My latest addition is an absolute fascinating issue of the Severan dynasty. This coin (the reverse, that is) has been on my ‘dreamlist’: a list of coins so beautiful or historically significant, but financially forever out of my reach. This coin showed up for auction, with an attractive starting price, which, like we all know, means absolutely nothing. However, I was absolutely baffled that no one made a bid when this coin went up for auction! So, I went in and got the coin for starting price. Perhaps it’s because it has some obvious issues (rough, weak, weird flan, obverse crack) that no one wanted this one, but I absolutely love it! Auctions are just very strange phenomena, aren’t they? I did some additional research on the reverse, and this led to the longest write up I ever made, for reasons explained below. In case you don’t want to read it, here’s the coin. And for those who are willing to read the entire write-up and help me with some of my questions, I am forever grateful! During the attribution process (I always like to check this out thoroughly myself and not simple copy/paste the description given by the seller) and research, I stumbled upon some things that puzzle me. Generally speaking, auction houses use the following description of the coin: “the spina of the Circus Maximus decorated as a ship facing left, with the turning posts at its prow and stern, a sail mounted on the central obelisk, and the spina's other monuments visible in between; above the ship, four quadrigas racing left; below, seven animals: an ostrich at left and a bear at right; between them a lion and a lioness chasing a wild donkey and a panther attacking a bison.” Sear describes it as: “ship l. in the arena, with mast and sail, tripods on deck, four quadrigae galloping l. in upper field, variety of animals below and on either side of ship.” (Sear 2002, no. 6704, 6813.) There’s no mention of the Circus Maximus. First, a little background information about the coin: the reverse of this type, which was struck in 206 AD, depicts the Ludi Saeculares held by Severus in AD 204. We can see two ‘games’: chariot races and venationes (animal slaying). In the center we can see a large ship with several attributes on it, and some animals running, standing and jumping left an right of the ship, and below it. It is believed that the ship is build in the middle of the Circus Maximus, cleverly incorporation the various adornments that stood there. The general attribution mentioned above, states that one can see the adornments depicted on the coin, which I’m willing to believe even though I am having trouble seeing it. The ludi Saeculares held by Septimius Severus is mentioned by Roman historian Cassius Dio in his work, and there have been found inscriptions of those games in Rome in the 1870s and 1930s (Curtis Clay, FAC). This fascinating coin, together with what history has left us in writing, thus refers to that actual event more than 1800 years ago. It gives us an insight on how that event may have looked like and what occurred: lavish games consisting of chariot races and large animal slayings, in the Circus Maximus, where the Secular games traditionally were held. However, despite the material present today, there is still room for debate. Let’s take a closer look to what Cassius Dio mentions in his writings (book 77, section 1 - via the wonderful website LacusCurtius, of Bill Thayer): “At this time there occurred, too, all sorts of spectacles in honour of Severus' return, the completion of his first ten years of power, and his victories. At these spectacles sixty wild boars of Plautianus fought together at a signal, and among many other wild beasts that were slain were an elephant and a corocotta. 4 This last animal is an Indian species, and was then introduced into Rome for the first time, so far as I am aware. It has the colour of a lioness and tiger combined, and the general appearance of those animals, as also of a dog and fox, curiously blended.” This passage refers to the decennial games in 202 AD. These games are not the Ludi Saeculares of 204 AD. Mentioned in the same section, immediately following this passage about the decennial games, Cassius Dio writes the following: “The entire receptacle in the amphitheatre had been constructed so as to resemble a boat in shape, and was capable of receiving or discharging four hundred beasts at once; and then, as it suddenly fell apart, there came rushing forth bears, lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches, wild asses, bisons (this is a kind of cattle foreign in species and appearance), so that seven hundred beasts in all, both wild and domesticated, at one and the same time were seen running about and were slaughtered. For to correspond with the duration of the festival, which lasted seven days, the number