Refunded Constans Solidus replaced

I ended up deciding to use all that money I saved by getting a refund -- plus a little bit more, albeit not as much more as one may think, because it was the same dealer who sold me that Vespasian aureus with a 1938 provenance (since pushed back to 1910), and he gave me a nice discount on this one -- on something other than another solidus. I honestly couldn't decide on one that didn't have something about it I didn't like. Plus, none of the others I considered had any kind of provenance at all that I could find, no matter how recent.

So, instead, I bought a second aureus. It's not in remotely superb condition like the Vespasian (only what most people would call "Very Fine," not that I care), and its 2015 provenance is more than a century newer than the Vespasian's. And the price was considerably less to reflect all that! But, nonetheless there's something about the reverse design that I found both extremely unusual and very charming, and I fell in love with it. What can I tell you -- I'm a sucker for mother-child depictions!

Antoninus Pius AV Aureus, AD 150-151 [see footnote 2], Rome Mint. Obv. Laureate head right, ANTONINVS AVG – PIUS P P TR P XIIII / Rev. On left, Ceres [possibly representing Faustina II] standing three-quarters facing, head right, holding two grain ears in right hand; on right, Proserpina standing facing, head left, next to her mother, holding pomegranate in extended left hand, the two gazing at and embracing each other [possibly celebrating birth of Lucilla in AD 151, and, as a result, the restoration of a granddaughter to the Imperial family; hence the reverse inscription naming Laetitia, the personification of joy; see footnote 2], LAETITIA – COS IIII. 19 mm., 6.89 g., 6 h. RIC III 199c (see http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.ant.199C); Cohen 476; Sear RCV II 4008; BMCRE IV Antoninus Pius 725 & Pl. 15 No. 14; Strack 224 [Strack, Paul L., Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, Teil III: Die Reichsprägung zur Zeit Antoninus Pius (Stuttgart, 1937)]; Calicó 1556 [Calicó, E. Xavier, The Roman Avrei, Vol. I: From the Republic to Pertinax, 196 BC - 193 AD (Barcelona, 2003)]; Dinsdale 037180 [Dinsdale, Paul H, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Caesar AD 138-161: Antonine Coinage (2nd Rev. ed., Leeds 2021) Ch. 18 at p. 421; photo at same page, indicating a probable obverse die match to my specimen] [see http://romanpaulus.x10host.com/Antoninus/old/18 - Antoninus Pius - TR POT XIIII Period - 150-151 (med_res).pdf.]* Purchased from Arete Coins [George Matev], Seattle, WA, Feb. 2022; ex. Classical Numismatic Group [CNG] E-Auction 360, Sep. 30, 2015, Lot 458 (from “Group SGF” Collection); ex. Jesús Vico, S.A., Auction 141, Mar. 5, 2015, Lot 121.**



[The dealer also sent me a brief video of the coin -- it's not uploaded to the Internet anywhere so I apparently can't embed it. Is there some way of uploading it from my computer to a post? I can put it in a coin talk album, but I don't see a way of embedding a video from an album!] [See my next post below for dealer's video of this coin.]

*My example also appears to be an obverse die match to the specimen at the Münzkabinett Berlin; see http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.3.ant.199C and photo of obverse at https://ikmk.smb.museum/image/18273198/vs_exp.jpg.


**This type (with its minor variations in the obverse portrait [see RIC 199a-b, Dinsdale 037150, 037160, 037170] as well as in the placement of “COS IIII” in the reverse exergue in some dies [see Dinsdale 037200]), is one of only two representations of Proserpina, with or without her mother Ceres, on Roman Imperial coinage. (The only other such representation is on the reverse of an antoninianus of Claudius II Gothicus, depicting the pair facing each other, each holding a long-handled torch; see MER-RIC V.1 No. 1072 [temp.], at https://ric.mom.fr/en/coin/1072?from=map&Mint=Antioch&mod=result&page=7&hpp=10.).


All attempts to date this issue have necessarily been based on the TR P XIIII in the obverse inscription, signifying the 14th annual renewal of Antoninus Pius’s tribunician power [“Tribunicia Potestas”]. (The “COS IIII” on the reverse is of no assistance, since Antoninus held the consulship for the fourth time in AD 145, and never held a fifth.) See the explanation at Sear RCV II p. 72 of the significance of renewals of tribunician power in dating Roman Imperial coins:


“As the emperor [Augustus] wished the tribunician power to be regarded as the basis for his authority it was natural that he should introduce the custom of reckoning the years of his reign by the date of its symbolic annual renewal. The precedent having thus been instituted, this became the normal practice of Augustus’ successors and the number of annual renewals of the tribunican power, appearing regularly in the inscriptions on the coinage, provide valuable evidence in establishing the numismatic chronology of each reign.”


