Watch List notes:

Syria or Judaea, Uncertain mint. Legio X Fretensis. Æ. The undertype quite worn and unidentifiable. Countermarks include LXF above boar right with dolphin between legs within rectangular incuse, and galley right within rectangular incuse. Hendin 1609 and 1612.

Legio X Fretensis was first established in 41/0 B.C. by Octavian to fight in the civil wars of the late Republic. It had a long career, its existence last noted during the 5th century A.D. The legion's original heraldic emblem was a bull, an animal sacred to Venus, but soon a galley was added to the legionary identifiers, probably after Octavian's fleet defeated that of Sextus Pompey at the Battle of Naulochus on the Strait of Messina in 36 B.C. After the battle of Actium in 31 B.C., the dolphin became an additional emblem of the legion, and later still, the boar became associated with the legion. Here we see all of the Legio X Fretensis heraldic emblems with the exception of the original bull within the countermarks, either in whole or in part. The legion went on to participate in both the famous Siege of Masada in A.D. 72, where the Jewish defenders committed mass suicide to avoid capture by the Romans, and the campaigns of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (A.D. 132-135). Howgego notes that the countermarks were applied ca. A.D. 84/5, and that the coins circulated in Jerusalem.