Faustina Friday – Why So Few Coins Depicting Vesta?

TGIFF!!!




Today we’re going to talk about Vesta and her appearance on the coins of Faustina the Younger.

Second century Roman marble statue of Vesta, the so-called Giustiniani Hestia. Roman copy of a Greek bronze c. 470 BC. 1.93 m. Rome, Museo Torlonia. Formerly in the Palazzo Giustiniani, Rome. Photo in the public domain.​

Vesta is the Roman version of the Greek goddess Hestia, the goddess of family values and domestic life (i.e., the hearth). Vesta was considered by the Romans to be a role-model for women and as such, she appears frequently on coins of the Roman empresses. As a model for the Roman matron, she is always depicted wearing the stola and palla and holding some combination of a patera, simpulum, scepter (hasta pura), torch, or palladium. The palladium was a statue of Athena (Roman Minerva) believed to have been brought by Æneas from Troy. This statue was housed in the temple of Vesta, and the Romans believed that the safety of the city depended on this statue.[1]

Vesta was one of the most important figures in Roman religious life. She was counted among the Dii Consentes, the twelve most honored deities in the Roman pantheon. The ruins of her temple in the Forum Romanum still greet visitors today (read more here and here and see a cool version made out of Lego here). Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestals, who tended the sacred fire at the hearth in her temple. As she was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays.[2] Vesta's importance to Roman religion was such that hers was one of the last pagan cults still active following the rise of Christianity until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391.[3]

Yet the goddess appears on only two coins issued for Faustina II: a denarius depicting the goddess seated left and a middle bronze depicting the goddess standing.[4] I find this astonishing. The goddess Vesta appears on quite literally dozens of different issues for her mother, Faustina I. Moreover, other goddesses appear with astonishing frequency on coins issued for Faustina II, particularly Juno and Venus.[5]

In any event, here are the two coins, as illustrated from examples in my own collection.

Faustina II, AD 147-175.
Roman AR denarius, 3.21 g, 17.4 mm, 7 h.
Rome, AD 164-?
Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right; Beckmann type 9 hairstyle.
Rev: VESTA, Vesta seated left, holding palladium and scepter.
Refs: RIC 737; BMCRE 175-76; Cohen 286; RCV 5270; MIR 44-4/10b; CRE 242.
Notes: One blundered die reads AVGSTA (sic); Roma Numismatics Limited (E-Sale 45), 5.5.2018, lot 605 = Saint Paul Antiques (Auction 10), 2.9.2017, lot 351. Also known with a single band of pearls around the head (Museu de Prehistòria, València 39805).​

Faustina II, AD 147-175.
Roman Æ as or dupondius, 11.38 g, 26 mm, 6 h.
Rome, c. AD 170-175.
Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right; Beckmann type 10 hairstyle.
Rev: VESTA, Vesta standing left, holding simpulum and palladium.
Refs: RIC 1690; BMCRE 1004; Cohen 285; RCV 5307; MIR 45-7/10c.​

Dating the issues is problematic. Being of silver and bronze composition, these coins fall outside the purview of Beckmann's die-linkage study of the aurei of Faustina the Younger and Beckmann is silent with regards to dating these coins. Szaivert, on the basis of hairstyle, assigns the Vesta seated denarius to what he terms "Phase 3," beginning in AD 164 and with an uncertain end date. He postulates the issue may have commemorated the wedding of Lucilla to Lucius Verus in AD 164.[6] Because of the change in hairstyle, Szaivert assigns the Vesta standing middle bronze to "Phase 4," c. 170 to 175.[7] Szaivert says nothing about its possible purpose apart from simply listing it among the types with this hairstyle.

Comments and any coins you deem relevant are encouraged. And by all means, if you have a photograph of the sestertius with the Vesta standing reverse type as reported by Cohen (see note 4, below), please post it here!

~~~

Notes

1. "Faustina the Younger, Bronze As," Hallie Ford Museum of Art Exhibits, accessed October 31, 2021, http://lib-omeka.willamette.edu/hfma/omeka/items/show/92.

2. Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology. ABC-CLIO Interactive, 1998, p. 318.

3. Schroeder, Jeanne Lorraine. The Vestal and the Fasces: Hegel, Lacan, Property, and the Feminine. University of California Press, 1998, pp. 335-336.

4. The existence of the sestertius of this reverse type (RIC 1689, Cohen 284) is uncertain. Though Cohen cites a specimen in Paris, I have been unable to find a single example of this coin after an exhaustive internet search. Dinsdale notes that confirmation is required. Dinsdale, Paul H. The Imperial Coinage of the Middle Antonines: Marcus Aurelius with Lucius Verus and Commodus. Leeds, Paul H Dinsdale, 2018, p. 71. OCRE RIC 1689; Object CM.RI.1724-R) purporting to be a specimen of this coin is in actuality an example of RIC 1387 that has been misidentified.

5. See Mattingly, BMCRE pp. cxxxi-cxxxii for a discussion of the preponderance of Juno types and p. cxliv for the Venus ones. About Vesta, Mattingly writes, "Vesta, with the palladium, is a type always proper to the Empress, as wife of the 'pontifex maximus'" (p. cxxxii) and "Types of Vesta indicate the part of Faustina in the religious life of Rome" (p. cxliv). Mattingly, Harold, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, vol. IV: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. Introduction, indexes and plates. London, BMP, 1968.

6. Szaivert, Wolfgang, Die Münzprägung der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus und Commodus (161/192), Moneta Imperii Romani 18. Vienna, 1989, p. 231. Szaivert suggests a possible break in the issuing of coins for Faustina, perhaps of several years, between phases 3 and 4.

7. Ibid., p. 231. Per Szaivert, the fact that no reverses struck for Faustina which appear to celebrate the elevation of her sons, Commodus and Annius Verus, to the rank of Caesar in 166, or the birth of a last daughter in 169, suggests that the issuing of coins for Faustina did not resume until possibly 170. Pace Szaivert, but Vibia Sabina would have been born not in AD 169, but in AD 170-171, because she would have been the three-year-old at Sirmium when Herodes Atticus was there in 174.

 

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Don't have a Faustina with Vesta, only Faustina on Vespa......
(not sure about the hairstyle type RC)

 

With the chignon on the top of the head, that would be the Faustina I coiffure!




I used two French words in that sentence, too! Are you impressed, @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix? I might have a croissant for breakfast. Maybe even café au lait.

 

Bon appétit!

 

Very fun, informative and mouth watering as always my man
Of course I have the standing Vesta Sestertius... though, bestest I can offer is a Lucilla (daughter of Faustina the younger) and even more importantly is an ex @Bing !!!

LUCILLA Sestertius, RIC 1779, Vesta
OBVERSE: LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F, draped bust right
REVERSE: VESTA, S-C, Vesta standing left, holding palladium and sacrificing with simpulum over lighted altar to left
Struck at Rome, 161-161 AD
30.4 mm, 21.89g AD ex Bing CT

 

Great post as usual, RC! I can share a Julia Domna with a Vesta reverse:



Julia Domna, AR Denarius (20 mm, 3.77 g), Rome, circa 214 AD, IVLIA PIA FELIX AVG Draped bust of Julia Domna to right. /Rev.VESTA Vesta standing front, head to left, holding palladium in her right hand and long scepter in her left. RIC 390 (Caracalla)