Philip Grierson, and Melinda Mays.  Published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, USA. HB. 1992 (heavy blue cloth with gilt-lettered spine and cover). 1st edition.  212 x 278mm.  515 pages including 37 b&w excellent plates.  Spine of dj slightly sunned, top edge very slightly dust marked, otherwise contents more or less as new.

This important reference on the subject covers the period from Arcadius and Honorius to the Accession of Anastasius.  The coinage, the mints, the history of the period regarding the coins are discussed.  All coins are catalogued in detail and illustrated.  Reference is made to coins that are in other collections.  Covers the transitional period between late Roman and early Byzantine coins.

This is the first fully illustrated catalogue to be published of a major collection of late Roman and early Byzantine imperial coins. It follows the general layout of the Byzantine volumes in the Dumbarton Oaks series, with a substantial introduction dealing with the history of the coinage, including iconography, mints, and monetary system) but differs from the others in that all the coins are illustrated in the plates, not merely a selection of the more typical and best-preserved specimens.
The chief feature of the volume, apart from its illustrations. is that it brings together two
coin series that in the past have tended to be studied separately. Cohen's monumental
Description historique des monnaies frappées sous l'empire romain (first ed. 1857-62) included from 395 onward only, the coins of the Western line of emperors and this distinction between West and East became almost canonical when Justin Sabatier supplemented Cohen's work by his own Description generale des monnaies byzantines (1862), starting the Eastern emperors with Arcadius and covering the coin series that Cohen had omitted. Although scholars have long realized that this distinction is artificial, and a modern coin catalogue (like that of the Hunterian Collection at Glasgow) will include both Eastern and Western coins, there are no catalogues in print, or likely to appear in the foreseeable future, which are comparable in their coverage of
both East and West to the present volume.

Professor Grierson was advisor in Byzantine Numismatics at Dumbarton Oaks from 1955, and is co-editor of the multivolume Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection and author of volumes 2 and 3. He was Professor Emeritus of Numismatics at the universities of Cambridge and Brussels, and Honorary, Keeper of the Coins in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
Cambridge.

Dr Melinda Mays trained as a numismatist at Oxford University and was the
numismatist on the staff of the Yorkshire Museum from 1986 to 1990.  She later worked on the Catalogue of the Celtic Coins in the British
Museum.




NB This is a heavy book and will attract increased postage.

Catalogue of Late Roman Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection and in the Whittemore Collection: From Arcadius and Honorius to the Accession of Anastasius.

Byzantine coins - late Roman coins