Enumeration of My Days – Liv Mariah Yarrow

16 out of 234 days: 1548 Firmum Picenum Hoard

January 19, 2023January 19, 2023 Liv Yarrow1 Comment

Update later the same day.

Original post below. I write these as I dive in an I like to preserve my train of thought. And, then sometimes post publication new stuff is shared with me by generous colleagues, like Seth Bernard. Who found that Crawford has tracked down records of this hoard in 2003, AND had seen another more recent one that was then unpublished and so leaving yet another content list to track down.

What I don’t understand is why Crawford assumes these are denarii… or that the asses are of the struck variety rather than the cast. I don’t see anything in the Latin to confirm that summary. The epigraphic evidence would suggest 1st Punic War date at least to my untrained eye….

The meat of this article is really the appendices just masses of data on where coins were found.

This is not the post I started writing this morning. That one may appear later today or whenever it is finished, it’s on more aes grave bibliography I was reading. This is a side note…

I went looking for images/info on Mater Matuta to round out my understanding of a findcontext and landed on this Arachne search result and as I read I found a hoard report from a completely different part of the early Roman Italy!

Extremely frustratingly I can’t find the inscription (yet!) in any of the typical epigraphic databases (I tend to start with Clauss/Slaby) and that seems supremely odd as it is clearly published. I also checked Coin Hoards and came up with zilch. My thought is if I can find a better publication of the inscription I might find the coin types. The next stop was to figure out what type of quaestors are making this offering: fines officers!

This got me to an article I’ve now ILL requested:

Piacentin, Sofia. 2021. “Public Fines in Italy Outside Rome.” In Financial Penalties in the Roman Republic, pp. 60-76. Brill.

But! The publisher’s preview gave me a head start:

Turns out Marengo is a PROLIFIC epigrapher with numerous interesting publications that I am studiously not letting myself consider reading at this time. This is the relevant one for the above inscription:

Marengo, Silvia Maria. “Le « multae ».” In Il capitolo delle entrate nelle finanze municipali in Occidente ed in Oriente: actes de la Xe rencontre franco-italienne sur l’épigraphie du monde romain : Rome, 27-29 mai 1996,. Collection de l’École Française de Rome; 256, 73-84. Roma: Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, 1999. Which gloriously turns out to be open access!

The above inscription with the coin hoard is her no. 2:

Which with this transcription let me get the databases to spit it out:

Publications: CIL 09, 05351 = CIL 01, 00383 (p 879) = CIL 05, *00429,012 = ILLRP 00593 = D 06132 = Questori 00278

and gave me an image too:

Still no more information on the hoard…. I guess I’ll have to track down all the publications at some point…

I did however let me try to retrieve it the plaque from Gallica (BnF image database). Picenum, Firmum, and Fermo, gave me nothing relevant, neither did ‘inscription’, but that last search term did return a whole host of yummy images, especially of the fragments of the tablette ilaques.

It was a long standing iron age settlement but made a Latin Colony c. 264 BCE (Vel. Pat. 1.14.8), and then sided with Hannibal… We can assume a deposition of this hoard was mid third century based on letter forms and history of the colony.

The development of the quaestorship in the third century has been a hot topic, furthered by the discovery of the Egadi Rams. I’m not sure yet how the use of the title in colonies intersects. I’ve not read enough. Here’s some starter bibliography…

Prag Jonathan R. W. The quaestorship in the third and second centuries BC. In: L’imperium Romanum en perspective. Les savoirs d’empire dans la République romaine et leur héritage dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne. Besançon : Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l’Antiquité, 2014. pp. 193-209. (Collection « ISTA », 1302) (open access – the whole volume is fascinating!)

Prag, J. (2014). Bronze rostra from the Egadi Islands off NW Sicily: The Latin inscriptions. Journal of Roman Archaeology, 27, 33-59. doi:10.1017/S1047759414001159

Prag, Jonathan R. W. “A Revised Edition of the Latin Inscription on the Egadi 11 Bronze ‘Rostrum’ from the Egadi Islands.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 202 (2017): 287–92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26603819.

