Libertas with Arms Outstreched

November 17, 2013November 17, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 5 Comments

All the coins of C. Egnatius Maxsumus (c. 75-76BC) have a personification of Libertas. Beside this representation above he also showed her riding in a biga accompanied by Victory and as a bust on the obverse of another coin. Those representations are pretty standard and like this one the identification as Libertas is made by the inclusion of a pileus, the hat given to freed slaves. Here’s the whole reverse. The pileus is above her in the architectural representation:

There’s lots to be curious about this representation. If as Crawford says this is the temple of Jupiter Libertas why are there two cult figures? Also, this is the first time a divinity is shown in their temple like this — a time that will become standard throughout the Roman empire for centuries. The die cutter has gone to a lot of trouble to show the details of these figures the radiate(?) crown of Jupiter, the height of his staff, the different dress of the two figures, and their respective gestures. The gesture of Libertas is an Orans type usually associated with priestesses in both Greek and Roman iconography. Here’s a Vestal from the early second Century AD (said to be from the Roman Forum now in the Terme Museum):

But given that the figure is just the same size and representation as Jupiter it must be a goddess and Libertas remains the best identification. Later, Pietas will be similarly represented on coins:

It rather understandable that Pietas could be personified through the action of prayer. It is harder to find a divinity thus represented. Unless we consider archaic cult figures. Perhaps most famous is Artemis of Ephesus with her out stretched arms:

But also used in depictions of Artemis Anaitis:

It is also know from some terracottas thought to represent Tanit:

Even with attributes in her hands this cult image of Athena from Abydos has a similar pose:

While I don’t put much stock in the idea that this specimen (or many other architectural coin types, with a few key exceptions) can be taken to be ‘accurate’ representations of buildings, it does seem to me the die cutter is going out of his way to represent particular cult statues here, perhaps ones of some antiquity or rendered in an archaizing fashion.

[A huge thanks to all my social media friends who shared their thoughts on this image with me!]

A Liberal Roman?

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

P. Licinius Nerva’s coin is pretty famous. At least as an illustration of how the Romans voted. It seems to celebrate voting reforms that protected the secrecy of the ballot, namely the voting bridges and the urn. It dates to circa 110 BC [Mattingly, 113/112 Crawford]. It is a unusual coin, one of only a handful that refer directly to the rights of the citizen body that were under contemporary discussion.

With the Saturninus coin of the last post we don’t seem to have any reflection of his ‘radical’ views or concerns over agrarian policies and the grain supply. This is often the case when we have coins of a known historical figure. Memorable deeds usually happened well after a man’s moneyership.

We only know about one other incident in Nerva’s life. As governor of Sicily he began mass emancipation of slaves claiming to be held illegally. In the end that didn’t turn out so well for him and he probably ended up butchering those he originally freed or intended to free, but even so the initial decision is pretty radical in Roman term. I suspect many of his peers would have thought him very very stupid indeed for trying such a thing.

Here’s Diodorus’ account (36.3 from Photius’ epitome). Note how the initial impetus is problems with recruitment of soldiers in Asia to fight in Northern Italy!

The Epitome of Cassius Dio put a different spin on the affair. [I am inclined to put more emphasis on the Diodorus account.]:

Publius Licinius Nerva, who was praetor in the island, on learning that the slaves were not being justly treated in some respects, or else because he sought an occasion for profit, — for he was not inaccessible to bribes, — sent round a notice that all who had any charges to bring against their masters should come to him and he would assist them. 2 Accordingly, many of them banded together, and some declared they were being wronged and others made known other grievances against their masters, thinking they had secured an opportunity for accomplishing all that they wished against them without bloodshed. The freemen, after consultation, resisted them and would not make any concessions. 3 Therefore Licinius, inspired with fear by the united front of both sides and dreading that some great mischief might be done by the defeated party, would not receive any of the slaves, but sent them away, thinking that they would suffer no harm or that at any rate they would be scattered and so could cause no further disturbance. But the slaves, fearing their masters because they had dared to raise their voices at all against them, organized a band and by common consent turned to robbery.

Connecting ideology behind the coin to the ideology to his actions as propraetor seems a stretch, I admit! That said, most everyone is happy to do it to some degree for the Brutus coins of c. 54 BC.

