Coins study suggests "fake emperor" was real, say scientists

Hello all,

We'll have to add a few Roman usurpers' pages in the catalogue sooner or later:

Coins study suggests ‘fake emperor’ was real, say scientists

Ancient Roman coin thought to be FAKE after being discovered in Transylvania …

Hail IMPERATOR CAESAR SPONSIANVS !

EDIT ─ I see that we already have a page.

While studying Roman history I often think about how many emperors and pretenders were lost to history, especially in the 3rd century. Every new little piece of the puzzle makes me happy, hopefully one day we discover more about Sponsianvs. 😃

I remember hearing a story at my local coin club about a similar coin found in Croatia and discarded as a barbarian imitation only to be authenticated later while in private hands. Don't remember exactly who it was but according to the story the collector later sold the coin to an auction house for a very high price.

Another story is when a second coin of Emperor Domitianus II (usurper during the “military anarchy”) was found in the UK, maybe a decade ago or so. The first one had been found in France in the 1920s or 1930s. The coin was unique until the UK discovery.

And just 3 or 4 years ago, yet another one was found, this time in Bulgaria. I was in contact briefly with the Bulgarian scholar who had just published it.

Here's a link to the full study: Authenticating coins of the ‘Roman emperor’ Sponsian | PLOS ONE 

The coin is currently on display, alongside other objects from the hoard, in the main gallery of the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow. Here's a small snapshot of the exhibit. 

I got to handle the Sponsian coin a few months ago. It's really exciting that the findings have been made public.  

Thx for this ☝️, cmaclean. 

Looking at it, indeed at first one should be strongly suspicious of its authenticity. Only a scientific study of the kind they published in PLOS ONE can dispel any doubts.

How “Roman” Sponsianus was is debatable… There is not any other source that mentions him. If by any chance a few honorific inscriptions on stone were set up for him at the time, which was the norm in the Roman world, as soon as he was defeated and murdered his name would have been chiseled out in the process known as damnatio memoriae (erasure from memory, i.e. from the historical record). We have hundreds of such inscriptions, and usually it's easy enough to know whose name was removed, for example in the case of Geta, murdered by his own brother “Caracalla” (not his real name).

Camerinvs

There is not any other source that mentions him. If by any chance a few honorific inscriptions on stone were set up for him at the time, which was the norm in the Roman world, as soon as he was defeated and murdered his name would have been chiseled out in the process known as damnatio memoriae (erasure from memory, i.e. from the historical record). 

Imagine being a stone mason in ancient Rome, being told you have a new liege and to start chiseling his name all over the place only to be told in a few weeks to remove what you chiseled because he's been killed and to start chiseling the new guys name only to repeat the whole process over and over again. I wonder if the masons took bets between themself how long the new guys was gonna last. 😂

It does happen that a name is chiseled out and then reinserted later under a new dynasty, but this is quite uncommon.

In most cases, the name of the new emperor cannot be substituted for the chiseled out name because the honours at the head of the stone are obviously for the previous ruler. Usually, they leave the chiseled out section blank, or else they try to fit some text that makes sense in the context.

For example, when Caracalla got his brother murdered and probably decreed that his name should be erased from History, in some cities and towns they tried to fill Caracalla's extra titles in the blank, because, being the elder of the two, his name was always first. Of course, the alterations are very obvious to us. We see very well the stone was chiseled out and then filled in with new text.

And I guess that stone masons thought to themselves ─ “Hey, whoever sits on the throne, as long as they give me work, I'm OK with it!”

Oh, and coins with Geta were also hammered to remove his bust and name.

See also this Forum Ancient Coins page.

Not surprisingly, after the media frenzy, some serious doubts started to be heard…

Sponsian ─ Emperor or Fantasy? 

Of course, the nature of the media is not to be interested in these reasoned counterarguments, which are not good click baiters, I suppose, and actually reveal the media's approach to spectacular “news” as a source of quick revenue.

I bring this thread up again because the ANS (American Numismatic Society) has a new blogpost on this topic:

Is Sponsian real? Further Considerations

This is quite typical of the “cooling down period” after sensationalist headlines.

I remember  the madness at the time the possibility that “Cheddar Man”¹ was black hit the social media. I myself thought it was a very exciting news, but it was soon debunked. Of course, the mainstream media wouldn't do the right thing and inform their readership that they were wrong, with less than 1% chances that Cheddar Man was "black".

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¹Wikipedia link provided just as a starting point; search online for geneticists who have debunked the fanciful theories out there.