Pina Polo, Francisco and Díaz Fernández, Alejandro. “Chapter 2: The development of the quaestorship and the so-called Italian quaestors”. The Quaestorship in the Roman Republic, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2019, pp. 25-50. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110666410-004 (again the whole volume is super relevant)

Today

~~Lafayette reply~~
~~Review grad student apps by Jan 19~~
~~Finalize LETTER draft~~
Read more on Aes Grave
~~Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings~~

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

post conference Rome accommodation
Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
Write up Teaching Eval
Cancel at least one more digital membership
renew Coinarchives

11 out of 234 days: Aes Grave outside Peninsular Italy

January 13, 2023January 13, 2023 Liv YarrowLeave a comment

Ugly screen shot of the interactive Google Earth project you are welcome to view

I was collecting bibliography yesterday and was impressed with the running theme of specimens found outside Italy. The Croatian finds don’t surprise me too much because of the Mazin hoard with its roman currency bar fragments (so called aes signatum, see #NotAllElephants). I’d tentatively relate the fragmentary nature of the find in Switzerland to a similar phenomenon. Martínez Chico is right to emphasize the military camp finds at La Palma from the Prow series and events of 2nd Punic War to explain eastern Iberian find patterns and I’d transfer that logic to all the yellow dots in Sicily. The green dots (series 14 and 18) on the Sicilian eastern coast remind me of the patterns noted by Jaia and Molinari 2011, i.e. the association of these early series with the fortification of the Tyrrhenian seacoast line.

The nice thing with building this sort of representation in Google Earth is I can keep adding to it as I come across more references.

ILL still hasn’t given up any treasures as of yet.

The other thing from this morning of note is that the Portuguese variant of RRC 18/1 has Apollo facing left on both sides. I’m concerned however that I don’t understand Martínez Chico assertion that there are two already known variants, A and B. As far as I can tell this is just about the photographer’s choice, but maybe I’m being dense….

It is demoralizing to see the same things on my to do list as yesterday. It isn’t that I didn’t do any of the things, I touched them all. It’s just they all need to be touched again. As is the nature of the work. Progress is the key.

Today

First steps on Aes Grave project – collect more bibliography
More Italy visit logistics
More AAH logistics
Book flights
More BM communications
Schaefer follow up
follow up with Lafayette

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
Write up Teaching Eval
Rosen Fellowship refs – Jan 16
Cancel at least one more digital membership
renew Coinarchives
Review grad student apps by Jan 19

10 of 234 days: UPenn Nemi connection

January 12, 2023 Liv YarrowLeave a comment

The Cesano 1940 (lake?) Nemi coin catalogue has not yet arrived from ILL, but it’s less than 24 hours so I must be more patient, maybe I’ll get to blog about that in a day or two.

My poking around brought to my attention that the UPenn Museum also was a major purchaser of artifacts from the late 19th century excavations at the sanctuary of Diana

Their online catalogue suggests just shy of 50 objects. The main agent in the acquisition of Nemi material for UPenn seems to have been Mrs. Lucy Wharton (Joseph) Drexel in 1897. That she acquired? (paid for?) along with the ‘fine art’ this weight leads me to believe its is just possible she (or the university agent) might have also brought back coins, even ugly ones.

Catalogue entry (a shame the exact dimensions including mass aren’t recorded)

UPenn also has a pretty decent coin collection, more than 20k specimens when all periods are included, of which the vast majority are Roman. While I cannot say I looked at all their coins, it seemed pretty clear from entries that provenance before 1929 was typically not recorded. My suspicion is that if they got Nemi sanctuary coins they didn’t record them as such. Archival paperwork on the Nemi acquisitions in the museum might answer those questions, but even better would be to fine the Savile photos that Crawford mentions (see earlier post.)

A collection of photos donated by Lord Savile to the British Museum illustrates a number of pieces not otherwise attested, which have been included in the list below, and there may well have been more.

He also says:

A number of pieces were published by E. J. Haeberlin in his Aes Grave as forming part of his own collection and a number of others as having been part of the stock of the dealer X. Pasinati in 1895.

Given the excellent quality of Haeberlin’s images; it should be possible to establish where at least some of these coins from the Pasinati’s stock ended up. I’m making a right pest of myself at the BM as C&M doesn’t seem to have the photos and I am now banging round the other departments asking questions and favors.

Transitioning between projects is so hard. It’s weird. I was so eager to be done with Dionysius and to give my full attention to the coins, but yet finding the most productive steps is harder than anticipated. The habit of worrying about whether my work is good enough and whether I can actually do it is also hard to break. What if I collect all this data and it is all meaningless? I’m a wee bit under the weather (yes, the covid test is negative, and yes I’ll test again before going to NYC this weekend), and that has my mood down I suspect. We’re finally in double digits on the enumeration and yes without a doubt real progress has been made. The running discipline is good to help reassure myself of that.

