EvilCartyen

I do most of my macro photography with a Nikon d3300 and an old manual lens, a 55/f3.5 Micro-Nikkor P Auto from 1972.

Currently on holiday with the family in France, came across a coin shop and went in to ask if they had ancient coins (not many do). To my delight they did, although in a fairly middle quality.

Still, it was priced fairly and to reward the guy for pulling out the stuff for me I bought this Philip I antoninianus with a victory reverse for 30 euro.

Put on a lizard and go for an adventure!

Choose your lizard carefully. You can find six different ones scattered across the land, each with its own special ability.

You'll need these abilities as you make your difficult journey through many dangerous places. Carefully hop your way to the top of an active volcano. Surf down a surging river. Swim an underwater lake. Ascend a snowy mountaintop. What kind of strange creatures will you meet? Can you unravel the mysteries of Lizard?

No story today :) Just the coin:

Obverse: Radiate head of Helios facing slightly right

Reverse: APTEMΩN / P-O, rose with bud to right, hook to left; all within incuse square.

Struck 170-150 BC in Rhodes. Struck to the so-called Plinthophoric standard, under the magistrate Artemon.

13.1mm, 1.16g.

Jenkins 50; SNG Helsinki 658. VF

From the BGG description:

Dominant Species is a game that abstractly recreates a tiny portion of ancient history: the ponderous encroachment of an ice age and what that entails for the living creatures trying to adapt to the slowly-changing earth. Each player will assume the role of one of six major animal classes—mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, or insect. Each begins the game more or less in a state of natural balance in relation to one another. But that won’t last: It is indeed "survival of the fittest".

Through wily action pawn placement, players will strive to become dominant on as many different terrain tiles as possible in order to claim powerful card effects. Players will also want to propagate their individual species in order to earn victory points for their particular animal. Players will be aided in these endeavors via speciation, migration, and adaptation actions, among others.

All of this eventually leads to the end game—the final ascent of the ice age—where the player having accumulated the most victory points will have his animal crowned the Dominant Species.

But somebody better become dominant quickly, because it’s getting mighty cold...

This is a comparatively simple wargame-like game which runs for about 4 hours. It is one of my favourite games because it is so simple that I can teach it in 12-20 minutes without consulting the rules - yet it's heavy enough to keep you engaged.

You can also play as Lizards :D

If you're not an experienced collector of ancient coins - or not yet a collector at all - finding and buying coins can be a fairly daunting task.

As a new collector you should:

• Avoid Ebay until you're more experienced. It is full of fakes, and positive feedback is meaningless. While you can find good deals there, you won't know them unless you have lots of experience.
• Use only trusted sellers such as those on vcoins or MA-shops . Vcoins is generally more used in the US, MA-shops is often used in Europe - but many sellers are present on both platforms. They typically all offer a lifetime 100% money back guarantee if a coins is found to be fake after they've sold it to you.

Here are some good deals from vcoins to get you started:

Under $30

• This Licinius I follis has a pleasing obverse and reverse and a fair price point.
• This Sasanian drachm of Khusro II is a nice large silver coin of one of the most famous Sasanian kings.
• This Constantine I follis features the popular camp gate reverse.
• This Kyzikos silver hemiobol has a nice stylized lion reverse and is really old, only maybe 150-200 years after the invention of coinage.

$30-50

• This silver diobol from Miletos features a lion mostly on-flan and a really pretty incuse reverse pattern. Also very old :D
• A nice portrait of Aurelian, one of the most overlooked emperors.
• Speaking of portraits, this Gordian III has a nice quality to it.
• A passable Hadrian denarius
• A provincial Augustus from Syria

$50-100

• An evocative portrait of Trajan
• A heavy syrian silver tetradrachm of Trajan Decius
• A lovely Maximinus Thrax
• A decent Philip I antoninianus with an Annona reverse
• A chunky Marcus Aurelius sestertius to hold while you read the Medidations perhaps.

In general, it is important to do a bit of research before making your first purchase, mainly by comparing coins at the same price point and decising which coin looks better to you. Condition is typically more important than rarity, but there's no formal system to classify what looks good to you. In the end, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you set your own goals :)

... after today he has won stages in four consecutive grand tours: 2 in TdF, 3 in the Vuelta, and one in the Giro.

Diocletian, Roman emperor from 284-305, was born Diocles - a Greek name - in the year 244 in Dalmatia, now the Balkans. Like so many others from the minor nobility he became a soldier - and at the age of 40 he was general of the 'Proctores Domestici', the cavalry unit belonging to the emperor's household.

When the ruling emperor, Carus, was struck by lightning during a campaign against the Persians his two sons Carinus & Numerian inherited the throne. Numerian "mysteriously" died on his way to Rome, and it totally had nothing to do with Diocles being responsible for his safety at all. I swear, total coincidence. He didn't even want to be emperor. But, you know, when the army insists it'd be rude to refuse...

The Battle agains Carinus

Carinus was of course not happy, and he gathered an army and marched against Rome and Diocletian, as he now styled himself. The battle stood at Margus in Moesia (now Serbia), and initially it looked like Carinus' larger and more experienced force would make short work of Diocletian's army. But as they were preparing to flee the unexpected happned; Carinus was killed by one of his bodyguards, as revenge for Carinus seducing his wife.

