Michelangelo didn’t really care about hair. What he wanted to accomplish was good muscles. I only got here because I have a chicken and the egg problem for the obverse identification of RRC 491/2.
Does Crawford think that this is the Sybil because of Michaelango? Not an exact match but clearly some similarities in the wrapping.
The identification is open to interpretation. The Sibyl does not have a fixed clear iconography as far as I can tell. The only image I know of where it is clearly labelled in antiquity is RRC 411/2.
If the engraver hadn’t labelled the head I’d probably have identified it as Apollo. A nice bit of support in its own way for Phil Davis’ ID of the obverse heads on Musa’s coins as Muses with attributes not Apollo and controlmarks (RRC 410). I’ve blogged about this back in 2020 where I was slow to be convinced, but now my mind is very settled. I also found this post with dead links from 2021 on the same topic: a reminder to myself to screenshot everything I want to save.
I see why Crawford made RRC 411 follow RRC 410 in relative chronology. I’d not be surprised it hte obverses of were carved by the same hand. BUT Hollstein and Hersh and Walker would put the Muses in 56 BCE based the Messagne Hoard (Mattingly would move it to 52 BCE); Hollstein would put the Sibyl in 61 and Hersh and Walker in 58 BCE. Clearly more evidence is needed. Perhaps something that could be tested using Lockyear’s CA method of Hoard analysis.
Ok back to the Sibyl on the RR series. RRC 464/1 is dated to 46 BCE and the whole series is seen as celebratory of Caesar’s expected return. The obverse bears some resemblance to the later Norbanus Cestius type above.
Crawford speculates that this particular type might connect to the coinage of Gergis in the Troad and thus perhaps Caesar’ Trojan ancestry. While sphinxes are common on coinage, Crawford is right that it is Gergis that is most consistent at pairing the sphinx with a female head usually interpreted as Herophile the Sibyl. That said almost all Greek sphinxes are male including those of Gergis and the two obverses don’t bear any resemblance. If it is meant to evoke the Troad it does so through imposing Italic imagery.
The many breasted Sphinx is most well known from the cistophoric and gold issues in honor of Augustus made in Asia Minor.
I’m surprised that various literature searches turned up zero connection between sphinxes and sibyls: the obvious connection is that according to Greek legend the sphinx was something of a prophet. And, very contradictory accounts of who Herophile is (of Marpessos: Tib. 2.5.67-68 and Paus. 12; of Eyrthrae: Plut. Mor. 401.14 and Paus 12.;also Paus. 12: of Apollo Smintheus, of Samos, Colophon, Delos and Delphi.). A female sphinx is known on the poorly understood coinage of Vulci.
Notice on the Vulci coin how the male head is surround by a squiggly line. Almost as if the head is disembodied and laying on a cloth. I’m reminded intensely of both Caput Oli (on which see my 2018 glasspastes article and this blog post) and how this might be related to the Tarchon and Tages imagery from Etruscan art on which see de Grummond. I must write her about this coin. I really think she showed in a public lecture scenes where the head was in a bag… Perhaps the logic is the same: sources of prophecy.
Here’s Literary testimony on the moneyer’s later career:
Ok back to so called Sibyl iconography, next up is Acisculus’ denarius from the next year (RRC 474/3) and if it exists, his sestertius (RRC 474/8).
Acisculus’s female head is paired with Apollo (a good start for a Sibyl, but remember so is Europa in this same series!) and has a similar hair style to Carisius’ if not actually identical at least they are both up, textured, and with many ribbons. I’d even go so far as to say they both have ivy flowers over their ears.
That’s it for sibyls but not for women with complicated updos on the RR series whose identity is disputed. RRC 405 series as two maybe 3 or four such obverses.
I think the solution to the lady with an up do may lie in the similarities between these images. All of 405 is usually taken to relate to the cult of Fortuna at Praeneste which also had divination functions.
How does Michaelangelo fit in? I’m not sure he does but I suspect like everyone else he might have been looking at coins…
Liv Mariah Yarrow 