of the animals was also seven times one hundred.” The ‘jump’ from the games in 202 AD to the games in 204 AD in the text is noticeable, as if a large portion of the text was lost/is missing. Notice the difference in number of animals in the ‘receptacle’ (animal container, so to say) which is 400, and the 700 animals that could be released “at one and the same time”. Even more interesting in the mentioning of specific animals by Cassius Dio. However, when I looked at various examples of this coin, I realized that the animals mentioned by Cassius Dio seemed not to be depicted on the coin! This has really puzzled me, as I was trying to properly ID my coin. Looking at the numerous descriptions of other coins, and descriptions in reference books, I can conclude there is much difference in interpretation of the animals depicted on the reverse. First, Cassius Dio mentions the following seven animals (I placed them in alphabetical order): 1) Bears, 2) Bisons, 3) lions, 4), lionesses, 5) ostriches, 6) Panthers, 7) wild asses. If I understand it correctly, according to Cassius Clay, these are also the type of animals mentioned on the inscriptions of the games found in Rome. I’ve gone through the descriptions of all 37 coins of Caracalla (RIC 157) on ACSEARCH and the same reverse type of Septimius Severus (RIC 274- 61 hits, including 3 aurei) and found the following animals in the various description of the reverse of the coin: 1) Bear, 2) ‘Bird’, 3) Bovine (Rind), 4) Bizon 5) Bull, 6) Lion (male/female), 7) Ostrich, 8) Panther, 9) Rooster, 10) Stag/deer, 11) Stork, 12) Tiger, 13) Wild Ass/Donkey, 14) Zebra These are definitely more animals than mentioned by Cassius Dio, and the inscriptions found in Rome as mentioned by Cassius Clay. What does this mean? Which animals are depicted on the reverse of my coin? I created an image with some of the most clear types freely available online (I do not own these coins, nor the pictures, and I am not using these in any commercial manner). For analyzing purposes, I numbered the positions of the animals, 1 to 7. Position 1 and 2 are (in general, as we will see below) left and right of the boat. Numbers 3 to 7 are below. Then, I compared the animals shown on the reverses, by using the positions. Numbers 1 and 2 should be the ostrich and bear respectively, by which I follow the generally used attribution of the reverse. From left to right, in this image with the various coins, I can only clearly distinguish the following animals. Again, the positions are fixed. Roma Aureus: 1) ostrich, 2) Bear 3) Lion, 4) ?, 5) ? 6) bull or bison,7) the legs of ? Wildwinds example: 1) ostrich, 2 bear, 3) Lion, 4) ?, 5) zebra (with the manes on the back of its head) or horse, 6) bison, or bull, 7) a very stretched ... ? Britisch Museum type: 1) bird, 2) bear ?, 3) front part of a lion, 4) ?, 5) ? 6), wild ass or gazelle (compare eg. The coins of Gallienus), 7) bull or bison To make it more complex, not only are the animals different, some other examples online show a different position of some of the animals as well. I believe my coin has this as well. An example from Lanz, auction 100, 20-11-2000, shows the bull/bison behind, on the position of the ‘panther’ (position no. 6 and 7). An example from NAC, Auction 84, 20-05-2015, also shows the bull/bison on the position of the ‘panther’ (position no. 6 and 7). The description of the coin mentions the presence of three tigers. It appears my coin also has a different positioning of the animals, whereas the bear looks to have position no. 7, the bull position no. 6, and an unidentifiable animal position no. 2. (Actually, the quadriga is on position 2, necessitating animal on position 2, the be shown below the ship.) I have found a very interesting drawing from the British Museum. According to the description, the drawing is dated 1768 - 1805, and shows the reverse, very clearly, of the LAETITA TEMPORVM reverse. The description of the drawing mentions the number of a coin I cannot locate via the website, so it is unclear whether the drawing is based on an actual coin. Whatever the case may be, the drawing clearly shows two lions (one lion on the position of the bear, no. 3), and a panther behind the bull/bison. Also, on position no. 4, we do not see a lioness (as mentioned by some descriptions), but a deer of some sort. Also the wild ass is missing. Next, some thoughts about the ‘bison’. I immediately noticed the word ‘bison’ in the text of Cassius Dio and I find this very peculiar. The explanation he uses is the following: “this is a kind of cattle foreign in species and appearance.” Would he have meant an actual bison, like the bison we know of today: European wisent? Or a domesticated species of cow, not known to (many) Romans? Or would he have meant the African buffalo, which looks more like