After this, Diocletian was hailed as emperor by the army which had nearly defeated him.

The Tetrarchy

As emperor, Diocletian was a great reformer. He had (correctly) identified that it was impossible for one man to hold together the vast Roman Empire, which was now both threatened on all fronts and by internal discord.

His solution was not new; he divided power between 2 senior emperors, each with an adopted junior emperor under him. From 286-305 he thus ruled alongside Maximian 'Herculius', with Galerius and Constantius I 'Chlorus' as junior emperors.

And then he abdicated, retired, and moved into a villa in Dalmatia to grow cabbages, a villa which nowadays forms the center of the city of Split in Croatia. Maximian also retired, in Campania south of Rome.

His Final Years

Diocletian is the only emperor of the third and fourth centuries who died a natural death, and he is the only emperor at all who voluntarily abdicated. And that is perhaps the greatest proof of how great a ruler he really was. After 50 years of chaos and civil war under 27 emperors, Diocletian ruled for 21 years before abdicating.

Sadly, his system, the Tetrarchy, collapsed almost immediately. The Roman Empire was again thrown into civil war - and Diocles died sick, tired and broken on December 3rd 311.

The End of Realistic Portraiture on Coins

With Diocletian the era where coins reflect what an emperor looked like in reality is definitely over. Due to hyperinflation, portrait quality had steadily declined as early as under Gallienus, and coins under Carus, Carinus, Numerian and Diocletian have virtually identical portraits. Not even after Diocletian's coinage reform - where this follis is from - are there any attempts to make the emperors look distinct.

In fact, realistic portraits are now a thing of the past for the next thousand years, after which the Renaissance kings begin to look to the rulers of antiquity as models - and to imitate their coins.

The Coin

This coins is a follis, a large coin measuring 28mm and weighing 10 grams. The reverse features the spirit of the Roman people - Genius Populi Romani. It was struck in Heraclea, now the small town of Marmara Ereğlisi in Turkey, about 90km west of Istanbul.

Obverse: IMP C C VAL DIOCLETIAN P F AVG, Laureate bust right

Reverse: GENIO POPVLI ROMANI, Genius standing left, holding patera and cornucopia

RIC VI 19a

Ephesos was founded in the 10th century BC, in prehistoric Greek times, on the remains of the city of Apasa, which had served as the capital of the Arzawa Kingdom (Hipster Kingdom: Lasted for 800 years, you've never heard of it, inhabited Western Anatolia before it became cool).

Artemis Ephesia

Apasa had been the center of the worship of a Mother Goddess - Apasa may even mean 'Place of the Mother Goddess' - and this continued in Ephesus. But this time in the form of Artemis Ephesia - The Ephesian Artemis.

Those of you who know Artemis probably know her as the twin sister of the sun god Apollo, the slim, lithe and athletic virgin moon and hunter goddess whose attributes are the bow and arrow.

But Artemis Ephesia looks... completely different. She is actually - probably - identical to the mother goddess who was worshiped in Apasa before the Greeks came along. She's... a bee goddess! On her chest she has a cluster of bee eggs (or breasts) and her legs are bound together in a chrysalis.

In Ephesus also stood one of the seven wonders of the world - the Temple of Artemis - whose priestesses were called Melissae - 'bees', a word that recurs in both the Latin name for lemon balm and the other herbs in the Melissa genus (because they attract bees), and in the name of Melissa, of course.

Herostratic Fame

The Temple of Artemis was built in 550 BC. and was burned down in 356 BC. - on the same night that Alexander the Great was born - by a man named Herostratus.

If the name means something to you, dear reader, then it is only because of that. He burned down the Temple of Artemis to become famous - for good or for evil. An early example of "there's no such thing as bad press". The Ephesians executed him, of course, and were forbidden to mention his name under penalty of death. But the historian Theopompus wrote it all down, and Herostratus did become (in)famous. Although 'herostratic fame' is not exactly desirable.

The Coin

The coin here was struck sometime in the period 375-325 BC, so both Herostratus and the little Melissas - busy-bee priestesses - may have held it in their hands. It is 11mm and features Artemis on the front, and a bee on the back - and the letters E - Φ for Ephesus.

This antoninianus was struck under Philip I Arabs in Rome in 248 AD, and is part of a series of coins celebrating the 1000th anniversary of Rome.

A saeculum was typically 100 years, and was regarded as the longest possible lifespan for a human. So every 100 years they would have games called the Ludi Saeculares, and in AD 248 they coincided with the millennial celebration.

The coins struck to celebrate this occasion have a wide variety of cool reverses; wolves, stags, goats, hippos, lions, etc. They are cool and common.

A very small subset of them have the animals going in the opposite direction to the norm. Maybe they were test issues, maybe it's just a coincidense. This coin has the stag going left instead of right and is, imho, really really pretty.

Obverse: IMP PHILIPPVS AVG, radiate, draped & cuirassed bust right Reverse: SAECVLARES AVGG, stag walking left

RIC 20, 3.88g, struck in Officina V(5)