the cold, that he could hardly use it for writing even with the aid of a finger-stall of horn. He complained of his bladder too, and was relieved of the pain only after passing stones in his urine. 3 LXXXI. In the course of his life he suffered from several severe and dangerous illnesses, especially after the subjugation of Cantabria [23 B.C.], when he was in such a desperate plight from abscesses of the liver, that he was forced to submit to an unprecedented and hazardous course of treatment. Since hot fomentations gave him no relief, he was led by the advice of his physician Antonius Musa to try cold ones. 4 He experienced also some disorders which recurred every year at definite times; for he was commonly ailing just before his birthday; and at the beginning of spring he was troubled with an enlargement of the diaphragm, and when the wind was in the south, with catarrh. 5 Hence his constitution was so weakened that he could not readily endure either cold or heat. My footnotes and comments: 1. I'm not sure exactly what these "birthmarks" were. They could have been cafe au lait spots, a benign pigmentation (first picture) or , more likely, nevi or moles (second picture). 2. A classic description of eczema. This is a recurrent itchy rash made worse by scratching or rubbing (with a strigel, for example). Typical pictures of eczema, "resembling ringworm:" Strigil used to bath and scratch oneself: 3. Bladder or kidney stones can be quite painful. Treatment and removal in the Ancient world is unimaginable. 4. Antonius Musa was Augustus' personal physician (and my avatar). In 23 BCE Augustus suffered a near fatal illness. Musa achieved great fame and wealth by "curing" Augustus with cold baths and cold moist compresses. It was during this illness that Augustus signaled Agrippa (his friend and general) to be his heir-apparent over Marcellus (his nephew) by giving Agrippa his signet ring on his sickbed. Musa was not successful in later treating Marcellus who died shortly after Augustus' recovery. Horace also writes about Musa's cold bath treatment. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/53*.html http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/HoraceEpistlesBkIEpXV.htm#BkIEpXV1 5. Catarrh is an old medical term. Catarrh is defined as an inflammation of any mucous membrane which results in a thick mucus production of the membrane. Hay fever is the result of the mucous membrane of the eyes and air passages being inflamed, for example. Catarrh of the nasal mucous membrane is known as rhinitis (stuffy nose). Asthma is another form of catarrh and is the congestive swelling of the bronchial mucous membranes. Catarrha symptoms would be more frequent during the spring with dust or pollen in the air, made worse by the winds. People with eczema also frequently have asthma and hay fever. Apparently, Augustus suffered from all these things. Although very different from us in many ways, people of antiquity suffered many of the same medical ailments we commonly face today. They did not benefit from many of the simple treatments and pain reliefs we have today, however. It is hard to imagine the possible level of pain and suffering endured on a daily basis by people of the Ancient world. guy also known as gaius

A nice selection of Judaean coins by David Vagi at NGC-Ancients: http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?NewsletterNewsArticleID=1044 And Josh Illingworth examines the coins of the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132-135): http://www.ngccoin.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?NewsletterNewsArticleID=1487&utm_source=enews&utm_medium=enews&utm_campaign=ngc_enews_12_2011 Nice review of the coins of Pontius Pilate: http://www.numismalink.com/fontanille1.html guy also known as gaius

One has to love those modern Roman manhole covers: guy also known as gaius

Since you asked (from acsearch.info): http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=5194 Thank you, Maty, for your input. guy also known as gaius

Here is the latest example I can find so far. It is on a coin of Constantine I (Image from Wildwinds.com): Constantine I AE3. 312-313 AD. IMP CONSTANTINVS PF AVG, laureate, cuirassed bust right / SPQR OPTIMO PRINCIPI, legionary eagle between two vexilla, R P in ex. Cohen 558. guy also known as gaius

First, thank you for reading my post. A couple things on the issue of coins in jewelry. First, once a coin is placed in jewelry, the numismatic value of the coin is destroyed. I've seen some beautiful and expensive coins ruined once they were placed in jewelry. Second, the coins (and thus, the jewelry) are usually overpriced. I recommend finding the coin more inexpensively from a reputable site (such as forumancientcoins.com) and having your own jewelry made. Third, (and here comes the numismatic heresy), I think a coin in jewelry can be a beautiful piece of art. I've seen a professor of the Classics wear a ring with an authentic ancient coin and it was rather impressive. Such a piece of jewelry would certainly be a source of conversation and a potential teaching tool. Remember that many, many beautiful authentic Ancient coins can be purchased relatively cheaply. (Just because a coin is old does not make it expensive.) guy also known as gaius