First Coin arrivals of 2021: Roman Republican Denarii Nos. 43 & 44

I only know about the two Lucius Julius Caesars, father and son, because back when BMCRR was published in 1904, Grueber thought the moneyer of my coin was the son, i.e. Mark Antony's uncle, because he believed that the coin was issued ca. 90 BCE. By 1974, when Crawford was published, the consensus dating of the coin had shifted to 103 BCE. and, therefore, the identity of the moneyer was established as the father, i.e., Antony's grandfather. The problem with the excerpt you posted is that it seems to refer to both father and son without expressly or implicitly distinguishing between them. Which is puzzling, because multiple generations bearing the same names were hardly unusual in ancient Rome. I do think it's more likely that the excerpt intends to refer to the son, but I'm not sure. It doesn't mention that one of the two was a moneyer in Republican Rome.

One Caesar may be enough for you, but unfortunately there were lots of them, most if not all of them also named Julius!

 

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OK, so clearly all these pages were primarily discussing the son -- in other words, not the moneyer of the biga of Cupids coin. But interesting nonetheless!

Just fyi, it might be wise to avoid attaching so many pages from works under copyright. Technically, you're not supposed to do that. I try to limit myself to one, or at most two, to try stay within the bounds of "fair use." Better to just attach the most important page and link to the rest.

 

Great coins, Donna . And thank you for another thorough write-up. I like both, have bid on both types several times, but have none of them in the collection. I'm not sure which one I would have preferred to have, but I think T. Carisius. I'm kinda winding down my relationship with the Caesars after my mentor @dougsmit informed us that the only historically significant thing that Gaius Julius ever did, was to torture first year Latin students with his long winded fishing stories from Gaul.

It's also always nice when @Volodya stops by to show us how good our coins would have looked in MS grades

 

I can't recall what I read first that made me add the "or sphinx" to my descriptions, but some time ago, Rich Beale wrote about the identification of the obverse portrait here:
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/new-arrival.343328/#post-3639230

The article he refers to is available on Jstor.

 

Thanks. Interesting theory, and I'll definitely go look up the article. Still, I would feel that the theory was more persuasive if someone showed me an example of the reverse with a sphinx with any visible hair, never mind something resembling the elaborate hairstyle on the obverse -- as opposed to the tight-fitting caps on mine and @Volodya's, which don't leave room for much hair at all.

 

Lovely coins, Donna They are beautifull in style/ wonderfull quality. Also you gave a very informative write up/ always learning more things about ancient coinages. Congrats on a great start to 2021.
John

 

By the way, even though I've posted it before, I might as well post my other coin that probably has a cupid, given how fond I am of it:

Roman Republic, L Lucretius Trio, AR Denarius, 76 BCE. Obv. Laureate head of Neptune right, XXXIII above and trident behind/ Rev. Cupid on dolphin right; L LVCRETIVS TRIO. Crawford 390/2, Sydenham 784, RSC I Lucretia, Sear RCV I 322 (ill.), Harlan, RRM I Ch. 16 at pp. 98-103, BMCRR Rome 3247. 19 mm., 3.9 g.



If you zoom in, you'll see that he looks a great deal happier than the cupids tasked with pulling Venus's biga.

 

Thanks, @panzerman!

 

Hi @DonnaML - great additions - so far the sphinx of T. Carisius has eluded me, yours is a nice one. Here's my cupid biga - a little nugget of a denarius.

L. Julius L.f. Caesar, 103 BC, AR Denarius, Rome mint
Obv: Helmeted head of Mars left; B• (retrograde) above
Rev: Venus Genetrix driving biga of Cupids left, holding scepter and reins; B• (retrograde) above, lyre below
Ref: Crawford 320/1

 

I think the dots and lines one can see on the two examples below are meant to depict hair. I'm not so sure if the style is an exact match for the head on the obverse, however.