Today

First steps on Aes Grave project – collect relevant bibliography
More Italy visit logistics
More AAH logistics
Book flights
More BM communications
Schaefer follow up
follow up with Lafayette

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
Write up Teaching Eval
Rosen Fellowship refs – Jan 16
Cancel at least one more digital membership
renew Coinarchives
Review grad student apps by Jan 19

Day 7 of 234: Still more on RRC 486/1

January 9, 2023January 10, 2023 Liv YarrowLeave a comment

Days 5-6 were the weekend. And, now that I have a family, I have a better appreciation of the need to stop oneself from working every possible moment.

Grueber 1910 (see last post) cited Borasi 1898 and it is indeed it not only has a very nice sketch/transcription of the stone, but also a discussion of the earlier speculations on the coin including background to the historical dating of it and a little on what was known then on the cult of Bellona in the region. Perhaps fuel for deeper digging

Borasi and others keep mentioning a hybrid type with Augustus and RRC 486/1 and the legend “imp. Caes. Augus, tr. pot. iix.” as reported by Borghesi. I wondered if any of these hybrids have turned up more recently. I’ve not tracked one down yet, but I did come across TWO fun Spanish hybrid types using the obverse of RRC 407/2 and the reverse of RIC 1 404 (or 405). Kind of wild they use different dies but from the same types.

I don’t think these goddesses are Oak Nymphs or Oak-Grove Lares (Querquetulanae) anymore than they were Larch trees, but its always good to review the evidence, before dismissing it.

Varro LL 5.49

Not my most satisfying warm up writing, but good enough… on to the lists.

Today

~~Spend EVEN MORE time with Dionysius~~
More Italy visit logistics
More Rutgers coordination as needed
More Princeton coordination as needed
~~Dr. Liz letter~~

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Book flights
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
follow up with Lafayette
Write up Teaching Eval
Follow up old student/tree sunset
Rosen Fellowship refs
Finalize AAH logistics
Cancel at least one more digital membership
renew Coinarchives

Day 4 of 234: More on RRC 486/1

January 6, 2023January 9, 2023 Liv Yarrow1 Comment

Grueber 1910 (repr. 1970): 569-570 has deliciously erudite footnotes! And yet, like so often he doesn’t explain the theories he’s dismissing. I know they are wrong and so does he, but what a lot of work to make others dig through. It makes me slightly more fond of Crawford’s dismissive asides as he condemns his predecessors. at least I know where he stands and where to look.

I use the 1970 reprint of Grueber as Crawford had a hand in its re issue and correction of errors of the 1910 edition, but if you don’t have it on your shelves or happen to be in need of it away from home, there is a digitized version of the original BMCRR.

Next time I am in Rome I must make a pilgrimage to this inscription in the baths of Diocletian in the section on oriental cults! Strange to think I must have walked by it half a dozen times in the past but not noticed its numismatic connection.

What does it mean? At first reading, It seems to be that this guy Eros wanted to make a dedication to Bellona and needed Accoleius and his colleague’s permission to do so. Our moneyer’s name is in the last line. Also notice the TALL Is which Grueber discusses as a means of indicating the long vowel sound. The stone itself is from Lanuvium.

The back of this same stone has it’s own epigraphic designation in some databases:

Also of note for our current assumptions that this coin represents the cult image at Nemi, is that at two members of the same gens as the moneyer are attested at finds from the sanctuary at Nemi. One clearly played some role in local politics in the early first century CE. AND wait for it… our own dear Lord Savile scooped up this v stone (along with the vast majority of the coin finds from the excavations) and brought it to Nottingham! (I’ll be sure to pay my respects when I visit.)

The other attestation is from a list of names of uncertain function (see line five).

The Lanuvium makes sense once we look at the maps. Lanuvium is only about an hour and 20 minute walk away, and is the next nearest ancient community to the sanctuary after Ariccia.

There is only one instance of gens in epigraphy from Rome itself and that seems to have been a funerary inscription that was reused in the construction of the walls of the tomb of Caecilia Metella

Right. More to learned and share here obviously, but I’m done warming up, and am ready to tackle the to do list!

Today

~~Submit Signed Tow by 5 pm Jan 6~~
~~Spend MORE time with Dionysius~~
~~Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip~~ (progress)
~~BM/Rowan Follow Up~~
~~Rutgers Follow Up~~
~~Enter Dates of things in Family Calendar to avoid nasty surprises~~
~~AAH Logistics~~ (progress)
~~Cancel at least one digital membership~~
~~Princeton Follow Up~~ (here’s a link the awesome cast bronze collection there!)