Saturn, Saturninus

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

When Saturninus that rascally tribune of the very end of second century was a moneyer he chose types that punned on his name. A pun that is emphasized by the abbreviation of his cognomen. It’s a rather conservative type for a man we don’t generally think of for his conservatism. Quadrigas had already been recently revived by L. Conelius Scipo Asiaticus [103 BC Mattingly].

and puns too were the fashion of the time. Compare this bull (= taurus) used by L. Thorius Balbus. Crawford thinks the bull might be a symbol of Juno on the obverse (see p. 719 n. 8 of vol 2 of RRC). Maybe it is both. [102 BC Mattingly]

Anyway, the interesting thing is the Saturn, Saturninus association. It makes the choice of Saturn for the obverse of the Piso Caepio coin seem a little odd in light of our literary sources:

Here’s the Broughton, MRR entry for them under 100BC, Quaestors:

We might also note the use of Saturn as an obverse in 103BC [Mattingly], the year of Saturninus’ first Tribunate, by L. Memmius Gallus:

Mattingly has Saturninus’ offices as follows:

104 – Quaestor in charge of Grain Supply from Ostia

103 – First Tribunate

101 – Moneyership

100 – Second Tribunate

We usually think of moneyerships being held before these other offices, but the dates of the other offices are well fixed. So perhaps Saturninus had his ‘out of order’. Otherwise his coins would need to be slipped back into the series earlier that 104 and that is apparently hard to reconcile with all the rest of evidence.

150 out 410 Days: Numismatic Facts versus Coin Factoids

November 15, 2013November 15, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

Thank you, Mildenberg.

His Dream Collection. I am rather taken with the idea of a ‘dream collection’.

147 out of 410 days: What’s wrong with “Bread and Circuses”?

November 12, 2013November 18, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

Nearly every one knows the Juvenal quote about Bread and Circuses, or thinks they do, especially after the Hunger Games. First let’s have a bit more context from Juvenal himself:

if the old Emperor had been surreptitiously

Smothered; that same crowd in a moment would have hailed

Their new Augustus. They shed their sense of responsibility

Long ago, when they lost their votes, and the bribes; the mob

That used to grant power, high office, the legions, everything,

Curtails its desires, and reveals its anxiety for two things only,

Bread and circuses. ‘I hear that many will perish.’ ‘No doubt,

The furnace is huge.’

If you’d like to check the Latin, click here. In case you’ve landed on this page and aren’t quite sure who Juvenal is exactly, in short: he’s a poetic satirist living under the Roman empire. Think a potential guest contributor on both Howard Stern and the Daily Show. This passage finds a dark humor is some ‘facts of life’:

A brutal dictatorship is in power. The citizen body, especially the poor are disenfranchised. They reconcile themselves to their powerlessness in any significant political decision-making and demand only food and … what? Entertainment? Spectacle? Is that what circuses are?

Circuses are part of Ludi specifically the chariot races, but the circus space could be used for other public spectacles as well. Circuses are part of religious ritual. They were either part of regular annual festivals honoring a specific divinity or set of divinities, or they were one-off affairs given in thanksgiving to the gods for some benefit to the community as a whole, including military victories, protection from disease, the ascension of a new leader, major anniversaries, or the life of a recently deceased individual. The sacrifices made to put on the ‘games’ (i.e. expenditure of resources) and the participation of the whole community ensured the continuing relationship between the state as a whole and the gods. The well-being of the city and the empire depended on maintaining divine protection and blessings.

Juvenal seems to be trivializing the common concerns of the man in the street, but are they so trivial? Government is responsible for the basic infrastructure that makes living possible. Bread is a good start, a fine synecdoche. Let’s add in clean water, protection of the food supply more generally, perhaps some sanitation and even, if we want to get really radical, building codes and fire brigades to avert urban disasters. A decent agrarian policy, market regulations, and open shipping lines don’t make great poetry, but they do bake bread!

Circuses, Juvenal’s other synecdoche, or “part for the whole”, stands for the pleasure of the spectator to be sure. However, that individual pleasure isn’t a choice; it’s an obligation, a civic duty. After other forms of civic engagement are suppressed, only the ‘circus’ remains a space for political expression. Moreover, the gods do not take kindly to being shunned. The well-being of the whole is dependent on complete communal participation. Atheists, Epicureans, and Monotheists were a dangerous breed. That type of thinking endangered the stability of state by threatening divine relations through non-participation in the state cult. The leaders of the state protected the well-being of the city and empire by ensuring divine favor. “Circuses” and other ritual acts where the means by which such favor was maintained. How else could natural disaster, plague, or the barbarian hordes be averted?

