| Note |
Monika Bernett has pointed out that the coins dated year 34 cannot date to 31/0 since they give Augustus the title sebastos. The era must in this case be not the normal Pompeian era but a different, probably Augustan one. A. Stein [= Kushnir-Stein], Studies in Greek and Latin Inscriptions on the Palestinian Coinage under the Principate (Ph.D. thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1990), discussed Gadara on pp. 26–8, and after confirming on the basis of inscriptions and coins of Elagabalus, that year 1 = 64/3 BC, she went on (pp. 27-8): ‘Apart from a single issue all known dates conform to an era of 64 BC. The only exception is the series dated ‘year 34’ and bearing on the obverse the portrait of Augustus and the legend ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟ ΚΑΙΣΑΡΙ. The era employed cannot be that of 64 BC since by this calculation the coins would have been struck in 31/30 BC - too early a date for Octavian to be called ΣΕΒΑΣΤΟΣ (Augustus). The era in question is most probably that of 31 BC (often called ‘Actian’) used at the time by many other cities of Syria. This would date the coins to 3/4 AD. The use of the ‘Actian’ era was discontinued after the death of the first princeps. The next emission of the city - from the time of Tiberius - is dated by the city era, and so are all its subsequent issues.’
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