adventures in my head
Really, I’m going to try not to become (more) obsessed with the Papius series. But I just couldn’t resist this one. The pointy thing on the obverse matches with the whip, because together they are the attributes of the desultor [links to all posts on the top]:
If you’ve read more of this blog than is probably good for your health, you might remember me wondering previously about the possibility that some of our tesserae that are usually attributed to bankers might actually be part of mint operations and the batch control system. I came back to that idea when was reading about this one found in Ostra. Notice how instead of names or dates as are often found on these it has two symbols. Reminded me of control marks. Here’s a translation of the paragraph in the publication of this tessera about the symbols.
The two symbols, the altar burning and lightning, which appear on the card Ostra are not new: they are present, along with other symbols (palm branch, caduceus, dolphin, trident, crown, lightning) on other Tessera Nummularia (4). The presence of such symbols is found, however, on other classes of objects: first stamps on amphorae from the eastern Mediterranean (5). In this case, the symbols used have been set in relation to the origin of the jars themselves (from Rhodes: caduceus, dolphin, trident, crown, palm branch, from Cnidus: altar, caduceus, trident, from Thasos: caduceus, wreath, from city of Pontus: thunderbolt, caduceus, dolphin, trident, crown, branch). Closer to Tessera Nummularia, and probably not only geographically, is a class of small clay disks found in Taranto among the evidence from the Greek colony (6). Even the symbols on them are similar, a name-probably that of a civil servant rather than that of the manufacturer – an indication of the weight or quantity of the coins she, as well as two holes that are rightly supposed to use these objects similar to that of the Tessera Nummularia . We finally add a significant amount of lead seals from Rome and Lyon (7).”
Here is a link to a pdf of the first item under no. 6, the Les disques de Tarente. I’m not sure they really offers that close of a parallel…
Wiseman, T. P. (1971) New Men in the Roman Senate, 139BC-AD14. Oxford p. 85-6 noticed that the names on the tessera often correspond to moneyers. He collects a list of known argentarii and faeneratores in his appendix C:
Philip Kay has an up to date summary of the issues:
The chapter length treatment by Andreau, Banking and Business in the Roman World, 1999, chapter 7 is still the most detailed discussion. Here’s a sample:
The first and third arguments are weak, esp. the latter as no evidence is given. Four in true is by far the strongest. But #2 is almost strong enough to make the case on its own. Here’s Lewis and Short sv. specto definition I.B.3:
To examine, try, test: (argentum) dare spectandum, Plaut. Pers. 3, 3, 35: ut fulvum spectatur in ignibus aurum, Tempore sic duro est inspicienda fides, Ov. Tr. 1, 5, 25; cf.: qui pecuniā non movetur … hunc igni spectatum arbitrantur, as having stood the test of fire,Cic. Off. 2, 11, 38; cf. spectatio, I. B., and spectator, I. B.—
We numismatists have caused ourselves a world of unnecessary confusion by the common language of our catalogs that describe various deities as being in a biga or in a quadriga. In Latin in bigis just isn’t used. Perhaps because the visual conjured up by such a phrase might be something like the scene with Luke and Han on Hoth:
The phrase ‘in curru’ is regularly used. And we might note especially the line of Lucretius On the Nature of Things (2.601):
sedibus in curru biiugos agitare leones
There are four instances of in quadrigis in Latin, but notably three describe statues.
Gaius Plinius Secundus, Naturalis Historia 34.78.4
C. Iul. Caes. Augustus Octavianus, Res Gestae 4.51
Maurus Servius Honoratus, In Vergilii Bucolicon Librum 6.22.3
And the fourth is in Cicero’s Brutus when he means ‘in the chariot races’ not ‘in the chariot’ (173.5). [I leave aside the odd Latin of Hyginus, Fabulae 250].
bigae and quadrigae, as Latin grammarians are forever going on about, are plural nouns not singular, because they refer to the animals, not the vehicle. Perhaps the most clear is the statement by Fronto from Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights:
The Loeb translation is misleading. So here’s a slightly modified version:
Quadrigae, etsi multiiugae non sunt, always keeps the plural number, since four horses yoked together are called quadrigae, as if it were quadriiugae, and certainly that which denotes several horses should not be compressed into the oneness of the singular number.
The problem is how to translate etsi multiiugae non sunt: ‘although they are not many’ is accurate, but misses the contrast in the Latin between quadrigae and multiiugus, the latter adjective which can be singular, where as the former cannot. Or we might even read a joke here, ‘although there are not a many teams yoked together’. But how funny was Fronto, really?
