Too often I think of displaying images appropriated from one’s enemies as Roman. Here’s a nice corrective image:
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Cicero on Freedom of Speech
From the Pro Plancio 33:
“He has at times,” says he, “said some very harsh things.” Perhaps he may have spoken rather freely. “But that speaking freely, as you term it,” says he, “is not to be borne.” Are then those men to be borne who complain that they cannot bear the freedom of a Roman knight? Where are our old customs? Where is our equality of privileges? Where is that ancient liberty, which, having been overwhelmed by civil disasters, ought by this time to be raising its head and to be at last recovered and assuming a more erect attitude again? Need I recount the abuse directed by the Roman knights against even the noblest men, or that of the harsh, ferocious, unbridled expressions of the farmers against Quintus Scaevola, a man superior to all others in genius, justice, and integrity?
Granius, the crier, replied to the consul Publius Nasica in the middle of the forum, when he, after a suspension of all judicial proceedings had been proclaimed, as he was returning home, had asked Granius “why he was sad; was it because all the auctions were postponed?” “Rather,” said he, “because they have sent back the ambassadors.” The same man made this answer to a tribune of the people, Marcus Drusus, a most influential man, but one who was causing great disturbances in the republic. When Drusus had saluted him, as is the fashion, and had said, “How do you do, O Granius?” he replied, “I should rather ask, O Drusus, what are you doing?” And he often reproved with impunity the designs of Lucius Crassus and Marcus Antonius, with still harsher witticisms. At present the state is to such a degree oppressed by your arrogance, that the freedom of laughing in which a crier used to be indulged, is more than is now allowed to a Roman knight in making lamentations.
Cassius the Augur
Crawford is misleading in his type description of 428/1 when he says the jug and lituus are connected to the consulship like the eagle. The eagle is better read as imperium, specifically imperium deriving from the Roman people. Broughton believes Cassius was himself an Augur and I tend to agree. (Cic. Att. 9.9.3) The letter well illustrated the power and importance of the position and close connection between religion and constitutional law.
It is of great importance to Caesar that there should not be an interregnum: and that he secures, if the consuls are “created” by the praetor. However, it is on record in our augural books that, so far from consuls being legally capable of being created by a praetor, the praetors themselves cannot be so created, and that there is no precedent for it: that it is illegal in case of the consuls, because it is not legal for the greater imperium to be proposed to the people by the less; in case of the praetors, because their names are submitted to the people as colleagues of the consuls, to whom belongs the greater imperium. Before long he will be demanding that my vote in the college should be given, and he won’t be content with Galba, Scaevola, Cassius, and Antonius…
Whose chair is that?
RRC 428 feels pretty well explained by Crawford. The one point I can’t wrap my head around is what the curule chair is doing on the coin. As far as I can make out, one only gets the chair with imperium. Vestals get lictors, but those are the special religious kind (lictores curiati) which had no fasces and no axes. The other logical explanation would be the chair of L. Cassius Longinus Ravilla (cos. 127) who re-tried the three delinquent Virgins. BUT, he was appointed to hold the quaestio by the people at the instigation of a tribune of the plebs (so Ascon. 46C), so he shouldn’t have had any imperium and certainly not a curule chair!
Pompey’s Amazon
RRC 430/1, 55 BCE, moneyer is younger son of consul and triumvir.
At first I thought perhaps it might reflect Syrian campaign of his father, but coins are rarely anticipatory. Better to go with Venus Victrix and a reference to Pompey’s far Eastern conquests.
Another Italian Elephant
Lake Regillus Iconography
I was beginning to write something along the party line that RRC 335/9 refers to the battle of lake Regillus and A. Postumius Albus’ throwing a standard among the enemy. And may be does. Florus Writes:
A battle was fought at Lake Regillus, for a long time with shifting fortunes, until Postumius, the dictator, himself adopted the new and remarkable stratagem of hurling a standard among the enemy, in order that it might be recovered. 3 Cossus, the master of the horse, ordered the cavalry to discard their bits — another new device — in order that they might charge with greater vigour. 4 So desperate was the fight at last that a tradition has been handed down that gods were present as spectators. Two young men on white horses sped over the battle-field like stars across the heavens; and no one doubted that they were Castor and Pollux. The Roman commander, therefore, himself prayed to them and, bargaining for victory, promised them a temple, and carried out his promise as though in payment to the gods who were his comrades in arms.
