The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

490 SIR ARTHUR EVANS.
One of these bars is shown in Fig. 3. The metal
of these bars, cast in a mould, had been stamped after
it was cooled by officials of the Sirmian mint. One
of the stamps employed shows the facing busts of two
adult Emperors and a boy, a combination which would
agree with the association of Gratian by Valentinian I
and Valens in A.D. 367, or with that of Valentinian II
by Valens and Gratian in 375, or again, of Gratian,
Theodosius, and Valentinian II in 37H. 87 On another
stamp the "Tyche" of the city
seated, with the name appended.
The first stamp on the bars, bearing
of Sirmium is seen
the name of
the mint official Lucianus, 88 certifies the metal as
"
obryzum " or " red gold ", the Christian monogram
added as a further sanction. The letters OBR
being
indeed that here appear are a fuller form of the
OB first introduced on to the gold coinage by the
87 Kenner (op. cit., p. 29) has Valentinian I, Valens, and Gratian.
Mommsen, op. cit., pp. 352, 353, adds, as preferable, the alternative
of Gratian, Theodosius I, and Valentinian II (378-83). The Sirmian
mint still existed in Theodosius I's time (cp. Cohen, viii, p. 159,
No. 37, exergual legend SI ROB).
88 The inscription reads LVCIANVS OBR. -I- SIC .
Mommsen, op. cit., suggests, doubtfully, that = I primum, as
showing that this was the first stamp impressed on the bar. He
altogether rejects Kenner's interpretation "primae (notae) " = i.e.
refined gold of the first standard, referring to the mark on the
touchstone. 1 venture to suggest that the inscription should read
LVCIANVS OBR[YZIARIVS] PRIMVS SIC[NAVIT]
CHRISMATE, and as indicating that Lucianus signed as the
first of the officials to whom actual assaying had been entrusted.
It finds, in fact, a perfect analogy in the OF. PRIMVS
(Officinator primus) on the silver ingot from the Treves mint
described below, p. 497. Obriziarius occurs in Glosses. (Du Cange,
From the further existence of the word obriziatus (" solidos
s. v.)
obriziatos," Du Cange, s.v.) it seems possible that the title oltryzhttor
may have also existed.