Cnossus was refounded as a Roman colony — Colonia Iulia Nobilis — sometime after 36 BC, and this bronze issue belongs to the earliest phase of that colonial coinage. The magistrate names partially preserved in the obverse legend reflect the duoviri system transplanted directly from Rome, local administrators governing a settlement that Augustus used to thin an overpopulated Italy by relocating veterans and urban poor to Crete.
RPC I 909a distinguishes this from the closely related 909 by legend specifics that remain partially unresolved in the corpus.
Cnossus was refounded as a Roman colony — Colonia Iulia Nobilis — sometime after 36 BC, and this bronze issue belongs to the earliest phase of that colonial coinage. The magistrate names partially preserved in the obverse legend reflect the duoviri system transplanted directly from Rome, local administrators governing a settlement that Augustus used to thin an overpopulated Italy by relocating veterans and urban poor to Crete.
RPC I 909a distinguishes this from the closely related 909 by legend specifics that remain partially unresolved in the corpus.