Nomos 20

The Triumvirs. Mark Antony and Lucius Antony, Summer 41 BC. Denarius (Silver, 21 mm, 3.89 g, 1 h), Ephesos, M. Cocceius Nerva, proquaestor. M•ANT•IMP AVG VIR•R•P•C M NERVA PROQ•P (sic!) Bare head of Marc Antony to right. Rev. L•ANTONIVS COS Bare head of Lucius Antony to right. Babelon (Antonia) 48 var. and (Cocceia) 2 var. BMCRR p. 492, 107, fn. 3 = Rome, Capitoline Museum, ex Bignami Collection = Crawford 517/5b. CRI 246a. Sydenham 1185 var. An extremely rare variety. Lightly toned and with excellent portraits. Thin flan crack, otherwise, extremely fine.

This variety, lacking the III before VIR in the obverse legend, is, apparently, extremely rare: there is no example in the British Museum, only a reference to a piece in Rome, the same that was cited by Crawford as his 517/5b. While there are five examples listed on CoinArchives, four are mistakes (!), with only one (Stack's, April 2010, 370) being correctly identified!! That piece, once in the Lawrence Collection (Glendining & Co., December 1950, 298), is struck from the same dies as the present example. Other famous collections of the past – Haeberlin or Nicolas, for example – lack examples. However, rather than a conscious "variety", this is actually a die engraver's mistake, caused solely by his unfamiliarity with Latin – after all, since this series was almost certainly minted in Ephesos, it is most likely that the engraver's native language was Greek.