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sulla80
Jun 26, 20213 min read
Where to start and end?
The question often posed by family members caught up with me this morning: "Is your collection done?" A fair question, but not one I have...
67 views
sulla80
Apr 27, 20215 min read
The Temple on Mt. Eryx
In the second major battle of the second Punic wars, the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, defeated the Romans on Lake Trasimene. Quintus...
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sulla80
Apr 13, 20215 min read
Not the Usual "12 Caesars"
Suetonius is responsible for setting the 12-Caesars benchmark that all ancient coin collectors have to live with. There are other sets...
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sulla80
Apr 5, 20212 min read
Sulla's Warning
I guess I like this coin from the time of Sulla's dictatorship as I have all three varieties identified by Crawford: 1a, 1b, and 1c...the...
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sulla80
Mar 30, 20215 min read
FRVGI, Father & Son
Here are five coins from father and son, the last one a coin that just arrived today. The denarius of the father, from the time of the...
123 views
sulla80
Mar 28, 20215 min read
Roman Provinces & Corruption
Gate to the agora (assembly place) of ancient Kibyra I think it is only fair to offer caution that this thread wanders a bit far from...
110 views
sulla80
Mar 13, 20213 min read
Europa
My first coin today is a Syro-Phoenician Tetradrachm of Caracalla, from Sidon with Europa on the reverse. Sidon is named for King Sidon...
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sulla80
Mar 7, 20212 min read
Roman Political Career Paths
This coin prompted a bit of exploration of the cursus honorem, the ladder of a political career in ancient Rome. It also added the word...
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sulla80
Feb 27, 20214 min read
Of Sulla and Apollo
Marius and Sulla tore at the fabric of the Roman republic with their personal ambitions which led to civil wars for the Roman Republic in...
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sulla80
Feb 20, 20213 min read
Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (b. ~157 BC - d. 13 January 86 BC) was the rival of Sulla in the Roman Civil Wars between 87-80 BC. Marius was seven times...
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sulla80
Feb 20, 20217 min read
Decrypting Crawford RRC
One of the cryptic codes that you can recognize in Crawford’s Roman Republican Coinage (RRC) is “RE” as for this coin in the sentence on...
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sulla80
Feb 20, 20212 min read
Fun Provenance Find
The Schaefer die study pages were added not long ago to the Coinage of the Roman Republic Online.Over about 25 years, Richard Schaefer...
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sulla80
Feb 11, 20214 min read
Governments of Men and Laws
With this post, I return to the Roman Republic, with a coin from Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This denarius is from Sulla's dictatorship,...
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sulla80
Jan 30, 20215 min read
Roman Voting Laws
This coin honors a relative of the moneyer who was responsible for voting reforms. 63 BC was an eventful year with many familiar names:...
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sulla80
Jan 28, 20213 min read
Aristotle's Library and a Coin of Troas
The central figures in Raphael's fresco, "The School of Athens" are Plato and Aristotle. With gestures that reflect their body of work,...
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sulla80
Jan 17, 20213 min read
Pyrrhic Victories and Battle Elephants
Elephants must have looked like mythical monsters to the Romans when they first encountered them in battles against King Pyrrhus of...
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sulla80
Dec 31, 20207 min read
Romans in Asia Minor & Cistophori
“The cistophorus, with its writhing serpents and over-elaborate ornamentation, is perhaps the ugliest coin in the Greek series....
204 views
sulla80
Dec 30, 20206 min read
Hoards and Proserpina
Some of the most used reference books for ancient coins are not new. For Roman republican coins, RRC was published by Crawford in 1974 –...
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sulla80
Dec 27, 20206 min read
Crocodiles and Romans
One does not have to look far to see signs in Nîmes, France of the city's origins as a Roman colony. The crocodile chained to the palm...
239 views
sulla80
Nov 26, 20205 min read
The Gracchi Brothers and Social Reforms
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, by Joseph-Benoît Suvée (1795, Louvre), Public Domain image from the wikipedia. Cornelia was the daughter...
416 views
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