Do any Roman coins have Romulus & Remus?

As a Roman coin collector now that I’ve got a quadrigatus I would really like to pickup a coin that has Romulus & Remus on it.

Bonus points if it also has the she-wolf from the legend.

Like maybe something like this?

 

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If I remember correctly, Roman coins, with Romulus and Remus nursing from a she wolf, are quite common. I believe, that I have seen many of them, for sale, on various dealer web sites. Often, Romulus and Remus and the she wolf, are on the reverse, of Roman Empire coins, if I remember correctly. Perhaps Roman Republic coins as well. However, I am not very knowledgeable, about this particular topic. However, I'm pretty sure, that there are many CoinTalk members, who are extremely knowledgeable, about this topic.

 

RR Anon AR Denarius 115-114BCE Rome mint 19.52mm 3.82g ROMA X Seated r on shields spear birds she-wolf Romulus Remus Cr 287-1 S 164

 

RI URBS ROMA 223-336 CE Romulus Remus She-wolf S R Alexandria mint AE 15mm 1.5g RIC VIII 8 C2 Rare

 

very common and easy to buy:

 

There are lots of such coins, in gold, silver and bronze. Try searching www.acsearch.info, just enter "Romulus Remus" in the search box.

 

It's a very prevalent motif. Here it is on an aureus of Domitian, ex. Biaggi and from the Boscoreale hoard:

 

Ohhh I like that one!

 

Any idea how much that costs?

 

You can buy a common VRBS Roma bronze for under $100 thats pretty darn nice and crisp. Something like this.

 

Oops I probably should’ve mentioned I meant silver coins. I’m not a big fan of the copper/brass/orichalum coinage.

It’s always hard to see the design clearly and a lot of them end up with nasty looking green stuff on them from oxidization.

 

I forgot to mention in my original post I was looking for preferably a silver coin.

I am not a big fan of copper/brass/orichalum coinage because they tend to darken and the details become hard to see.

I know silver tones too but usually it’s still easier to see the designs.

Also all my other coins are silver and I just like silver coinage the most.

 

A common but popular type:



137 BCE Sextus Pompeius

Helmeted head of Roma right, X below chin, jug behind

FOSTLVS SEX POM
ROMA in Ex.
She-wolf standing rightsuckling the twins Romulus and Remus, fig tree in background with three birds, the shepherd Faustulus standing right behind

Rome 137 BC

3.78g
Sear 112; CRR 461
(Ex-Jewelry solder on rim)
ex-ANE

This moneyer was the husband of Lucilia (sister of the poet C. Lucilius) and father to Cn. Pompeius Sex. f Strabo, and grandfather of Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great). He may also have been praetor in 119 BC.

 

As others said - Extremely common motif, although slightly less so in gold or silver.

 

My two silver -- or silverish! -- examples of the she-wolf and twins: an Anonymous Roman Republican denarius from ca. 114/113 BCE with a reverse showing Roma on a pile of shields with the she-wolf and twins, and a Philip I SAECVLARES AVGG 1000th anniversary antoninianus from 248 AD:

 

Oooh I like both of those but I definitely like the first one the best

How much did that cost? I want one!

 

When I get a chance I'll look up how much I paid for it. Perhaps $200? Just a guess. It has rougher surfaces than I usually like, but it's still a nice example of a great design. It's Crawford 287/1 if you want to look for other examples.

 

You pick your coin and pay the price. I have seen those for twenty+ times what the low end ones cost. Many are poorly struck with flat spots like mine and very few have the legend reverse left that names the shepherd. If you were considering gold, you could spend over $1k for a decent, full legend one showing all three birds in the tree.

 

The two earliest Roman Republican coins to depict the twins suckling at the wolf were:

This AR Didrachm, circa 269 BCE:



Rome, The Republic.
Anonymous, 269-266 BCE.
AR Didrachm (7.28g; 21mm).
Uncertain mint.

Obverse: Diademed head of youthful Hercules facing right, with lion skin and club over shoulder.

Reverse: She-Wolf suckling the twins, Romulus & Remus; ROMANO in exergue.

References: Crawford 20/1; Sydenham 6; BMCRR (Romano-Campanian) 28-33.

Provenance: Ex Dr. Walter F. Stoeklin Collection [Nomos AG eSale 9 (25 Mar 2018) Lot 2]; Adolph Hess Auction (19 Dec 1933), Lot 3.

The earliest Roman Didrachm coinage commenced in the late fourth century BCE. While earliest didrachms bore the inscription ROMANO, they were not struck in Rome and didn’t really circulate in Rome! The earliest didrachms were likely produced in Naples or some other nearby mint.

