Some of you may have noticed the "hypothetical" thread in which I alluded to a rather lewd coin. GD said I could post a PG-rated description, so I'll go with that. Message me for the X-rated coins. The coin in question is a Roman provincial bronze of Caracalla, from Serdica, Thrace. The obverse shows a laureate portrait of the Emperor, while the reverse shows what SNG Copenhagen describes as "two nude Erotes [youthful winged gods, ie Eros] playing." The reference is far too conservative to give a more detailed description. To attempt to describe it bette, the Eros on the right is bending over and receiving, while the Eros on the left is standing and giving. [GD, please edit if you wish!] Now the reason I brought this up is because its the most sexual image I have ever seen on an official, circulating coin. Yes, there are Tiki tokens and parody state quarters, but those were made for different purposes. Why would the ancients put this on their coinage? Where they that sexually open? First, let's look at some other explicit ancient coins, this time from the Greek world. The first is a silver stater from Thasos, an island near Thrace. It shows what is usually described as, "a naked, icthyphallic satyr carrying protesting nymph r." (look up the words, if you must). It takes very little extra effort to read this coin more bluntly as, "satyr raping nymph" Here's my rather worn specimen: Here's a better one from coinarchives: In the Roman world, depictions of sexual acts were generally much more restrained. None appear on Roman coinage in the Imperial period, save for the Rape of Persephone, which was more of a kidnapping than a rape in the modern sense. In the Republican era, when moneyers were much more free in their design, they were still rather restrained in depictions of sexuality. See this denarius depicting the Rape of the Sabine Women, which was also a kidnapping, but with some more of the modern sense of rape included. Are you surprised that during the notoriously decadent Imperial period, coins are still a very conservative medium? Private tokens, however, were not. A large series of tesserae exist, showing either the bust of Augustus or a sexual act on the obverse, with a numeral I-XVI on the reverse. Scholars are unsure as to the purpose of these tokens. Some think that they were used as gaming pieces. Others compare them, especially the erotic ones, with the images in the Lupercal (the brothel in Pompeii, in which extensive murals are preserved) and find that they are brothel tokens. Here's one with a bust of Augustus that I have resereved: Well, what does all of this mean? Hopefully I've shown that the Romans weren't nearly as decadent and lewd as could be thought, at least in regards to their coinage. But, they were very liberal in depicting mythology. To me, this implies that the "playing Erotes" are perhaps a part of a myth that has not survived to the present day.
I found this very informative, thank you for the info. :thumb: (And no, I'm not being childish because of the title or subject, lol, I really did find it informative and interesting.) :thumb: Phoenix
Depictions of the "act" were actually rather common especially in art from that period. It was only later that much of the artwork from ancient times was censored by the church authorities. A good example is the artwork found in Pompeii during the 18-19th centuries - much of it is still under lock and key and NOT published because of the erotic nature of it.
