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OBVERSE: IMP PROBVS P F AVG
REVERSE: CALLIOPE AVG
BUST TYPE: H2 = radiate bust left in consular robe, holding eagle-tipped sceptre (scipio)
FIELD / EXERGUE MARKS: -/-//-
WEIGHT 3.63g / AXIS: 12h / DIAMETER: 21-22 mm
RIC: UNLISTED
ALFOLDI 014.001
COLLECTION NO. 42
The nine Muses, the goddesses presiding over the different types of poetry and
over the arts and sciences, appeared on Roman coins on only two occasions.
First, in order to illustrate and advertise his own name, the senator Q. Pomponius
Musa placed all nine of the muses, plus their leader Hercules, on the Republican
denarii that he struck as a moneyer c. 65 BC (Crawford 410). On these coins the
individual muses are distinguished by their posture and attributes and by the
symbols that appears behind the head of Apollo on the obverse but they are not
named; Pomponius' cognomen MVSA, the Latin word for Muse, appears as a
general designation alongside all of them. It is curious that whereas Pomponius'
denarii for eight of the muses are scarce only, his denarius for the remaining
Muse Erato is one of the most sought after rarities in the Republican series.
Secondly, the muse of epic poetry alone, Calliope, appeared with the legend
CALLIOPE AVG on an extremely rare antoninianus struck by the emperor Probus
at the mint of Siscia. A coin of these types was first described in 1791
by Tanini in his supplement to Banduri's corpus of late Roman and Byzantine coins
(1718). Both Eckhel (1797) and Cohen (first edition 1865, second edition 1886)
knew the type only from Tanini; Eckhel called it "singular in the extreme" and Cohen
valued it at 100 francs, an immense price for an antoninianus of Probus, the
common types of which were then worth under one franc a piece. Percy Webb too
knew Tanini's description only and no actual specimen of this coins, so was unable to
attribute it to a specific mint and omitted it from RIC V, 2 (1933). Probus' CALLIOPE
AVG antoninianus eluded even the Viennese collector Missong, who specialized in
Probus and whose extraordinary collection of the coins of that emperor was
acquired after his death by the national coin cabinet in Vienna. However, according
to A. Alföldi's corpus of coins struck by Probus at Siscia, which was published in
1939, two famous private collectors of the beginning of this centurty, Francesco
Gnecchi and George Weifert, whose collections are now at the Museo Nazionale in
Rome and the University of Belgrade respectively, were each able to acquire a
a specimen of Probus' CALLIOPE AVG antoninianus, which Alföldi attributed to the
mint of Siscia.
This coin is a great deal rarer than Pomponius' denarius of Erato, and it is the only Roman coin to actually name one of the nine Muses.
(The above text appeared in its full and unmodified form in a Harlan J. Berk auction catalogue 91, June 1996).
The most interesting, mysterious and desirable antoninian in the whole coinage of Probus! The crown jewel of my Probus collection!
Only the 6th known example. The other five known (genuine) examples are the following, of which three are in private collections and only two in museum collections:
- Triton IX auction lot 1582, January 2006, https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=278005
- Numismatic Lanz auction 100 lot 419 (Leo Benz Collection), November 2000, https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=74404 = ex Harlan Berk auction 91, June 1996
- Mike R. Vosper collection (ex ebay auction): https://probuscoins.fr/coin?id=1650
- Muzeo Nationale in Rome (ex Francesco Ghnecchi collection) - cited by A. Alfoldi under no. 14.1
- University of Belgrade Collection (ex George Weifert) - cited by A. Alfoldi under no. 14.1
Other two Calliope coins listed in the acsearch.info database are modern forgeries and have been withdrawn from the auctions by the Numismatica Ars Classica and Gorny&Mosh auction houses (however they are still present in the acsearch database).
The CALLIOPE AVG type is MISSING in in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the French Bibliotheque Nationale, which have the biggest Probus collections in the world!
A highlight of any Roman coins collection, even the most advanced ones!
Condition: light traces of smoothing in fields on reverse, otherwise extremely fine
Provenance: Ex Numismatic Lanz auction 159, lot 573, December 2014 (7,000 euro hammer price + 25% buyer's premium = 8,750 euro). Link to the auction below:
https://sixbid-coin-archive.com/#/de/single/l26984508
My coin is listed in the probuscoins.fr database under no. 1812:
https://probuscoins.fr/coin?id=1812
Collection : 05 Probus - Siscia