Lot 1058. gFine. 3.5 grams. 

Misattributed as an RSC 20d, it sold for $30 (!) on ancientcoinart.com site.

Decius AR Denarius. 206-200 BC. 

obv: Helmeted head of Roma right, X behind 
rev: The Dioscuri riding right, oblong sheild and carnyx in saltire 
 below horses, ROMA in ex. 

Syd 290, Cr128/1.


"In saltire" means in the form of an cross, that is, the carnyx (a Celtic or 
Gallic war horn) is lying across the oblong shield to form an X.

Phil Davis writes about how this coin was ascribed to the Decia gens:

    "The assignment of that 
 coin to the Decia gens was also the result of Trajan's restoration of 
 the type with the additional legend DECIVS MVS.

 "The restoration of the [Horatia 1] type by Trajan, with the word COCLES added 
 to the obverse, has led to its traditional assignment to the Horatia 
 gens. (No other coins of this family are known; the alleged denarii 
 with Roma head and COCLES on the obverse are all modern 
 fabrications.) It's been further deduced that the female head is 
 thus that of Horatia, the betrothed of one of the Curiatii. Crawford 
 typically rejects this "romantic" explanation, but offers no 
 replacement. It's been suggested that Trajan's selection of this type 
 and that of "Decius", with shield and carnyx symbol, for 
 restoration, was more or less random, meant to stand in for the 
 entire range of the early denarius coinage. This would be plausible, 
 if the two coins were in fact typical of the broader coinage. But 
 both are rare, of anomalous (though not identical) style, struck at 
 uncertain but non-Roman mints. It's hardly likely that a random grab 
 from circulation by Trajan's mint officials would obtain precisely 
 these two early types. That the prototypes were struck, by Crawford's 
 estimation, within the same six year period, further stretches 
 coincidence. And the addition of COCLES, and of DECIUS MUS to the 
 shield and carnyx piece, surely demands explanation. Is it possible 
 that the records of a particular branch mint survived the vagaries of 
 300+ years, and were available to Trajan's officials? That would 
 explain the addition of the family names (listed in these 
 hypothetical mint records) and the selection of types (far easier to 
 copy a prototype on file than to search for extremely worn, 300 year 
 old denarii among the millions recalled from circulation)."

 = Phil Davis

Image used by permission of ancientcoinart.com; Phil Davis' explanation 
by Permission of Phil...