Life under a brutal regime concentrates the minds of the people on the essentials. Moreover, a savvy autocrat or oligarch knows as much. He can give “the part for the whole”, cheap grain to mask the inadequacies of the socio economic system. Hungry people take what they can get. The Roman with a loaf of bread still wanted access to the means of production and a functioning market place.

Pulling the Juvenal quote into modern discourse out of context has despicable consequences. It trivializes poverty, suggesting gluttony rather than hunger drives the demand for “bread”. Moreover, it obliterates the ways in which all public infrastructure is our common “bread”. Our private economic resources do not make us independent from the system of government. We gained those resources within the system of public works and regulations provided by the state, from roads and schools to public defense and the farm bill. Like it or not, there is no opt-out option, any more than there was for the religious rites of the ancient city.

Within academic discourse the “bread and circus” view of Roman history tends to portray spectacles and food distribution as means of social control or self-aggrandizement on the part of patron. This is not unrelated to the trivialization just discussed. Should not the ordinary Roman care about the government’s ability to provide for the needs of the community? Would not a good leader be judged by his capacity to improve the public infrastructure and to actively seek divine blessings?

Today, I am sitting down to write about ‘popular politics’ in the last 100 years of the republic as presented on coins. I will be trying to escape “Bread and Circuses” thinking.

– Signed a Grateful and Unashamed Childhood Food Stamp and Welfare Recipient

—

Afterword on Translation.

146 out of 410 days: M. Volteius M.f

November 11, 2013November 14, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 2 Comments

M. Volteius produced a series of five denarii on the theme of the Roman Ludi in 78BC (so Crawford and Hollstein, but contra Hersh and Walker who date the series to 75BC). Ludi is usually translated as “games”, but are better thought of as religious festivals. We’ve already talked about one of these coins regarding architectural issues. The series still remains problematic:

T. P. Wiseman (“The games of Hercules”) offers a new interpretation of a series of denarii issued by the moneyer M. Volteius in 78 BCE. The coins were recognized by Mommsen as representing a series of games, and later scholars have followed this line of thinking, though there is disagreement about which games are depicted. Particularly problematic is the appearance of Hercules on one of the issues. Literary sources do not record Herculean games on par with those of Ceres, Apollo and the Magna Mater, who also appear on the coins, although there is epigraphic evidence of smaller scale, local games in honor of Hercules (CIL 1².984 and 985) in the late republic. Wiseman’s solution is that, at the time of the issue, there were games in honor of Hercules celebrated under the direction of the aediles, probably at the instigation of Sulla. Wiseman proposes, furthermore, that the games were demoted to the local level as part of the Sullan backlash of the early 60s, hence their absence from the literary sources.

Also noted by Crawford is the lack of clarity of which divinity is intended by the helmeted and wreathed head on the obverse of the Cybele coin; he lists Attis, Corybas and Bellona as early suggestions. Wisemen in his 2000 chapter seems to endorse an idea originating with Alföldi and tentatively exploited and contextualized by Fishwick 1967, namely that the goddess is the Cappadocian Goddess Ma usually associated with Bellona or in Plutarch with ‘Selene, Athena, or Enyo’. Fishwick’s piece shows the imperial epigraphic references to Bellona elided with Virtus and the close association of that cult with the Magna Mater. Crawford himself on p. 307 of RRC vol 1 seems to suggest that Bellona is intended on Volteius’ coinage. The divinity on the obverse should within the logic of the series be one honored alongside Cybele. Three gods only have attributes on the reverse: Jupiter is paired with his temple, Hercules with the boar, Apollo and the tripod, but Ceres in her chariot is represented with the Father Liber who shares her festival. So Cybele in her chariot ought to have a similar companion on her obverse?

A standard reading would suggest that Volteius is promising personal largesse at such Ludi if selected as an aedile. This becomes a little bit more problematic when we consider that the Ludi he honors are put on by both curule and plebian aediles. It is hard to think he is actively “campaigning” for both. The selection is also not complete: the Floralia and the Plebian Ludi are both missing. More over the types honor the divinities but do not in anyway recall the spectacles or other public benefits of the ludi as some other ‘promotional’ coin types do.

