Antoninus Pius AE18 from Nicomedia

What is the significance of the reverse type? What is the year? (read below)

This is a coin "in process." That is, in the process of being liberated from its encrustation. I had originally intended to ask where and when this coin had been published, but before I had a chance to configure this page, Basil C. Demetriadi of Kifissia, Greece anticipated my question from viewing the corresponding image on the index page and wrote of this coin:

I looked your coin up in Waddington's "Recueil General des Monnaies Grecques d' Asie Mineure", tome premier, troisieme fascicule (1910), page 523, no 56, plate XC,15, and there it was ! It is even listed as an AE 18. The dies are very close (certainly the same hand) but, as I am sure you realise, comparison is not easy. The reverse description is (translated): "Eros being carried by a dolphin, r." There is also an M, indicating the location of the coin, which, in my opinion, refers to Munich (Mionnet is given as Mi).

The question remains whether or not this coin has been published in any of the more recent compendia, and what can we learn of the time and circumstances of its creation?

This same reverse type was earlier used on Roman coinage in the days of the Republic. It is shown below in a fouree denarius, but denarii with this type were officially issued as well. Crawford describes the type as "winged boy on dolphin speeding r." and assigns it to the triumvir L. Lucretius Trio about 76BC (Crawford 390:2) with the following speculation:

I do not regard it as wholly inconceivable that [this] reverse type portrays Palaemon (for whom see Roscher iii,1262; J.G. Hawthorne, TAPA 1958, 92) and alludes by way of his mother Leucothea to the moneyer's nomen.

Fouree denarius of the Roman Republic, circa 76 BC

Lucretia 3 (Crawford 390:2)

Same reverse type

H.A Seaby, following Cohen, describes the Republican type as "Winged Genius on dolphin r." (RSC Lucretia 3) and further noted:

[This] type may refer to an ancestor, C Lucretius Gallus, who in B.C. 181 was created duumvir navalis, and later commanded the fleet against Perseus of Macedon.

Irrespective of the original signification of the type on the Republican piece, was there some event in the career of Antoninus Pius, perhaps involving Nicomedia or perhaps a naval matter, which may have prompted a resurrection of this old but interesting type?

If you think you might be able to shed some light on my questions, contact me at sknapp@sknapp.net

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