Roman Imperial Coin with Isis and Horus on the Reverse

I imagine that figures from Egyptian mythology are not uncommon on Roman Provincial coins, but here is a Roman Imperial coin I recently received, minted in Rome, with two traditional Egyptian deities on the reverse, namely Isis and Horus.

Julia Domna, AR Denarius 201 AD, Rome Mint. Obv. Draped bust right, hair waved vertically and fastened in large bun in back, IVLIA AVGVSTA / Rev. Isis, wearing polos on head, draped, standing three-quarters right, head right, holding the infant Horus in left arm against breast, with her booted left foot against prow, right, and her bare left knee bent with Horus resting on it; to left of Isis, rudder rests against altar; SAECVLI FELICITAS. RIC IV-1 577 (p. 170), RSC III 174 (ill.), Sear RCV II 6606, BMCRE 166. 18x20 mm., 3.35 g., 6 h. Ex. A.K. Collection; ex. CNG Triton XX Auction, Jan. 10, 2017, part of Lot # 614, No. E027.

Seller's image:



My own photos:





As a long-time collector of Egyptian antiquities, I find this coin very appealing because of the reverse image. I also like the obverse portrait, in which Julia Domna looks less sour and dour than she does on most of her coins. as well as a lot younger!

As far as I can tell, the only Roman Imperial coins depicting both Isis and Horus are this denarius as well as an aureus and sestertius with the same design, all minted in Rome, plus a denarius and aureus with the same design minted in Laodicea ad Mare, and a couple of coins issued by each of Julian II and Jovian. Roman Imperial coins depicting Isis alone were issued by Hadrian, Antoninus Pius (Diva Faustina I), Marcus Aurelius (Faustina II), Commodus, Septimius Severus (Julia Domna), Caracalla, Claudius II Gothicus, Constantius II, Constans, Magnentius, Constantius Gallus, Julian II, and Jovian, but there still aren't that many of them, comparatively speaking. I believe there are also some Roman Imperial coins depicting other traditional Egyptian deities such as Anubis.

If anyone else has any Roman Imperial coins depicting traditional figures from Egyptian mythology -- and Serapis, combining aspects of Osiris and Apis in a humanized form, shouldn't count in my opinion, given that he was a syncretistic invention who probably dates only to Ptolemaic times -- I'd love to see them.

Just because I feel like it, here are three of my antiquities depicting or relating to Horus and/or Isis.

Bronze figure of the Horus Falcon - Standing bird with wings folded, wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt. The symbol of Horus, the living Pharaoh. 2 1/8" H. 26th Dynasty, Ca. 663-525 BCE. Purchased from Harmer Rooke Galleries, Inc., New York City, Jan. 27, 1986.



Blue-green Faience Amulet of the Triad - Amulet of protection depicting Horus (the living Pharaoh) in the center flanked by his mother Isis on the right and his aunt Nebhat (Nepthys) on the left. 26th Dynasty, ca. 663-525 BCE. 1 1/4" H. Purchased from Harmer Rooke Galleries, Inc., New York City, Feb. 6, 1982.

Amulet of the Uzat Eye - Green Faience with brown relief detail depicting the eye of Horus, an amulet of protection. Representative of the sun and/or the moon as eye of the Pharaoh, watching over the world. 26th Dynasty, ca. 663-525 BCE. 1 1/8" L. Purchased from Harmer Rooke Galleries, Inc., New York City, Jan. 7, 1983.

 

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here's a Festival of Isis issue from Jovian





Jovian
A.D. 363- 364
14x15mm 1.4g
D N IOVIANVS P F AVG; Pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed bust right.
VOTA PUBLICA; Isis in ship right, holding the sail and looking backwards.

 

Nice one, @DonnaML ... I really enjoy your Egyptian items. Any scarabae?

Here is my Isis:


RI AR Den Julia Domna 200 CE Felicitas Isis Horus RIC 577


And, her Fouree:


RI Julia Domna 194-217 Fouree AR Plated Den Isis Horus

 

Yours must be one of these two:

RIC VIII Rome 512
Date
AD 363 - AD 364
Denomination
Medallion
Mint
Rome
Obverse
D N IOVIA-NVS P F AVG: Bust of Jovian, pearl-diademed, draped, cuirassed, right
Reverse
VOTA P-VBLICA: Isis, draped, standing right on galley, holding sail in both hands

RIC VIII Rome 513
Date
AD 363 - AD 364
Denomination
Medallion
Mint
Rome
Obverse
D N IOVIA-NVS P F AVG: Bust of Jovian, pearl-diademed, draped, cuirassed, right
Reverse
VO-TA PV-BL-ICA: Isis, draped, standing right on galley, holding sail in both hands

 

Not depicting any deities -- just with hieroglyphs.

I really like that first coin of yours. I guess that even though it's the same catalogue number as mine, it depicts the immediately preceding scene, because Horus has yet to begin! Alternatively, perhaps he's finished.

