adventures in my head
My goodness it is nice to find amongst the inbox fires after a long holiday weekend an email with a coin of a very interesting type one has not seen before!
I love contorniates. They seem to me to represent the numismatic collecting spirit amongst the Romans best in how they celebrate the past and popular entertainments and even coins themselves. This reverse type I particularly love for how it helped with the decoding of a control-mark (older post, another post on this technology).
No, I’ve not moved on. My brain is still fast at work, but at least I’ve started adding things to the actual publication file not just this blog.
No specimens in CRRO. Three in the Schaefer Archive.
None of these seem to be the specimen known to Babelon and illustrated by Gruber
Bahrfelt knew the specimen from the Capitoline Museum (originally in the Bignami collection). Ricco reported (p. 178, no. 27) a quadrans with the legend DOS…
Another appeared on the market in 2019:
Four known weights averaged:
Riccio records a Semis with DOS and Gruber includes, but Bahrfeldt decided in the end it probably doesn’t exist. UPDATE: Thanks to William in the comments below, you can see a photo of what is likely to be the same coin owned by Mabbott and published in 1945:
There has been some attempt to link other types with RVB legend to this moneyer or his family but this isn’t currently accepted. I will note that HN Italy 2675 weight and S on the obverse would make it fit into the series as a semis… There is supposed to be examples HN Italy 2676 (turreted goddess/lion star/ RVB) in Oxford and Paris but I cannot find illustrations and its not linked in IRIS. Nor can I find any in trade.
So why am I writing this blog post instead of editing and revising the article that is due Monday and the very reason I’m ignoring my children on this first full day of their fall break?! Well, It’s because of what Crawford and Wiseman said in 1964:
The idea that the iconography is being used as a dating tool worries me. And the date matters for the article I’m co-writing. And, I have a 10 year old post about how Alföldi problematized the Aesclepius connection, suggesting Apollo was more the intended resonance. A point I was then inclined to accept even before I realized our chronology was hanging in the balance. However, Elkins in 2015 (pp. 25-26) accepts the Aesclepius interpretation. The As imagery in particular is read by him, Wiseman, Crawford, and Zehnacker as related to Ovid, Metamorphosis 15.622-745 and the plague of 87 BCE, BUT the association of the iconography with the with the events of 293 BCE and the establishment of the cult Aesculapius goes back to Babelon (2.405). Babelon even sees the Neptune on the quinarius as related to the sea voyage to fetch the god.
The passage is all about Aesclepius in the form of a giant snake taking a ship voyage to Rome and does make mention of the’ relationship to Apollo and Tiber Island, but nothing about an omphalos.
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.
[Two other blog posts inspired by that article (Cybele, Janiform heads)]
So now it matters a great deal more to me with chronology at stake if I agree that the imagery is related to Aesclepius or Apollo. All the pictures above are because I was trying to see if there was an omphalos on the top of the altar along with a snake or if the so called altar was an omphalos. Or to put it another way how close is the iconography between this As and the Quinarius in the same series.
AND LO! That 1972 article Schaefer’s archive was insisting I read is indeed useful on the question of the Omphalos! Thank you Dr. Trell.
TRELL, BLUMA L. “Architectura Numismatica: Early Types: Greek, Roman, Oriental: An Extended Review of G. Fuchs, ‘Architekturdarstellungen Auf Römischen Münzen.’” The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-) 12 (1972): 45–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42666335.
[Thanks to Richard Schaefer and the great move towards Digitization we most certainly have these corpora now!]
The other As in the Dossenus series (RRC 348/5) is more conservative in design but still works in the omphalos and snake motif, super imposing it on the Janus head:
So what do I think now? I’m pretty sure that it is the altar/omphalos/snake imagery not the temple imagery or ship imagery that is key to understanding the iconography. If someone can prove to me that this imagery is related to Aesclepius I’ll be happy to accept a Tiber island resonance.
