UNCERTAIN GERMANIC TRIBES, Aurum Barbarorum. Late 3rd-early 4th centuries. 'Aureus' (Subaeratus, 25 mm, 7.12 g, 1 h), 'Provincial Group'. Imitating Severus Alexander, 222-235. IMP C M AVR SEV ALEXAND AVG Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Severus Alexander to right. Rev. C G I H P A Artemis Phosphoros advancing right, holding torch in each hand. Cf. RPC VI online 3888.1-2 (for prototypes struck from the same obverse die). A highly interesting and unusual piece. Set in a gold mount with original suspension loop. Some bangs and the mount torn at 6 o'clock, otherwise, about very fine.


Among the Aurum Barbarorum, the inconspicuous coins sometimes are the most exciting. This is certainly the case with the present coin, which looks battered and unremarkable at first glance, but is most remarkable in several ways. First of all, it was clearly cast from a struck original, although in what material is difficult to say. It is here described as being a subaeratus, however, the coin shows no breaks in the plating, and we don't know what the core is made of. Bronze or silver, it clearly was dipped in molten gold to give it its required golden look, and then set in a gold sheet mount to be worn around the neck, as all Aurum Barbarorum was.

Even more remarkable, however, is that the type is not, as one might suspect, derived from a Roman aureus, but from a Roman Provincial issue of Severus Alexander from Parium in Mysia, as revealed by the reverse legend C G I H P A (= Colonia Gemella Iulia Hadriana Pariana). In fact, both coins listed in RPC VI online were struck from the same obverse die, albeit from a different reverse die. The city of Parium lay a few miles inland of the southern coast of the Propontis, close to the entrance to the Dardanelles, and thus on the path that led seaborne Gothic invaders back to their homelands north of the Black Sea. Whether the prototype for our coin was brought back to the lands of the Germans as war loot or by trade is, of course, impossible to know, but since we do know that Gothic pirates actually stole coin dies from the Roman Provincial mint in Alexandria Troas, it is certainly plausible that the coin from Parium was also part of plunder.