Liber – Liv Mariah Yarrow

Based on the New Italy Hoard (Hersh NC 1977), Mattingly holds that the denomination the Dodrans (3/4s of an as = 9 unciae) was first introduced by C. Cassius, not M. Metellus (2004: 220). This rules out his original theory echoed by Crawford in RRC that the type was introduced by the later to provide a space to commemorate a divine ancestor via the legendary Caeculus. Why would Cassius create a new denomination for Vulcan? Mattingly gives a terse answer: “The Vulcanal near the forum was the center of popular and tribunican activity in the early republic.” No footnote. It’s a hard assertion for which to find much support.

Does it have anything to do with Liber on his other new denomination the bes (2/3s of an as = 8 unciae)? What do Vulcan and Liber have in common? Not much but we do have his intriguing passage:

That the two gods could be linked is shown in this little passage from Hyginus’ Astronomica:

According to Eratosthenes, another story is told about the Asses. After Jupiter had declared war on the Giants, he summoned all the gods to combat them, and Father Liber, Vulcan, the Satyrs, and the Sileni came riding on asses. Since they were not far from the enemy, the asses were terrified, and individually let out a braying such as the Giants had never heard. At the noise the enemy took hastily to flight, and thus were defeated.

This text however seems to me another explanation of a common artistic motif “Hephaestus’ return to Olympus”:

The narrative might go back to a lacuna in the Homeric hymn of Dionysus, some speculate. The narrative is mostly deduced from various vase paintings with the help of this passage in Pausanias:

There are paintings here–Dionysus bringing Hephaestus up to heaven. One of the Greek legends is that Hephaestus, when he was born, was thrown down by Hera. In revenge he sent as a gift a golden chair with invisible fetters. When Hera sat down she was held fast, and Hephaestus refused to listen to any other of the gods save Dionysus–in him he reposed the fullest trust–and after making him drunk Dionysus brought him to heaven.

There seems to me to be some logical inconsistency in how we identify Pan and Silenus on Roman Republican coins. The type above is likely the first to depict either. Crawford dates it to 91; Mattingly prefers 90 (2004: 248). Quite logically the “Silenus” on the obverse is taken to pun on the moneyer’s name, D. Silanus. The following year (according to both Crawford and Mattingly), C. Vibius Pansa strikes a coin that looks like this:

These coins might almost be called vanity pieces. There were probably less than 10 dies created for the manufacture for these types, but his other coins with Apollo and Minerva in a Quadriga (RRC 342/4-5) used upwards of a 1000 dies. Crawford assumes another name pun and identifies the head with pointy ears as Pan and the head with the ivy wreath as Silenus and sees them both as masks. Notice the heads have no necks. I find this problematic as Silanus’ Silenus and Pansa’s Pan have nearly identical iconography. If we look beyond the coins to for comparative iconography it become clear that Pan and Silenus have a pretty distinctive iconography. Pans are part goat and usually have more animalistic bodies, especially their lower halves. Their heads are marked out by two goat horns rising from their forehead. Silenoi or Papasilenus is an old satyr, pug-nosed, covered in a white flocked suit on stage, and horse ears like any satyr. [Note: the ears are pretty much the only difference between a Silenus depiction and that of Socrates.] Here is a perfect side by side:

Of course, rigid rules need not apply. Perhaps the same image can represent both Silenus and Pan. Compare for instance these coins of Panticapaeum:

The head on the coins of this city is often identified in catalogs as Silenus but because of the name of the community a visual pun is often assumed.

I am less convinced that a case can be made for the ivy crowded figure to be a Silenus. The face is just too smooth, the nose to straight. This seems very much like a head of Dionysus. The hair style is the same as that found on the Thasian type used by the Romans in Macedonia:

Compare the hair roll over the forehead, the loop down in front of the ears, and the prominent back knot. The two locks of hair hanging down have been slightly modified on the Roman type. The front is left curly the back has been modified into a straight fillet, perhaps to emphasize the mask like qualities. Notice that the two bunches of ivy berries at the top of the head and the ivy leaves below. The typical five on the Thracian type have become just three but with lobes and berries.

Pansa’s silver types was echoed on a few of the bronzes of his fellow moneyer Q. Titius:

Q. Titius depicts a beardless Liber on his denarii with a very similar hair style:

These are the first representations of Liber (Roman Dionysus) on the silver coinage. His first appearance at all was on an especially created denomination of the silver the bes or 2/3s coin = 8 unciae.

Even on this rare worn specimen the hair style can be made out.

The adoptive son of the Pansa just mentioned echoed elements of his father’s series in 48 BC (RRC 449).

I’ve put up this small selection just to note the later rendering of Dionysus and the Pan/Silenus mask. On the series of 90/89BC (RRC 342), Ceres had been paired with Apollo who is now missing from the later series, replace with a youthful Dionysus.

Update 3 January 2014: Just another nice juxtaposition of Silenus (central figure; note: beard and balding forehead and hair suit) and Pan (right figure, note: two horns from top of his head)

Mirror with symposion scene; Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery; Etruskische Spiegel V, Taf. 43. Discussed in T. P. Wiseman. ‘The God of the Lupercal’, JRS 85 (1995) 1-22, at 9-10 (with plates 1-111) and ‘Liber; Myth, Drama and Ideology in Republican Rome’ in The Roman Middle Republic (2000) 265-299. Wiseman identifies Marsyas as a type of silenos. Here we see him dancing being imitated by a little pan, labelled Painiscos, or ‘Paniskos’.

Also note regarding the name pun on Silanus’s coin the first illustated above, inWiseman 2000: 270 with fig. 6 & 7 that younger satyrs with no beard or a short beard are labeled SILANOS and SILANVS.

Tag: Liber

The Dodrans of Cassius

190 out of 410 days: Silenus, Pan, and Dionysus (Father Liber)