Tag: RRC 486/1

Day 7 of 234: Still more on RRC 486/1

Liv YarrowLeave a comment

Days 5-6 were the weekend. And, now that I have a family, I have a better appreciation of the need to stop oneself from working every possible moment.

Grueber 1910 (see last post) cited Borasi 1898 and it is indeed it not only has a very nice sketch/transcription of the stone, but also a discussion of the earlier speculations on the coin including background to the historical dating of it and a little on what was known then on the cult of Bellona in the region. Perhaps fuel for deeper digging

Borasi and others keep mentioning a hybrid type with Augustus and RRC 486/1 and the legend “imp. Caes. Augus, tr. pot. iix.” as reported by Borghesi. I wondered if any of these hybrids have turned up more recently. I’ve not tracked one down yet, but I did come across TWO fun Spanish hybrid types using the obverse of RRC 407/2 and the reverse of RIC 1 404 (or 405). Kind of wild they use different dies but from the same types.

Specimen link
specimen link
Just a nice specimen of RRC 486/1

I don’t think these goddesses are Oak Nymphs or Oak-Grove Lares (Querquetulanae) anymore than they were Larch trees, but its always good to review the evidence, before dismissing it.

Varro LL 5.49

Not my most satisfying warm up writing, but good enough… on to the lists.

Today

  • Spend EVEN MORE time with Dionysius
  • More Italy visit logistics
  • More Rutgers coordination as needed
  • More Princeton coordination as needed
  • Dr. Liz letter

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

  • Teaching requests for Fall 2023
  • Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
  • Book flights
  • Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
  • Circle back to Capito project
  • Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
  • Begin Med school rec letter
  • record mini myth
  • find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
  • follow up with Lafayette
  • Write up Teaching Eval
  • Follow up old student/tree sunset
  • Rosen Fellowship refs
  • Finalize AAH logistics
  • Cancel at least one more digital membership
  • renew Coinarchives

Day 4 of 234: More on RRC 486/1

Liv Yarrow1 Comment

Grueber 1910 (repr. 1970): 569-570 has deliciously erudite footnotes! And yet, like so often he doesn’t explain the theories he’s dismissing. I know they are wrong and so does he, but what a lot of work to make others dig through. It makes me slightly more fond of Crawford’s dismissive asides as he condemns his predecessors. at least I know where he stands and where to look.

I use the 1970 reprint of Grueber as Crawford had a hand in its re issue and correction of errors of the 1910 edition, but if you don’t have it on your shelves or happen to be in need of it away from home, there is a digitized version of the original BMCRR.

Next time I am in Rome I must make a pilgrimage to this inscription in the baths of Diocletian in the section on oriental cults! Strange to think I must have walked by it half a dozen times in the past but not noticed its numismatic connection.

What does it mean? At first reading, It seems to be that this guy Eros wanted to make a dedication to Bellona and needed Accoleius and his colleague’s permission to do so. Our moneyer’s name is in the last line. Also notice the TALL Is which Grueber discusses as a means of indicating the long vowel sound. The stone itself is from Lanuvium.

The back of this same stone has it’s own epigraphic designation in some databases:

Also of note for our current assumptions that this coin represents the cult image at Nemi, is that at two members of the same gens as the moneyer are attested at finds from the sanctuary at Nemi. One clearly played some role in local politics in the early first century CE. AND wait for it… our own dear Lord Savile scooped up this v stone (along with the vast majority of the coin finds from the excavations) and brought it to Nottingham! (I’ll be sure to pay my respects when I visit.)

The other attestation is from a list of names of uncertain function (see line five).

The Lanuvium makes sense once we look at the maps. Lanuvium is only about an hour and 20 minute walk away, and is the next nearest ancient community to the sanctuary after Ariccia.

Screenshot taken from ToposText

There is only one instance of gens in epigraphy from Rome itself and that seems to have been a funerary inscription that was reused in the construction of the walls of the tomb of Caecilia Metella

Right. More to learned and share here obviously, but I’m done warming up, and am ready to tackle the to do list!

