I was looking up Mars in the index of Woytek’s Arma and Numma to make sure I hadn’t missed something on the reverse of 494/16. (I was tweeting about this latter type yesterday, wondering if it’s Mars was at all related to the testimony of the vowing of a temple to Mars Ultor on the eve of the battle of Philippi, Suet. Aug. 29.2; Ov. Fast. V.569‑578). What I found instead was his ID of the above obverse as Mars not Roma, and I could not agree more.
Mars not Roma was blind spot for Crawford. I’ve blogged about other misidentified types and Woytek’s conclusion only strengthens my views.
Look at this lovely teeny tiny coin! 11 mm and weighing on average just .38 grams! It was made c. 40 BCE in the Roman colony at what is now Nimes, France. What I love in particular is how the obverse reminds me of young Mars on republican coins and the wreath plus inscription of the small late uncia struck at Rome and other wreathed reverses from Sicilian bronzes struck by Romans https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/1/519. RPC 520 and 521 have the same head on the obverse.
This is my very bad snapshot of a slide designed by David Weidgenannt and included in his INC 2022 talk. His paper demonstrated that coins typically attributed to the Arkadian league should be attributed to Megalopolis and that the monogram of ARK seen on the coins is an ethic identifier not that of the league itself. (Can’t wait to read the published version).
This led to my talking more with him about Killen’s work Parasema: Offizielle Symbole griechischer Poleis und Bundesstaaten. (publisher’s link,ANS catalogue link). This blog post is really just a bibliographical reminder to myself to check out the book the next time I’m in the ANS. Seems an invaluable resource for political iconographic work on the Roman Republic.
Arachne link, impression of A. Furtwängler, Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im Antiquarium, Königliche Museen Berlin (1896), Kat.Nr. 9548 (Karneol).
Arachne Link. (Consider if iconography of Nike temple on Acropolis is relevant at all, esp. Balustrad
Images of a terracotta painted pig in a Prygian cap with spear and shield was shared on Twitter in hopes of locating its present whereabouts by Chapps. He found it on the UKansas Classics webpage.
This immediately reminded me of this passage of Macrobius about which I posted a very long time ago.
“Titius assailed the times in which he lived because people served a dish called porcus Troianus, so named because it was stuffed with smaller animals as the Trojan horse was stuffed with armed men” (ap. Macrob. Sat. 3.13.13).
This type of dish is also part of Petronius’ Satyricon and appears as part of Trimalchio’s feast (49.1ff).
And it reminded my colleague Karl Steel of M. Grunnius Corocotta (tweet)!
This is a character from a humorous piece of Latin that claims to be the dictation of a piglet’s will, the TESTAMENTUM PORCELLI, for which Terrence Lockyer provided a convenient online translation.
We should also remember that the boar was a legionary standard used by the Romans in the Republic (early post on this).
It also reminds me a great deal of the Aeneas, Anchises, Ascanius as dogs type of humor:
I learned about this statue thanks to Jane Sancinito on Twitter. And I decided to use it to start a discussion in my next Myth Class this coming Tuesday. Once I’d written it up on the private LMS for my students, I realized it would also be convenient to have a public url, hence this post.
On May 25 1968 this statue, a plaster cast of the head of Athena from a statue in the Louvre, was standing in a university building, when the city of Bordeaux, was taken over by student protests, that had swept all of France. “The movement which brought the country to a standstill had begun with a series of student occupations in protest against capitalism, consumerism, traditional institutions and the political regime. This then spread to workers across all walks of life who called for better wages, improved working conditions and more empowerment.” (Source – with longer history of events). One of the leaders of these protests is today a prominent EU politician. The piece is still on display in the local museum with a label that describes when it was vandalized, but not why.
Who is carrying Augustus to heaven on the Grand Camee? Aeon as he holds a globe and has a nude parallel on the apotheosis of Pius and Faustina? Or Ascanius since he’s wearing trousers? Strange.
Look at the Bruna and Ariccia fragments of RRC 8/1. If they were struck we would say their die axes were opposite. But for the mold made objects, I guess, we can speak of orientation. Both show the rounded point of the scabbard on one side. Bruna fragment (see below) shows the point of the sword whereas the Ariccia shows the hilt. They both have about as secure a provenience as we get for these types of objects, so we must I suppose imagine a casting process that would allow for this type of reversal. I would also note that that Bruna has a distinctive “outie” spue, where as Ariccia looks smooth(ed?) with no obvious spue.
The both have sort of decorative rounded tips to the scabbard but they are not rendered in very similar manners and the Ariccia shows some sort of fabric or strapping that is not visible on the Bruna. (unless I squint hard then I can see just about anything!). But… let’s bring Ariminum into the discussion…
I’ve floated the idea in print that the denomination designs of Ariminum’s early cast bronze may be related to the so-called aes signatum (Roman currency bar) designs. In the below images look at the four dot specimens (quadrunx).
Notice the strap on the scabbard of the sword Mars holds here.
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And just to make this post even more random. Staring at the Ariminum cast coin started to remind me of the ‘daggers’ on the famous Brutus EID MAR coin (RRC 508/3). That cross handle on the left double edged blade has always made it look v different from other representations of blades on the Roman coin series…. Funny coincidence…
One more random thought… Why our how could that notch have been made in the Bruna fragment above? It seems odd…
LO! Update 10/26/21: Notice the dagger/sword/knife/blade with a cross on top on this trophy on a Quinarius of Caesar:
Berlin specimen “RRC Nr. 452/3 (datiert 48-47 v. Chr.); B. Woytek, Arma et Nummi. Forschungen zur römischen Finanzgeschichte und Münzprägung der Jahre 49 bis 42 v. Chr. (2003) 142-151. 558 (Münzstätte in Illyrien, Apollonia?, spätes Frühjahr bis Mitte 48 v. Chr.).”
UPDATE 1-24-23:
Fabatus’ controlmarks (RRC 412/1) help with this iconography too!
Notice three dots on hilt of dagger:
AND strapping system on this sheath:
Last bit of randomness (must get back to teaching prep)… The Capo sale weights + the Milani images + Haeberlin weights and images make clear that this was how some of the Bruna aes signatum left Italy for German collections.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 