 

VOTA PVBLICA - Isis obverse, Anubis holding systrum on the reverse. This one is not in my collection, but I have been looking for a good example for quite awhile. Representations of Anubis from the 4th century are extremely rare. And as I'm sure you are aware, the old religion was dying out in Egypt at the time as monasteries were getting ever more popular because of the celebrity of the desert fathers such as St. Anthony.

 

Great coin. Is it in RIC? OCRE lists seven coins with Anubis reverses, issued under Constantius II, Julian II, and Jovian, but I don't see this one.

 

have you seen this yet?

Alföldi, Andreas. "A Festival of Isis in Rome under the Christian Emperors of the IVth Century"

 

No I haven't. Thank you.

Edited to add: I have just started reading the article, but given that it was published in 1937, and most of the coins were apparently minted in Rome, why are few, if any, of them included in OCRE?

Edited to add another question (although I haven't finished the article yet and don't know if the issue is addressed): if all the coins discussed were the product of the resistance of the "pagan party" of Rome, why do all of them depict Egyptian deities, and none of them depict the traditional Roman deities or pagan personifications? Had the former completely supplanted the latter in popularity by the 4th century?

 

The Isis cult was certainly influential during the Flavian era. Your coin shows that it's influence continued to grow right up to the Severan age.

What a wonderful coin and excellent write-up!

 

It was as popular up to late 4th century, as shown by the small "medallions" of ISIS FARIA, associated usually with Julian II and possibly later.

 

Great thread, Donna,Thanks


From my Egypt roundtrip:

 

The Horus stone is very nice. I trust that it was sold to you as a reproduction?

 

I don't have any Isis and Horus coins (yet), but if the scene on your denarius reminds you of the today much better-known religious iconography found, for example, on this coin, it's no coincidence:


Kingdom of Hungary, under Ferdinand I, AR denár, 1538 AD, Kremnitz mint. Obv: FERDINAND • D • G • R • VNG • 1538 •; quartered shield with stripes (Árpad), double cross (Hungary), leopard heads (Dalmatia), and lion (Bohemia); central inescutcheon with Austrian arms. Rev: PATRONA •*• VNGARIE; Madonna with child; in fields, K–B. 16mm, 0.62g. Ref: Huszár 935.

The Christian iconography of the Virgin and Child to a large part derives from Roman-Egyptian depictions of Isis and Horus/Harpocrates. Early Christians simply adopted preexisting religious images to fit their new beliefs.

This 2nd to 3rd c. AD statue of Isis breastfeeding Harpocrates, which is roughly contemporary to your coin, was even reworked into a Maria lactans later on. It is part of the permanent exhibition in the Bode Museum in Berlin:

 

Lovely example of that issue, @DonnaML , with a particularly appealing reverse. You might be interested in a thread I started about these two coins. It was an interesting discussion about the reverse details and about the possible purpose and date of the issue.


Julia Domna, AD 193-217.
Roman AR denarius, 3.61 g, 17.7 mm, 12 h.
Rome, AD 196-202.
Obv: IVLIA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: SAECVLI FELICITAS, Isis, wearing polos, standing right, foot on prow, nursing infant Horus; behind them, a ship’s rudder leans against an altar.
Refs: RIC 577; BMCRE 75-82; Hill 504; Cohen 174; RCV 6606.


Julia Domna, AD 193-217.
Roman AR denarius, 3.07 g, 18.2 mm, 12 h.
Uncertain Eastern mint (Antioch?), AD 196-202.
Obv: IVLIA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: SAECVLI FELICITAS, Isis, wearing polos, standing right, left foot on prow, holding infant Horus on left arm, right hand on breast; behind them, rudder.
Refs: RIC 645; BMCRE 618; Cohen 174; RCV --; CRE 353.

 

The Isis/Horus type was also struck for Domna at Laodicea mint. They are distinguished by style. Mine has, though weakly, the distinctive loop on the neck of the portrait.


The OP coin was part of the AK collection sold by CNG over several sales. I bought two large lots from Triton XX and wish I had bought more. They were decent coins and generally nice for the grade. People today seem to prefer ugly or overcleaned EF coins to old collection coins with better surfaces. I imagine most of those lots were sold to dealers who resold them without noting the provenance.
Your lot:
https://www.cngcoins.com/Coin.aspx?CoinID=324807
Unfortunately CNG chose to make a dead link out of the details of each coin in the lot. Clicking on the link in the above listing takes you to one of the later sales. I bought two lots but was unable to get a printed copy of the special paper copy of the collection but was happy there was an online version which I should have printed in its entirety when it was there.

 

@dougsmit, thanks. I was rather annoyed myself that the CNG link to the details of the individual coins in Lot 614 is dead, but the seller was kind enough to send me the relevant portion of the page with my coin from the catalogue giving those details. It's the last coin on the page, No. E027; unfortunately, unlike the previous coin, no earlier provenance is given for mine:



Given the very nice toning of my coin, though, I suspect that it had been in "A.K.'s" collection for a while.

