I want to think more about this inscription in connection the coin of the Locrians many, many years before. I find reading A. Polybius 1. The garrison they sent to Rhegium seizes the city for themselves rather than protecting it.
This episode is set by Polybius in the back drop of the Pyrrhic War and he says after the war, as soon as they could, the Romans laid siege to the town and punished mercilessly their own garrison. Now, Polybius is probably hazy on the details. Fabricius Genucius, but his colleague Cn.
Cornelius Blasio triumphed de Regineis act. So 12 years is an awful long time to leave this rogue garrison hanging out in S. Italy⦠I also find the triumphal fasti entry interesting.
We usually talk about funny business with the triumph in the civil wars and allied rebellions of the Late Republic but this appears to be a really early case of a Roman claiming to have defeated a foreign enemy when fighting other Roman, or former Roman, soldiers.
The whole episode was quite an object lesson for the Locriansβ¦:. Related earlier posts on Locri , on Pistis. That said however, we have decided to refer to the coin as an obol and not as a litra as suggested by both Rutter and Crawford. On this basis, it seems only logical that we refer to it as an obol and not a litra. Its weight and its general appearance are consistent with coaeval obols of Camapianian mints such as: Fistelia, Peripoloi Pitanai and Allifae, which most probably were circulating along with this coin.
