In 2012 I acquired two Roman sextantes that clearly did not fit into the arrangement of Crawford in his 1974 work Roman Republican Coinage (Cr). At approximately 16 mm in diameter and around 1.8 grammes they were smaller and lighter than any comparable material, although many authors subsumed them under the description of Cr. 56/6.
At the time I postulated whether they might be a local imitative type. I was corrected and told that these were issues from the time of the Second Punic War, frequently found overstruck on other types, and not referenced in the standard sources.
Recently the pieces have been put into a more secure dating context. Given the undertypes that have been identified on some of the coins, particularly the small module Neapolitan type with man headed bull reverse (HNI 595), produced c. 250-225 BC, the sextantes must have been overstruck on the donor coins some time after this date. Furthermore we know that they were in production before 191 BC as Livy records that in Minturnae lightning struck some shops in the vicinity of the Temple of Jupiter that were then set alight and a hoard of these sextantes was found below the secure destruction layer.
The probable place of minting of the pieces is, on the basis of a very restricted finds distribution, believed to be in Minturnae. The town was a significant naval base that controlled land access across the Liris from Latium to Campania and would have been crucial in the efforts to liberate Capua from Hannibal. The location was also a staging post to Sicily and North Africa and a significant economic hub of the period.
The conclusion is that these coins, whilst matching the design criteria of the Roman Republican bronze issues, do not correspond to the prevailing Roman weight standard. They represent an important token coinage during a period of conflict to meet an economic need.
References:
Stannard, C, “’Chopped’ Neapolitan bronze coins at Minturnae, overstrikes with Roman types, and the coin stock in Southern Latium and Northern Campania about 200 BC”, Numismatic Chronicle 178, 2018, pp 99-106
Stannard, C, “Small change in Campania from the fourth to the first century BC, and newly discovered Second Punic War mint of Minturnae” in Rahmstorf, L, Barjamovic, G and Ialongo, N, Weight and Value, 2, 2021, pp 261-287