But on the above specimen, that looks a great deal like a falcata in the defeated enemy’s hands. And the so called standards don’t look much like other representations of standards. On some specimens the top ‘standard’ looks more like a helmet:
Standard iconography is seen elsewhere on the republican series
RRC 365 doesn’t look similar at all.
But 437 does bear some resemblance.
The falcata look alike is probably a fluke.
This is not my Eidolon pitch on parenting.
This is 1 hour and 58 minutes until 5 pm.
This explaining at every conference that being a professor and a parent of twins isn’t terrible because my husband is full time parent.
Then its explaining this is a choice.
“No, I don’t think he’s going to go back to work when the kids go to school.”
(Did your parents? His mom didn’t.)
“How does he like it? It’s hard. It’s hard on our finances. It’s hard for him not to have his own intellectual endeavor out of the house.”
“Why yes working from home is more challenging under those circumstances.”
“Yes, I still cook.”
Can we talk about research now please….?
1 hour and 55 minutes until 5pm.
5 pm when I turn back into a parent.
Organization Crisis
I don’t have writer’s block. I haven’t really since I started this blog. Good thing. I used to hate to write. Now it is a happy place. I’ve got a new problem. I can’t find an organizational structure that lets me be concise. My instincts towards completeness keep driving up my word count. I need 40,000 words. 50,000 MAX. That seems impossible. The file I have now that is supposed to be my short version with just four chapters is already at 11,000 and I’m not done with chapter 1, not by half. This is a structure problem. I need some framework that lets me know what NOT to include. Something that lets me throw out the damn kitchen sink if it is stopping me from building the house.
My strategy for fixing this problem is first to write about it here. (Better than moaning and avoiding and feeling sorry for myself) It is an intellectual challenge after all. And then second, to look at other writer’s short organizational principles.
Right now I found the hard copy version of this on my bookself:
So how could I imitate that?
Coins and the Economy
Coins and Exempla
Coins and Empire
Coins and the Enemy
OR
Money
Monuments
Mutinies
Mobility
These are no-chronological but hell chronology hasn’t been working for me. Let’s play these out a little further.
Money
what motivates the state to strike?
At first she doesn’t!
Early State expenditures – Via Appia? and Aes Grave with the Maritime Defense Network
Distribution of Booty – Currency bars, Gold Donatives
S.C. issues – Caepio Piso and Faustus
Small Change Problem, Bay of Naples
when does coinage change?
spendibility, you make what is familiar to those you pay!
debasement lower weight standards of the quadrigati –> introduction of denarius (c. 211BCE)
Retariffing and new accounting Systems, correlated to increased creativity in the designs (c. 140s BCE)
is quantification possible?
Old debate: dies-to-coins
Lockyear’s different approach
Monuments
Juno Moneta and the importance of exempla in Roman Culture
Our Myths,Their History – Numa, Brutus
individuals, families, and the state
Minucii, Marcii, Aemilii, Marcell(in)us
Wait a second… that’s not really true…
a god-given empire and the ‘just’ war
Wolf and Twins, Roma, Genio Pop Rom,
Appropriating symbols of the enemy: falcata, torque, elephant, kneeling barbarian, Macedonian shield
Mutinies
who revolts and why
Capua during Hannibalic War, Social War, Sicilian Slave Rebellion
the enemy within?
Sulla and the Marians
The dominance of Pompey
responding to rebellion
Conquering by a place? Sicily, Spain, etc…
After Catiline, coins of 62 BCE
Rejecting Autocracy 75 coins and broken diadem imagery in late 50s
Mobilization
Manpower: recruitment and colonization: Narbo, Quinarii
Popular Politics
Grain refs, Ludi refs, Voting Refs
More
did anyone ever look at the coins?
when to question the dates assigned to coins
how to find relevant evidence for your own work
Hmm. Okay enough time outlining on the blog. I’m still pessimistic but less so.
Pyrrhic Helmet stamped on Black Glaze Pottery?
I’m trying to confirm on my own Jaia and Molinari 2011: 90 claim that vernice nera estampilles imitate types of RRC 14 and 18.
BUT then what did I spot but another goat horn helmet! Maybe…
Liv Mariah Yarrow 