Anyway all of this is just in support of Luigi Pedroni’s point in AIIN 2010. p. 349:
“The term bigae, in fact, was originally used only in the plural, and this confirms that it simply indicate two horses paired and not specifically a chariot drawn by two horses, a concept that was extension of the original meaning. Catullus 29 makes this clear: “Rhesi niueae citaeque bigae”, where the nivae metonymy refers to the horses, their white color was proverbial, and not to the chariot of Rhesus.
It can be argued, therefore, that at the beginning of the second century. B.C. a bigatus was a coin with iconography depicting two horses: it is sustainable, moreover, that the term could also refer to mounted animals rather than yoked. Therefore, as suggested by Seltman previously (but with a different chronology), followed more recently by Harl, it may have been used to describe the Dioscuri who were often traditionally represented with their horses as a pair.”
I’m rather silent at the moment as I’m in editing mode. This just got cut from the Intro. too nitty gritty, too negative. Anyway I thought I’d throw it up here to say I’m alive.
Students more used to humanistic approaches should not be “blinded by science” or other technical details. Not all new analysis is good analysis. Two teams have used SEM technology to look at serrati. Both separately concluded that the serrations were manually added to the flans by a knife or similar slicing tool prior to their striking (Balbi de Caro et al. 1999; Kraft et al. 2006). Separate confirmation gives confidence in the result, but the Anglophone team seems to have been unaware of the Italian published work some seven years earlier and thus does not interact with that data in anyway. The Italian team also used energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), a non-destructive procedure similar to XRF, and concluded that the serrati used a purer silver alloy than standard issues that was more brittle and that the serrations applied to the flans prior to striking made them more stable (Balbi de Caro et al. 1999; Pancotti and Calabria 2009). This goes against basic engineering principles: each cut introduces a new possible failure point.
Moreover, these conclusions were based on the EDS readings from only four serrate specimens and those readings were compared with data from just three specimens analyzed in 1964 by Caley. Caley used traditional wet chemistry to analyze physical samples thus his results are in some ways more accurate than the more sweeping analyses of Walker and Hollstein et al. using types of XRF technology (1980 and 2000). Comparison of Balbi de Caro’s data EDS with results of the XRF analysis suggests those serrati are very much in the normal range of fineness with their contemporary coins. Balbi de Caro’s higher readings than Caley’s samples are better explained by surface enrichment or small size of the samples used in each study.
These studies demonstrate more than anything the limits of metallurgical analysis to answer the question “why”. Kraft’s team shows that forgers knew to emulate the same technique on foil-covered based metal flans. Perhaps serrati were preferred because they were perceived as less likely to be forged. It would have been a costly, labor intensive technique, so there must have been some perceived benefit beyond any questionable esthetic value. It is tempting to connect the height of their production with the monetary anxieties reflected in contemporary legislation (see p. XXX below chapter; chapter 6). Good technical studies can provide insight into “how” and “what” of coin production, but need to be based on a wide enough body of data to have meaningful conclusions and take into consideration pre-existing data.
Catalogue description:
Commemorative Medals By Subject. Slavery [ Brazil ], Morro Velho Gold Mines, Silver Slaves Medal for Good Conduct, c.1848, bare- footed slave stands with one hand outstretched, the other resting on anchor, rev MORRO VELHO – PREMIO DE BOA CONUCTA , 38mm (Cavalcanti 59). Very fine with deep tone, ‘clip’ mark to top edge from where suspension loop has been removed, extremely rare . A note with the medal states, “Morro Velho slave medal of Freedom … given by dying slave to a missionary. Given to me by an Old Lady as a parting gift when leaving Chiswick”. The image of the slave derived, perhaps, from C F Carter’s 1834 medal to commemorate the Abolition of Slavery. Viscondessa de Cavalcanti’s Catalogo das Medalhas Brazileiras , lists the medal under “Abolition of slavery” and attributes it to 1848. She also quotes “Sr Hopkin, president of the company in 1888” who said that by 1882 all but 28 had been emancipated. Morro Velho is a complex of gold mines located near the city of Nova Lima in the Minas Gerais state of Brazil , in operation since 1835, it is the world’s oldest continuously worked mine. The English-owned St John del Rey Mining Company was the largest slaveholder in the Brazilian province of Minas Gerais during the second half of the nineteenth century. The explorer Sir Richard Burton and his wife Lady Isabel, visited the mines and his account, Explorations in the Highlands of Brazil , published in 1869, tells of the fortnightly Slave Muster. He describes how on every other Sunday, early in the morning, over a thousand slaves, men, women and children, all dressed in a special wardrobe assigned by the superintendent (but bare-footed), gathered in front of the Casa Grande (big house) where the selected few were given medals, awards, and public recognition by the overseers.
