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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 7967223, member: 128351&quot;]The Arch of Constantine relief is extremely interesting: it obviously shows a coin-counting device, a kind of tray the emperor pours into the recipient&#039;s toga.&nbsp; But I don&#039;t think it is the same object the allegory of Liberalitas holds on coins since the 2nd c. This instrument always has a handle and is always held vertically. There is no handle attached to constantine&#039;s tray.</p><p>The ritual of the congiarium is best depicted on sestertii of Nero : Near a statue of Minerva (which indicates the scene location, the Atrium Minervae) are 2 platforms, one with the emperor seated on a curule chair, another one with a magistrate on a straight legged seat, probably a quaestor, who gives the money in the extended hand of a recipient accompanied by a child. On the same palform stands a man raising the abacus, turning his head towards it while extending his left arm towards the people, the witnesses. This man was probably a lictor : aurei of Antoninus Pius show this abacus held by a lictor, and there is a lictor standing behind the emperor(s) on Commodus&#039; <i>liberalitas</i> coins. When the monetary type was simplified it was the allegory of Liberalitas who raised the abacus. When she is depicted in the very act of dropping the money into the recipient&#039;s toga folds, she does it by pouring her cornucopia, not the square object. All citizens did not recieve the same amount, it was counted considering the size of their family. I suppose a lictor had to show the people how much each citizen was getting by raising the abacus with which his benefit had just been calculated. Things had to be done <i>coram populo</i> in full transparency.[ATTACH=full]1381530[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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