First Living Roman(s) on a Coin

August 7, 2013October 6, 2025 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

It’s debatable whether the Flamininus Stater we’ve talked so much about already was made by Greeks to honor him or by Flamininus himself to pay his troops. As usual, I’m inclined to favor Callatay’s views and thus go with the later based on the reasoning that the number of dies suggests a sizable issue and thus some practical function. That would make that the first living Roman on a coin, but the issue is clearly not the work of the standard Roman mint. So when did it become okay for the mint to put a living Roman on a coin, let alone for an individual to put himself on a coin?! Caesar? Brutus? Nope. Probably these guys:

RRC 330/1

We can’t exactly call it portraiture, but it certainly shows the two men conducting their business as quaestors responsible for Rome’s grain supply. As the coin itself tells us they were instructed by the Senate to create this extraordinary issue to fund their important work. They took that opportunity not only to put their names on the obverse, but also to depict themselves fulfilling their duties.

A far more radical choice of imagery than this near contemporary issue:

RRC 326/1

From Babylon onwards its been suggested that that is Marius in the triumphal chariot with his son on the trace horse. This has led to a dating of the coin to 101 BC. The year before the issue above. Mattingly (1998; reprinted 2004) has used hoard evidence to down date the Fundanius issue to 97 BC. I accept his dating, but still think that the triumphator is intended to be Marius. Fundanius’ celebration of the victor of the Cimbric and Teutonic Wars seems very tame and appropriate in light of the choices of Caepio and Piso.

51 out of 410 Days: The Most Important Truth

August 7, 2013August 9, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

I had writer’s block yesterday, also known as getting stuck in the scholarly literature. I panicked [a mind set not helped by some fiendish back pain] that I’d never understand what was going on with the absolute and relative dating of a coin series and how could I ever explain it. Everything I read was so contradictory. And, then it dawned on me. That itself was the truth, perhaps the most important truth. I don’t know and I don’t believe anyone knows with enough certainty that firm historical argumentation can be build on that chronology. Knowing when you don’t know and saying those words aloud often and frequently creates a powerful truth. When I was nervous the evening before the first time I taught, my Masters Supervisor poured me a small drop and told me to just be honest with the students and never be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’. It’s made me a better teacher over the years, and at least right now its making me a better writer.

Back to my scribbling. It’s Eid this evening and there will thus be much shenanigans to distract me later.

Seated Roma

August 6, 2013May 9, 2018 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

This is an Athenian coin from 89/88 BC in the crisis of Mithridatic Wars. Notice that one of the moneyers is KOINTOS, i.e. someone named Quintus. At this time and in the years just before the Athenians were adding and erasing and replacing various symbols in this position on their coinage to indicate their loyalties (Callatay 2011: 65 [Again, I just love this article of his AND how he puts his work in the public domain!]).

The dating makes the identification of the iconography pretty rock solid. I wish I could see what she’s seated on. It almost looks like she’s enthroned. Is there something she’s holding across her lap? (maybe a sword?)

While looking for a clear image of this or a related type, I also came across the beautiful specimen with a very clear representation of Cybele. Even on a very small scale key iconographic details can be made visible if they are critical to the meaning of the symbol:

Look at how exaggerated the headdress and lotus are of this little tiny Isis:

If the figure above being crowned by Nike is Roma and no particularly distinctive attributes are visible we have to assume the scene as a whole would be unmistakable to a contemporary viewer.

Bocchus Monument, Sulla’s Monuments

August 6, 2013August 11, 2024 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 6 Comments

Images updated 11 August 2024. Text remains the original from 11 years ago.

Hölscher in 1980 proposed that this monument was the base of the Bocchus Monument, so well known from literary descriptions (Plutarch, Marius 32, Sulla 6). The best discussion of the literary sources is Mackay. If this is true the statues on the top of this base would look something like this:

This coin was struck by Sulla’s son, Faustus and probably copied his father’s seal ring (cf. Marius 10, Sulla 3). So far so good by way of background. It has been suggested that the base is not the original base BUT was restored after Sulla’s return. The logic being that Marius would not have let such an offensive monument remain standing when he controlled the city. The two trophies of the relief are seen as representations of the Sullan trophies of Chaeronea (again see Mackay, link above), just like on this coin:

[There is also a regular denarius with the same design, but I am showing the aureus because it’s prettier.] This image is also associated with a Sullan seal ring by Crawford based on Dio 43.18.3 and the iconography is also seen on the Athenian New Style Tetradrachms (BM specimen):

Already Crawford brought in the Sant’Omobono relief into the discussion of Sulla with reference to the other block. He sees an analogy between the two wreaths hanging out from the palm branch and the two trophies. I’m interested in same detail but because of how it echoes the iconographic strategy of a later coin type (Pompeian?).

