What’s up with this deck equipment?
Makes me think of the Corvus on earlier bronzes but looks much different.
Corvus Evolution?
AURORA and Endymion
Jeton Düştü! Thanks to RRC 453. The figure with Endymion and Luna is not Victory but Aurora.
This is just a small selection of the frequency of the appearance of Victory in these scenes with Endymion. While (thus far) I’ve not found a literary role for Victory/Nike in the narrative most ancient artists clearly found her an essential component. Thus RRC 480/1 should be identified as Luna and Endymion NOT the dream of Sulla.
Thus I (partially) agree with Congrossi and Fears (I have a harder time seeing an allusion to Caesar):
Fears, J. Rufus. “Sulla or Endymion. A reconsideration of a denarius of L. Aemilius Buca.” The American Numismatic Society Museum Notes XX (1975): 29-37.
Abstract: “The reverse of the denarius of L. Aemilius Buca portrays Selene and Endymion, not the dream of Sulla. It was issued after Caesar’s assassination and served as a funeral tribute to him.”
Cf. Fears, J. Rufus. “Sulla or Endymion ? A denarius of L. Aemilius Buca.” American Journal of Archaeology LXXVIII (1974): 165.
Cogrossi, C.. “Il denario di L. Aemilius Buca e la morte di Cesare.” Contributi dell’Istituto di Storia antica dell’Università del Sacro Cuore IV (1976): 169-178.
Abstract: “This denarius must have been struck between the end of April and June 44 BC. J.C. Contrary to the opinion of A. Alföldi (cf. APh XXXIV p. 458), it is not the dream of Sylla that he represents, but the sleep of Endymion, and he thus alludes to the death of Caesar. Neither the title of Dictator nor that of Parens Patriae appears there, but simply that of the monetary L. Buca. The currency, which does not admit the divinity of Caesar, but does not deny him the merits of the great man, corresponds well to this precise moment.”
Nothing about Victory in Borg or Zanker and Ewald, and Platt says the following:
Update 6/11/21:
Epigraphic Parallels
I’m pretty confident we should see Divus Iulius on the reverse, not the young Caesar (Octavian):
RRC 518/2 – reverse legend reads POPVL * IVSSV
Mimicking language on restored tomb of Bibulus in the forum?
Triumviral Regal(ish?) imagery
What’s up with the filleted scepter on Antony’s ship series ? Cleopatra’s ships?
RRC 494/3 – Aeneas
RRC 494/42-43 – Cloacina perhaps evokes Tarquin or Tatius legends?! esp the latter when paired with Concordia?
Do the fasces and curule chairs disappear in the Augustan era iconography because they recall regal power (esp. given the lack of Collegiality in the dictatorship)?! Cf. RRC 497/2
RRC 505/3 – diadem
RRC 507/2 – broken scepter but what precisely is victory doing with the diadem?
To what degree is putting one’s own head or the head of one’s living leader on a coin a regal move in the eyes of a Roman audience? I lean away from the significance given prevalence in the civil war post ides period.
Unfinished post…
Cf. posthumous tetradrachms of Philip
Potential allusions to kingship on Augustan coinage
Refs to Foreign Kings (maybe)
Surrender of children imagery. RIC I2 Augustus 200, 201A and 201B,
Kneeling Parthian. RIC I2 Augustus 287-289, 304, 314 (with diademed Herucles restoration reverse), 315
Kneeling Armenian. RIC I2 Augustus 290-292, 305-306
Armenian Standing with Tiara. RIC I (second edition) Augustus 307 (Cf. 514 (victory slaying bull), 515-517 tiara and case, 518-520 standing no tiara)
kneeling (generic?) barbarian 416
Possible Refs to Roman Kings
Tarpeia (299) implies world of roman kings? Ditto Foedus Gabinium types (363-364, 411).
Cn. Piso’s Numa bronzes (390-396) from c. 16-15 BCE.
Do plowing foundation scenes always imply kingship?! or a regal type act? (cf. 402 but also other earlier)
No wolf and twins? No wolf at all? No Aeneas in the post republican period?
Suffimenta
A tweet that turned into a thread that really should have been a blog post so it would be stable and searchable.
screen shots:
Thoughts 3/24/25:
I’m interested that Augustus sits on a bench or subselllium. What is the symbolism of its usage here?
The only use of the term in epigraphy is also in relation to the Saecular Games.
A “Restoration” Type
Some colleagues asked if I had something to say about kings on coins after 44 BCE. I have lots to say pre 44 BCE on that topic but I’m trying to work out if I have anything worth saying in print on the evolution and what parameters I might put on such an essay. Hence if you see me posting about stuff later than I usually do that why. Just in the pre-writing survey stages.
I wish the type below was in the footnotes of my book as it is lovely illustration of how aware elite families are of their earlier coin types. This one imitates RRC 401/1.
Update 10-10-22:
Subtype of RRC 501/1 with Lyre Key?
Most specimens look like the one below with a blank field above the plectum, but a few including the one above seem to maybe have a tuning key.
Those with the tuning key may be
Schaefer Dies
O = McCabe specimen above
Just possible also on AE but not clear from images
Looking over the Schaefer binders it seems like the die engravers didn’t like the blank space above a short plectum and kept trying to make it longer and on just a couple dies that plectum extension transforms into a lyre key. I don’t ascribe any particular meaning to this variation, just an interesting feature.
I am indebted to D. Levinson, @Ancientlyric, and James Lloyd for helping educate me on tuning keys.
Colonization, Triumphs, and Skin Color
It’s speculated that the name for the city in which this mosaic was found derives from their an indigenous or Semitic word meaning ‘black’.
Notice that the animals (esp. the giraffe = cameleopard) are African not exclusively “Indian.” Notice the emphasis given to the textured hair of three of the four captives. Notice the purple stripes on two of the captives garments and the diadem marking them as high status prisoners.
How would this read to a Roman veteran assigned to this colony or the children of such veterans as they lived in a north African landscape? The artist makes a clear distinction between the heroic/divine as white/pale skinned, the tanned/brown of the fauns and satyrs (non-human), and the black/dark brown of the bound captives. The image of Dionysus esp. Victory holding a crown above his head and riding in the chariot recalls imperial triumphal imagery.
—
Blanchard-Lemée, Michèle. “Dionysos et la victoire: variations sur un thème iconographique à Sétif et à Djemila.” Comptes Rendus / Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, no. 1 (2001): 529-543. Doi: 10.3406/crai.2001.16281
Carbo
RRC 279 and 276 are likely struck by the brothers of cos. 120 who killed himself in 119 when convicted because of his actions on the land commission. Given how the dating of these two issues is approximate 122-119 ish AND the drama around their brother it seems worth some further thought.
See:
Beness, J. Lea. “Carbo’s tribunate of 129 and the associated dicta Scipionis.” Phoenix 63, no. 1-2 (2009): 60-72.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 