Numismatists rejoice!

[Komet]

Hello, I've been a casual reader for years but have rarely posted. In any case I have been working on a digitization project of the University of Virginia Art Museum's collection of Roman (and a handful of Greek) coins. Here's a brief description of the collection:

 

The University of Virginia Art Museum houses nearly 500 coins of Greek and Roman origin. The coins were generally acquired in small lots that were purchased or donated from 1987-2001, but larger groups of coins belonging to English hoards were also acquired, including 51 from the Normanby Hoard and 302 from the Oliver's Orchard Hoards. About 450 of the total number of coins are from the Roman Republic or Empire, providing a broad sample of coins from the late 3rd century B.C. to the late 3rd century A.D., particularly from the Crisis of the Third Century--including more than 100 coins from the breakaway Gallic Empire of A.D. 260-274.

 

 

The coins were scanned at 2000 DPI with highly specialized digital cameras and all of the high resolution images are freely available. Additionally, all of the physical and categorical characteristics of the coins have been described, allowing for a wide range of sorting, browsing, and searching capabilities. The website has been in development for about a year and is now officially public at http://coins.lib.virginia.edu . There are essays associated with some of the coins written by graduate students, but due to some Intellectual Property rights issues, I had to temporarily discontinue the link to the Essays section, but hopefully that will be resolved within the next few weeks. Other than that, my chief goal was to develop an intuitive interface that mimics the way numismatists sort data. I wanted the site to be above all a useful tool for students and scholars of numismatists. I hope you like it!

 

URL again: http://coins.lib.virginia.edu

 

-Ethan Gruber

University of Virginia

[M. Porcius Cato]

I think there must be a misidentification of one of the coins. The one attributed to Cato the Younger is dated 89 BC. But Cato the Younger was born in 95 BC, and I'm guessing he wasn't minting coins at the age of 6. More likely, the moneyer was Cato's dad, also M. Porcius Cato, but not M. Porcius Cato Uticensis.

[Komet]

Hi. Thanks for identifying the problem. It's hard to QA all 500 coins. I checked the research notes for that collection of Republican coins, and that particular coin is in fact attributed to a M. Porcius Cato, who was perhaps a wine seller. Crawford points out that it should not be confused with the father of Cato the Younger. I have made the appropriate changes to the site.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Hi. Thanks for identifying the problem. It's hard to QA all 500 coins. I checked the research notes for that collection of Republican coins, and that particular coin is in fact attributed to a M. Porcius Cato, who was perhaps a wine seller. Crawford points out that it should not be confused with the father of Cato the Younger. I have made the appropriate changes to the site.

 

What's Crawford's reason for thinking it's not the father of Cato the Younger?

[Ingsoc]

The coin of Agrippa was actually minted after 12 BC intent to commemorate his after his death.

[Komet]

What's Crawford's reason for thinking it's not the father of Cato the Younger?

 

I'm not sure. They're someone else's notes, but I doubt they're incorrect.

 

 

The coin of Agrippa was actually minted after 12 BC intent to commemorate his after his death.

 

Do you have a citation for that? If so, I'll change it.

[Ingsoc]

The coin of Agrippa was actually minted after 12 BC intent to commemorate his after his death.

 

Do you have a citation for that? If so, I'll change it.

 

Meyer Reinhold, Marcus Agrippa A Biography, The W. F. Humphrey Press: Geneva, New York 1933, pp. 131-132

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, Amici

What's Crawford's reason for thinking it's not the father of Cato the Younger?

 

I'm not sure. They're someone else's notes, but I doubt they're incorrect.

Both Crawford and TRS Broughton concluded that the father of Cato Uticencis died before DCLXIII AUC / 91 BC.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Both Crawford and TRS Broughton concluded that the father of Cato Uticencis died before DCLXIII AUC / 91 BC.

 

Great point. We could deduce this from Plutarch's biography of Cato Uticensis, which gives Cato's age when his father died. We also know the event (the Social War).

 

I wonder if the MPC on the coin minted in 89 could be attributed to one of MPCs of the Licinian --as opposed to Salonian -- line. Unfortunately, I only have the first volume of Broughton's Magistrates. Nephele?

[Nephele]

I wonder if the MPC on the coin minted in 89 could be attributed to one of MPCs of the Licinian --as opposed to Salonian -- line. Unfortunately, I only have the first volume of Broughton's Magistrates. Nephele?

 

Broughton mentions an MPC who was a Monetal, ca. 93-91 BCE (not included in Pauly-Wissowa). But... this can't be your man, can it? If the coin in question was minted in 89 BCE?

 

My 1890 edition of Smith's Dictionary, also mentions the MPC coin, but again this is confusing if, as you've already pointed out, Cato the Younger was no older than six when this coin was minted. As Smith wrote: "On the coins of the Porcia gens, we find only the names of C. Cato and M. Cato. Who the former was is quite uncertain; the latter is M. Cato of Utica." Smith provides an illustration of the MPC coin (both sides) and the reverse side of the coin in the sketch ("Victory seated") looks very much like the reverse side of the 89 BCE coin pictured on the website. The obverse of the coin in Smith's illustration and the coin on the website differ slightly, however.