Events of 293 BCE (sources beyond Ovid):
… a pestilence which raged in the City and country districts alike. The mischief it did was looked upon as a portent. The Sacred Books were consulted to see what end or what remedy would be vouchsafed by the gods. It was ascertained that Aesculapius must be sent for from Epidaurus. Nothing, however, was done that year, owing to the consuls being engrossed with the war, beyond the appointment of a day of public intercession to Aesculapius. (Livy 10.47.6-7)
Val. Max. 1.8.2 (perhaps overly influenced by Ovid or deriving from the same source): But then we may relate how favourable the rest of the gods were to our city. For when our city was visited with a three-year pestilence, and neither through divine compassion or human aid could any remedy be found for so long and lasting a calamity, the priests consulted the Sibylline Books and observed, that there was no other way to restore the city to its former health but by fetching the image of Aesculapius from Epidaurus. The city therefore sent ambassadors thither, hoping that by its authority, the greatest then in the world, they might prevail to obtain the only remedy against the fatal misery. Neither did hope deceive them. For their desire was granted with as much willingness, as it was requested with earnestness. For immediately the Epidaurians conducted the ambassadors to the temple of Aesculapius (distant from the city some five miles) and told them to take out of it whatever they thought appropriate for the preservation of Rome. Their liberal goodwill was imitated by the god himself in his celestial compliance, approving the kindness of mortals. For that snake, seldom or never seen except to their great benefit, which the Epidaurians worshipped equally to Aesculapius, began to glide with a mild aspect and gentle motion through the chief parts of the city; and being seen for three days to the religious admiration of all men, without doubt taking in good part the change to a more noble seat, it hastened to the Roman trireme, and while the mariners stood frightened by so unusual a sight, crept aboard the ship. It peaceably folded itself into several coils, and quietly remained in the cabin of Q. Ogulnius, one of the ambassadors. The envoys returned due thanks, and being instructed by those who were skilful in the due worship of the serpent, like men who had obtained their hearts’ desire, joyfully departed. When after a prosperous voyage they put in at Antium, the snake, which had remained in the ship, glided to the porch of the temple of Aesculapius, adorned with myrtle and other boughs, and twisted itself around a palm-tree of a very great height, where it stayed for three days in the temple of Antium. The ambassadors with great care put out those things wherewith he used to be fed, for fear he should be unwilling to return to the ship: and then he patiently allowed himself to be transported to our city. When the ambassadors landed upon the shore of the Tiber, the snake swam to the island where the temple was dedicated, and by his coming dispelled the calamity, for which he had been sought as a remedy.
Plut. Rom. Quaest. 94: Why is the shrine of Aesculapius outside the city? Is it because they considered it more healthful to spend their time outside the city than within its walls? In fact the Greeks, as might be expected, have their shrines of Asclepius situated in places which are both clean and high. Or is it because they believe that the god came at their summons from Epidaurus, and the Epidaurians have their shrine of Asclepius not in the city, but at some distance? Or is it because the serpent came out from the trireme into the island, and there disappeared, and thus they thought that the god himself was indicating to them the site for building?
Can the Omphalos be associated with Aesclepius? It certainly appears in most imperial statues as a prop for the god:
But the problem remains that when we don’t have other clear refers to Aesclepius (like his staff), and when the snake curls round the omphalos alone the most typical interpretation seems to be Apollo and his cult. Aesclepius’ connection to both Omphalos and arguably even the snake is because of his status as Apollo’s son. The question becomes is the resonance of Aesclepius or Apollo OR both?! the intended on on the coins. No sure yet. Darn it. And I still don’t like using iconography for dating.
One more thing to toss into the mix is that we think from Varro (LL 7.57) that the temple of Aesclepius was restored sometime in Varro’s life time (116–27 BCE). [Note that CIL 6.7 can no longer be used to support this restoration as it has been redated to the 3rd cent BCE.]
And, the only other Dossenus known from Latin epigraphy was a banker who owned a slave named Philodamus who sealed a bag of money on the 10 day before the Kalends of November in 73 BCE. (posts on tessera nummularia)
Gruber wanted to connect the Moneyer with the L. Rubrius mentioned as a Senator on the Pompeian Side at Corfinium in 49 by Caesar in BC 1.23. This seems unlikely. Recent prosopographical work keeps all the various L. Rubrii separate:
Gruber also suggested that Dossenus might be in the same college as Cn. Cornelius Lentulus because they both made quinarii and because of what he saw as similarities in legend. I’m not sure this logic holds.
87 BCE Plague Testimony
Granius 21-23
Vell. Pat. 2.21.4
Shortly after this battle, while pestilence was ravaging both armies, as though their strength had not been sapped enough by the war, Gnaeus Pompeius died. The joy felt at his death almost counterbalanced the feeling of loss for the citizens who had perished by sword or pestilence, and the Roman people vented upon his dead body the hatred it had owed him while he lived
THERE IS NO PLAGUE in the parallel passage of Appian, BC
Ditto NO PLAGUE in Livy’s Periochae
NO Plague in Plutarch!
