VCoins - Ancient Coins - Herakles Numismatics, Inc. 
                    
                  Moesia Inferior, Tomis. Gordian III. PROVINCIAL MEDALLION. 
                  Site Of Ovid's Exile. See Note!

                  Reign: Emperor, A.D. 238-244. 
                  Denomination: Æ 35 mm. 
                  Weight: 30.55 grams. 
                  Obverse: His laureate, draped bust r. 
                  Reverse: Roma seated l., holding Nike.  
                  Reference: Moushmov 2251. BMC __ 
                  Grade: Good Very Fine. 
                  Note: Tomis is best remembered as the city to which Ovid, 
                  Rome's foremost poet from the time of Augustus, was exiled by 
                  his emperor in A.D. 8. While living there, Ovid wrote elegies 
                  to family and friends in Rome describing his intense 
                  depression. Tomis was on the edge of the Roman world and was a 
                  center of administration in the koinon of Moesia (which became 
                  federated by Augustus and Tiberius). For the urbane Ovid, life 
                  in so remote a place was unbearable and he spoke of the bleak 
                  weather, the lack of culture, and attacks of great ferocity by 
                  regional tribesmen. 
                  By the time of Gordian (c. 250 years later), the Empire had 
                  grown so much that Moesia was now a prized region well within 
                  the Roman empire. Cities on the Black Sea coast, such as 
                  Tomis, were familiar enough that they were no longer an 
                  Augustan wilderness. But danger remained for these wealthy 
                  mercantile cities, which throughout the 3rd Century A.D. were 
                  prizes for the Goths, who had taken to seafaring. 

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