Confirming Head’s Attribution

Sale: CNG 75, Lot: 798. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 23 May 2007.  Sold For $900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MACEDON, Thessalonica. Augustus, with Divus Julius Caesar. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ 21mm (7.72 g, 6h). Struck circa AD 14. QEOC, bare head of Divus Julius Caesar right / CEBACTOY QE, bare head of Augustus right. RPC I 5421 var. (Uncertain Mint; placement of rev. legend); Touratsoglou, Münzstätte Em. II (Domitian), - (V6/R2; an unlisted die combination) . Good VF, black-green patina, surfaces smoothed.

While Touratsoglou rejected Head’s attribution (BMC) to Thessalonica based on style, the die match of our coin with a type bearing that city’s ethnic, as well as the 6h axis normally associated with the coinage of Thessalonica, should conclusively place it there. Likewise, this coin must be contemporary with RPC I 1555. RPC has questioned Touratsoglou’s dating of the type to Domitian, and instead dates it to the reign of Augustus.

The reverse legend, CEBACTOY poses a potential problem. Nowhere else does RPC list such a legend, and the coinage of Thessalonica canonically includes the ethnic. A closer examination of the coin suggests that the original ethnic may have been altered to accommodate the new legend. One possible explanation could be that the dies were reused shortly after the deification of Augustus in AD 14, with the reverse ethnic removed and the new legend put in its place, with coins commemorating the new divus being struck. QE is an otherwise unknown abbreviation for QEOY, and an otherwise unnecessary one, given the plentiful amount of space on the die.