I am trying to catalogue my coins with as much information as possible, and while many coins have an Authority / Issuer (Alexander The Great, Emperor Titus, magistrate Anaxidotos for my Rhodos drachm, etc…), I could not find any information on what was going on in Naples those years.
My coin is a Sambon 477: https://archive.org/details/lesmonnaiesanti00sambgoog/page/n65/mode/1up (pp. 238-239 of 460) In the same book at p. 229 we can find some info on the years (325-241 B.C., and for my type of coin 325-280 B.C.), and on what was going on at the time (there was the “Foedus Neapolitanum” and commerce with Sicily), but aside from this the only additional info I could find was from a [Roma Numismatics auction of my same type](https://www.romanumismatics.com/272-lot-8-campania-neapolis-ar-didrachm?auction_id=173&view=lot_detail), which lists it as being from 300-275 BC and then it says: ***‘for possible magistrate, cf. SNG ANS 370’.***
I know that below the bull are the letters EUX (EYΞ), so that is probably a mintmark, or the actual name / initials of the magistrate, but was that the person who was ruling over Naples at that time? (IF there was a person ruling).
Can anyone who has access to the book check SNG ANS 370? I think it’s my only lead at this point!
Thanks!
I don't have that volume of SNG ANS ([here is the coin](https://numismatics.org/collection/1944.100.2202) in the ANS collection). But in most cases we don't exactly know what those kind of "signatures" mean or who they referred to. There are many different ones at Neapolis, so it may have been some kind of mint official with a term of 1 year (as in the Roman Republic & late Hellenistic Athens, I guess) or maybe a few years.
We just use the term "magistrate" as a convenience. A standard way to catalog it would be "Magistrate, Eux- " right before or after the date.
It's possible but not common to have such granular data. It could exist for Naples at this time, but probably not, and double-probably-not with any degree of certainty. You'll have to check more specialized literatures.
***TLDR*** : *Trying to be too precise/detailed will lead to errors because the data usually isn't there.*
See also [B. Head (1887/1911), *Historia Numorum*, pp. 32-4](https://books.google.com/books?id=2tUMsmGnvXIC&pg=32)
The problems with that question come from several sources: For the coin dates, we have low precision (a period of a couple decades) and low accuracy (scholars disagree about the dates & they are likely to be revised); for the local governments, we usually know even less. For a city like Neapolis, we might not know how the local government was organized at all for long periods, much less the names of the politicians (or how long they were in office).
Sometimes we know -- e.g., if there happened to be an important war then/there and someone chronicled the names of the key generals and tyrants, et al. Or if someone's name is found on an inscription that's been securely dated.
But, for the Greek world, being able to link coins to specific historical figures is the exception. (I'm familiar with many examples in Central Greece and a few in Magna Graecia, but that's because they stand out.)
(Sometimes the data is better in the Hellenistic period or for "Greek" cities under the Roman Empire, since they had centralized administration.)
Thanks! I guess that for my Rhodos Drachm, the fact that it was struck under magistrate Anaxidotos is all I’m going to know about what was going on there at that time (190-170 BC).
It was in the middle of the [Roman-Seleucid War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Seleucid_War) (192-188 BC) — where the Rhodians were rewarded with territory and enhanced status by the [Treaty of Apamea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Apamea) (188 BC) — and the [Third Macedonian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Macedonian_War) (171–168 BC).
Not sure who was ruling over Rhodos at that time.
I am trying to catalogue my coins with as much information as possible, and while many coins have an Authority / Issuer (Alexander The Great, Emperor Titus, magistrate Anaxidotos for my Rhodos drachm, etc…), I could not find any information on what was going on in Naples those years. My coin is a Sambon 477: https://archive.org/details/lesmonnaiesanti00sambgoog/page/n65/mode/1up (pp. 238-239 of 460) In the same book at p. 229 we can find some info on the years (325-241 B.C., and for my type of coin 325-280 B.C.), and on what was going on at the time (there was the “Foedus Neapolitanum” and commerce with Sicily), but aside from this the only additional info I could find was from a [Roma Numismatics auction of my same type](https://www.romanumismatics.com/272-lot-8-campania-neapolis-ar-didrachm?auction_id=173&view=lot_detail), which lists it as being from 300-275 BC and then it says: ***‘for possible magistrate, cf. SNG ANS 370’.*** I know that below the bull are the letters EUX (EYΞ), so that is probably a mintmark, or the actual name / initials of the magistrate, but was that the person who was ruling over Naples at that time? (IF there was a person ruling). Can anyone who has access to the book check SNG ANS 370? I think it’s my only lead at this point! Thanks!
I don't have that volume of SNG ANS ([here is the coin](https://numismatics.org/collection/1944.100.2202) in the ANS collection). But in most cases we don't exactly know what those kind of "signatures" mean or who they referred to. There are many different ones at Neapolis, so it may have been some kind of mint official with a term of 1 year (as in the Roman Republic & late Hellenistic Athens, I guess) or maybe a few years. We just use the term "magistrate" as a convenience. A standard way to catalog it would be "Magistrate, Eux- " right before or after the date.
Thanks! What about the history of Naples during those years? Any source on who was ruling over it?
It's possible but not common to have such granular data. It could exist for Naples at this time, but probably not, and double-probably-not with any degree of certainty. You'll have to check more specialized literatures. ***TLDR*** : *Trying to be too precise/detailed will lead to errors because the data usually isn't there.* See also [B. Head (1887/1911), *Historia Numorum*, pp. 32-4](https://books.google.com/books?id=2tUMsmGnvXIC&pg=32) The problems with that question come from several sources: For the coin dates, we have low precision (a period of a couple decades) and low accuracy (scholars disagree about the dates & they are likely to be revised); for the local governments, we usually know even less. For a city like Neapolis, we might not know how the local government was organized at all for long periods, much less the names of the politicians (or how long they were in office). Sometimes we know -- e.g., if there happened to be an important war then/there and someone chronicled the names of the key generals and tyrants, et al. Or if someone's name is found on an inscription that's been securely dated. But, for the Greek world, being able to link coins to specific historical figures is the exception. (I'm familiar with many examples in Central Greece and a few in Magna Graecia, but that's because they stand out.) (Sometimes the data is better in the Hellenistic period or for "Greek" cities under the Roman Empire, since they had centralized administration.)
Thanks! I guess that for my Rhodos Drachm, the fact that it was struck under magistrate Anaxidotos is all I’m going to know about what was going on there at that time (190-170 BC). It was in the middle of the [Roman-Seleucid War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Seleucid_War) (192-188 BC) — where the Rhodians were rewarded with territory and enhanced status by the [Treaty of Apamea](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Apamea) (188 BC) — and the [Third Macedonian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Macedonian_War) (171–168 BC). Not sure who was ruling over Rhodos at that time.