a cow than the bison does? In any case, the description of Cassius Dio clearly discards the bull as an option (in my opinion), which is used in some attributions of the reverse of the coin. In case Cassius Dio meant a European bison, (we can safely conclude that the American Bison was not known to the Romans) there are three possibilities. The European bison consisted of several subspecies: the lowland wisent, the Carphatian wiscent, and the Caucasian wisent. The latter two are now extinct but would have existed during the time of Septimius Severus. Their living area was eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Could this mean that the animal Cassius Dio was referring to, is one of the two extinct species of bison? Could this mean the coin contains the image of a now extinct species? Cassius Clay mentions that on a clear type of the British Museum (which I could not locate unfortunately, but compare the Roma aureus), one can clearly see the bison has horns and a hump. The appearance of the European bison, however, is more notable than just horns and a hump and I, even though this is mere speculation, find it hard to believe that Cassius Dio would refer to the European wesent as “a kind of cattle”. Could Cassius Dio perhaps have meant an African buffalo, or a related species such as the Sudan buffalo? The appearance of this animal is surely more ‘cattle like’, even though its behaviour is extremely dangerous, so no one would attempt to milk it of course. Also, the buffalo comes from Africa (either the African or Cape buffalo, or a subspecies such as the Sudan buffalo), as do the other animals displayed on the coin, and as mentioned by the historian (NB. I also think with ‘panther’, Cassius Dio refers to the animal we call today ‘leopard’). Or did the ancient Romans have a word for wisent, and a different one for the African buffalo, and could it indeed be a bison? So, what can be concluded from all of this? First of all, I believe that the words of Cassius Dio can only partly be used to adequately describe the reverse of the coin. It does not appear as if Cassius Dio compiled an exhaustive list of animals that were killed in the Secular game. Also, the reverse of the various coins do give the suggestion that they show a variety of animals, not just the seven mentioned by Cassius Dio. This would mean that every reverse needs an identification and adequate description based on the appearance and look of the seven animals. This is quite difficult, of course, as not all coins are clear enough to support this method. Secondly, I question the use of the term ‘bison’ in the description. Based on the depiction of the animal on some of the more clear coins it is, in my opinion, not enough to define the animal as a ‘bison’. Perhaps the term was introduced to use by a subtle misstep in the translation of the ancient text? An entirely (and speculative) different conclusion can be drawn as well. Taking the text of Cassius Dio as a starting point, instructions may have been given to die makers to create a coin showing the seven animals described by Cassius Dio. Again, the event was held in 204 AD, but the coins were struck two years later. Could it be possible, that the die makers had no idea how some of the animals looked like? In a time when photo’s and the internet, or perhaps even a drawing book of the animal kingdom, were not available, did fantasy and reality got mixed up? Whatever may be the case, I think for now I will use the following description: the spina of the Circus Maximus decorated as a ship facing left, with the turning posts at its prow and stern, a sail mounted on the central obelisk, and the spina's other monuments visible in between; above the ship, four quadrigas racing left; below and to the left and to the right, seven animals, including, from left to the right, an ostrich, a lion and a bear. Thank you for reading! Please share your thoughts, comments, and of course coins! Sources of the images: British Museum Drawing: museum number 2010,5006.1277 British Museum number: 1857,0812.10 Britisch Museum Caracalla: R.12660 Wildwinds example: https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s6813.html#RIC_0157 Roma Aureus: Roma Numismatics Ltd, Auction IV, lot 574, 30 Sep - 1 Oct 2012 Other sources: https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/the-grandeur-that-was-rome-the-secular-games-of-the-circus-maximus/ http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Ludi_Saeculares.html https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection www.acsearch.info https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=93747.0 www.numisbids.com And ofcourse, good old wikipedia
OK, yeah, it's a somewhat funky flan, but chalk that one up to "character". My first response was, "Oh! That reverse! Wow!"