I need a stemma; I was getting confused about Marius, Gratidianus, Cicero and the Arpinum family connections. Those names in color are the famous ones.
Diod. 38.4:
App. BC 1.74
Cic. deOrat. 3.9: For we ourselves remember, that Quintus Catulus, a man distinguished for almost every type of merit, when he entreated, not the security of his fortunes, but retreat into exile, was forced to deprive himself of life.
Cic. Brut. 4.307: In the same year Sulpicius lost his life; and Q. Catulus, M. Antonius, and C. Julius, three orators, who were partly contemporary with each other, were most inhumanly put to death.
Cic. Tusc. 5.56: Was not Marius happier, I pray you, when he shared the glory of the victory gained over the Cimbrians with his colleague Catulus (who was almost another Laelius, for I look upon the two men as very like one another,) than when, conqueror in the civil war, he in a passion answered the friends of Catulus, who were interceding for him, “Let him die” ? And this answer he gave, not once only, but often. But in such a case, he was happier who submitted to that barbarous decree than he who issued it. And it is better to receive an injury than to do one; and so it was better to advance a little to meet that death that was making its approaches, as Catulus did, than, like Marius, to sully the glory of six consulships, and disgrace his latter days, by the death of such a man.
Cic. Nat Deo 3.80-81: Why before that were so many leading citizens also made away with by Cinna? why had that monster of treachery Gaius Marius the power to order the death of that noblest of mankind, Quintus Catulus? The day would be too short if I desired to recount the good men visited by misfortune; and equally so were I to mention the wicked who have prospered exceedingly. For why did Marius die so happily in his own home, an old man and consul for the seventh time? why did that monster of cruelty Cinna lord it for so long? You will say that he was punished. It would have been better for him to be hindered and prevented from murdering so many eminent men, than finally to be punished in his turn.
Vell. 2.22.4: then there was Quintus Catulus, renowned for his virtues in general and for the glory, which he had shared with Marius, of having won the Cimbrian war; when he was being hunted down for death, he shut himself in a room that had lately been plastered with lime and sand; then he brought fire that it might cause a powerful vapour to issue from the plaster, and by breathing the poisonous air and then holding his breath he died a death according rather with his enemies’ wishes than with their judgement.
Val. Max. 9.12.4
Plut. Mar. 44
This is a follow up to a literary survey done earlier this year also on this blog. Egadi Ram inscriptions are excluding here, but remain our earliest testimony of this language. I’ve excluded inscriptions post 50 BCE.
Cf. Bernard 2018: 155-156 on probatio in early Roman state contracts. I’m dying to write up my thoughts on these inscriptions now but for now I’ll leave myself some notes about next steps.
Notice who is initiating action vs. who is completing the action. Most interesting is where it is not isdem or eisdem. What is the official role of the individuals able to take these actions? What class of things must be probare? Walls, temples, pavements, more… The first initiating verb varies, but curare (+gerundive) and locare most common. Locare appears later.
230-210 BCE, ROME (AE 1896, 0038)
230-180 BCE, Praeneste, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 2439)
230-171 BCE, Hadria (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 3292a)
202 BCE, Nemi (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0610)
202-80 BCE, Luceria (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1710)
200-101, Hadria, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1896)
200-101, Rome (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0024)
170-131 BCE, Rome
earlier post on mosaic pavement inscription from temple of Apollo
170-131 BCE, Cora (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1511)
170-131 BCE, Setia, (AE 1997, 0283)
144 OR 108 BCE, Tarracina, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0694)
150-101 BCE, Ferentino, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1522-1525
150-100 BCE, Rome (CIL 06, 39859)
130-101 BCE, Cora (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1506 and CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1507)
130-71 BCE, Fondi (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1559)
130-51 BCE, Rome (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1001)
125/120 BCE, Rome (Tiber Island) (CIL 06, 40896a)
C(aius) Serveili(us) M(arci) f(ilius) pr(aetor) [—?, C(aius), M(arcus), P(ublius)?] Serveilieis C(ai) f(ilii) faciendum coeraverunt eidemque probavẹ[runt].
MOSAIC!