I doubt it can be decided for certain, but I do find myself persuaded by the point made by Woods in his article that if we look at this type in context of Carisius's other issues, where the obverse portraits are linked to the reverse themes (ie., Moneta with minting tools, Roma with implements of government, Victory with Victory driving quadriga), the pattern would suggest that the portrait here is that of the sphinx shown on the reverse. I don't have the other two, but here's my T. Carisius Victory issue.

ROMAN REPUBLIC
AR Denarius. 3.75g, 19mm. Rome mint, 46 BC. T. Carisius, moneyer. Crawford 464/5; Sydenham 985. O: Draped bust of Victory to right; behind, S•C. R: T•CARISI, Victory in prancing quadriga to right, holding wreath in her right hand and reins in her left.

 

My sphinx

 

Beautiful!

 

@zumbly, I haven't retrieved or read the article yet, but I did say that "I would feel that the theory was more persuasive if someone showed me an example of the reverse with a sphinx with any visible hair, never mind something resembling the elaborate hairstyle on the obverse."

You have now shown me two such examples, and I freely admit that they're pretty convincing. The hair doesn't necessarily resemble the obverse portraits' in style, but it definitely appears to be there, including some at the back of the head, one in some sort of bun and the other in something that looks like a pigtail.

If that's the case, then could what I've seen as the rim of a cap on the Sphinx's head on my example and @Volodya's -- and now on @jdmKY's as well -- actually have been intended to signify a band at the base of her hair, as present on the obverse? That would, nonetheless, still leave the question of where the hair itself is on those examples. Was it there, but worn off, no matter how otherwise well-preserved the coin might be?

And, of course, the presence or absence of hair on the Sphinx's head doesn't itself prove the identity of the obverse portrait. But its presence does make the theory that the obverse is the Sphinx more plausible to me. Certainly -- and again, I haven't read the article -- the identification of the obverse as a Sibyl is also based on speculation. The theory appears to be based on the resemblance to an obverse-reverse combination of Sibyl and Sphinx regularly issued hundreds of years earlier in Gergis in Asia Minor, near Troas (hence Trojans, hence Aeneas, hence the gens Iulia, hence Julius Caesar). I don't necessarily accept that the fact that few, if any, people would have understood the reference as dispositive, since all one would really need is for one person, the moneyer, to have understood it. Like an inside joke. Yet, the connection is indisputably extremely obscure. It's not as if anyone seeing the Carisius could simply have gone and looked up Sphinx reverses on the Internet to figure out who the portrait might be! Especially given that the Sibyl on the Gergis obverses doesn't really look anything much like the obverse portrait on the Carisius coins; her head is facing front, turned slightly right, rather than in profile as on the Carisius coins. (See the links in my OP.)

I don't know if the article addresses it, but I'd be very curious to know when the identification of the Carisius obverse as one Sibyl or another was first made. And on what basis. And whether the article's author was the first to suggest that the portrait represents the Sphinx herself. And, in fact, how long and on what basis the Gergis obverses have been identified as the Sibyl Herophile. There's no identifying inscription on those coins, either.

I don't think the question will ever be definitlvely answered, though. Unless someone finds an example of the T. Carisius on which it's clear that the Sphinx has a hairstyle closely resembling the one on the obverse portrait.

 

The added wheel to the composition is a good question I can't answer . It was used by other emperors too. Maybe a specialist like TIF or Jochen1 knows the answer.

 

Nemesis the goddess of vengeance, is winged for the speed of divine retribution, and has an as attribute the wheel of fortune. Nemesis grew in popularity under the Romans and became associated with the griffin.
[Image source: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/67370 CC license]

 

Sulla80, Thanks for the great detective work . I'm kind of glad I sold the coin after reading this . I don't need the goddess of vengeance around me .

 

That's an amazing piece. So I guess that's a gryphon rather than a sphinx after all on @Al Kowsky's coin. I'll know now to keep an eye out for that wheel!