Types Coins issued during the Social War consist chiefly of
silver coins of the weight of the contemporary
Roman denarius, and they are thought to have been issued from the mints of
Corfinium and
Aesernia. This coinage belongs to the crucial years of the revolt against Rome (90–89 BC). Similar coins of the same family may have been struck later, although there is no firm evidence of this. They circulated in parallel and openly with the Roman denarii of the same weight,. Furthermore, some isolated exempla come from stratigraphic contexts much more recent than the insurrection against Rome. There is an inscription in Oscan on both sides. Another example of a silver denarius personifies Italia on one side, and on the other shows eight warriors swearing an oath.
The unique gold stater There is also in the
Paris Collection a well-preserved single
gold stater of
Attic weight of 8.47 gr. (a picture of this coin can be seen here. A drawing is in ) and its first appearance dates back to 1827, although
Julius Friedländer reported 1830: •
Obverse: head of young
Dionysos right, crowned with ivy wreath. •
Reverse:
Cista mystica adorned with three wreaths and with a wolf (or panther) skin on the top;
thyrsos with ribbons; in
exergue, Oscan
retrograde legend mi.ieíis.mi, (a certain and otherwise unknown
Minatius Jegius, Minatii f. (?)). The authenticity of this coin is disputed. The genuineness of the piece was supported by
Julius Friedländer in his fundamental work about Oscan coinage with an argument based on the perfect accuracy of the legend when compared with the poor knowledge of the Oscan alphabet and language at the time the coin first appeared before the pioneering works of
Klenze (1839),
Mommsen (1845) and
Lepsius (1841). The coin, in particular, shows a perfect distinction between
i and stressed
í (the difference, in Oscan script, is the addiction of a little line), a distinction that none were aware of before the work of Klenze. and Alberto Campana, who very closely follows Cesano reasoning.
Iconography Some of the iconographic themes were original, while others were borrowed from the Roman coinage. When borrowed, the themes acquired new meanings or resonances. For example, the heads on the
obverse was usually a
personification of
Italia depicted as a goddess with a helmet, which replaced the head of Rome, accompanied by a legend reproducing his name, ITALIA, in the Latin alphabet or VITELIU (víteliú = Italia) in
Oscan alphabet Inscriptions The inscriptions were partly in Oscan and partly in
Latin characters. The pieces were struck by a central mint with two different and simultaneous issues, one for the Oscan-speaking and one for the Latin-speaking citizens. Legends often record the names of the chief leaders of the Revolt:
Quintus Poppaedius Silo,
Gaius Papius Mutilus, with his title
Imperator, an unknown Numerius Lucius (?), and others. ==See also==