110-91 BCE, Treicesimo (CIL 01, (2 ed.) 2, 2648)
100-80 BCE, Formia (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1565)
100-71 BCE, Narnia (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 2097)
100-51 BCE, Fondi (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1560)
100-51 BCE, Capua (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 2949)
100-51 BCE, Spoletium (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 2107)
100-50 BCE, Formia (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1564)
90-75 BCE, Genusia (AE 2017, 0258)
90-71 BCE, Telesia (CIL 09, 02233)
[3] Minuci[us 3] /
Balbus pr(aetores) d[uoviri 3] /
d(e) d(ecurionum) s(ententia) fa[ci]u[nd 3 curaver(unt)] /
{e}idemque [probaverunt]
90-51 BCE, Aquileia (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 2198)
80-61 BCE, Pompeii, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1628, CIL 01, 2 ed., 1635, CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1629)
80-51 BCE, Praeneste, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1464)
80-50 BCE, Abella, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1609)
80-50 BCE, Caiatia (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1576)
78/65 BCE, Rome (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0736, CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0737)
78-51 BCE, Aeculanum (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 3191)
70-50 BCE, Cosilium (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 1686)
70-31 BCE, Marsi Marruvium (Cerfennia statio) (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 3210a)
63 BCE, Rome (CIL 01 (2. ed.) 02, 800)
62 BCE, Rome (ponte Fabricio!) (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0751 a, b, c, e, g, h)
55 BCE, Issa, (CIL 01 (2 ed) 02, 00759)
55 BCE, Interamnia Praetuttiorum, (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0765)
1st cent BCE? city of Rome, private not public contract (CIL 1(2) 2519)
Inscription dates to 75-100 CE, but records events of 63 and 58 BCE, Ostia, (CIL 14, 04707)
Mommsen and Lintott both restored at line 31 probaverit on the Tabula Bembina (CIL 01 (2 ed.), 0583), but this is no longer favored by most scholars, dated 123/111 BCE. (Screen shot from Roman Statutes on file)
… I am writing for my school newspaper article on the benefits of taking a classical language such as Latin. I am interested in learning what experts think about the benefits of taking a “dead” language, such as Latin. I am currently in Latin 2 and my friends (and their parents) ask me this question all the time. …
A young correspondent
When one gets an email like this, it feels important to answer from the heart. So I took some time this Monday morning to reflect. Here’s part of my answer.
All languages open us to understanding different cultures. Historic languages give us deeper more meaningful insights into our shared human past. I’m a historian so the main function of my own learning of Latin and Greek is to get closer to my historical sources.
Moreover, all language learning deepens our understanding of our own language(s). Some say this benefit is more directly realized in Latin because of how its grammatical system has been so rigorously articulated over the millennia, but this depends on how you are learning the language and if that approach works for you. Think of it this way, if your head is full of strange things like conditional clauses, moods, genitives, and gerundives, you cannot help but see analogous constructions in English or any other language you speak or learn now or in future.
For those scared of language learning, Latin can feel like a safe starting space often with fewer pressures to perform or improvise. I was placed in Latin because back in the 1990s my learning disabilities meant my high school teachers thought I couldn’t learn a spoken language. It took me decades to stop believing they were right. I finally tried immersion Turkish ‘for fun’. Unlike for my classmates, the grammar came easily to me. I understand how languages function, even when the new language has few to no Indo-European or even Semitic loan words or shared syntax or grammar. Speaking other languages is still challenging for me, but so is speaking English. (I’m still super grateful for my seven years of speech therapy). Latin gave me the confidence to maximize my own abilities and led me to a career in history that continues to bring me daily joys.
Finally, don’t underestimate the role of pleasure from any form of knowledge acquisition. When we do something hard and make progress through disciplined learning, it feels good! There is nothing wrong with wanting to challenge yourself and engage with any academic subject because it gives you deep personal satisfaction. That feeling is how we find our drive in life. If we only value training and not learning, we would be denying part of our humanity.
Sometimes it helps to flip the question on the person asking. Why do you ask? Were there subjects in your own education that seemed impractical at the time but you now value for the experience or knowledge? What challenges have you taken on in your own life? Why did you decide to stick with that challenge? What do you think the function of high school and college learning should be? Why? What happens when the practical skills we may learn along the way become out-of-date in this rapidly changing world?