According to the traditional chronology, Antoninus Pius’s 13th renewal of the tribunician power (TR P XIII) ran from 149-150, and his 14th year (TR P XIIII) from 150-151, meaning that this aureus must have been issued in either 150 or 151. See the table of TR POT years for Antoninus Pius at Sear RCV II pp. 76-77. More specifically: “The method employed for selecting the actual date of this annual renewal seems to have varied from reign to reign. Some emperors used the day of its initial conferment (June 27 in the case of Augustus), whilst others preferred the traditional Republican date for the appointment of the tribunes (December 10th). Yet another practice was to renew on January 1st, thus making the tribunician year coincide with the calendar year.” Id. p. 72.


In the case of Antoninus Pius’s tribunician day, according to @curtislclay, “we know it was 10 Dec. by the end of his reign in 161, and that day has been assumed to go back to at least 147, when Marcus was voted that same power.” (See his Aug. 19, 2014 post on the Forvm discussion board, at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=97313.msg601699#msg601699.) Using that date, Antoninus’s 14th tribunician year ran from Dec. 10, AD 150 to Dec. 10, AD 151, and this aureus must have been issued during that period. See, e.g., Dinsdale, supra, Ch. 18 at p. 421, listing the aurei of Antoninus Pius’s “TR POT XIII Period, Dec. 150 – Dec. 151,” including this aureus (Dinsdale 037180).


However, in a post on Forvm Ancient Coins dated Aug. 22, 2014 (see https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=97313.msg601994#msg601994), as well as in a more recent post at Coin Talk on Nov. 22, 2020 (see https://www.cointalk.com/threads/questions-about-new-faustina-ii-denarius.370212/page-2#post-5143304), @curtislclay has proposed that at the time of Antoninus Pius’s 13th-15th tribunician years, his tribunician day was instead the anniversary of Hadrian’s original conferral of tribunician power on Antoninus Pius when he adopted him and the Senate proclaimed him Caesar in AD 138, namely Feb. 25. See Aug. 22, 2014 post, supra (Antoninus’s tribunician day during this period was not Dec. 10 but “25 February, when Hadrian had adopted Antoninus”); Nov. 22, 2020 post, supra (“Perhaps Antoninus' tribunician day was . . . when his tribunician assembly met, 25 Feb. having been the day when Hadrian adopted him and the Senate proclaimed him Caesar”). Thus, Antoninus Pius’s 14th tribunician year would have run not from 25 Dec. 150 – 25 Dec. 151, but began and ended a few months later, running from 25 Feb. 151 to 25 Feb. 152, meaning that this coin was minted during that period.


In both comments, @curtislclay used this chronological discussion (and a parallel discussion of the dates of Marcus Aurelius’s tribunician years as Caesar, omitted here) to propose that the reverse of this aureus, depicting Ceres and Proserpina together with the legend LAETITIA (Joy), actually celebrates the birth of Lucilla to Faustina II on 7 March, 151 – after she and Marcus Aurelius had been childless for a period of time, because their first two children, a girl born in 147 and a son born in 148-49, depicted together on a coin with crossed cornucopiae, had both died by March 149. See Aug 22, 2014 post, supra:


“I think we can say with fair certainty that Lucilla was born on 7 March 151 not 152.


In the first place, Lucilla can hardly have been born on 7 March 152, since the Ostian Fasti record that in that same year Faustina also gave birth to a son, who however apparently immediately died; see text and discussion in Strack, pp. 117-8. But after 7 March 152 only nine months and three weeks remained before the end of 152, a very short time indeed in which to produce another child! Of course we should not exclude a premature birth, which might fit with the immediate death of the baby, but still it seems unlikely. Unfortunately the exact date of the baby's birth and death is lost from the fragmentary Fasti, but these events are recorded more towards the beginning than the end of the 15 lines of text devoted to the year 152.


Secondly, dating Lucilla's birth to 7 March 151 allows a rather attractive interpretation of the LAETITIA COS IIII type on Antoninus' aurei, showing Ceres embracing her daughter Proserpina (image below), which was apparently produced at exactly this time. The type belongs to the beginning of Antoninus' 14th tribunician year, which I think began on 25 Feb. 151, because though most of the surviving specimens are dated TR P XIIII, one has the numeral of the preceding year, TR P XIII. The type shows Ceres welcoming her daughter back from the underworld, a fitting analogy, it would seem, for Faustina II giving birth to another daughter, after the tragic deaths of her first daughter and son at very young ages!


