I have an extensive unpublished paper on the importance of the ludi Apollinares in the late republic which is slate to be a chapter in the new book. These two coin types will both feature in that chapter as will RRC 346/1. But for now what I’m really interested in is Censorinus’ decision to imitated Piso’s earlier issue. By contrast his bronze types are really innovative (Ostia on Bronze: cf earlier post). Even his other denarius is doing something relatively new. The Ancus Numa jugate heads might draw visually on RRC 307 and 312/1 (the only earlier jugate heads on the Roman series is a v rare semuncia from Luceria but I’m not even sure that counts); and the use of legendary kings probably was inspired by RRC 344 (Tatius). Desultors appeared in a slightly different form on RRC 297 (early blog posts on desultores). The Apollo horse coins echo a massive v recent series. I wonder if the nature of these borrowings on the silver might be a means of making the coins blend better with the coins most common in contemporary circulation. An attempt to illicit an ‘oh that’s familiar’ feeling in a moment of deep civil crisis.
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Non coin portion.
Most of my main intellectual work for the day is done already: a grant co-writing/brainstorming session, a meeting about a co-authored conference paper, finishing my review of literary sources on Censorinus that I started yesterday, this post, now I really need to do logistics and emails. My least favorite work. That said it feels good to have written and thought a great deal and still have a sizable part of my work day left for those v necessary tasks. I’ll make a paper list.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 