Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XX 29-30 Oct 2020
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Maximian Æ Reduced Sestertius. Rome, AD 285. IMP MAXIMIANVS P F AVG, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust to right / HERCVLI PACIFERO, Hercules standing facing, head to left, holding olive branch in raised right hand and club with lion skin in left hand. RIC -, cf. 532 and pl. X, 7 (same rev. die); Gnecchi III, p. 80, 26. 5.71g, 23mm, 7h.
Good Extremely Fine; beautiful dark marble-green patina. Extremely Rare; doubtless one of the finest known.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Hess-Divo AG, Auction 324, 23 October 2013; lot 80;
Ex G. L. Cornaggia Collection, Münzen & Medaillen AG Basel, Auction 13, 17-19 June 1954, lot 196;
Ex Colonel Allotte de la Fuÿe Collection, Jules Florange & Louis Ciani, 4-5 March 1925, lot 498 (part of).
When originally introduced in c. 211, the sestertius was a small silver coin valued at 1/4 of a denarius. Around 23 BC Augustus enacted a coinage reform that reintroduced the sporadically-struck sestertius as a large orichalcum (brass) coin. The distinction between brass and bronze was important; brass had been first used as a metal for currency under the reign of Mithradates VI of Pontus as a new (overvalued) financial mechanism for the state (see S. Christodoulou, The Pontic Kingdom Under Mithridates VI [2015] and T. N. Smekalova, The Earliest Application of Brass and Pure Copper in the Hellenistic Coinages of Asia Minor and the Northern Black Sea Coast [2009]) in substitute of silver, which appears to have been scarce. The Roman name for brass, orichalcum, meant gold-copper because of its shiny gold-like appearance when the coins were newly-struck (Pliny the Elder, NH 34.4).
Sestertii continued to be struck until the late 3rd century, although there was a marked deterioration in both the quality of the metal used and the production techniques. Later emperors increasingly relied on melting down older sestertii, a process which led to the zinc component being gradually lost as it boiled off in the higher temperatures needed to melt copper, being replaced instead with cheaper bronze and lead. The blanks themselves also suffered from being more crudely prepared through a mass-production method that left them more irregularly square shaped.
The usurper Postumus (AD 259-268), ruler of the breakaway Gallic Empire was the last to strike sestertii of the kind that would have been familiar to a Roman of the 1st century; by this time debasement of the currency and rampant inflation had already relegated the denarius, once the mainstay of the Roman currency, to the status of a unit of account. The sestertius, even as a denomination of 'small change', was also rapidly becoming obsolete. As the purchasing power of the notional denarius plummeted a currency crisis began to manifest itself: by the 260s the main unit of commerce was the antoninianus, which by then contained virtually no silver at all and was mostly bronze. Although these were theoretically worth eight sestertii, the average sestertius still in circulation was worth considerably more for the intrinsic value of the metal it contained. As a result vast numbers of sestertii were either withdrawn by the state to be turned into 'more valuable' antoniniani, or were melted by forgers to achieve the same.
Aurelian (AD 270-275) was the last legitimate emperor to strike sestertii for general circulation, on a greatly reduced weight standard. It seems fairly certain that even those issues were primarily commemorative in nature, much as were the silver-washed denarii, long since having outlived their commercial usefulness, also produced around this time. This very late reduced-standard sestertius, lighter even than those of Aurelian, no doubt also fulfilled some particular commemorative or ceremonial role alongside those of Diocletian given their extreme rarity today.
Good Extremely Fine; beautiful dark marble-green patina. Extremely Rare; doubtless one of the finest known.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Hess-Divo AG, Auction 324, 23 October 2013; lot 80;
Ex G. L. Cornaggia Collection, Münzen & Medaillen AG Basel, Auction 13, 17-19 June 1954, lot 196;
Ex Colonel Allotte de la Fuÿe Collection, Jules Florange & Louis Ciani, 4-5 March 1925, lot 498 (part of).
When originally introduced in c. 211, the sestertius was a small silver coin valued at 1/4 of a denarius. Around 23 BC Augustus enacted a coinage reform that reintroduced the sporadically-struck sestertius as a large orichalcum (brass) coin. The distinction between brass and bronze was important; brass had been first used as a metal for currency under the reign of Mithradates VI of Pontus as a new (overvalued) financial mechanism for the state (see S. Christodoulou, The Pontic Kingdom Under Mithridates VI [2015] and T. N. Smekalova, The Earliest Application of Brass and Pure Copper in the Hellenistic Coinages of Asia Minor and the Northern Black Sea Coast [2009]) in substitute of silver, which appears to have been scarce. The Roman name for brass, orichalcum, meant gold-copper because of its shiny gold-like appearance when the coins were newly-struck (Pliny the Elder, NH 34.4).
Sestertii continued to be struck until the late 3rd century, although there was a marked deterioration in both the quality of the metal used and the production techniques. Later emperors increasingly relied on melting down older sestertii, a process which led to the zinc component being gradually lost as it boiled off in the higher temperatures needed to melt copper, being replaced instead with cheaper bronze and lead. The blanks themselves also suffered from being more crudely prepared through a mass-production method that left them more irregularly square shaped.
The usurper Postumus (AD 259-268), ruler of the breakaway Gallic Empire was the last to strike sestertii of the kind that would have been familiar to a Roman of the 1st century; by this time debasement of the currency and rampant inflation had already relegated the denarius, once the mainstay of the Roman currency, to the status of a unit of account. The sestertius, even as a denomination of 'small change', was also rapidly becoming obsolete. As the purchasing power of the notional denarius plummeted a currency crisis began to manifest itself: by the 260s the main unit of commerce was the antoninianus, which by then contained virtually no silver at all and was mostly bronze. Although these were theoretically worth eight sestertii, the average sestertius still in circulation was worth considerably more for the intrinsic value of the metal it contained. As a result vast numbers of sestertii were either withdrawn by the state to be turned into 'more valuable' antoniniani, or were melted by forgers to achieve the same.
Aurelian (AD 270-275) was the last legitimate emperor to strike sestertii for general circulation, on a greatly reduced weight standard. It seems fairly certain that even those issues were primarily commemorative in nature, much as were the silver-washed denarii, long since having outlived their commercial usefulness, also produced around this time. This very late reduced-standard sestertius, lighter even than those of Aurelian, no doubt also fulfilled some particular commemorative or ceremonial role alongside those of Diocletian given their extreme rarity today.