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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Roman Collector, post: 8031893, member: 75937&quot;]TGIFF!!!</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="https://media3.giphy.com/media/l0IsHsQK0O7u2d1Cg/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47pdv7xpoobw7h637jfd8ehqysfuktn14mqcdfmas9&amp;rid=giphy.gif&amp;ct=g" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Today we’re going to talk about Vesta and her appearance on the coins of Faustina the Younger.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1391508[/ATTACH]</p><blockquote><p><font size="3">Second century Roman marble statue of Vesta, the so-called <i>Giustiniani Hestia</i>. Roman copy of a Greek bronze c. 470 BC. 1.93 m. Rome, Museo Torlonia. Formerly in the Palazzo Giustiniani, Rome. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giustiniani_Hestia#/media/File:Hestia_Giustiniani.jpg" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giustiniani_Hestia#/media/File:Hestia_Giustiniani.jpg" rel="nofollow">Photo in the public domain</a>.</font></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>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 <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/matronly-garments-the-stola-and-palla.346585/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/matronly-garments-the-stola-and-palla.346585/"><i>stola</i> and <i>palla</i></a> and holding some combination of a patera, <i>simpulum</i>, scepter (<i>hasta pura</i>), torch, or <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-palladium.329221/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-palladium.329221/">palladium</a>. 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]</p><p><br /></p><p>Vesta was one of the most important figures in Roman religious life. She was counted among the <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-12-dii-consentes-the-roman-equivalent-of-the-olympian-gods.318189/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-12-dii-consentes-the-roman-equivalent-of-the-olympian-gods.318189/"><i>Dii Consentes</i></a>, the twelve most honored deities in the Roman pantheon. The ruins of <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/vesta-and-her-temple.353395/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/vesta-and-her-temple.353395/">her temple in the <i>Forum Romanum</i></a> still greet visitors today (read more <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/vesta-and-her-temple.353395/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/vesta-and-her-temple.353395/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/republican-denarius-that-has-it-all-great-story-interesting-type-and-old-provenance.389063/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/republican-denarius-that-has-it-all-great-story-interesting-type-and-old-provenance.389063/">here</a> and see a cool version made out of Lego <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lego-fun-vol-x-temple-of-vesta.363221/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lego-fun-vol-x-temple-of-vesta.363221/">here</a>). 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 <i>Vestalia</i> (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays.[2] Vesta&#039;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]</p><p><br /></p><p>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]</p><p><br /></p><p>In any event, here are the two coins, as illustrated from examples in my own collection.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1391510[/ATTACH]</p><blockquote><p><font size="3">Faustina II, AD 147-175.</font></p><p><font size="3">Roman AR denarius, 3.21 g, 17.4 mm, 7 h.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rome, AD 164-?</font></p><p><font size="3">Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right; Beckmann type 9 hairstyle.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rev: VESTA, Vesta seated left, holding palladium and scepter.</font></p><p><font size="3">Refs: RIC 737; BMCRE 175-76; Cohen 286; RCV 5270; MIR 44-4/10b; CRE 242.</font></p><p><font size="3">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 <a href="http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.org/nomisma/id/es/39805" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.museuprehistoriavalencia.org/nomisma/id/es/39805" rel="nofollow">39805</a>).</font></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1391511[/ATTACH]</p><blockquote><p><font size="3">Faustina II, AD 147-175.</font></p><p><font size="3">Roman Æ as or dupondius, 11.38 g, 26 mm, 6 h.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rome, c. AD 170-175.</font></p><p><font size="3">Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right; Beckmann type 10 hairstyle.</font></p><p><font size="3">Rev: VESTA, Vesta standing left, holding simpulum and palladium. </font></p><p><font size="3">Refs: RIC 1690; BMCRE 1004; Cohen 285; RCV 5307; MIR 45-7/10c.</font></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>Dating the issues is problematic. Being of silver and bronze composition, these coins fall outside the purview of Beckmann&#039;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 &quot;Phase 3,&quot; 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 &quot;Phase 4,&quot; c. 170 to 175.[7] Szaivert says nothing about its possible purpose apart from simply listing it among the types with this hairstyle.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>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!</i></p><p><br /></p><p>~~~</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Notes</b></p><p><br /></p><p>1. &quot;Faustina the Younger, Bronze As,&quot; <i>Hallie Ford Museum of Art Exhibits</i>, accessed October 31, 2021, <a href="http://lib-omeka.willamette.edu/hfma/omeka/items/show/92" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://lib-omeka.willamette.edu/hfma/omeka/items/show/92" rel="nofollow">http://lib-omeka.willamette.edu/hfma/omeka/items/show/92</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. Dixon-Kennedy, Mike. <i>Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman Mythology</i>. ABC-CLIO Interactive, 1998, p. 318.</p><p><br /></p><p>3. Schroeder, Jeanne Lorraine. <i>The Vestal and the Fasces: Hegel, Lacan, Property, and the Feminine</i>. University of California Press, 1998, pp. 335-336.</p><p><br /></p><p>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<i>.</i> Leeds, Paul H Dinsdale, 2018, p. 71. <a href="http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.m_aur.1689" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.m_aur.1689" rel="nofollow">OCRE RIC 1689</a>; <a href="http://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/148841" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/148841" rel="nofollow">Object CM.RI.1724-R</a>) purporting to be a specimen of this coin is in actuality an example of RIC 1387 that has been misidentified.</p><p><br /></p><p>5. See Mattingly, <i>BMCRE</i> pp. cxxxi-cxxxii for a discussion of the preponderance of Juno types and p. cxliv for the Venus ones. About Vesta, Mattingly writes, &quot;Vesta, with the palladium, is a type always proper to the Empress, as wife of the &#039;pontifex maximus&#039;&quot; (p. cxxxii) and &quot;Types of Vesta indicate the part of Faustina in the religious life of Rome&quot; (p. cxliv). Mattingly, Harold, <i>Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, vol. IV: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. Introduction, indexes and plates</i>. London, BMP, 1968.</p><p><br /></p><p>6. Szaivert, Wolfgang, <i>Die Münzprägung der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus und Commodus (161/192)</i>, 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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