Here’s Burton’s description (image below). Notice how he works on the theme of how much better life is for the slaves than it used to be and how much better they are then their unenslaved kinsmen. The medal draws on abolitionist imagery, substituting the promise of freedom for the actual thing. [Cf. Images such as this. and this.] The medal is thus an instrument of control. It and other instruments of control are celebrated by Burton as part of good practices of the British Mining company. Strangely, the Wikipedia entry for the mine has no mention of its infamous use of slavery….
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The Latin that heads the chapter is from Caspar Barlaeus‘ poem, Mauritius Redux.
Most commonly abolitionist medals resort to scripture for their legends. This Swedish Abolitionist is honored here with a line from one of Angelo Sabino‘s poems written in the persona of Ovid’s colleague, Aulus Sabinus. It is line 40 of his letter from Demophoon to Phyllis. His three letters circulated in renaissance editions of Ovid’s Heroides and were widely believed to be genuine into the eighteenth century and beyond. Wadström was a devotee of Emanuel Swedenborg and his religious (mystical) arguments for abolition.
The use of pseudo classical verse instead of a biblical quotation is interesting to me for how it flags the strong classical influence on this visual media.
The legend of the medallion, LIBERTAS MERITIS EST MIHI FACTA TUIS, translates: ‘My freedom is the result of your services.’
Frankly I find it creepy that a line of love poetry is used in this context. Wadström is known for his personal relationship with the young Peter Panah whose freedom he bought, but who continued to live in Wadström’s household until his death two years later.
How free was Panah? Not very. His baptism, education, and place of residence were all controlled by his ‘benefactor’. What we know largely comes from his benefactor’s own account. The relationship was idealized by contemporary abolitionists:
[Update 3/26/15: On this painting see the good discussion by Colman 2005: 93].
This coin came up as I was looking for specimens for my Warwick Keynote in July. It won’t appear there but some coins of Liberia may.
This type of hard times token was designed to circulate in the regular monetary system as a large copper cent. The reverse in particular is designed to imitate official coinage of the time.
The token is designed not only to circulate as money but also to carry with it a popular abolitionist message. The appeal is to humanity of the enslaved. The specific token type above has its design origins in British abolitionist tokens of the previous century:
More examples here and this medallion. Notably the American version has a woman and the ‘Am I not a Woman and a Sister’ legend. Notice that the date is many years earlier than Sojourner Truth’s famous speech on May 29, 1851 in Akron, Ohio, the speech we now know as the ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ Speech. The earliest printed version of this speech has no such line in it. The first version was published on June 21, 1851 by Marcus Robinson, a close associate of Truth and the secretary of the Convention.
We call it the ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ speech because of Gage’s version published in May 1863 in which the speech is re-crafted in a parody of Southern Dialect: Truth was born and raised in NY in a Dutch speaking household. The refrain of ‘Ain’t I a Woman’ was inserted in four times. The new refrain was as demonstrated by the tokens such as that illustrated above an accepted and common abolitionist plea one that is combined with the image of the slave as down trodden, in need of external salvation, begging for mercy. Gage brought all these prejudices and more to her rewriting of the speech to sound as she and her audience thought a former slave woman should speak. Stealing the Truth.
Here is Robinson’s version, the closest we are likely to come to the power of Truth’s words as she spoke them.
I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, – for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.
Wikipedia entry on the speech.
Speech versions from the US Oratory Project.
trophy; in lower field, VB ligate and in exergue, ROMA. Sydenham 113. Crawford 95/1a. NAC 61 (05/10/2011) lot 396 .
So I love maps and I was just adding a beautiful map from Fronda’ Between Carthage and Rome to yesterday’s post when I notice a place called Vibinum. I’ll happily admit its not a topographical location whose historical significance I’ve ever considered, although modern Bovino is quite pretty indeed. Here’s Fronda on its possible position during the 2nd Punic War (2010: 86 n. 152):
It occurs to me that of the VB series whose mint is usually listed as unknown is found in large numbers in the Canosa hoard. Anyway. VB is probably just some junior official. No coins of Vibinum are known or much else about it for that matter! Just thought I’d share the wild speculation for kicks. (And because the specimen above is just so beautiful!)
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When Mommsen attributed this type to Vibo Valentia, he did not have the benefit of any strong dating evidence. Vibo was not founded until 192 (planned 194; Livy 34.53 and 35.39) and once it was founded it used Valentia on its coins not Vibo.