The course of events, then, might have been:


On 25 Feb. 151 Antoninus began his 14th tribunician year; Marcus, still being childless, had renounced that power so continued calling himself TR P III. On 7 March 151 Faustina gave birth to Lucilla, an event which was commemorated by the LAETITIA type, mostly struck from TR P XIIII obv. dies, but also, erroneously, from one TR P XIII die which had remained in use in the new tribunician year.” [Discussion of Marcus’s resumption of tribunician power in 152, as TR P VI, omitted.] (https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=97313.msg601994#msg601994; emphasis added.)


See also Curtis’s discussion in his 2020 Coin Talk post, at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/questions-about-new-faustina-ii-denarius.370212/page-2#post-5143304:


“If I am correct about Marcus' temporary resignation from his tribunician power in 150-151 AD, then the birth dates of his first three children are likely to have been as follows: 1. A daughter, born 30 Nov. 147, resulting in the titles Augusta for Faustina and TR P for Marcus, as recorded in the Ostian Fasti. 2. A son, born between c. Sept. 148 (nine months after Faustina's first childbirth) and March 149, commemorated on the crossed cornucopias coins of Antoninus Pius as TR P XII. The children on the two cornucopias in this type are traditionally assumed to have been male twins, but there is no reason why the type should not commemorate the birth of a single son to join the earlier daughter, and on a couple of dies the portraits seem to be differentiated, with the daughter on the right having longer hair with a small bun (cf. Strack, pl. XIII, 1026). Both of these children had died, however, before March 149, for by that time Marcus was no longer numbering his TR P.

3. Lucilla, born 7 March 151, apparently commemorated by the LAETITIA COS IIII type (Ceres and Proserpina) on aurei of Antoninus as TR P XIIII. A longed-for daughter had now been restored to Faustina too, so the type seems appropriate." (Emphasis added.)


Thus, just as Proserpina was restored to Ceres at the conclusion of that myth (even if only for six months of the year, after consuming six pomegranate seeds!), the birth of Lucilla restored a daughter and granddaughter to the Imperial family.



The one issue with identifying the Ceres and Proserpina depiction with a celebration of Lucilla’s birth is that obviously, if the Ceres & Proserpina design did actually originate not with Antoninus Pius’s 14th tribunician year but with his 13th tribunician year -- which ended either in Dec. 150 or February 151 regardless of whether one accepts @curtislclay’s theory -- both those dates preceded the birth of Lucilla on March 7, 151, and the design could not have been originally intended to celebrate her birth. Curtis concedes the existence of one specimen bearing the TR P XIII date, from one die, but given that extreme rarity, argues that its production must have been “erroneous[], from one TR P XIII die which had remained in use in the new tribunician year.” Here is what I believe must be the one example he cites of the type with a TR P XIII legend, held by the British Museum since 1864:


https://media.britishmuseum.org/med...e_4223_9331_a3c100ecd091/mid_00658499_001.jpg




(This type has been cataloged as RIC III 190 [citing British Museum example], BMCRE IV Antoninus Pius 714 & Pl. 15 No. 7 [see also https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1864-1128-70], Dinsdale Ch. 16 036130 at p. 414 [illustrated with British Museum example], Strack III 215, Calicó 1555.)


In fact, at least one other specimen of the type exists, sold by LHS Numismatick AG, Auction 95, Lot 813, on 25 Oct. 2005. See photo at https://www.acsearch.info/image.html?id=261692. However, this second specimen appears to me to be a double die match to the British Museum specimen, which would mean that it’s still true that only a single die of this type is known. Therefore, I don’t think the existence of the second specimen materially detracts from the plausibility of @curtislclay’s theory, and I’m still comfortable adopting his theory that the depiction of Ceres and Proserpina on the reverse of this aureus – one of only two such numismatic depictions during the Roman Empire – symbolizes the joy of the Imperial family in the birth of Lucilla. Particularly given the frequent designs on other coins (issued both by Faustina II herself and by her grandfather Antoninus Pius), symbolically depicting Faustina II and her various children.


Finally, it should be noted that @curtislclay was not the first or only scholar to suggest an identification of Ceres and Proserpina, as depicted on the aurei of Antoninus Pius, with Faustina II and Lucilla. Paul L. Strack, writing in 1937, also appears to have made that identification. See Dinsdale, supra p. 414 n. 1, citing Strack 215.

I welcome all comments on whether you think the portrayal of Ceres & Proserpina on this coin was intended to celebrate the birth of Lucilla.