Notice how the four wreaths hang from the palm branch to presumably symbolize multiple victories. And, NOW, as I type this and check my RRC entry for 436/1, I see that Crawford saw the exact same connection…. [Insert footsteps-of-giants sentiment here.]

Not everyone thinks the Sant’Omobono Reliefs are the Bocchus Monument. Detractors include: Hafner German. – Zu den vermeintlich sullanischen Waffenreliefs von S. Omobono. Rivista di archeologia 1989 XIII : 46-54 and Alexander Thein’s unpublished dissertation on Sulla of 2002. Another dissenting opinion is Reusser, C. 1993, Der Fidestempel auf dem Kapitol in Rom und seine Ausstattung: ein Beitrag zu den Ausgrabungen an der Via delMare und um das Kapitol 1926–1943, Rome, p. 121-37.

Santangelo gives a concise up-to-date survey of the literature and its conclusions (p. 2-3, n. 7), but also see his later discussion at p. 206.

Minor reference updates 27 August 2013 & 16 June 2014

2/15/2016 addition:

Flower, Art of Forgetting, p. 113:

50 out of 410 Days: Am I a Classicist?

August 6, 2013February 13, 2026 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

Link to *Eidolon* Article from which I stole this image to replace the original broken link.

No, no. I must be a historian. Or a numismatist. Or an art historian. Or Romanist. Or a Greco-Romanist. Oh wait. I’m employed — permanently — in a Classics department. I better get over myself and admit that for all my general ambivalence towards the word and its connotations that I really am a Classicist and this thus must really be a classics blog as it is about my professional life. [Really, very clearly this is not a food blog.]

This issue came up as I “discovered” [in the Christopher Columbus sense] that there are other bloggers out there. Hundreds [well dozens] all concerned about those pesky Greeks and Romans and their neighbors and what we do with them today. What fun!

What’s my hesitancy about the Classics label? Well, it is a label and I did have a good hippy-full childhood. [File under Freud.] Then there is the whole philology thing and given the learn disability with languages… [Just file under self-esteem and generalized anxiety.] Then add in the dissemination of the connotations of the word, a.k.a. ‘overuse’ for the purists. [File under ‘No, I don’t work on Jane Austin or MoTown or Model Ts’.]

Give me a while and I’d come up with a dozen more reasons. I am a Classicist after all.

The one thing I did notice in my peak into the blogosphere is that we classicists as a rule tend to take ourselves very seriously. I’m not sure that’s wholly necessary. It’s not like we’re working on something like this:

http://www.end7.org/

That is a random plug for just one of my NGO-employed friends. I just like to keep some perspective on my general relative impact.

On the upside, Classicists do seem to have a great sense of awe and wonder. That’s no bad thing.

Victory inscribing a Shield

August 5, 2013August 6, 2013 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

The personification of Victory (Nike, Victoria) is an exceptionally common motif in the Roman Empire. I appears on large imperial monuments (Trajan’s column, Marcus Aurelius’ column), on small domestic items such as lamps, and all over imperial and provincial coinage.

I’m hard pressed to think of a Hellenistic precedent; perhaps there is one lurking out there… Thus, I was surprised to find a very early example of the type amongst the quinarii of the mid 90s BC (97 BC according to Crawford, 94 BC according to Mattingly).

Shaggy Haired Deities

August 5, 2013February 5, 2024 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ Leave a comment

The deity on the obverse of this is always identified as Jupiter. Based, I suppose, primarily on the reverse which is clearly Jupiter in a quadriga with his lightening bolt and scepter. However, the iconography, especially the three thick locks of hair down the neck, looks an awful lot like typical representations of Saturn from the same period:

Of course, these are all likely to be the work of the same die cutter and that could account for most of the visual similarity. Nevertheless it strikes me that if that die cutter had wanted to differentiate two different deities on these obverses, he would have done so in a more dramatic fashion.