Also confusing is the inscription of the Apollo coin:

S C D T is resolved by Crawford as stips collata dei thesauro or something similar recalling the original funding by individual contributions of this festival. It is hard not to see the SC as more readily read as Senatus Consulto as appears on so many other coins. This would leave the question of the DT. Dumtaxat is the most common resolution of this abbreviation in Latin inscriptions, usually preceding a number or measurement being translated ‘precisely’. There are far fewer of the Apollo coins surviving that any of the others in the series.

Omphalos and Snake: Shared Iconography

November 10, 2013October 3, 2025 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 2 Comments

I’m really stuck on this Alföldi article. [See yesterday’s post for references.] He makes the assertion that the snake on an omphalos is the iconography of Apollo, not Aesculapius. He uses Etruscan cinerary urns as comparative evidence:

Yet these visual examples do not specifically link the image to Apollo they only show Italic usage. The image is clearly Delphic as Alföldi asserts. A point illustrated by the late 4th century Amphictonic Hemidrachms:

But this is by no means exclusive. The same reverse type was used at Pergamon after 133 BC to celebrate Aesculapius as Soter (savior):

Reverse of Bronze Coin, Pergamum. 1944.100.43256

Aesculapius has been a popular interpretation of the allusions on L. Rubrius Dossenus’ coins because of literary testimony of a plague in 87 BC. However, if Apollo is meant than these coins might be linked to the Veiovis / Apollo coins of the Marians. The interpretation of which remains controversial:

Wiseman T. P. (2009). Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late Republican Politics and Literature. Oxford, 72-78; contra RRC and Luce, T. J. (1968). “Political Propaganda on Roman Republican Coins: Circa 92-82 B.C.” American Journal of Archaeology 72.1: 25-39.

Also see newer post for iconographic parallels.

144 out of 410 days: Missing Cybele

November 9, 2013February 27, 2014 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 2 Comments

Returning to the book has been a jarring experience today. I managed to exhibit huge internal resistance. For example, it seemed very important today to refine my file and image backup system and clear my hard drive of duplicate files using the latest search software. Anyway. Not knowing where to start or even which chapter I wanted to tackle next, I opened the very first item in my file of scholarship to be reviewed and incorporated as relevant.

Alföldi, A. (1976). “The giant Argus and a miracle of Apollo in the coin-propaganda of Cinna and Carbo.” In In Memoriam Otto J. Brendel: Essays in Archaeology and the Humanities, 115-119. Mainz.

This is mostly on the bronzes of L. Rubrius Dossenus (RRC 348). However, very confusingly he says “Another reference to this function [sc. Rubrius’ theoretical aedileship] is given hy the representations on his quadrans: the head of Kybele on the obverse and her lion on the reverse announce the ludi Megalenses, celebrated in honor of the Magna Mater.” No such coin is listed by Crawford for this money and I can find no other reference to such a quadrans. How did Alföldi come to think one existed?

My searches led me a reference to the type above on this website. The anonymous author of that website is certain the image represents Cybele and to be sure the iconography is be close. The author even wants to go so far as to down date the coin (and the rest of the series?!) from Crawford’s suggested 217-215 BC to 204 BC when the cult of the Magna Mater was introduced to Rome. [See my earlier post with links and also Bowden, H. (2012). “Rome, Pessinous, and Battakes: Religious Encounters with the East.” In C. Smith and L. M. Yarrow (Eds.), Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius, 252-62. Oxford.]

Crawford simply identifies the observe as “Female bust, r., draped and wearing turreted crown” but on p. 719 of his second volume he suggests that the head may be the personification of the city of Rome herself. He seems to be imagining something along the lines of the Tyche of Antioch.

This struck me as a rather radical suggestion regarding a means of representing Rome, in contrast to the iconography of Roma or the Genius of Rome. The underlying assumption of both the website and RRC is that the mural or turreted crown represents a specific thing: Cybele or Tyche or a City Goddess. All of these are right and there is some decent scholarship explaining how they connect one to another. Reading up on this I was struck by this passage in the article just linked:

As “turrita” (with the mural crown) in Virgil’s Aeneid (6.785), the Magna Mater stands for the rule of the urbs Roma over the entire world (orbis).

