A Small Fleet of Hadrian's Galleys

Wonderful collection showing the. various types of military ships , no commercial ones !

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Hadrian Denarius 125-28 AD Galley right Eastern Mint
Reference.
Strack *17; (for Roma mint RIC 195); RIPC III, 3001

Bust B1

Obv. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS
Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right.

Rev. COS III (in ex)
Galley right with steersman and five rowers; curved stern Hortator, two sigma at stern

3.28 gr
19 mm
6h

 

An old thread I decided to revive in order to post my new Hadrian galley coin, my first of that type -- one I've wanted for quite some time. I gather that opinions differ as to whether these galley coins count as part of Hadrian's Travel Series. All I know is that it was issued by Hadrian and involves travel! Whether by Hadrian himself or not. I bought it at the recent Nomos Obolos auction together with a few other coins I've recently posted, such as the Marcus Aurelius/Roma & Palladium denarius, the Tarentum dolphin-rider nomos, and the Septimius Severus tetradrachm from Tyre.

Hadrian AR Denarius ca. 130 AD, Rome Mint. Obv. Laureate bust left, with slight drapery on far (right) shoulder, HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P / Rev. Galley sailing left with four rowers, pilot [or hortator, according to Nomos AG] facing left seated in shelter at stern, acrostolium* at prow, FELICTATI AVGVSTI. RIC II.3 1401d (2019 ed.) [or RIC II.3 1404, see http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_3(2).hdn.1404], old RIC 240 (1926 ed.), RSC II 713a, BMCRE III 625, Foss 108a [Clive Foss, Roman Historical Coins (Seaby, London, 1990)]. 18 mm., 3.26 g., 6 h. Purchased at Nomos Obolos Auction 22, 6 March 2022, Lot 602 (“Scarce issue with Hadrian facing to the left”).



*See https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Acrostolium: “An ornamental extension of the stem post on the prow of an ancient warship. Often used as a symbol of victory or of power at sea.”

I see that a couple of people earlier in this thread, such as @Andres2, stated that a left-facing galley on a coin meant that Hadrian was returning to Rome from his travels, and a right-facing galley meant that he was leaving Rome. Does anyone have a source supporting that theory?

A question regarding the new RIC number: Nomos said that it's RIC II.3 1401d. OCRE says that it's RIC II.3 1404. Could someone who has the volume please let me know which is correct?

 

In my copy of RIC II.3, your coin definitely is 1401 and not 1404 as illustrated in the plates.

 

Thanks. Is there a 1401d, as stated in the auction description?

 

Both 1401 and 1404 have bust laureate left.

The difference is in the drapery: 1401 shows fold of cloak on front shoulder and behind neck, like Donna's, rarity S; 1404 shows draped bust seen from side/back, R3, apparently one only known to Abdy, citing Helios 2, lot 283.

 

There is no 1401d, as far as I can find.

There are eight different "head" subcategories: A, A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, C2, and D2. None of these is lower case.

Yours appears to be "A2 = drapery on far shoulder visible"

 

Thank you both!

 

@IdesOfMarch01 and @curtislclay, I really need to consider giving in and buying the new volume II.3 sometime soon, even though I haven't seen any copies for sale for less than $200. I actually have more Hadrian Provincials than Imperials, but I have enough of the latter (about a dozen) -- with the likelihood of buying more in the future -- that it's probably a worthwhile expenditure. Especially because OCRE is essentially useless for this level of detail. This is OCRE's blanket description of Nos. 1400-1404, with no further breakdown:

RIC II, Part 3 (second edition) Hadrian 1400-1404

Obverse
HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P: Head of Hadrian, laureate, right | Head of Hadrian, laureate, left | Bust of Hadrian, laureate, cuirassed, right, viewed from front | Bust of Hadrian, laureate, draped, right, viewed from rear or side | Bust of Hadrian, laureate, draped, left, viewed from rear or side
Reverse
FELICITATI // AVGVSTI (in exergue): Ship, left

As I said, useless except at the most general level. You can see why I thought 1404 was the closest, since it refers to drapery.

Plus, the illustrated examples are not only all lumped together, but are mostly from museum collections with the museums' own descriptions, obviously created long before this volume of RIC was published. So they're not tied in any way to these RIC numbers.

PS: I went ahead and bought it, from Charles Davis. One of my two main sources for buying numismatic books, along with Kolbe & Fanning (numislit.com).

 

Donna,

There may have been a Forum thread proposing that interpretation of galley left versus galley right, but I don't find it. Wherever I read it, I recall being doubtful. The idea doesn't seem to be mentioned in the new RIC. Cf. p. 53, commenting on the common galley types of c. 129-130 AD: "The galley might be facing either direction (although left seems to be favoured)."

 

Thanks. It almost seems as if the theory is based on left = west and right = east. Something that I don't think was the convention yet at the time.

 

The asses of Marcus Aurelius with legend IMP VIII FELICITATI AVG P P S - C COS III, commemorating the sea voyage of Marcus and Commodus from the East back to Rome in c. Nov. 176, during which they narrowly avoided shipwreck in a storm, have as rev. type either galley right, BM 1618-27, or galley left, BM 1628-1630. But according to the theory, they should all show galley left, for return to Rome!

As to your new purchase, make sure you get the separately printed Plate 129 from either Charles Davis or Spink. In the bound volume Plate 128 was printed twice and Plate 129 is missing. (Or maybe by now Spink has produced a second printing correcting that mistake.)

 

Here's a galley on an Hadrian As going to the right , but the legend says FELICITATI AVG (not mine)

 

..now i have one...much worn but still..! ...(boy, there's some 'early' peeps that posted on this thread i've not heard anything from in a long while now...)

 

The book arrived today, and Plate 129 (although numbered as 129) is, in fact, an exact duplicate of Plate 128. The intended illustrations of coins nos. 1663-1670 are missing. I emailed Charles Davis about it, and he responded by saying that this is the first he's heard of the error, and that all of his copies -- he has two cases of the book -- contain the same error. He will contact Spink tomorrow to see if they have some work-around.

Separately, I think I now understand why Nomos erroneously numbered my type in the auction catalog as "1401d" rather than simply 1401 (with head type A2): in the column directly to the right of the catalog numbers, in this case 1401, the next column says "D." Which simply stands for "Denarius"! Some poor shmo must have thought the D was part of the catalog number, and nobody caught his or her mistake. Another lesson not to take an auction catalog's description on faith, no matter how reputable the house.

 

Spink has kindly sent me the corrected Plate 129, and I'm attaching it for anyone who wants to print it out and insert it in their copy of RIC II.3.

 

Thanks for posting this -- very thoughtful.

 

You're very welcome. It seemed like the obvious thing to do! Really, I have @curtislclay to thank for calling my attention to the error in the first place. I doubt that I would have noticed otherwise. After all, even Charles Davis was unaware of the error, and he sells these kinds of books for a living.

 

Thank you, Donna, for bringing up this old thread and for enriching it with your insights.

Since its up again, I'll take the opportunity to post another 'galley' denarius of Hadrianus which I added to my collection in the intervening years.

Hadrianus, 117-138. Denarius 119/122, Rome. Bust / Galley. RIC 112; C. 1173. 3.31 g.

Ex Slg. Prof. Dr. Hildebrecht Hommel Collection, acquired 27.10.1964.