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Spend EVEN MORE time with Dionysius
Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Book flights
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
follow up with Lafayette
Write up Teaching Eval
Follow up old student/tree sunset
Rosen Fellowship refs
Finalize AAH logistics
Cancel at least one digital membership
More Rutgers coordination as needed
More Princeton coordination as needed

3 of 234 Days: Triple Diana or Three Nymphs?

January 5, 2023January 5, 2023 Liv Yarrow1 Comment

From Schaefer’s Archives (presumed forger’s die, now in Zurich money museum (see previous blog post)

I love that I can use the Berlin catalogue as a digital index for Woytek. The pages here discuss the college of moneyers and why 41 BCE is a better date for them. It does not engage with typology, but rather mint structure.

Smyth 1856: 2 describes two specimens of RRC 486/1. He discounts an unattributed description of as the Caryatidae, and favors seeing it as the metamorphosis of the three Clymenidae, sisters of Phaeton, with the obverse being their mother, Clymene. He quotes in Latin a line from Havercamp. The view is over a hundred years old by the time Smyth paraphrases. AGNETHLER 1746: 72-73 (next set of images) makes explicit what Smyth only implies. The attraction of this interpretation is based on the moneyer’s cognomen LARISCOLUS being derived from larix: the larch tree. The idea was that the three figures are turning into these trees. Smyth rejects an idea he attributes to Cavedoni that the obverse represents Acca Laurentia and that the money is thereby associating he gens, ACCOLEIUS, with the mother of the Lares and more over implying a connection between his cognomen and these protective deities.

Given the conviction of all these forebearers, I found myself surprised no one had pointed me to an ancient account of this myth. I had hope when I turned to Rasche 1785 when he gave a Pliny reference…

But NO! that passage is about the triple nature of the larch, a rather clever means of creating a connection, I admit.

“the fir and the larch divide the process into three parts and produce their buds in three batches; consequently they also shed scales of bark three times…”
Pliny 16.100

So what’s up? Well, outside of the numismatic bubble these sisters are typically called Heliades (a small point, but helpful for tracking down info!) and all of the accounts (as far as I can tell) have them turning into poplar trees if any type of tree is specified. Also their number isn’t fixed, as many as seven appear in some accounts (three is also a known number).

So how and when did our former colleagues reject this interpretation and land on the Diana as worshiped at Nemi…? A story for another day. This was enough of a pleasant warm up exercise and now onto the to-do list.

Today

~~Finalize Tow Proposal (DUE Friday, Jan 6, 5 pm)~~
~~Spend sometime with Dionysius~~
~~Send Letter of Recommendation (RE grad teaching)~~
~~Triage former student emails from over break~~
~~Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip~~ (progress!)
~~Contact Princeton and Rutgers about possibility of visits~~
~~Write BM about whether scans of Nemi photos can be had~~
~~Write Clare in case she’s seen these photos and is interested in those token images mentioned by Crawford~~

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Submit Signed Tow by 5 pm Jan 6
Spend MORE time with Dionysius
Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Book flights
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
Circle back to Capito project
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
record mini myth
find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
follow up with Lafayette
Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip
Write up Teaching Eval
Follow up old student/tree sunset
Rosen Fellowship refs

2 of 234 days: Nemi and More

January 4, 2023January 4, 2023 Liv Yarrow2 Comments

This is the opening to Crawford 1983. I know I can visit material on deposit in Nottingham and any of Haeberlin’s collection that ended up in Berlin, but I wonder how likely it is to be able to track down any specimens that were in Pasinati’s stock? Do you know the whereabouts of one or more of these pieces of *aes grave*? This particular provenance would make the individual specimens deeply important from an archaeological and historical position. Link to Helbig 1885. Crawford in this piece is attempting to improve upon Cesano AIIN 1912. (She’s one of my favorite numismatic foremothers!)

Crawford tells us that “A collection of photos donated by Lord Savile to the British Museum illustrates a number of pieces not otherwise attested, which have been included in the list below, and there may well have been more. (The photos also illustrate four tesserae: Standing figure/Standing figure, Standing figure/Standing figure, IVVEN/Blank, COR/THAL /Triple Hecate) .” I think these must be on deposit in the coins and medals department, as they have not been given accession numbers and added to the collection database as far as I can tell…

—

The enumeration of my days is a discipline for myself. When this blog was anonymous this type of omphloscopy was easier as I could at once construct in my mind’s eye just the right sort of mildly (dis)interested external audience, while being assured that next to no one actually read these posts or cared. Now I know there are some of you are coming for a specific kind of content that has nothing to do with my own writing practice and personal reflection on my profession.