 

I'm sorry, but numismatics leaves me flummoxed. Perhaps someone else with a copy of Broughton (Ingsoc?) can make more sense of this.

 

-- Nephele

[Ingsoc]

Broughton also agreed that Cato Minor father died before 91 BC.

 

The only Cato mention in 89 BC is Lucius Porcius Cato who was a Consul and died during a failed attack against the Marsi.

[Nephele]

I wonder if the MPC on the coin minted in 89 could be attributed to one of MPCs of the Licinian --as opposed to Salonian -- line. Unfortunately, I only have the first volume of Broughton's Magistrates. Nephele?

 

I did find an article titled "M. Porcius the Wine Merchant" by Robert J. Rowland, Jr. (Historia, Jun. 1969), in which the author described MPC the wine merchant as having been a wealthy Licinian cousin of MPC Uticensis, and perhaps the son of the consul of 118. Because this son had been named Marcus (like his father, the consul of 118) and had died in Gallia Narbonensis, Rowland identified him with the MPC wine merchant whose amphorae (stamped with his name) were found in Gallia Narbonensis.

 

I mention this, because Komet earlier in this thread said: "that particular coin is in fact attributed to a M. Porcius Cato, who was perhaps a wine seller." It would be interesting to know if this is the same MPC wine merchant.

 

By the way, I just want to give Komet here a hail for posting the link to the University of Virginia Art Museum's numismatics collection. Komet -- Ethan -- your digitalization project looks like a quite an amazing undertaking and certainly a useful research tool for students and scholars!

 

As I stated previously, numismatics leaves me flummoxed. So I hope, Komet/Ethan, that you'll be patient with my question: How do we know for certain that the MPC coin discussed here was minted in 89 BCE? (Barring any obvious date imprinted on the coin, of course -- which I couldn't see in the picture.) Could the coin in question possibly have been minted a couple of years earlier -- which would then coincide with the dates given by Broughton for when a Marcus Porcius Cato was serving in the office of Monetal?

 

-- Nephele

[Komet]

I wonder if the MPC on the coin minted in 89 could be attributed to one of MPCs of the Licinian --as opposed to Salonian -- line. Unfortunately, I only have the first volume of Broughton's Magistrates. Nephele?

 

I did find an article titled "M. Porcius the Wine Merchant" by Robert J. Rowland, Jr. (Historia, Jun. 1969), in which the author described MPC the wine merchant as having been a wealthy Licinian cousin of MPC Uticensis, and perhaps the son of the consul of 118. Because this son had been named Marcus (like his father, the consul of 118) and had died in Gallia Narbonensis, Rowland identified him with the MPC wine merchant whose amphorae (stamped with his name) were found in Gallia Narbonensis.

 

I mention this, because Komet earlier in this thread said: "that particular coin is in fact attributed to a M. Porcius Cato, who was perhaps a wine seller." It would be interesting to know if this is the same MPC wine merchant.

 

By the way, I just want to give Komet here a hail for posting the link to the University of Virginia Art Museum's numismatics collection. Komet -- Ethan -- your digitalization project looks like a quite an amazing undertaking and certainly a useful research tool for students and scholars!

 

As I stated previously, numismatics leaves me flummoxed. So I hope, Komet/Ethan, that you'll be patient with my question: How do we know for certain that the MPC coin discussed here was minted in 89 BCE? (Barring any obvious date imprinted on the coin, of course -- which I couldn't see in the picture.) Could the coin in question possibly have been minted a couple of years earlier -- which would then coincide with the dates given by Broughton for when a Marcus Porcius Cato was serving in the office of Monetal?

 

-- Nephele

 

Thanks for your interest in the site!

 

That's a very good question. I can't answer it for that particular coin since most of my studies have dealt more specifically with coins of the breakaway Gallic Empire than Republican coinage. However, I can address the issue more generally. Crawford undoubtedly studied thousands of coins. While it tends to be easier to date Imperial coins (because the legends tend to contain titles and years), coins without clear indicators of year can be identified by a wide study of other coins, epigraphy, and historical sources to place individual coins into a more precise context. That work is incredibly meticulous and the study of hoards often takes years. A trained numismatist can look at the details of the engraving and portraiture in order to confidently determine whether the same hand or shop is responsible for the production of different coin types. Each engraver has a particular style of engraving letters, facial features such as eyes, hair, etc. In some cases, it can be determined that the same die was used to stamp multiple coins, not just the same engraver.

 

So here's a hypothetical situation. Suppose in his studies of Republican coins, Crawford noticed that the same engraver carved the obverse of a different coin. Perhaps the reverse of that coin is a precise match to a reverse of a different coin minted at one of the shops maintained by one of the other of the three moneyers in Rome that we know from an inscription was active during the consulship of Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, which we know from other various sources was about 89 B.C. It's somewhat circular, but numismatics is the method by which most of the chronology of Roman history has been established.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Fascinating post Asclepiades. I see the argument against dating the MPC coin later than 89, but why not earlier--back to 93-91 when there was an MPC who was officially posted to mint?