This post is hot on the heels of the last. There is a lot going on in the numismatic world of SE Italy during the Hannibalic War. I wish I had a copy of Marchetti’s Histoire économique et monétaire de la deuxième querre punique (1975) to hand. I can’t let go my concerns about the CA series and its attribution to Canusium, especially when the Latin colony Venusia just 40km up the same river valley and on the Via Appia (the better road!) was Marcellus’ base of operations and thus hosting many soldiers in need of payment. So I thought I’d peak at the Venusian coins–I can’t type Venusian without smirking and thinking of hippy-dippy alien theorists–but in all seriousness I observe a couple of things:
No this isn’t a smoking gun, but if I was a Roman general looking for a mint in the Aufidus region I think I’d pick a colony near a troop base on a main road, even if they were a little lazy about not recasting flans.
Burnett, and HN Italy following Burnett, read GA.Q, not CA.Q, but C/G are pretty much the same letter form in this period and most subsequent ones. The letter forms are different from the CA on Roman coins and I can’t actually bring myself to say RRC 100 is actually close in ‘style’ to any of the Venusian specimens I’ve looked at.
This is not the only coin in the region that seems to be signed by a quaestor. Reportedly (I’ve not seen an image) Naples, S.2219 = HN Italy Brundisium 749 reads M.PV Q. Brundisium is also a Latin colony and a major military staging post in this period of the second Hannibalic War. In fact it seems THE major port and certainly M. Valerius Laevinus’ original base before he started his cross Adriatic shenanigans. Brundisium’ coinage is signed by a bunch of magistrates. And most of M.PV’s coins aren’t labelled with a Q.
These two instances of quaestors at Latin colonies got me thinking about quaestors and coinage more generally. As I’ve said before, there isn’t a lot of evidence on 3rd century quaestors generally and that part of what made the signed Egadi rams special, but here are two more quaestors.
Are they local quaestors? Probably, the lex Osca Bantina of the late second early first century BC mentions quaestors in its list of magistrates and it is thought to derive from an earlier Venusian prototype (Bispham 2007: 142-152, p. 143 n. 124 lists other examples of Italian communities borrowing the structure of Rome’s magistracies). That said, Badian in his 1975 article on the quaestorship spent a lot of time thinking about the Roman expansion of the quaestorship and the growth and change of the coinage system. These two minor examples might lend a little weight to the idea of a third century connection between coinage and quaestors. And might help point the way towards how we should be thinking about some of the unidentified signatures on Roman series. … Early posts on quaestors.
Yes, I’m still laughing about ‘Venusian’:
A useful map:
A slightly clearer image of the coin above taken from Carroccio 2008:
“The issue with com-ear occurs in the Serra Orlando hoard; here as on the denarius and bronze the com-ear is a symbole parlant for Sicily.” (Crawford 1974: 16) Clearly, the ear of wheat is a symbol of Sicily (Hersh 1993: 141). But there is some difference between the selection of the symbol because of a canting pun or because already by the Hannibalic War the Romans were thinking of Sicily as a ‘bread-basket’. See, for example, this discussion of the symbol in a chapter on Sicilian identity. Crawford doesn’t explain how he thinks the visual pun works and so what follows is only speculation.
The Latin word for wheat is triticum.
There is a tradition that the ‘original’ name of Sicily was Trinacria. “(Τρινακρία/Trinakría, Hellanicus FGrH 51 F 79b), later Sicania (Σικανίη/Sikaníē, Hdt. 7,170; Σικανία/Sikanía, Thuc. 6,2,2) and only then Sicelia (Σικελία). The change of name reflects the successive immigration of the Sicani and Siculi; however, Trinacria is probably an unhistorical construction from the Homeric Thrinacia (Hom. Od. 11,107; 12,127; 12,135; 19,275), taking into account the triangular shape (tría ákra) of the island.” (So Olshausen in Brill’s New Pauly).
Maybe the adjectival form of triticum in the feminine, triticia, is close enough for a canting pun, but I’m not one hundred percent convinced.
Would the name Trinacria be widely known? Jacoby’ collection of the fragments of Timaeus suggests it was in use in the West (FGrH vol. 3b.566, F164 ln.4) But when we go to the source text, Diodorus, it’s hard to be sure that particular word was actually Timaeus’ contribution. [I give the big block quote at the end of this post.]
In Latin authors its mostly used in poetic authors, and not before Catullus. By contrast the early poets Ennius, Naevius, and Plautus all just use the name Sicilia.
But perhaps Crawford has a different Latin or Greek near homophone in mind which I just have yet realized.
An aside. One of my favorite Turkish phrases is jeton düştü! The penny dropped! In this case, perhaps I should say, jeton düşmedi. The penny has not dropped. I’m not really sure the idiomatic phrase really carries over from English to Turkish but my Turkish teacher seemed to suggest as much and as a numismatist how can I resist using it.
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Liv Mariah Yarrow 