I’ve resolved to re-institute the used of categories to help you filter out posts of less interest. Posts in this series will (like last time) be marked “enumeration of my days”. The coins category will be used to mark posts with… wait for it… coins. Ditto historiography, modernity, material culture, textual evidence, and advice. I think that covers most of the things I usually blog about.

Today

~~Re-shelve books and reset home office space~~
~~Develop Tow proposal (DUE Friday, Jan 6, 5 pm)~~
~~Choose ideal dates for Rome trip~~ (and even found my ideal flights!)
~~Contact curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip~~ (one, more tomorrow)
~~Respond to external advising email~~
~~Triage Emails from over Holiday Break~~ (progress, not perfection)
~~respond to podcast request~~

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

Spend sometime with Dionysius
Teaching requests for Fall 2023
Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
Book flights
Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester
Finalize Tow Proposal (DUE Friday, Jan 6, 5 pm)
Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
Begin Med school rec letter
Contact Princeton and Rutgers about possibility of visits
Write BM about whether scans of Nemi photos can be had
Write Clare in case she’s seen these photos and is interested in those token images mentioned by Crawford
Write up Teaching Eval (overdue!)
A little more work on office environment
Triage Emails from over Holiday Break
Contact curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip
Send Letter of Recommendation (grad teaching)

Not THIS Sabbatical

I found a post it note on my desk with a idea for a little book, potentially useful to the non-numismatists:

Roman Social History: The Coin Evidence

Ordinary Occupations

Ludi in Rome and the Provinces

Lives of Women

Athletics

Political Careers

Myth and Legend

Architecture

297 out of 410 days: Acorns again.

April 11, 2014April 11, 2014 Liv Yarrow1 Comment

ANS specimens of RRC 21/7 = HN Italy 294. Click image for full details.

Last time I was worrying about acorns, I was mostly on about RRC 14/7. This is the other ‘heavy’ acorn. Many of the specimens on the market do seem ‘heavy’ for being a 1/24th piece of a 265g as, or at least a quick scan suggests, but the ANS specimens are lighter: 11.75-13.9g. They are not so heavy that they seem particularly problematic in the weight standard, cf. the ANS uncia specimens of the series which are all much heavier.

My interest was peaked by how they show up in this hoard:

Image links to source publication. Marks in red are my annotations. [*Note:* the correct citation for the Nola bronze is HN Italy 607. Also see below for discrepancy between this report of the hoard and that in IGCH.]

So here RRC 21/7 is hanging out all by its lonesome with a bunch of RRC 14s and 18s. I’m not really sure why RRC 21/7 couldn’t go with the RRC 18 series. The types of RRC 21 echo the obverse types of RRC 14, so that would make the acorn fit with RRC 21. Must take a look to see if we have any other hoards with RRC 21/7 out in the cold…

I’m also sure I’m being influenced by how RRC 14s and 18s are often found in hoards together on their own; another great publication surveying this phenomenon is online.

Here’s Burnett 1977 on the importance of the above hoard:

Capture — Image links to online version of the publication.

If the statement about the semuncia being contemporary with the Roma/Victory didrachms is true this would pull this hoard’s date down to the end of 1st Punic War based on Burnett’s 2006 reading of the San Martino in Pentilis hoard. The presence of the Minerva/Cock types and the Aesernia types with the subsequent Man-faced bull issues leads me to think this is a hoard from a transitional phase between the two. I’d be inclined to agree with M. C. Molinari that it predates both the Pratica di Mare and Teano Hoards…

Okay, here’s one more complication. R. Russo in Numismatica Sottovoce proposed that RRC 16, 17, and 23 were single series (23 = double unit, 16 = unit, 17 = half unit) minted at Neapolis after the Battle of Beneventum. This seems too early to me and I hesitate to break RRC 23 away from it Messane mint connection. But neither of these points directly challenge them being a series.

But if RRC 16 was really contemporary with RRC 17 that would detract from M. C. Molinari’s ordering of these three hoards as RRC 16 is present in Pietrabbondante… I find myself leaning more away from Russo’s idea of a series.

