Featured A Roman Republican coin WITHOUT an animal reverse

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

That’s a swell looking coin @DonnaML - I don’t think I could have resisted either.
Congrats on another fine addition to your collection.
-d

 

Great coin! I believe the thing above the three-pronged ram is a wolf's head, probably a decorative element? It's there on a number of other galley coins shown in this thread, and also very clearly on the LRB posted here.

Here's another RR galley:

ROMAN REPUBLIC
AR Denarius. 3.88g, 19.6mm. Rome mint, 109-108 BC. Q. Lutatius Cerco, moneyer. Crawford 305/1; Sydenham 559; Lutatia 2. O: Helmeted head of Roma (or Mars) right; mark of value to left, ROMA above head, CERCO below chin. R: Galley right with head of Roma on prow; Q.[LVTATI]/Q in two lines above; all within oak wreath.
Ex Estate of Thomas Bentley Cederlind, purchased from Kirk Davis
Crawford notes: "The reverse type of the denarius recalls the victory of C. Lutatius Catulus at the Aegates Insulae in 241; the significance of the corona civica on the denarius and the uncia is unclear, but it perhaps reflects the fact that the victory meant the end of the drain on Roman manpower caused by the First Punic War. It is worth remarking that Q. Lutatius Catulus, Cos. 102, was a candidate for the consulship in 107."

My favorite galley is one that the engraver managed to make rather jaunty looking. Incidentally, ex stevex6, another fine Canadian collection!


CARACALLA
AR Denarius. 3.17g, 18.5mm. Rome mint, AD 201-202. RIC IV 120. O: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG, laureate and draped bust right. R: ADVENT AVGG, galley sailing left; signum and aquila at stern.
Ex stevex6 Collection, CNG E-Sale 352 (3 June 2015), lot 449; ex Dr. George Spradling Collection

 

I believe that 'jaunty' is a good word for this ship. It has a small sail, two standards and even some water lacking in earlier versions.


Hadrian has no water but a nice sail.

 

Thanks. I take it you're referring to the object that looks like an animal skull in profile, attached to the side of the boat near the bow? To me, it doesn't really look anything like the wolf's head at the link. I take it you don't agree that it was intended to serve as an apotropaic eye?

 

Oh, I do see the apotropaic eye there; I was referring to this, circled in red below.

 

Another excellent denarius from your collection, great details on your C. Fonteius! Here's my Fonteius which I liked especially for the clear triplet of rowers:

For parts of the ship, the "Navis" section of W. Smith is a good place for orientation. This image missing the little houses on the coin above, but otherwise very informative:

I stumbled on "acrostolium" as a word for prow decorations researching this coin of Hadrian - which I would have called "aplustre" (link provided to my post on aplustre):

Hadrian, AD 117-138, AR Denarius, Rome mint circa AD 124-128
Obv: HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS, head of Hadrian, laureate, right
Rev: COS III, Neptune standing left, foot on prow, holding acrostolium and trident
Ref: RIC II, Part 3 (second edition) Hadrian 788

And if I can stretch patience with this post with one more coin, here is a janiform head from Syracuse that might be a bit off the beaten path - to answer your call for something new:
Sicily, Syracuse, Timoleon and the Third Democracy, 344-317 BC, AR 2 Litrai, struck circa 344-339/8 BC
Obv: ΣYPAKOΣ-IΩN, janiform female head; to right, dolphin downward
Rev: Horse prancing left; star above

 

OK, I think I finally get what you're looking at. Before, all I saw was a fourth prong extending from the prow directly above the three-pronged ram. Now, if I look closely and exercise my imagination a little, I see two ears, a round eye, a snout, an open mouth, and possibly a long tongue protruding from it, all right in front of the fourth prong:



I am astounded that anyone was able, without magnification, to engrave a die with a detail like that, which is completely invisible to the naked eye (at least to mine)! The entire wolf's head, if that's what it is, is barely over one millimeter wide. Never mind the even smaller details within it. It seems impossible to me. Perhaps the engravers* did use water or crystal as a magnification device?

* John Melville Jones's Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins (London 1990) disputes that celator or caelator was a term actually used in ancient times specifically for coin die engravers, as opposed to being a term used more broadly to describe modellers or engravers in metal in general. He contends that signator or scalptor are more likely terms. (See entry for "Caelator" at p. 43.)

 

I was going through other examples of my coin on acsearch to see if the wolf's head on the prow was more clearly visible on any of them than on mine (it was), and discovered that my specific coin was auctioned again at least once between the CNG auction in May 2012 and my purchase of the coin a few weeks ago from a dealer in Spain: it was sold on March 15, 2020 as Lot 55 in Auctiones GmbH, eAuction 67. See https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6841979. I don't plan to mention what I paid for it, but I'm curious to know what it sold for in March. Is there anyone who has a premium membership in acsearch who might be willing to look up the hammer price for me? Thanks!

I would note for the record that my galley is still in pretty good shape despite having made at least three trans-Atlantic voyages: from its original location in Europe to Bruce R. Brace in Canada; from Canada to Germany and Spain, and from Spain back to me in New York. And boy, are those three rowers' arms tired!

 

170 CHF plus fees = $179 plus fees.

 

Thanks!