Congrats! I like the type too and view the identification of several depicted animals as "best guess". Septimius Severus Rome, CE 206 AR denarius, 3.41 gm, 20 mm, 12h Obv: SEVERVS PIVS AVG, laureate head right Rev: LAETITIA TEMPORVM, the spina of the Circus Maximus decorated as a ship facing left, with the turning posts at its prow and stern, a sail mounted on the central obelisk, and the spina's other monuments visible in between; above the ship, four quadrigas racing left; below, seven animals: an ostrich at left and a bear at right; between them a lion and a lioness chasing a wild ass and a panther attacking a bison Ref: RIC 274; BMC 343. ex Colosseo Collection
I'm not sure about that. My son is not a sports fan at all (let alone of boxing), but I'll try to remember to ask him if he knows who Cassius Clay was. I'll be surprised if he doesn't.
That is not a "crack." It is a flan flaw that does not carry through to the other side...as a crack would do. Thus, not as "bad" as a crack.
I'd say your second explanation is correct: the engravers were instructed to depict the seven animals specified by Cassius Dio and by the Saecular Games inscription, but they sometimes made minor mistakes in doing so. It seems indubitable that there was a hunt of 100 each of the named seven animals on the last day of the Saecular Games of 204, since this fact is attested not only by Cassius Dio, a highly reliable senatorial historian who was alive and writing his history at that very time, but also in the official account of the games which was inscribed on marble panels set up in Rome for all to read. And surely no one will doubt that the LAETITIA TEMPORVM coin type commemorated this particular show of 204: not only does the coin type consistently show precisely seven animals, some of them clearly identical with the ones mentioned by Dio and the inscription, but Dio also explains why 700 animals were included in the hunt (because the Saecular Games lasted seven days), and the adornment of the spina as a ship in the coin type jibes with Dio's statement that the receptacle for the animals was shaped like a ship. I think Septimius would have had little motivation to repeat exactly the same show, with the same seven kinds of animal and the receptacle similarly shaped like a boat, at any other time during his reign! Indeed, the correspondence between Dio's account and the coin type is so close that the two have been recognized as relating to the same games since the early days of numismatic scholarship. What is remarkable, however, is that most numismatists throughout the centuries, having accepted this explanation of the coin type, nevertheless did not make the obvious deduction that the seven animals shown in the coin type must therefore be the same seven named by Dio, but rather tried to identify the animals, making many mistakes, solely on the basis of what they looked like on the coins of this type accessible to them! Precisely what animal Dio's bisons were is only a secondary question, which I leave it to others to speculate about, and maybe even solve.
Limes refers to my Forum text of 2014; here is that full text. It will be seen that what Limes calls the standard description of the LAETITIA TEMPORVM type in the numismatic trade derives from this text. A wonderful type, and rare. Sear's interpretation is incomplete and incorrect, however! Here my description of a similar denarius in Harlan Berk's stock: Caracalla, Rome, 206 AD, Denarius, 2.68 g. BM-508, C-118 (50 Fr.), RIC-157 (R3). Obv: ANTONINVS PIVS AVG Head laureate r. Rx: LAETITIA TEMPORVM The spina of the Circus Maximus decorated as a ship facing l., with the turning posts at its prow and stern, a sail mounted on the central obelisk, and the spina's other monuments visible in between; above the ship, four quadrigas racing l.; below, seven animals: an ostrich at l. and bear at r.; between them a lion and a lioness chasing a wild ass and a panther (indistinct on this specimen) attacking a bison. Rare: only two specimens in Reka Devnia hoard. This famous type commemorates the chariot races and animal hunt that took place on the seventh and final day of Severus' Saecular Games in 204 AD, as described in the inscriptional acts of those games which were found in Rome in the 1870s and 1930s. According to the acts, after three days of sacrifices and three days of honorary stage shows, Severus and Caracalla held circus games on the seventh day, consisting of chariot races and then a hunt of 700 beasts, 100 each of "lions, lionesses, panthers, bears, bisons, wild asses, ostriches". Dio Cassius describes the same hunt, adding the detail that the cage from which the animals were discharged was formed like a boat: "The entire receptacle in the theater had been fashioned in the shape of a boat and was capable of receiving or discharging four hundred beasts at once; and then, as it suddenly fell apart, there came rushing forth bears, lionesses, panthers, lions, ostriches, wild asses, bisons, so