Mattingly’s reading of the Pietrabbondante hoard is here but I think it’s mostly out of date given the evidence of the San Martino in Pentilis evidence.

Something seems to have gone wrong in the transcription of the hoard totals in the above publication. Here’s the entry from IGCH:

Note that the number of uncertain have been attributed to Neapolis above and the 126 of Neapolis have been missed out. I don’ t think it overly affects the interpretation of the hoard in source publication. The original publication of the hoard with all the details has been digitized, although it takes forever to load.

293 out of 410 days: Only Musings

April 7, 2014April 7, 2014 Liv YarrowLeave a comment

Two small thoughts.

1) I hate the use of the word ‘real’ in the sense of ‘real world’ or ‘real job’. It is invariably used to trivialize the work and position of the individual who is not partaking in someone else’s definition of real. It implies one’s life occupation is a delusion without value, usually meaning monetary value. I once even had a senior administrator at my own college tell me my department ‘was the happiest la-la-land of academia’. He meant it as a compliment to my managerial skills, I think. While academics are used to hearing the phrase ‘real world’ in anti-intellectual contexts, I suspect its also a classist sentiment. One that disparages the labor of those who do work different from one’s own. The handy thing about it as a slur is that its perfectly acceptable to say to someone’s face AND its flexible enough to be used against those both above and below the speaker on the socio-economic scale.

2) I hate drafting. I’m usually a write it once and never change it kind of gal. I sweat over each damn sentence. The blog has effectively tricked me into drafting. I just had an awesomely productive writing morning for the book, largely inspired by various disparate posts written scattered over many months. No one sentence in the book draft matches the blog and yet boy it was easier to bang out those words with the posts up in front of me.

Sorry, no coins!

Metapontum and early Latin Coinage

April 6, 2014June 5, 2018 Liv YarrowLeave a comment

Crawford’s suggestion of a Metapontum as the mint for the first Roman didrachm is very much out of favour. Here’s the relevant footnote in RRC vol. 1 p. 46 n. 9 third (!) paragraph:

Here’s Vagi in the brilliant new Essays Russo 2014 (p. 80):

And so we find Russo’s son also following his father in the catalog of the JD collection part II:

We have decided to share Rutter’s opinion who in Historia Numorum Italy attributes these coins to the Naples mint contrary to Crawford who assigns them to the mint of Metapontum. That said however, we have decided to refer to the coin as an obol and not as a litra as suggested by both Rutter and Crawford. The reasons for this decision are very simple: we obviously agree that this coin belongs to Crawford’s series 13, which was intended for trades with Magna Grecia. On this basis, it seems only logical that we refer to it as an obol and not a litra. Its weight and its general appearance are consistent with coaeval obols of Camapianian mints such as: Fistelia, Peripoloi Pitanai and Allifae, which most probably were circulating along with this coin.

JD collection of Roman Republican Coins.
Obol, Neapolis 320-300, AR 0.66 g. Head of Mars r., wearing Corinthian helmet; behind, oak spray (?). Rev. Head of horse r.; behind, corn ear and before, ROMANO downwards. Fiorelli Annali 1846, p. 23 and pl. I, fig, 29. Garrucci pl. 77, 18. Bahrfeldt RN 1900, pp. 33-34, 31 and pl. 26, 1 (possibly this obverse die). Sydenham 2. Crawford 13/2. Historia Numorum Italy 267.

So I got thinking about this because of how Norba borrows Metapontum’s type for its obol during the Pyrrhic War:

There is only one of these coins known, but it comes with a good archaeological provenance. The original report is online here. And also here.

L. Cesano, Monete rinvenute negli scavi di Norba, in NSA 1904, 423-426

PANVINI–ROSATI, FRANCO. Moneta unica di Norba. In: Archaeologia Classica, Vol. 11 (1959), pp. 102-107, pi. 40.

On sacred context, but not the coin itself: S. Quilici Gigli, Norba: la topografia del sacro, in Ostraka 20, 2012, pp. 411-419.

Vagi makes a very plausible explanation for the corn-ear with the horse head to allude to the Festival of the October Horse, a harvest festival in honor of Mars. Metapontum is a red herring for the Roman series, but what does Metapontum have to do with the Latin obols? Why do we find her type borrowed on the coins of Norba?

Also RRC 13/2 as an obol perhaps helps set a precedence that influenced the denominational choice for the Latin mints (Norba, Signia, and Alba Fucens) of the Pyrrhic War.