Here’s the Vergil passage with Anchises in the underworld prophesying to Aeneas:

Behold, my son, under Romulus’ command glorious Rome

will match earth’s power and heaven’s will, and encircle

seven hills with a single wall, happy in her race of men:

as Cybele, the Berecynthian ‘Great Mother’, crowned

with turrets, rides through the Phrygian cities, delighting

in her divine children, clasping a hundred descendants,

all gods, all dwelling in the heights above.

en huius, nate, auspiciis illa incluta Roma
imperium terris, animos aequabit Olympo,
septemque una sibi muro circumdabit arces,
felix prole uirum: qualis Berecyntia mater
inuehitur curru Phrygias turrita per urbes
laeta deum partu, centum complexa nepotes,
omnis caelicolas, omnis supera alta tenentis.
huc geminas nunc flecte acies, hanc aspice gentem
Romanosque tuos.

Vergil’s metaphor certainly equates Rome’s walls with Cybele’s turreted crown, thus drawing the two together. I’m not sure we can push this back into the late 3rd century, but the goddess on the coin may very well have recalled more than one association in the minds of its earliest viewers.

Update 17/1/2014, just adding a finer specimen:

This specimen also makes me wonder about reverse figure. Is this a ludic scene recalling riding competitions at religious festivals? The figure seems to have a whip but no other weapons. Is this an early precursor of the desultor and rider types seen later in the republic? The whole series has unusual types… Best image of the series as a whole.

Update 31/1/2014:

A nice parallel to the Virgil Passage:

Part of the fresco narrative the origins of Rome from the family tomb of T. Statilius Taurus on the Esquiline. Now on display in Palazzo Massimo.

Update 27 February 2014: Note this turreted goddess on Sicilian coinage, Acra (SNGANS 902):

Uncomfortable Texts

October 26, 2013October 26, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

I am staying in the home of some lovely Ottoman scholars. Thus I picked up Yeğenoğlu’s Colonial Fantasies to read with my grilled cheese (as ya do). First, it had me wondering what parts of our other travel blog or even this blog or my social media feed might unwittingly be perpetuating Orientalist dialogues, patterns, topoi etc. Something like an antiquarian curiosity had me reading a Social History of Ottoman Istanbul before bed of late. Even that book itself — although careful to distinguish between its bedrock of in-culture sources and outsider perspectives and speculations — still seems ready fodder for such curiosities, turning the city and the history into a spectacle for a new crop of Anglophones eager for tales of the mysterious East.

Then, I came across the Said quote above. Reading it in Yeğenoğlu‘s context, I suddenly stopped seeing the word Orientalism and in its place saw Classics. How often I find myself drowning in footnotes of detail. Crafting my cross references at times with more care than my own reactions or observations. Those are nothing without the substructure of academic scaffolding.

122 thru 127 out of 410 days: A Little Thought

October 23, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

Most all my time is spent on learning Turkish: writing little essays on my last holiday, constantly comparing the grammar to Latin, and struggling with vocabulary. Tonight we came home in good spirits from the class and a fun exchange with our vegetable seller. I put on Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods on Librivox while cooking dinner. Normally we listen together to such things at bedtime, and usually Greek or things I’m unlikely to ever write about. I do enjoy just listening sometimes, remembering that my ‘primary evidence’ is good literature too. It occurred to me that if I needed a little break from Turkish Cicero might keep the mind ticking over in a useful way hands free. So… the spinach is sitting half washed in the sink and i’m in my new office at my new standing desk trying to spit out a little thought:

atque haut scio, an pietate adversus deos sublata fides etiam et societas generis humani et una excellentissuma virtus iustitia tollatur.

I do not even know, if we cast off pietas towards the Gods, but that fides, and all the societas of human life, and that most excellent of all virtues, iustitia, may perish with it.

The article I just sent off said a good deal about representations of fides on coins. I’m struck here by the connection of it with societas generis humani. The L&S (no OLD with me in Turkey, I will confess!) says of societas:

implying union for a common purpose; cf.: conjunctio, consociatio; and not a mere assembly; cf.: circulus, coetus; conventus, sodalitas; freq. and class.

The Cicero passage surely supports this implication. My attraction to the passage is that it gives a nice illustration of how fides is associated with divine bonds in human society. It demonstrates how the ‘virtue’ is conceived of in a foundational manner, of practical significance to all associations. but also more than practical, something dependent on the sacred as well.

Anyway, spinach awaits. After the exam (my first in how many years I dread to think?!) we’re going to pop out east to see a ruin and museum or two for 48 hours and then straight on with the coin book. I finished the book review Friday and tweaked and sent it off Sunday, so it’s not ALL been Turkish.

anon.