Today

  • Submit Signed Tow by 5 pm Jan 6
  • Spend MORE time with Dionysius
  • Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip (progress)
  • BM/Rowan Follow Up
  • Rutgers Follow Up
  • Enter Dates of things in Family Calendar to avoid nasty surprises
  • AAH Logistics (progress)
  • Cancel at least one digital membership
  • Princeton Follow Up (here’s a link the awesome cast bronze collection there!)

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

  • Spend EVEN MORE time with Dionysius
  • Teaching requests for Fall 2023
  • Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
  • Book flights
  • Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
  • Circle back to Capito project
  • Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
  • Begin Med school rec letter
  • record mini myth
  • find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
  • follow up with Lafayette
  • Write up Teaching Eval
  • Follow up old student/tree sunset
  • Rosen Fellowship refs
  • Finalize AAH logistics
  • Cancel at least one digital membership
  • More Rutgers coordination as needed
  • More Princeton coordination as needed

3 of 234 Days: Triple Diana or Three Nymphs?

Liv Yarrow1 Comment
From Schaefer’s Archives (presumed forger’s die, now in Zurich money museum (see previous blog post)
Röm. Republik: P. Accoleius Lariscolus

Berlin 18202033 = 1882 Sandes = RRC Nr. 486,1 (datiert 43 v. Chr.); B. Woytek, Arma et Nummi. Forschungen zur römischen Finanzgeschichte und Münzprägung der Jahre 49 bis 42 v. Chr. (2003) 445-448. 558 (41 v. Chr.).

I love that I can use the Berlin catalogue as a digital index for Woytek. The pages here discuss the college of moneyers and why 41 BCE is a better date for them. It does not engage with typology, but rather mint structure.

Smyth 1856: 2 describes two specimens of RRC 486/1. He discounts an unattributed description of as the Caryatidae, and favors seeing it as the metamorphosis of the three Clymenidae, sisters of Phaeton, with the obverse being their mother, Clymene. He quotes in Latin a line from Havercamp. The view is over a hundred years old by the time Smyth paraphrases. AGNETHLER 1746: 72-73 (next set of images) makes explicit what Smyth only implies. The attraction of this interpretation is based on the moneyer’s cognomen LARISCOLUS being derived from larix: the larch tree. The idea was that the three figures are turning into these trees. Smyth rejects an idea he attributes to Cavedoni that the obverse represents Acca Laurentia and that the money is thereby associating he gens, ACCOLEIUS, with the mother of the Lares and more over implying a connection between his cognomen and these protective deities.

Public domain image of a European Larch

Given the conviction of all these forebearers, I found myself surprised no one had pointed me to an ancient account of this myth. I had hope when I turned to Rasche 1785 when he gave a Pliny reference…

But NO! that passage is about the triple nature of the larch, a rather clever means of creating a connection, I admit.

“the fir and the larch divide the process into three parts and produce their buds in three batches; consequently they also shed scales of bark three times…”

Pliny 16.100

So what’s up? Well, outside of the numismatic bubble these sisters are typically called Heliades (a small point, but helpful for tracking down info!) and all of the accounts (as far as I can tell) have them turning into poplar trees if any type of tree is specified. Also their number isn’t fixed, as many as seven appear in some accounts (three is also a known number).

So how and when did our former colleagues reject this interpretation and land on the Diana as worshiped at Nemi…? A story for another day. This was enough of a pleasant warm up exercise and now onto the to-do list.

Today

  • Finalize Tow Proposal (DUE Friday, Jan 6, 5 pm)
  • Spend sometime with Dionysius
  • Send Letter of Recommendation (RE grad teaching)
  • Triage former student emails from over break
  • Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip (progress!)
  • Contact Princeton and Rutgers about possibility of visits
  • Write BM about whether scans of Nemi photos can be had
  • Write Clare in case she’s seen these photos and is interested in those token images mentioned by Crawford

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

  • Submit Signed Tow by 5 pm Jan 6
  • Spend MORE time with Dionysius
  • Teaching requests for Fall 2023
  • Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
  • Book flights
  • Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
  • Circle back to Capito project
  • Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
  • Begin Med school rec letter
  • record mini myth
  • find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
  • follow up with Lafayette
  • Contact more curators about feasibility of collections visits concurrent with this trip
  • Write up Teaching Eval
  • Follow up old student/tree sunset
  • Rosen Fellowship refs