top of page


Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (b. ~157 BC - d. 13 January 86 BC) was the rival of Sulla in the Roman Civil Wars between 87-80 BC. Marius was seven times...

sulla80
Feb 20, 20213 min read
434 views


Decrypting Crawford RRC
One of the cryptic codes that you can recognize in Crawford’s Roman Republican Coinage (RRC) is “RE” as for this coin in the sentence on...

sulla80
Feb 20, 20217 min read
199 views


Fun Provenance Find
The Schaefer die study pages were added not long ago to the Coinage of the Roman Republic Online.Over about 25 years, Richard Schaefer...

sulla80
Feb 20, 20212 min read
121 views


Governments of Men and Laws
With this post, I return to the Roman Republic, with a coin from Lucius Cornelius Sulla. This denarius is from Sulla's dictatorship,...

sulla80
Feb 11, 20214 min read
104 views


A 12th Century Artuqid Mash-up
Recently I've been wandering from ancient into medieval coins and this one takes me far away from the Roman republic. When I originally...

sulla80
Feb 7, 20213 min read
134 views


A Tetradrachm of Antiochus VII Euergetes
In 2002 a tetradrachm was found with an obverse die of Seleucid King Antiochus VII and a reverse die shared with a tetradrachm of...

sulla80
Feb 6, 20213 min read
224 views


Roman Baths in 7th Century
Roman Thermae at Hamat Gader, under Israeli control a few kilometers from the Jordanian border. These Springs were restored and reopened...

sulla80
Feb 6, 20213 min read
91 views


Wabi-sabi: Embracing Imperfection
Modern coin collectors often seek mint state perfection. "NGC defines a Mint State or Proof 70 (PF-70) coin as having no post-production...

sulla80
Feb 4, 20213 min read
80 views


Roman Voting Laws
This coin honors a relative of the moneyer who was responsible for voting reforms. 63 BC was an eventful year with many familiar names:...

sulla80
Jan 30, 20215 min read
165 views


Aristotle's Library and a Coin of Troas
The central figures in Raphael's fresco, "The School of Athens" are Plato and Aristotle. With gestures that reflect their body of work,...

sulla80
Jan 28, 20213 min read
116 views


A Parthian Usurper's Tetradrachm
My coin for today is an unusual tetradrachm of Parthia, from a few years after the end of the Roman republic and the beginning of the...

sulla80
Jan 21, 20213 min read
118 views


Pyrrhic Victories and Battle Elephants
Elephants must have looked like mythical monsters to the Romans when they first encountered them in battles against King Pyrrhus of...

sulla80
Jan 17, 20213 min read
108 views


EQVITI Coins of Probus
With an Antoninianus of Probus with Salus reverse I have completed a set of 6 coins with a hidden message. I first learned of this...

sulla80
Jan 15, 20214 min read
114 views


Romans in Asia Minor & Cistophori
“The cistophorus, with its writhing serpents and over-elaborate ornamentation, is perhaps the ugliest coin in the Greek series....

sulla80
Dec 31, 20207 min read
216 views


Hoards and Proserpina
Some of the most used reference books for ancient coins are not new. For Roman republican coins, RRC was published by Crawford in 1974 –...

sulla80
Dec 30, 20206 min read
80 views


Normans in Sicily
It has been a long time since my last visit to the Cloisters in NY. It is an oasis of medieval history, strangely out of place on the...

sulla80
Dec 29, 20203 min read
101 views


Crocodiles and Romans
One does not have to look far to see signs in Nîmes, France of the city's origins as a Roman colony. The crocodile chained to the palm...

sulla80
Dec 27, 20206 min read
260 views


Coins from Abdera, Thrace
This year I have explored the coins of Asia Minor or the Anatolian peninsula. Anatolia was named by the Greeks, anatolḗ means “sunrise"...

sulla80
Dec 26, 20206 min read
154 views


Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt
The mailman brought an interesting tetradrachm that highlights the detailed inspection that can be required to differentiate between...

sulla80
Dec 8, 20206 min read
279 views


Lion and Sun, გურჯი-ხათუნი
In 1237 CE, Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Kayḵosrow II became sultan when his father, Kayqubad I (1219-1237 CE), died. He would reign until his death in...

sulla80
Dec 5, 20206 min read
164 views
bottom of page