Hadrian Sestertius, Diana reverse - Unlisted Variety?

Sometimes I just stare at a coin until I thoroughly confuse myself.

So here it is, a budget sestertius of Hadrian, very worn, with a smooth green, rather thick patina.

Obverse: Hadrian's head is bare, with no trace of bow for the tie-ends for a laurel crown. The bust is draped.

Reverse: That is Diana, isn't it? The wear is so extensive that the bow is gone, and the arrow is just barely visible. The stance of the goddess, and the little-bitty short apron thing she is wearing leads me to believe it is indeed Diana. Corrections appreciated.

Using primarily OCRE to establish what it is, exactly, I came up with RIC 2400 var. - which is the bare-headed variety, as listed under the sub-varients RIC 2398-2402, but not draped. The newest version of RIC is reflected in OCRE now, which is good, but a bit confusing, to me anyway. http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_3(2).hdn.2398-2402

The problem is, there is no bare-headed bust that is also draped. I've looked through acsearch, Wildwinds, etc. but cannot find another one.

Here are some photos, with enhancements to see where I am getting my notions from:





Hadrian Æ Sestertius
(128-129 A.D.)
Rome Mint
[HADR]IANVS A[VGVSTVS COS III P P], draped bust, bare-headed right / Diana
standing left holding arrow and [bow], S C in field.
RIC II.3 2400 (RIC 777a) var.
(Unlisted with draped, bare bust?)
(22.92 grams / 30 mm)

Any thoughts on this? Or am I off-base here?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

There is BMC 1544, which has a bare-headed bust of Hadrian with drapery on the left shoulder.

 

Agree that yours looks bare headed. A bit like this:

This coin is laureate (possible that on yours the bow is worn away)

Lots of other examples to explore here - as you've already found:
RIC II, Part 3 (second edition) Hadrian 2398-2402

And RIC offers lots of variants (image updated to be clearer):

 

Thank you RC! If I am reading this correctly, your RIC excerpt indeed shows RIC 777c with bare head draped, a recognized variation. When I was researching this, I saw that RIC 777 was the basic type I was looking at, but I wasn't getting all the variables until you shared this.

This does not show up on OCRE. RIC 777 a, d, and e are noted, but none of the others.

Thanks again for your help with this.

 

No, the only bust types listed for the old RIC 777, p. 439, are a, b, d, and e, not c.

The bust types a-j listed below RIC 777 in Sulla's post are the bust types for all bronze coins of RIC's Group D, summarized on p. 435, not those for RIC 777 in particular.

I agree that Hadrian's head is bare on your coin, but without finding a clearer spec. from the same obv. die would hesitate to say the bust must be draped, instead of just "with drapery on front shoulder and behind neck", as on the BM coin shown above by Roman Collector.