Bronze Roman Coins at Medieval Market Site (Story 2)
Part of the Bronze Fibula, circa 4th Century
As the area was finally depleted of good signals, I decided to use a "tight" pattern for searching the spot where the Roman coin was found. Soon I realized that I made a good decision - I found my first Roman coin - 1 Quadrans (1/4 As) with some silver on the surface, minted during the rule of adopted emperor Trojan (25 January AD 98 - 9 August AD 117)!
Marcus Ulpius Traianus, a brilliant general and administrator was adopted and proclaimed emperor by the aging Nerva in AD 98. Regarded as one of Rome's greatest emperors, Trojan was responsible for the annexation of Dacia, the invasion of Arabia and an extensive and lavish building program across the empire. Under Trojan, Rome reached its greatest extent. Shortly after the annexation of Mesopotamia and Armenia, Trojan was forced to withdraw from most of the new Arabian provinces. While returning to Rome to direct operations against the new threats, Trojan died at Selinus in Cilicia.
The bronze coin was minted in Rome, AD 103-112; obverse reads: IMP TRAIANO AVG GER DAC P M TR P, bare-headed bust right; reverse reads: DAC CAP COS V P P S P Q R OPTIMO PRINC, Dacia captive with her arms tied, seated right on pile of arms.
I was excited - I crossed the 3rd century time barrier for my coin finds! My energy returned to me, and I was eager to do a thorough search of the "hot" spot. Unfortunately, we did not have much time left for metal detecting because Bob had to get back to Kiev by 7pm. We agreed to stop detecting in an hour.
Bob swore to me that he was exhausted from having just unearthed five U.S. Civil War canteens in the same hole as 100 silver Saxon coins. Bob declared he had placed these finds in his car and was now too tired to pull them out again to show us. Dmitry walked over to where he was resting and tried to explain to our American friend that Yankees and Saxons were never in Ukraine, but by that time Bob was either asleep or pretending to be. Something was really wrong with his metal detector because he could not find any "keepers."
