Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4417977, member: 110350&quot;][USER=89514]@curtislclay[/USER] , thanks so much for elaborating further, with additional examples of depictions of the Genius of the Senate.&nbsp; (I don&#039;t have access to the articles you cited.) I wasn&#039;t objecting so much as I was raising questions, because of that clear difference between the objects held by the figure on the Balbinus reverse and the figure on the &quot;Genio Senatvs&quot; coins.&nbsp; I am now persuaded.&nbsp; Especially given that when I looked up &quot;parazonium,&quot; it described that kind of sword or dagger as &quot;triangular&quot; in shape, which this object certainly isn&#039;t.&nbsp; As I said, it looks more like a cricket bat!</p><p><br /></p><p>The only remaining questions I have are why you think Mattingly, Sydenham, and Sutherland identified the object as a parazonium in the first place back in 1938 in RIC Vol. IV-2 (see p. 169), and why Sear still equivocated on the issue as recently as 2005 -- even though I presume he was familiar with the same arguments that you make, given that he mentions the &quot;short scepter&quot; and &quot;Genius of the Senate&quot; alternatives in the first place.</p><p><br /></p><p>Edited to add: I notice that in RIC IV-3, published in 1949, the same three authors do identify the object held by the figure on the reverse of Volusian&#039;s RIC 140 as a &quot;short transverse scepter&quot; -- but still identify that figure as the Emperor rather than the Genius of the Senate, as they did with Balbinus.&nbsp; In RIC IV-1, in 1936, Mattingly and Sydenham similarly identified the figure on the reverse of Caracalla&#039;s RIC 246 as Caracalla himself, but identified the object as a &quot;baton&quot; rather than either a parazonium or a short scepter.&nbsp; So, there&#039;s an inconsistency with respect to how they identified the similar object held by a similar figure on three different coins -- they called it three different things.&nbsp; That inconsistency has carried over onto the OCRE website, which retains the books&#039; identifications of the reverse figures on the three coins and the objects they hold, even though the photographic examples of those coins provided on the website show that all three objects are essentially identical.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in