Ex Dattari Collection

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 539. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Domitius Domitianus. Usurper, AD 297-298. BI Octodrachm (24mm, 15.05 g, 12h). Dated RY 2 (AD 297/8). DOMITI ANOC CEB, radiate head right; all within pelleted border / Serapis advancing right, cradling scepter in left arm and raising right hand in greeting; palm to left, LB (date) to right. Köln 3367; BMC 2623; Dattari (Savio) 10830 (this coin); Milne 5245 corr. (tetradrachm) = Emmett 4241. EF, brown patina with lighter green deposits.

Ex Dattari Collection, 10830.

The revolt of Domitius Domitianus in Egypt destabilized a vitally strategic region by interrupting the grain supply to Rome and opening the possibility of Persian (Sasanian) invasion. For almost a year, Domitius Domitianus controlled Alexandria and its mint, striking there, in addition to aurei, and folles which contained an eagle on the reverse, a series of pre-reform imperial Greek denominations. A major question regarding these latter coins has been what were their specific values. For the most part, scholars agree that the larger coins featuring the radiate bust must be a double, and thereby call it an octodrachm. At half the weight, then, the smallest coins with the Nike on the reverse must be tetradrachms, though these coins have erroneously been called heretofore didrachms. The weights of these tetradrachms appear consistent with the final issues of pre-reform tetradrachms of the Tetrarchs. The middle denomination poses the largest challenge to this arrangement. By weight, it should be a hexadrachm. However, no such denomination was known to have been struck in Egypt, though tetradrachms earlier in the third century achieved this weight. The obvious problem here would be the confusion caused in circulating the same denomination in two different weights. As this type is the rarest of the group, it is possible that it was meant for a special occasion, or more remotely, a stalled attempt to reinstitute the pre-reform coinage on an earlier weight standard. Further investigation may shed more light on this subject.