The Kosons are the only gold coins that have been minted by the

Dacia Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus r ...

ns, named after the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...

inscription "ΚΟΣΩΝ" on them.Bogdan Constantinescu et al,
Archaeometallurgical Characterization Of Ancient Gold Artifacts From Romanian Museums Using XRF, Micro-pixe And Micro-SR-XRF Methods
, in ''Proceedings Of The Romanian Academy" Series A, Volume 13, Number 1/2012, pp. 19–26 It is thought that "Koson" is the name of an otherwise historically unrecorded Dacian king, though he may be identical to the

Cotison Cotiso, Cotish or Cotison (flourished c. 30 BC) was a Dacian king who apparently ruled the mountains between Banat and Oltenia (modern-day Romania). Horace calls him king of the Dacians.John T. White, D.D. Oxon, ''The first (-fourth) book of the ...

mentioned by

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

and

Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...

Description

The coins contain Roman iconography: on the obverse, there is an eagle standing on a scepter and holding a wreath in their claw (inspired by the silver

denarii The denarius (, dēnāriī ) was the standard Roman silver coin from its introduction in the Second Punic War to the reign of Gordian III (AD 238–244), when it was gradually replaced by the antoninianus. It continued to be minted in very ...

issued by Pomponius Rufus); the reverse contains three men dressed in

toga The toga (, ), a distinctive garment of ancient Rome, was a roughly semicircular cloth, between in length, draped over the shoulders and around the body. It was usually woven from white wool, and was worn over a tunic. In Roman historical tra ...

s, two of them holding an axe on the shoulder (possibly inspired by the silver denarii issued by

Marcus Junius Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

in 54 BC).

Discovery

Coins inscribed KOSON were discovered in several large stashes in

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

. The biggest group was discovered in 1543, and contained several thousands coins and objects made of gold. It was rumored that this stash was revealed in a bolted chamber under the river Strei, identified as the river Sargetia, and also mentioned by

Dio Cassius Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

. Further research disproved this, and placed the treasure in one of the Dacian castles in the Orăştie mountains, probably in Sarmisegetusa. Debate regarding the name "Koson" was prompted after the discovery of the coins. The discovery captured the attention of writers at the time. Thus, there are comments from

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

in 1520 and Stephanus Zamosius (István Szamosközy) in 1593.

King theory

Modern scholars agree that the name Koson most likely refers to a local king about whom nothing else is known.

Vasile Pârvan Vasile Pârvan (; 28 September 1882, Huruiești, Perchiu, Huruiești, Bacău County – 26 June 1927, Bucharest) was a Romanian historian and archaeologist. Biography Vasile Pârvan came from a modest family, being the first child of the teach ...

argues that he was probably a Thracian dynast who employed the Dacian Getae tribe in plundering raids across the Danube, paying them in his coins.

Theodor Mommsen Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th cent ...

argued that Koson was probably a Dacian ally of

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

, since the coins seem to derive their imagery from those minted by Brutus himself. Recent scholars often argue that he is very likely to be identical to the "

Cotiso Cotiso, Cotish or Cotison (flourished c. 30 BC) was a Dacian king who apparently ruled the mountains between Banat and Oltenia (modern-day Romania). Horace calls him king of the Dacians.John T. White, D.D. Oxon, ''The first (-fourth) book of the ...

n" mentioned by

(Odes III., 8, 18,) and

, (Augustus, 63.), a Dacian king during the reign of Augustus who had raided over the Danube.''The Numismatist: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine for Those Interested in Coins, Medals, and Paper Money'', Volume 25, 1912, p.333

References

External links

* {{Dacia topics Dacian kings 1st-century monarchs in Europe