Officina mintmarks of the Roman emperors Diocletian and
Maximiman at Siscia (289-290 AD)
Late
Roman coins were minted at numerous mints and each mint was subdivided
into "officinae" (plural, "officina" singular)-- workshops that were
more or less separate. On one occasion, in 289-290 AD, the officina
number was marked on coins in a unique way.
At first glance, the Diocletian antoninianus to the left is not special
except for condition. Read on to find out what makes the mintmark truly
unusual.
Sometimes the coins do not indicte the officina number explicitly. For
example, we know that under under Severus Alexander, 222-235 AD, the
mint had six officinae but the coins do not show officinae marks.
However, at other times, the officinae are clearly distinguished by
marks on the coin. For example, under Philip his well-known series of
animal types for the Saecular games of 248 AD (commeorating the 1000th
anniversary of Rome's founding) has six officinae clearly numbered I,
II, III, IIII, V, and VI in the exergue (the numerals are prominent
below the line on which the animals stand).
By the time of Diocletian officina marks are a regular part of the
mintmark. However, at Siscia in 289-290 they took on an unusual form on
one issue. To understand and decypher them some of the history is essential.
Diocletian promoted Maximian to co-emperor in 286. Diocletian proceeded
to identify himself with Jupiter (Jove) and Maximian with Hercules. In
history books they are sometimes called by these titles, the Jovian
(Iovian) and Herculian emperors, and Maximian is sometime called
"Herculius." These titles become part of the mintmarks at Siscia
for a short time.
Siscia had 3 officinae, commonly denoted with the first three Greek
letters, A, B, and Γ (alpha, beta, and gamma), marked clearly on
the coins. For some reason they decided to, in addition,
use the Jovian and Herculian titles to repeat that information by
dividing each name into three parts and assigning the first part to A,
the second to B, and the third to Γ. Here are six coins
illustrating the six combinations -- each emperor from each of the
three officianae.
Jove = IOVI = IOBI = I / O / BI
Hercules = HRKOYΛI = HR / KOY /
ΛI
Click on images to double their sizes.
Diocletian
XXI ° I° with A, for the first officina, in the
left field
The "XXI" is the normal mark of the denomination.
The "I" begins the spelling of IOVI = IOBI in Greek.
The reverse type of each Diocletian
piece is CONSERVATOR AVGG, emperor standing right and Jupiter standing left, each holding
a patera in his right hand over a flaming altar on a tripod and a
vertical scepter in his left.
Diocletian
XXI O
The O is the middle letter in "IOBI"
The B is in the right field
Diocletian
º XXI ° BI °
The BI is the final part of "IOBI"
Γ, for the last officina, is in the left field
Maximian
XXI A HP, with the A following XXI
and not in the field as in the previous examples.
The HP is the first part of Hercules = HRKOYΛI
The reverse type of each Maximian
piece is CONSERVATOR AVGG (the same legend as for Diocletian), emperor
standing right and Hercules
standing left, each holding a patera in his
right hand over a flaming altar on a tripod. The emperor has a vertical
scepter in
his left hand and Hercules rests his left arm on his club.
Maximian
°XXI KOY
The KOY is the middle part of Hercules = HRKOYΛI
B in left field
Maximian
XXI Γ ΛI
Γ is the last officina and ΛI is the last part of Hercules
= HRKOYΛI
RIC (volume V, part II) lists
many varieties, with the main officina letter in various places and
with and without dots in the exergual legend. These six pieces show the
six major combinations.
I salute the researcher who figured out what the Romans were
doing as Siscia with these odd mintmarks. Gert Boersema states in an
article on "The
translation of the codewords AEQVITI,
IOBI and HPKOYΛI"
(footnote 8) that it was discovered by Von Kolb in Vienna and who
published it in 1872. It was already known to the author of RIC V (page
211), Percy
Webb, in 1927.
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Greek and Roman Coins.