Update:
Colleagues have helped me think even more about this topic. There has been much discussion of how Latin has come to be associated with class in the Anglophone world and how it was a marker of European power historically. I thought it might be useful to add some bibliography to my post:
Waquet Françoise. 2001. Latin or the Empire of a Sign : From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. London: Verso.
Ellsworth Hamann Byron. 2015. The Translations of Nebrija : Languaje Culture and Circulation in Early Modern World. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Morley Neville. 2018. Classics : Why It Matters. Cambridge UK: Polity Press.
Goff Barbara E. 2013. Your Secret Language : Classics in the British Colonies of West Africa. London: Bloomsbury.
Further reading suggestions welcome.
Generally when I see something as from Museo Kircheriano (cf. Marchi catalogue), I assume it ended up in the Museo Nazionale in Rome but we also know some stuff was dispersed. New to me today is that much of the material I find so fascinating from this collection seems to have sold in 1914 in the Hirsch Sale.
Secondina Lorenza Cesano in AMIIN 2, Roma 1915 pp. 49-180
G. is an abbreviation for Garrucci.
Notice how the damage at the top of the reverse is very similar. The same specimen was also known to Marchi in 1839.
I should have realized it when I’d blogged about this same auction here. At least I leave myself footprints to follow back. Here’s where I was first reading Garrucci I didn’t notice it was the same specimen as he only had a terrible drawing. So file this post under bull prow Praeneste,
All Dies Exemplar will need to be cross checked with Garrucci, but even some where it does not say this or give other provenience hint Kirchner may be the original source:
This look like the bad drawing in Marchi. Notice the flattened top and bottom. Interestingly this type was apparently unknown in 1767 to Passeri.
Earlier posts on Ariminum aes grave.
BUT
For the record this might be nonsense or it might be old news, but to me today it was an interesting distraction.
I got here because I’m thinking about RRC 25/1, so I was worrying about the origins of this specimen
Here’s Garrucci:
Notice in the drawing (however simple) that the flaws near the bottom sprue and void above Janus head are still obvious. The drawing appears better than one might expect.
This is Marchi’s illustration of the same coin from 1839. It marks the tell tale void above Mercury’s head and the unique shape of the wing on the helmet. Also on the Janus side the nick at the top and then the cut on the right side of inner rim also match. Although Marchi’s catalogue is officially of specimens from the Kircher collection, we know that some of the specimens he illustrates were later found in other museums, cf. the Ariminum coin discussed above and also from that same series the whole unit, known to Garrucci to be in Pesaro and also found there and documented by cast and photography by Haeberlin, and already known in 1767 in the collection of Passerii.
The coin was ostensibly still in Rome when Haeberlin says he saw it, BUT his cast doesn’t look anything like Garrucci’s plate, it is clearly a different specimen. He says the one he saw was from Sabina like Garrucci’s. What happened?!!
I have an article on uncia in the late republic in the works but this led to my interest in the semuncia. There are blog posts on this from back in 2021 (but updated more recently with new material). And, then again more recently from my dive into the Vicarello material for a Lucerian specimen where I independently came to the same conclusions about a Crawford type as McCabe (his work is also forthcoming).
As I was thinking about putting the final touches on that article, I was checking for potential new material and the above Lucerian specimen came up in my searches (HNItaly 683). There is one in Paris, none in the BM or ANS, 7 have appeared since 2006 in trade).
The type is closely derived from the earlier cast semunciae for the same mint (HNItaly 675 and 677f):
The crescent provides continuity in the shift from cast to struck during the course of the second punic war. Moreover, the crescent helps to explain the selection of Diana for the obverse of struck materials.
Does it also explain why Diana appears on some struck semuncia of the Roman republic? We have two specimens of RRC 160/5 which are our earliest Roman Diana on the semuncia thus far. In fact the first Diana on any Roman coin known to date.
Crawford dates this issue to c. 179-170 BCE.
Diana is then ‘revived’ on some of the semuncia of the last decade of the 2nd century BCE (see earlier post).
I thought I’d written about this Durmius type, but apparently I haven’t. I was thinking about a possible butterfly on the Fabatus control marks and say this coin again.
Compare this control mark on RRC 408/1:
Instead of a crab we have a scorpion holding the butterfly. Both the Crab and Scorpion are zodiac signs (Cancer, Scorpio) and butterfly represents the soul. This strikes me as key to understanding the symbolism.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 