★ Apparantly Unpublished ★

PESCENNIUS NIGER ( 193-194). Fourrée Aureus. Obv: IMP CΛES C PESC NIGERIVS T COS II. Laureate Head. Rev: SPES PVBLICA, Spes advancing left, holding lily flower in right hand and raising hem of stola with left. Unique Type. Condition: Extremely Fine Weight: 7.45 g. Diameter: 20 mm. The coins of Pescennius Niger, who briefly claimed the title of Augustus against Septimius Severus, are surprisingly varied for having been struck during so brief a reign. In the earlier part of the 20th century it was generally believed that all of Niger’s imperial aurei and denarii probably emanated from Antioch. Even so, there were lingering doubts about Antioch being the mint for the aurei now attributed to Alexandria, all of which have reverse inscriptions ending with P P.Thanks to a larger group of material available to study, as well as some fortuitous, individual discoveries, it can now be confirmed that Niger struck his imperial coinages at Antioch, Alexandria and at Caesarea in Cappadocia. In 1946 Thomas O. Mabbott published a pioneering article ‘On the coinage of Pescennius Niger’ in which he proposed that some of Niger’s denarii were issued at Caesarea. Later studies of this topic have been published by, among others, Nony in Latomus in 1971, van Heesch in 1978, and more recently, Bland, Burnett and Bendall, and Buttrey.The fact that imperial (i.e. Latin-inscribed) coins were struck at Caesarea for Niger has been proven by the existence of muled denarii/drachms with Latin-inscribed portrait dies and Greek-inscribed reverse dies bearing Caesarean types. Since denarii fitting the description of those struck in Caesarea are die-linked with aurei, it is clear that aurei also were struck there.The attribution of the present aureus to Caesarea has been confirmed by Dr. Andrew Burnett on a number of grounds, including the peculiar features of its planchet and its striking technique. It is interesting to note that at Caesarea – just as at most Roman mints – the best engravers executed the portrait dies used for aurei. The present coin is no exception, as it bears a remarkable portrait. At present this is just the third known example of a Caesarea-mint aureus of Niger.The reverse depicts the goddess Spes, the personification of hope, and here expresses the stability that the represents for an empire having just suffered several years of civil war.SPES PVBLICA, which was not published in the name of Niger before, now appears as Fourrée. Probably, this unique type printed in Antakya surprises us.