Sale: CNG 70, Lot: 641. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 21 September 2005.  Sold For $358. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

[Roman Imperatorial] JULIUS CAESAR. 49-48 BC. AR Denarius (3.55 g, 10h). Military mint traveling with Caesar. Elephant walking right, trampling on horned serpent / Simpulum, sprinkler, axe (surmounted by a wolf's head), and priest's hat; c/m: MP VES (retrograde) in incuse rectangle. Crawford 443/1; CRI 9; Sydenham 1006; RSC 49; for c/m: Howgego 839 and Pangerl 100. Coin: Fair, toned, flan slightly bent from countermark; c/m: VF. A bold Vespasian countermark. ($200)

A denarius of Vespasian (Classical Numismatic Group 45 [18 March 1998], lot 1965), dated to the emperor's fourth consulship (72-73 AD) and countermarked MP VES, suggests a starting date of 74 AD for this countermark's use. This countermark appears mostly on late Republican and Imperatorial denarii, although denarii of Augustus and denarii of the Flavians struck at Ephesus are also recorded. Like the stylistically similar IMP VES AVG countermark (see lots 867, 988, 1001, and 1015 below), which appears on cistophoric tetradrachms and dates to 74-79 AD, the MP VES countermarks circulated specifically within the province of Asia Minor. Martini noted that the output of silver coinage in relation to the civic bronze for this region was much smaller during the Julio-Claudian period. This suggests the denarii were countermarked to validate locally circulating silver coinage at an acceptable weight while the regional mints opened by Vespasian were gearing up production, a theory which the countermarking of cistophori with the contemporary MP VES AVG countermarks seems to support. The extremely rare cistophorus of Vespasian (RPC II 859) and the possibility that other Flavian cistophori were imported from Rome, further suggests that once the mint at Ephesus was fully operational, its only silver output was denarii. The similarly countermarked Flavian denarii struck at Ephesus can be accounted for then as examples accidentally countermarked by unobservant mint workers during the transition.