Regarding the location of the Eastern mint that issued the other version of this denarius [RIC IV Septimius Severus 645 (denarius)], RIC (as you indicate) identifies that location as Laodicea ad Mare. But see @Roman Collector's comment above yours, and his linked thread, indicating that it's now believed that that mint was located in Antioch. (I don't know if @Roman Collector has a citation for that information.) However, OCRE still identifies the mint as Laodicea.

 

The British Museum website now attributes all of the "Laodicea" mint issues of Septimius Severus to Antioch. I have written about this issue here at CT. I then queried the curator of the coin cabinet at the British Museum, Richard Abdy, about this issue and this was his kind and very informative reply:

Dear RC:

Thank you for your email. Off the top of my head I suspect it [attributing the coins to Laodicea] was a figment of Harold Mattingly’s imagination (I hope I’m not taking his name in vain – could be one of his contemporaries in the early to mid-century, e.g. maybe Mattingly mooted the ideas and R. A. G. Carson ran with them – I think Carson was the one that confidently proclaimed denarius minting returned to Rome from Lyon under Caligula when modern metallurgy now shows the move was part of Nero’s mint reforms of AD 64). The three largest mint centres of silver coinage in the east were Cappadocia in Caesarea, Antioch and Alexandria. Alex is very easy to recognise when they produce Roman format denarii as their style is so distinct (they have protuberant eyes like the Garfield cartoon characters!). The bilingual pieces of Pescennius Niger link Latin-legend obverses of the style Mattingly described under the Severans as ‘Emesa’ with their Greek legend reverses (some with the typical design of their holy mountain Argeus amongst others). As for the bulk of Niger’s denarii – that was agreed as Antioch (his capital).

So the denarius mints in the East at the dawn of the Severan period seem quite straightforward now. See:

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/historia/coins/r4/r14110.htm

The problem comes with the Mattingly / Carson mentality to weave coins into history more than the evidence can support it. Thus the Niger-supporting cites (such as Antioch) as we all know were subsequently disgraced and degraded in status – so surely the mints must have been transferred to the new political capitals? Well there isn’t any corroborating evidence so it seems silly to build ‘facts’ on such supposition. It’s a good lesson to learn not to get creative with the evidence – no matter how tempting! (Thus nowadays one might say ‘minted in Syria’ to be on the safe side.) A good place to confirm my unreliable memory is Kevin Butcher’s book: Coinage in Roman Syria.

Kind regards,

Richard Abdy

 

@Victor_Clark, I think my first question is answered -- at least as to the absence from RIC itself of almost all of these 4th century coins with Egyptian deities on the reverses (which, it seems, weren't necessarily actual coins, but rather brass [orichalcum] tokens or amulets issued to celebrate the annual Festival of Isis) -- in the greatly updated and expanded version of Alfoldi's catalogue found at https://www.tesorillo.com/isis/intro1.htm, covering both the issues with imperial obverses and the "anonymous" issues with Serapis on the obverse. See the Tesorillo pages indexing the types of reverses (https://www.tesorillo.com/isis/rev/index1.htm)*, the types of imperial obverses (https://www.tesorillo.com/isis/anv/index2e.htm), and the types of anonymous obverses (https://www.tesorillo.com/isis/anv/index1e.htm). The introduction explains why even though the imperial obverses were issued under every emperor from Diocletian through Valentinian II, the only ones listed in RIC were the ones issued during the reigns of Constantius II through Jovian: the only volume covering these issues is RIC VIII (published in 1981), covering the "Family of Constantine I." Neither RIC VII (published in 1966), covering Constantine I and Licinius, nor RIC IX (published in 1951), covering Valentinian I through Theodosius, lists any of them. What I don't understand is why OCRE continues to omit all the imperial obverses other than those listed in RIC VIII, as well as all the anonymous issues. Unless the intent of OCRE is simply to serve as an online version of RIC, without expanding upon it at all.

My second question is answered, at least implicitly, in Alfoldi's article itself, which does focus on the great popularity of the Ptolemaic/Alexandrian deities in Rome at that time, as well as on the apparent fact that these coins (or tokens or amulets) were all issued specifically in conjunction with the annual Festival of Isis. (Some of Alfoldi's conclusions are no longer generally accepted by modern scholars, such as his attempt to trace the etymology of "Carnevale" back to the "carrus navalis" [the naval float associated with the Festival of Isis]. It seems that most now agree that it simply means "without meat." Alfoldi's kind of back-etymology, based on acronyms or quasi-acronyms, usually turns out to be false, especially where, as here, there's no direct evidence for a link, and a gap of about 800 years between the two terms.)

* Tesorillo identifies the infant on Isis's lap on all the reverses showing that type of image (Tesorillo reverse Type 12) as Harpocrates rather than Horus. For anyone who doesn't know, Harpocrates is simply the Greek version of the Egyptian words meaning "Child Horus." Harpocrates is usually depicted in Greek and Ptolemaic art with a sidelock and a finger under his mouth, although not in this particular type of reverse. Based on a misinterpretation of Egyptian iconography, he also became identified as the Greek god of silence.

 

Thanks. I wonder why OCRE hasn't updated its information, instead of simply repeating what's in RIC.