Редки монети на Пауталия
Rare coins of Pautalia
Abstract
The work presents a couple of coins of Pautalia from the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology. Most of them have not any analogue in the bibliography accessible to me. The emissions of the ancient city are distinguished in their great variety and many variants of the iconographic types on the reverses regardless of the relatively short period of work of the city mint – from Antoninus Pius (138 – 161) to Caracalla (198 – 217).
The coin of Marcus Aurelius (161 – 180) bearing the name of Q. Tullius Maximus is the earliest one in chronological terms. Its reverse displays Nike in a biga, in a calm move to the right – an iconographic type known from emissions of Lucius Verus with the name of the same legatus. However, coins of Marcus Aurelius with this same reverse type have not been known. Only the Roman Provincial Coinage online Project includes a photograph of gypsum cast of the coin from the Archaeological museum in Sofia without any of the metric features.
The next coin is from the time of Commodus (176 – 192), the only one of a small denomination among the pieces here in question. Its reverse displays an eagle on an altar cylindrical in shape. There are additional representations on both sides of the eagle but they cannot be determined with certainty because of the poor state of the coin. Most probably they are military flags or trees.
The last coin belongs to Geta (209 – 212) struck after he was proclaimed for Augustus in 209. Its reverse bears Ares, one of the deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon appearing relatively rarely on the provincial coins in Thrace. Until now images of Ares on coins of Pautalia have been known only from emissions of Caracalla (198 – 217).
The appearance of iconographic types known so far from emissions of only one of the emperors reigning together as Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus or Caracalla and Geta, on emissions in the name of the other one shows that most – if not all of the reverse types from a period were struck on coins with the names of both emperors.
