| 裏面の説明 |
A prow of a galley facing right, depicted in a bold, schematic style typical of Central Italian aes grave coinage of the third to second century BC. The prow is rendered with a projecting ram at the waterline and a series of horizontal oar ports or strakes above, a motif closely associated with Roman and Italic monetary iconography of this period. Three pellets, denoting the quadrans value, appear in the field. The overall execution is robust but summary, reflecting the hand-worked nature of the hammered bronze flan. The reverse field is irregular and heavily worn, consistent with the coin's considerable age and circulation history. |
Heavy cast bronze of this weight class belongs to the aes grave tradition, produced by cities whose identities remain genuinely disputed among scholars — the attribution "uncertain Central Italy" is not a cataloging shortcut but reflects a real gap in the epigraphic and archaeological record. The third century BC saw numerous communities issuing cast bronze on the Roman libral standard before Rome's military consolidation rendered local monetary production obsolete. Haeberlin's foundational 1910 study remains the primary typological anchor for pieces like this, and his page 163 attribution has not been meaningfully revised since.