Ancients =>My Infant-Lovin' Fausta

Here's my Faustina Junior showing the infant Commodus and his twin brother on the reverse:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Oooow, Parthicus => ya beat me to it ... great coin!!

Faustina-II



=> the high-fivin' babies!!



Thanks for posting all of your wonderful examples ... please keep 'em coming!!

 

Here are two of my favorite females

 

SPES REIPVBLICAE, Siscia mint:

 

And coins with a bunch of kids? Here's Faustina Jr. with a bunch of them.

Four kids on this denarius:


Five kids on this dupondius--two in arms and three at her feet:

 

how ironic. i was posted a coin of faustina the elder in another thread that i'd bought early on thinking it was this gal. but i bought it for a darker reason than her being a good mother. from the nicomedia mint, flowing hair bust right, holding c-tine and c-tius 2.

 

Here's my Fausta and a little write-up I did. (On Thursdays on Facebook I will occasionally have a "Throwback Thursday" in which I will throw it way back. Like, 4th-century back.) Please correct or augment my narrative:

This is one of my most favorite coins, and the saddest. Struck ca. 325 A.D., its obverse features Fausta, the second wife of Constantine the Great. On the reverse we see Fausta assuming the personification of “Spes,” or “Hope.” The legend reads SPES REIPVBLICAE, “The Hope of the Republic.” The two children at her breast are her infant sons Constantine II and Constantius II–a bit anachronistic since Constantine II was 8 years old at the time. But this mother’s message is clear: Constantine has male heirs, and they will be the Roman hope of the future. Sadly, this hope would be marred by the boys’ general massacre of family rivals after the death of Constantine the Great in 337. Then in 340 Constantine II was killed in ambush laid by the forces of another brother struggling for power (those of Constans). The career of the warrior emperor Constantius II lasted longer until his death from illness in 361. As for Fausta? Her end was the saddest of all. The sources are murky; some assert that she and her stepson Crispus plotted treason together and even had an affair. Others say Crispus made advances to Fausta and was denounced by her and then executed, but Constantine came to regret the execution, fearing he had been misled. What we do know is that, about a year after this coin was struck, Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, had his eldest son and his wife killed. Crispus was poisoned. Fausta was suffocated in an overheated sauna. So much for the “spes reipublicae.”

 

that's pretty much the story handed down, with varying degrees of point of view.

 

Awesome coins all

 

Gavin => thanks for adding-in the background story (not exactly the Brady Bunch)

 

I am REALLY bummed the Title changed... I zero'd in on your thread.

Here is my Fausta:

She got her EYES GOUGED OUT for reading the Acronym!!!

This is My Infant Lovin' Fausta, BABY!


RI Fausta 325-326 CE AE3 Spes stdg 2 infants SMHA 20mm 3.48g scratch over eye damnatio memoriae by Constantine O-R

 

cnoevil...

 

Great coin!