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drachms. The former class has been the subject of considerable dispute. Gnecchi attacked their authenticity in an exhaustive study, quaintly cast in the form of a dialogue.4 The argument seems to me thoroughly convincing except for a worn specimen in Paris,5 to which his chief objections do not apply. I would add the piece stolen from. the Cabinet de France in 1831 and said to have been acquired by the King in 17556 as another which does not seem to belong to the class whose brilliant conservation and identity of dies aroused his just suspicions. These two are not unassailable, however; Eckhel had objected to the latter,7 as Gnecchi did to the former and, as I have never studied any of them, I cannot venture a judgment. The question would be quite foreign to the present study except for the fact that the name Uranius, given without question by Wroth and Dieudonné, depends entirely on the gold, whose obverse legend is LIVLAVRSVLPVRAANTONINVS. This has led previous students to identify the individual with the Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Uranius Antoninus whom Zosimus records as a pretender in the time of Severus Alexander.8 This in turn gave rise to difficulties as to the date of the bronze, which Lenormant questioned without reason. But if the gold is spurious (and it must be admitted that the notices in the literary sources offer exactly the kind of invitation to forgers of which they have often availed themselves) of course the chronological difficulty disappears. We are then left with a Sulpicius, Antoninus whose date is certain. If the gold is genuine we must conclude, (1) that there were two pretenders whose portraits are remarkably alike, (2) that the same pretender emerged at two different periods, or (3) that the dates in the literary sources are wrong and that Uranius Antoninus belongs in 253. None of these is provable, and none affects the course of the present argument.8a

With the tetradrachms we are more closely concerned. The types are:

    (1) Bust r., laur. Rev. Eagle, head 1. , S.C.; in ex.
        (Pl. VIII, 10) Wroth, op. cit. p. 240, no. 22, Pl. XXVIII, 1.

    (2) Similar, but eagle's head r.
       Wroth, p. 240, no. 23.

    (3) Bust 1. rad., hand raised.
       Rev. Eagle, head 1. The same inscription except that S.C. is under the eagle's wings.

p. 241, no. 24, Pl. XXVIII, 2. Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection, Vol. III, p. 192, no. 18. On his coinage in general, see Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Veterum, Vol. VIII, pp. 288-290; Lenormant, Revue Numismatique, 1843, pp. 255-278; Froehner, Annuaire de la société française de numismatique, 1886, pp. 189-209 ; Dieudonné, Revue Numismatique, 1906, pp. 152-155.
4. Rivista Italiana di Numismatica, 1895, pp. 413-440.

   

5. Gnecchi, op. cit. Pl. VI, 1.
6. Lenormant, op. cit. p. 255.
7. Op. cit. p. 289.
8. See Rostovtzeff, above, pp. 31 f. and n. 40.
8a. Mr. Seyrig, who has been good enough to read this article in proof, assures me that the gold pieces are in fact unquestionably authentic. He has had opportunity to study not only the gold coins already published, but also a hoard of such coins found some years ago, presumably at Homs.

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