It seems like if you look at 100 Roman coins, 99 of them will have the ruler's bust facing right. Why is that?
Because to face left was a pessimistic thing, or was believed. So I have been told. I could be wrong.
There are several types that are always left facing. Many right facing types have a rare few left facers but I'm not aware of a regularly left facing coin that has the oddball right facer. There are even a few issues with close to even numbers each way. In a few cases the left facers denote a different denomination but that is not the case with most of them. We are left with guesses - each worse than the other.
I wonder if the right-facing-bias has something to do with the fact that writing in the Latin and Greek alphabets goes from left to right. I've also wondered why the portraits for an issue are often so uniform and standardised. The dies were engraved individually as far as we know - I wonder if there was some replication process involved when they made the dies.
Yah, I wonder if it's merely a "looking-forward" to a brighter future, rather than "looking-back" at the ridiculously nasty rulers of the past? Hmmm, although I guess moving to the right isn't always moving forwards in real life, eh? (I guess moving in the direction that you're facing is always moving forward, whether it's left or right) ... interesting (I know that the monarchs associated with The Commonwealth always switch the direction that they're facing every time there is a new ruler ... yah, it is a bit interesting)
Yes, for English monarchs, they always face the opposite direction to their predecessor. The one exception was Edward VIII who refused to face a different direction to his father George V. However, because Edward's reign was so short, none of his portrait coins ever circulated although a handful of pattern coins were made (coins bearing his name but not his image circulated in some of the overseas colonies). See I have a coin-brain too, just like Mentor (although I have a long way to go!)
Another thing is that when we talk about Roman (Imperial) coins, we're talking about a period covering more than four centuries. Even if one could postulate a theory for say, Hadrian, would the same apply to Probus a 'mere' 150 years later? In any case, I don't have any theories.
Could they be facing "east"? (i.e. the sun -as in Sun God-) Radiates have indeed sun ray crowns, just as female characters have moon rays...OK, I know there are thousand other types of coins without this, and even radiates facing left...Just pointing out that they used sun related stuff for something, not a random symbol. I think there is no convincing answer.
Yes, but which direction is forward and which is back?! It as good of a theory as any, but who knows which is which? Just one of those things we can speculate about but never know.
interesting....but no idea. every notice that left facing byzantine coins are SUPER rare? i quick search on vcoins revealed one vandal imitative coin of justinian.
Yeah, even searching "facing left" under Imperial coins only shows about 30 examples out of 112 search results that have the ruler facing left. (The rest are either VRBS ROMA or referring to something on the reverse facing left).
The picture isn't quite as clear cut as looking at a ruler by ruler or even mint by mint basis. If I take one ruler as an example e.g. Probus. I will provide some examples. There are certain mints for Probus such as Antioch or Tripolis that ONLY produced coins with a Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust right. Several mints produces coin which are "Radiate bust wearing imperial mantle (trabea), holding sceptre surmounted by eagle" and for these busts the overwhelming majority (99+%) are left facing across all mints. The right facing variants are all scarce-rare. common to the left Rare to the right For the Radiate cuirassed bust this is the other way around with the right facing bust being predominant and the left facing variety being significantly scarcer. The relative scarcity varies from mint to mint though. Probus might be an oddity but I know that some of what I have identified also applies to other during this period e.g. Carus. Have a look at the variety of bust types known for Probus illustrated here to see that many face in both directions. http://probvs.net/probvs/busts/b-bus-bustforms.html Martin