that 700 beasts in all, both wild and domesticated, at one and the same time were seen running about and were slaughtered. For to correspond with the duration of the festival, which lasted seven days, the number of the animals was also seven times one hundred." In Dio's text this passage follows directly on his account of Severus' Decennalian Games in 202 AD, causing scholars to accuse Dio of misdating the hunt to 202 or to postulate that similar hunts of 700 animals were held both in 202 and in 204. But the true explanation, in my opinion, is that Dio's Byzantine epitimator Xiphilinus, on whom we are dependent for this section of Dio's text, has simply jumped without warning or transition from Dio's description of the Decennalian Games of 202 to his description of the circus spectacle concluding the Saecular Games of 204. This hypothesis easily explains why Dio's text as we have it makes no mention of the Saecular Games themselves or of any event of 203: Xiphilinus omitted this whole section of Dio's history! The seven kinds of animals named by both Dio and the inscriptional acts are also depicted in the coin type: on good specimens, especially the aureus BM pl. 34.4, the ostrich and the bear are clear, the lion has a mane, the ass has long ears, the bison has horns and a hump. Two large felines remain, of which we may suppose that the one accompanying the lion is the lioness and the one attacking the bison is the panther. The animals are named somewhat differently in Cohen, BMC, and other numismatic works: though numismatists have long cited Dio's text to explain the coin type, no one previously seems to have posed the question whether the seven animals in the lower part of the type might not be the same seven that Dio and now the inscriptional acts too name! These circus games with the ship and 700 animals were held in 204 AD, but the coin type commemorating them did not appear until two years later: on aurei of Septimius the type is die linked to a dated type of 206 AD, and for Caracalla the type passes from a draped and cuirassed obverse type on the aureus to the "head only" type on his denarii, a transition that took place in 206 AD according to his dated coins. (By Curtis Clay). In the same thread I also stated: The Acts of the games record that the animal hunt was held on the same day as the chariot races. The chariot races could only be held in the Circus, so it seems likely that the hunt was held there too, rather than requiring over 100,000 spectators to tramp from the Circus to the Amphitheater! We know that hunts were held in the Circus on other occasions. The boat-like receptacle remains a little mysterious. Was it constructed just around the obelisk of the spina? The whole spina, at some 300 yards long, seems too long to have been transformed into a convincing ship, as the coins show.
Congrats on the acquisition and thanks for the in-depth writeup. The reverse on mine is closest to the BM reverse you show in terms of arrangement and apparent animal type. For the identification of the seven animals, I largely went with what was used in the auction catalog - "ostrich, lion, zebra, bear and stag right, bull butting left, bear right, head left." I have to agree there's no reason to say it's a zebra when there are no stripes visible, not to mention the fact that Dio specifically mentions wild asses, but I'd find it difficult to use "panther attacking a bison" in my description when the 5th animal from the left, clearly horned, looks nothing like a panther, and much more like a gazelle or antelope.
Thanks all for the replies! Lovely coins@Tif and @zumbly. I believe when looking at the animals depicted on your reverses and their positions, there are other animals shown then usually described. Especially it seems your lions (on position 3) seem to be chasing a horse/ zebra (animals with manes)? Yes, something unintentionally went wrong here. Sorry about that, it's supposed to say Cassius Dio (I don't even like boxing) I can't seem to edit my post, so we'll have to do with it unfortunately. And thank you for sharing your thoughts @curtislclay. I was looking online for the inscpritions mentioned in your post, that were found in Rome. Would you happen to know if they can be found? I was unfortonately unable to locate them.
Zumbly, You wrote: "I'd find it difficult to use "panther attacking a bison" in my description when the 5th animal from the left, clearly horned, looks nothing like a panther, and much more like a gazelle or antelope." The fifth animal from the left, clearly horned, is however the bison. Just behind the bison one can make out, on the aureus (above), the hind legs and body of the panther that is attacking the bison. On your denarius die the panther appears to have been left out.
The arrangement and type of animals on mine looks like that on the BM example in the OP. If the fifth animal from the left is the bison, then what’s the sixth animal? I was under the impression that one was the bison.
