A few days ago I posted on this site about the differences among the images of the Augusta Julia Domna and the mints they came from. Today I want to ask about the difference in images of another personage, again from different mints. If you look at the images of Nero, it is easy to see that celatores of Rome and Antioch had pretty different ideas of what Nero was supposed to look like. The dupondius looks like what we generally see Nero pictured as, bull necked, somewhat corpulent and very human. The image on the Syrian tetradrachma seems to be of a more vigorous, virile, perhaps even god like "juvenis". Now perhaps the Syrian piece is of a more youthful Nero and later coins of Antioch show the more "mature" look but if they are close to each other in time, the people of Antioch saw a different Nero than those of Rome did. Now look at the two coins of Trajan. The sestertius shows again the image of what we recognize as typical of those of the Latin West. This image is among the most recognizable of Roman emperors. Now look at the Syrian tetradrachma of Trajan and the image looks exactly like those produced at Rome. Since Trajan spent a good deal of his later reign in the East fighting the Parthians with a big soldiers payroll to meet I am wondering if the Syrian mints might have been using celatores from the mint of Rome to make these dies or perhaps even that they were minted in Rome itself. In any event I guess what I am after is why the visages, in the case of Trajan, but not Nero, look so much alike. Thanks for any insight.
kool coins & good point! (..where could i find this word?...i call my bestie this but i didn't know it was a real word..her name is Judith and she is Venus on fireball XL5, so i put the 2 to "Juvenus".. )
Juvenis is the Latin word for a young adult person of either gender. As an age, it is just a bit older than an "adulescens" (one growing into an adult) but there is an overlap. Nero was born in 37 AD so when he inherited the throne in 54 AD he was about the age when he could be called a (juvenis).
