Finally: a type I've wanted for years!

[DonnaML]

1 hour ago, MrMonkeySwag96 said:

Probably one of the more interesting reverse types on Imperial denarii.

It seems to be a throwback to a Republic denarius of M. Volteius depicting Cybele riding a lion biga 

Indeed! Here's mine:

 

[Sol_Invictus]

I have nothing relevant to show, but just wanted to mention that I always appreciate the thorough and detailed investigations that you present for your coins @DonnaML. I learned a lot reading through this discussion!

[Roman Collector]

On 9/17/2024 at 6:10 PM, DonnaML said:

May I ask why? It seemed to me that 209 made more sense. But, as always, I'm very pleased to see your specimen again!

An error! Not paying enough attention to detail when posting. It makes the most sense given the plural AVGG that it was made during the period when both Geta and Caracalla held the title of Augustus, but the AVGG could have referred to Severus and Caracalla alone. 

[DonnaML]

5 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

An error! Not paying enough attention to detail when posting. It makes the most sense given the plural AVGG that it was made during the period when both Geta and Caracalla held the title of Augustus, but the AVGG could have referred to Severus and Caracalla alone. 

Thanks, @Roman Collector. I suppose you're right that the AVGG could have referred to Severus and Caracalla alone, but doesn't the combination with MATER, making the legend MATER AVGG, mean "Mother of the Augusti"? Julia Domna may have looked older than her years in her official portraits, but she wasn't Severus's mother!

Also, I searched for the legend "MATER AVGG" in OCRE, and this was apparently the only Imperial issue ever to use that legend, consisting of five coins: the aureus, sestertius, dupondius, as, and denarius. Does that perhaps suggest that the legend was used to commemorate a special occasion? If so, it certainly makes sense that the elevation of Geta to Augustus status in AD 209 would have been an appropriate occasion to use it.

Entirely separately, am I right to think that this specimen of the denarius held by the ANS, acquired in 1941, might be at least a reverse die match to mine?

The ANS Specimen:

https://numismatics.org/collection/1941.131.882

My specimen:

Edited September 19 by DonnaML

[thejewk]

Beautiful example of a type I hadn't taken enough time to look at properly before now. It's so easy in a sea of coin types to gloss over them, and then be surprised when you really look.

[Coinmaster]

1 hour ago, DonnaML said:

but doesn't the combination with MATER, making the legend MATER AVGG, mean "Mother of the Augusti"?

Yes Donna, I agree. This relates to both Geta and Caracalla as augusti.

Your coin type from Julia Domna is on my list too, after reading about it in this publication. I'm sure you like it, see pages 473-474 for your coin.
See also page 204 via this publication and page 253 via this publication. Enjoy your nice coin!

Edited September 19 by Coinmaster

[DonnaML]

On 9/19/2024 at 4:18 PM, Coinmaster said:

Yes Donna, I agree. This relates to both Geta and Caracalla as augusti.

Your coin type from Julia Domna is on my list too, after reading about it in this publication. I'm sure you like it, see pages 473-474 for your coin.
See also page 204 via this publication and page 253 via this publication. Enjoy your nice coin!

Thank you, @Coinmaster! I found the articles you linked to be very interesting, not only for what they say about the date of my new coin.

I have added a citation to one of the articles to the footnote to the write-up of my coin, because it directly supports what seems to me to be the more sensible interpretation of the "MATER AVGG" legend as it relates to the date of the type:

See Riccardo Bertolazzi, “Julia Domna and her Divine Motherhood: A Re-examination of the Evidence from Imperial Coins,” The Classical Journal  114.4 (2019) 464–486 at p. 473 & n. 44 (other footnotes omitted):

"After 205, a new type dedicated to Cybele was also minted. As in the case of the MATER DEVM types issued a few years before, it was struck in all denominations. The Anatolian mother goddess, however, was now depicted while driving a chariot pulled by four lions (Fig. 6). This scene had already appeared on medallions struck for Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, but no comparisons in the coinage of both earlier and later imperial women are known. 

Furthermore, a new legend, MATER AVGG, replaced MATER DEVM, suggesting a much stronger identification of the goddess with Domna, who was now explicitly portrayed as the universal mother of the gods, nature and human sphere.44

44 Morelli (2009) 140. Cf. also Ghedini (1984) 136–7; Mikocki (1995) 74; Filippini (2010) 88. Hill (1977) 23 dates this type to 205, but it seems more correct to refer the title mater Augustorum to the years 209–11, when Geta was also elevated to the rank of Augustus (Lusnia (1995) 132; Filippini (2010) 91). The identification between Domna and Cybele is rejected by Lichtenberger (2011) 355–7, who argues that mater Augustorum should be rather interpreted as a reference to Cybele as mother/protectress of the two Augusti Severus and Caracalla. However, the argument that would support this reconstruction, i.e. that the type cannot be precisely dated to 209–11, seems far from being decisive. If Lichtenberger were correct, one may wonder why Cybele as mater Augustorum appears only on Domna’s coins, and not on those minted for Severus, Caracalla and Geta (as Nadolny (2016) 54 also observes)."

(Emphasis added.)

[Gallienus]

Very nice Donna.  So they finally talked you into the Leaderboard on nVmisForvms.   It's old Gallienus from CoinTalk: now Gallienus here too.  Your Julia Domna looks wonderful.  I am also chasing a coin of her: will post if I get it. 

[Valentinian]

@Coinmaster wrote  "Your coin type from Julia Domna is on my list too, after reading about it in this publication."

That publication has a mistake on page 473, Figure 6, where a gorgeous coin with MATER AVGG (AVGG in exergue) and a quadriga of lions (much like the coin of @DonnaML) is called a denarius when it is actually an aureus (that hammered for $4500.) 

Edited October 11 by Valentinian
Attributed the quote