RPC I, 4084A

 

Image of specimen #4

 

Coin type
Volume I
Number 4084A
Province Syria
Region Cilicia
City Uncertain Caesarea(s)
Reign Claudius
Issue Year 3
Obverse inscription ΚΑΙϹΑΡΕΩΝ
Obverse design bust of Apollo, with bow and quiver behind shoulder, right
Reverse inscription ΕΤΟΥϹ Γ
Reverse design tripod
Metal copper-based alloy
Average diameter 16 mm
Axis 1, 12
Specimens 8 (1 in the core collections)
Note 1-2 were listed in Supplement I as S-3658A, with coins of Caesarea in Cappadocia; but K. Butcher (NC 2011, pp. 75-6) has made a plausible link with the year 3 coins of an ‘uncertain Caesarea’ (RPC 4984). 3 was recorded with a large group of coins mainly from eastern Cilicia, of Tarsus, Anazarbus, Mallus, Hierapolis, Aegeae etc., and the lot included a specimen of RPC I 4086, ‘Uncertain Casarea’, of year 5. Butcher suggests that an attribution of the coin to the ‘Uncertain Caesarea(s)’ of eastern Cilicia under Claudius may therefore seem preferable to Caesarea in Cappadocia, and that it constitutes a smaller denomination accompanying RPC I 4084. See now B. Tahberer, A Series of Coins from an Uncertain Caesarea, NC 175, 2015, pp. 47-55 where it is argued with good arguments, mostly stylistic, that these series were struck at Mopsus between AD 45/6 and AD 50/1, during a period Mopsus called itself Caesarea, though “one can only speculate as to why the change was so short-lived” (p. 53).
Addition Additional coin-type (post publication)

Specimens of this coin type

Number Number Museum Bibliography
1 1     L: 1995,0605.97 ex Thackray
2 2     Bern B. Kapossy, Römische Provinzialmünzen aus Kleinasien in Bern (Milan, 1995) no. 182
3 3     NC 171 (2011), pp. 75–6
4 4     ✸ Gorny & Mosch 160, 8 Oct. 2007, lot 2019
5 5     Henseler 92, ex Münzzentrum 135, 2007, lot 1021
6 6     Henseler 91
7 7     Biga Numismatics EA 16, 18 Feb. 2023, lot 177
8 8     Roma Numismatics EA 109, 11 May 2023, lot 461