This coin is from the large, third issue of didrachms produced around the time of the Pyrrhic War, circa 269 BCE. In "Natural History", Pliny wrote that the Romans first struck silver coins “in the 485th year of the city, when Q. Ogulnius and C. Fabius were consuls, five years before the First Punic War [=269 BC].” (NH 33.42-44) Some surmise that Pliny’s now infamous text refers to the above coin type. Pliny’s text confounded for generations the determination by Roman numismatists of the introduction date for the denarius, with many scholars interpreting his statement as evidence for an early introduction; that “literal” theory having been disproven by Thomsen’s analysis in “Early Roman Coinage” and the indisputable evidence of the destruction level finds at Morgantina.

In "Roman Republican Coinage", Michael Crawford assigned this type to the Rome mint, but Crawford turned non-committal regarding the mint in his later book, Coinage and Money Under the Roman Republic. Previous scholars (Babelon, Grueber, Sydenham) had attributed this series to Campania. The reverse bears the first depiction of the she-wolf and suckling twins on a Roman coin, representing the mythical founding of Rome. The emblematic nature of this scene likely influenced the mint assignment by some researchers. Indeed, subsequent coins bearing this scene have similarly been assigned to Rome by some authors, perhaps without justification, based on the “Roman” character of the scene – notably the Eagle/Wolf and Twins AE Sextans (Crawford 39/3) of the semi-libral reduction in 217-215 BCE, which I believe is likely a Campanian product. There would be countless more such depictions of the wolf and twins on Roman coins during the ensuing centuries [Crawford 183; Crawford 235/1; Antoninus Pius; Maxentius; Constantine “commemoratives”, etc.]. According to Pliny, Q. Ogulnius was a consul when this coin was likely first produced, and the reverse may allude to the wolf and twins statue erected in Rome by Ogulnius’ grandfather and great uncle, the brothers Quintus and Gnaeus Ogulnius, in 296 BCE.


As noted above, this Didrachm was later followed by the below Semi-Libral AE Sextans of 217-215 BCE:



Rome, The Republic.
Anonymous (Semilibral) Series, 217-215 BCE.
AE Sextans (25.91g; 29mm).
Uncertain Italian Mint.

Obverse: She-wolf facing right, head turned left, suckling the twins, Romulus & Remus; ●● (mark-of-value) below.

Reverse: Eagle facing right with flower in beak; ROMA to right; ●● (mark-of-value) behind.

References: Crawford 39/3; Sydenham 95; BMCRR (Romano-Campanian) 120-124; RBW 107.

Provenance: Ex Reinhold Faelton Collection [Stack's (20-2 Jan 1938) Lot 923]; Otto Helbing Auction (24 Oct 1927) Lot 3267.

The economic hardship imposed by Hannibal’s invasion led to a rapid decline in the weight of Roman bronze coins, resulting in the adoption of a semi-libral bronze standard (AE As of ½ Roman pound) and eventual elimination of cast coins. From 217-215, Rome produced two, contemporaneous series of struck bronzes on this new, semi-libral weight standard. From hoard evidence, we know the first of the two series was Crawford 38, consisting of “prow” types derived from the libral and semi-libral prow Aes Grave (Crawford 35 and 36) that preceded it. These "prow" coins were almost certainly produced in Rome and likely also in satellite military mints as needed. The second series of struck semi-libral bronzes was the enigmatic Crawford 39 series, with its unusual types, production of which commenced after the start of the 38 Series prow-types (hoards containing 39s almost always include 38s) and produced in much smaller numbers than the huge 38 Series.

The types on the Crawford 39 series are entirely pro-Roman, at a time that the Republic was in dire straits under threat of Hannibal’s invasion. This Sextans depicts the favorable founding of Rome, with the She-wolf suckling the City’s mythical founders, Romulus and Remus, on one side, and a powerful eagle bringing them additional nourishment or good omen on the other. This is the first depiction of the Wolf and Twins on a Roman bronze coin, the scene previously being depicted on the above silver didrachm circa 269 BCE (Crawford 20/1).

Reinhold Faelton (1856 - 1949) was a musician, composer, the Dean and founder in 1897 of the Faelton Pianoforte School of Boston, Massachusetts, and a coin collector for over 50 years. His collection of ancient coins was sold by Stacks in January 1938. This Stack's catalogue was one of the earliest to feature photographs of actual ancient coins in the plates, rather than photos of plaster casts of the coins (which was the standard at the time). The resulting plates were mixed-quality but mostly poor, making it an arduous task to use this catalogue for provenance matching.