In addition, please post any and all coins you feel like posting -- they certainly don't have to be gold or Roman Imperial! -- issued by Antoninus Pius, and/or depicting Ceres/Demeter, Proserpina/Persephone, and/or representing Faustina II with any of her children. Or, other coins depicting well-known iconography from Greek/Roman mythology, akin to Proserpina and her pomegranate.

 

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Awesome read and beautiful Aureus. Thank you for sharing!

 

OK, here's the dealer's video, I hope!

video antoninus pius aureus by DonnaML posted Feb 5, 2022 at 4:59 PM

 

I'm sure any coin/artefact by virtue of being in your collection gets a nice provenance, even if it didn't have any before!

 

Absolutely lovely, @DonnaML!

 

Wow, thank you. That's a very nice thing to say.

 

Thanks! So, @Roman Collector, you're the expert on Faustina II, etc. What do you think? Do you buy the theory that the reverse may have been intended to celebrate the birth of Lucilla?

 

Congratulations on this interesting coin, I try to match it with a coin from Punic Sicily, clearly influenced by the Greek mythology....

Demeter, in despair over the seizure of her daughter Persephone by Hades, ate poppies in order to fall asleep and forget her grief. The opium bud is quite nice on this coin and made me forget as well the tail-less horse of the other side.

 

Just splendid, @DonnaML !!!
And a terrific write-up!!!
A true numismatist in our midst!

 

Yours is an excellent addition to your collection! The portrait, centering, lettering, and artistry are all very well done and it would be a plus in any collection.

I might have missed this in your writeup, but you do know that your coin is a reverse match to the BM coin you illustrate? Here's a Photoshop comparison of the BM coin reverse alone, with a second picture showing a 40% opacity overlay of your coin.






I had to adjust the sizes to be equal, and rotate yours ever so slightly counterclockwise, but I'm 99% certain they're a reverse match.

 

Congrats with your golden Latitia , beautifull coin Donna.
Heres my bronze multicolour Latitia

 

Love it! Great portrait, VERY cool reverse and IMHO wayyy cooler than late Roman gold!
Antoninus Pius is like the George Harrison of Roman emperors. Quiet, not a lot of people talk about them compared to the more popular/ flamboyant counterparts but they did great things

 

Great new aureus Donna.

 

A fabulous replacement and great write up. Thank you so much for sharing @DonnaML

 

I believe Lucilla was born in March, 149 (So Levick and supported by Beckmann's recent die-linkage study -- his entire chapter 2 is devoted to this) and Faustina III was born in 150/51.

 

A beautiful aureus with charming warmth and an excellent write-up, @DonnaML. Related to the birth of Lucilla, I have this Faustina II about which Beckmann concludes by alignment of "Die Link Chain 2" with coins of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius:

"Thus it appears that these coins commemorate a single female child in AD 149, most probably Lucilla. An inscription preserving a list of holidays in the city of Gortyna in Crete gives Lucilla's birthday as March 7th".


Faustina II, AR denarius, Rome, AD 149
Obv: FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI PII AVG FIL, draped bust right
Rev: CONCORDIA, Concordia standing facing, head right, holding cornucopiae and raising skirt
Ref: RIC 500Bb (my coin has FAVSTINA in place of FAVSTINAE); Beckmann portrait type 2 Die link Chain 2

 

Is this your coin? If so - fantastic, i have been chasing this type for about 4 years now! Huge, judging by photo - ex Lansky, and likely not cheap! Congratulations again on this fantastic coin

 

Beautiful coin! I wonder why it is that Persephone/Proserpina appears on quite a few Greek coins, several Roman Republican coins, and also some Roman Provincial coins, but only twice on Roman Imperial coins. Tastes change, I suppose!

 

A great replacement, Donna. Your wonderful aureus has such a warm feeling in its reverse design.

Here are my Antoninus Pius sestertius and aureus.
Both are from COS IIII as well.

 

Thanks, @IdesOfMarch01. I think you're definitely correct. So my coin appears to be both an obverse die match with the Münzkabinett Berlin example of the TR P XIIII issue of the design, and also a reverse die match with at least one of the only two known examples of the TR P XIII issue, from the British Museum (and probably the other one too, since my impression was that they match each other). That would certainly seem to support the portion of @curtislclay's argument positing that the TR P XIIII issue was minted soon after the change-over in tribunician years, and the TR P XIII issue either at the same time as the TR P XIIII issue (if it was minted in error), or shortly before the change-over.

Of course, there could be many other die matches with my specimen for all I know; I'm not aware that anyone has done a die study, and I don't have the patience for it myself, even though acsearch shows less than 30 examples of the coin (including an unknown number of duplicates).