Interestingly the Daily Mail published a British Museum opinion on the Proculus coin by Roger Bland today (16th November 2012):
"But coin specialist and renowned academic Roger Bland, who is Keeper of the Prehistory and Europe Department of the British Museum, disagrees that the coin is genuine.
He said:
'I don't believe any coins of Proculus were ever made and this one is probably a 15th century forgery.The only source for our knowledge of him is a controversial history book, written at the end of the 4th century AD, much of which was made up.
It says that there were 30 tyrants who all vied for control of the Roman Empire when things got a bit messy in the late 3rd century AD and lots of people were declared Emperor. Many of these 30 tyrants never had coins made, which is a sign of a true Emperor.But in the Renaissance, when coin collecting was fashionable, people thought these men should have had coins so they made them. This coin has been made from the same dye, or mould, as another in the Munich Museum, which is widely believed to be fake.There is no context to this find either - only single coins, not hoards, have been found so their provenance is difficult to assess. Unless someone finds a hoard of these coins, I'm going to remain very sceptical that there were ever any coins made for Proculus.'"
Saturday, 17 November 2012
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
A Proculus coin from Yorkshire
The newly discovered coin of Proculus
Just as the British soil gave us the second known coin of
the third century Gallic usurper Domitianus II five or six years ago now (and coming
from a secure archaeological context thereby confirming the authenticity of the
first specimen) now we have a new rarity from the same period.
A coin of Proculus, only the second recorded, has been
discovered by a metal detectorist on land near Stamford Bridge in North
Yorkshire. I understand that it has been properly recorded by the Yorkshire Museum in York.
Obv: IMP C PROCVLVS AVG, radiate, cuirassed bust right
Rev: VICTORIA AVG, female figure standing left, holding
wreath and sceptre
Proculus is recorded in the Historia Augusta as a short
lived usurper under the Roman emperor Probus c.280 AD, establishing himself in
Cologne after the Alemanne had invaded Gaul. When Probus moved against him he
went over to the Franks who, shortly afterwards, delivered him into the hands
of Probus.
Judging by the style of the coin it is not the product of
any of the established mints. Its crude appearance, the sketchy look and the V
on the reverse rendered as U, has more in common with the local radiate
imitations that were prevalent in the north western provinces of Europe and
Britain at the time. It might say something about the areas under the control
of Proculus.
Both known coins are apparently from the same dies, again
symptomatic of a very brief issue (compare this with the 50 obverses and 54
reverses recorded by Gilljam of the VICTORIA AVG coins of Laelian, a usurper
that survived probably three or four weeks).
The first recorded Proculus coin
The first example, from an unknown find spot, came to light in a
German auction hosted by Bankhaus Aufhauser in 1991 (lot 640, auction 8, 9-10
October 1991).
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