Update 2-5-24. Back here still thinking same thoughts about RRC 311/1

Amazon on a Pile of Arms

August 2, 2013February 11, 2023 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

Reading a draft of a chapter by a friend, I was completely taken by the use of the Amazon-on-a-Pile-of-Arms Type to personify Aetolia. He pointed out how the arms start out a Gallic arms to which a large Macedonian shield is added, as on the specimen above. I love how this illustrates that the Romans are simply deploying an already fully formed numismatic iconographic vocabulary on their own coins. I am also captivated by the diversity of this basic reverse type on the Aetolian issues:

The usual assumption is that the type is modeled on a statue dedicated at Delphi to commemorate the defense of the sanctuary by the Aetolians against Gauls. However the variations in the reverse mean that we can’t see to an exact one to one match between the two. The gold specimen with Artemis and the Nike is most intriguing. Perhaps a reference to Artemis’ epiphany to defend Delphi?

Anyway. Where does this Amazon-on-a-Pile-of-Arms Type show up on Roman coins? All over!

Bronze Coin of C. Crecilius Cornut, Amisus, 56 BC. ANS 1944.100.41329

And of course it also comes to be adopted as the personification of Britannia, which has itself Roman origins. What we shouldn’t do is conflate the Roma seated on a curule chair with this image, as the symbolism of the two has different connotations:

The arms represent conquest, the curule chair just rule.

I need to find out what artistic precedents the Aetolian type is based on…

Update 8/12/2013.

Silver Tetradrachm of Lysimachus, Pella, 286 BC – 281 BC. ANS 1944.100.81269

I found it asserted in an old gem catalogue (see p. xv under cat. no. 45) that Roma on a pile of arms derives from the Athena on the coinage of Lysimachus. It is certainly might be a basic prototype for personifications of Aetolia and Roma seen above but she is clearly enthroned with her own shield beside her, a very different symbolism than being atop the spoils of war.

Updated 11/2/23 to fix broken image links

Bullae, for context

July 31, 2013May 4, 2023 ~ Liv Yarrow ~ 1 Comment

(broken image links fixed 5-4-23, text unaltered)

Much of the ‘noise’ in the scholarship regarding the Flamininus stater is over whether it is closer to Hellenistic Royal Portraiture, esp. Philip V, or if it is instead an example of Roman verism, the ‘warts and all’ style so well known from the late republic. Is it more like this:

ANS specimenhttp://numismatics.org/collection/1967.152.211

or is it more like this:

Most seem to have become bored with this argument lately and have settled on a both/and answer. The royal die cutter was used to making royal style portraits but conceded certain details to give it a more authentically Roman air. All plausible enough, but the conversation seems to have done little to incorporate other evidence for Roman portraiture in the early period. Some items that might be contemporary are hard to date without archaeological context and poor comparative evidence. Take for instance this signet ring found at the site of ancient Capua and now in the Naples Museum:

This portrait is such a prestige piece that it is signed by the artist. Opinions vary from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. I’ve no strong opinion, other than to emphasize that to ‘identify’ it as one of the Scipios, especially one of the famous ones, is pure fantasy. What we need are some portraits with provenance. And, lo! we have them. They just are barely published (as far as I can find so far and I’d be very happy to learn I’ve missed shiny new fully illustrated catalogue). 1,756 readable seal impressions were found in a controlled excavation of a Hellenistic Archive beneath a sealed deposit layer securely dated to 145BC. Of those 20%, that’s right TWENTY percent are portraits. The only color image I can find is the one above. These are the only other images I can find from the preliminary publication of the archive.

There has been some attempt to integrate these new findings with what we know about Roman self presentation, but we won’t be able to say much until they are properly published. [Surely, someone must be working on the collection for a dissertation…]

My first reactions are two fold. Portraits as seals were not limited to royalty and the style of these portraits is comfortable between ‘dynamic idealism’ and ‘rugged verism’. Are any of them Roman? Who knows. But they are all part of Hellenistic repertoire. Flamininus could have easily have a portrait seal ring in such a style, but that’s not even required. Just the idea that objects could be validated and made official by the impression of a portrait might be catalyst enough for the creation. Yes, portraiture on coins is predominantly associated with kings, but kings put many many other images on their coins as well. The portrait-equals-king and king-equal-portrait formula may not be as rock solid in 197 BC as we often flippantly assume in Roman numismatic discussions: no one was worried about Flamininus overthrowing the Roman body politic in the same way they were about Caesar in 45/4 BC.

[There are other such archives with massive collections of sealings, but it’s the fixed deposit layer and secure dating that makes Kedesh so special.]