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PL.10

THE

COIN COLLECTOR'S MANUAL,

OR GUIDE TO THE NUMISMATIC STUDENT IN THE FORMATION OF

A CABINET OF COINS:

COMPRISING

AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF COINAGE, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE;

WITH

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE COINAGES OF MODERN EUROPE,

MORE ESPECIALLY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

By H. NOEL HUMPHREYS,

Author of "The Coins of England," "Ancient Coins and Medals,"
etc. etc.

WITH ABOVE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS
ON WOOD AND STEEL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.-VOL. II.

LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

1887.

HARVARD COLLEGE
Thang 9, 1940,

LIBRARY

Albert A. Sprague

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

MAXIMUS, GORDIANUS AFRICANUS, GORDIANUS AFRICANUS JUNIOR, BALBINUS, PUPIENUS, AND GORDIANUS PIUS, AND PHILIP THE ARABIAN (FROM 218 TO 249 a.d.).

The extent of this work and the great similarity which pervades the coins of these emperors prevent the possibility of describing examples of each reign, especially as the style of art falls off very rapidly after Septimus, and a dry, hard manner of execution becomes general.* These princes all died untimely deaths after reigns of a few months each, the last two only excepted, who reigned respectively nearly five years.

Of Maximus, the son of Maximus, slain with his father, there are coins, though rare, of nearly every class except those of the Alexandrian mint. The denarii and the large and middle bronze are the most common, but all are rare.

Marcus Antonius Gordianus was a descendant of the ancient race of the Gracchi, and by his mother, Ulpia Gordiana, of the Emperor Trajan: he was proclaimed emperor at Carthage; but in the contest which ensued with Maximinus both he and his son were slain, A.D. 238, after a reign of five weeks. There are coins both of himself and his son, with the inscription IMP. CAES. MANT. GORDIANVS AFR. AVG., and it is difficult to distinguish one from the other, except by the style of the portraits. Those of the younger Gordian are extremely rare.

Balbinus was of ancient Roman family, being descended from Cornelius Balbus Theophanes, a friend of Pompey the Great, while Pupienus was the son of a poor mechanic, and had raised himself to an eminent position entirely by his own merit. These two personages were elected co-emperors by the senate in opposition to Maximinus; but the death of Maximinus, which almost immediately followed, removed all opposition to the senatorial choice. The Prætorian guard, who considered it an interference with their own election of Maximinus, broke into the palace and murdered both emperors, in the year 238 A.D., after a reign of three months.

* See Chapter on types, weights, values, &c., of the Roman coinage, p. 378

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