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Message:: [QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 7568886, member: 110350"]This one has too many illustrations for one post, so I'll have to carry it over to a second one. Roman Republic, M. Herennius, AR Denarius, Rome mint, 108-107 BC.Obv. Diademed head of Pietas right, wearing single drop earring and pearl necklace, PIETAS (TA ligate) downward to left / Rev. Naked youth (one of the Catanaean brothers, Amphinomous or Anapias) running right and carrying his father on his shoulder to escape from erupting Mt. Etna, or Aeneas carrying his father Anchises to escape from defeated Troy, with his father looking back (towards Mt. Etna or Troy) and raising his right hand; M • HERENNI (HE ligate) downward to left, Control-mark • above C in lower right field.* Crawford 308/1b, RSC I Herennia 1a, Sear RCV I 185 (ill.), BMCRR 1258-1285 [No. 1261 has same control-mark], Sydenham 567a. RBW Collection 1149. 19mm, 4.0g, 7h. Purchased at JAZ Numismatics Auction # 181, Lot 6, April 2021; ex. Frederick B. Shore; ex. Stack’s Public Auction Sale, “A Collection of Ancient Roman Coins,” June 14-15, 1971, Lot 127, at p. 16 [not illustrated in plates] (see catalog at <a href="https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516472#" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516472#" rel="nofollow">https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516472#</a>search).** The dealer's photo and my attempt; neither is quite as nice as the coin in real life, but they give an idea. The toning in the dealer's photo is much closer than mine to the actual toning, though. [ATTACH=full]1305103[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1305104[/ATTACH] The 1971 Stack's auction listing, lot 127. Unfortunately, the lot isn't illustrated in the plates, but I have no doubt that the coin is really from this auction, given the matching control mark and the fact that the listing isn't something someone could have found through Google. The coin sold at the auction for $35 on an estimate of $20. I paid slightly more than that in the JAZ Numismatics Auction a few weeks ago! [ATTACH=full]1305105[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1305106[/ATTACH] *Crawford 308/1a and RSC Herennia 1 have the control-marks on the obverse; Crawford 308/1b and RSC Herennia 1a have the control-marks on the reverse. Only the letters of the Latin alphabet (right side up, upside down, sideways in each direction, and with dots in various positions around them) were used as control marks for Crawford 308 (both 1a and 1b). See Crawford Vol. I p. 317. According to Crawford, 308/1a has a total of 120/150 different obverse/reverse dies, and 308/1b has 126/158 (id.). There was only one die for each different control mark, with a handful of exceptions not relevant here (id.). Thus, each of the approximately 25 examples of the "• above C" control-mark for this type found at the CRRO Roman Republican Die Project pages for Crawford 308/1b, at <a href="http://numismatics.org/archives/ark...399#schaefer_clippings_output_308-1_rev_05_od" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://numismatics.org/archives/ark...399#schaefer_clippings_output_308-1_rev_05_od" rel="nofollow">http://numismatics.org/archives/ark...399#schaefer_clippings_output_308-1_rev_05_od</a>,  appears to be a reverse die match to my specimen. **The moneyer “is presumably M. Herennius, Cos. 93.” Crawford p. 318. (But see Grueber, BMCRR p. 195 n. 2, rejecting that identification.)  He may have been the son or otherwise a descendant of Herennius Siculus [the Latin word for “Sicilian”], a haruspex and friend of Caius Sempronius Gracchus, who was arrested after the latter’s death as part of the persecution of the populares, and famously committed suicide by smashing his head against a doorpost at the prison as a gesture of protest and of loyalty to his friend. See id., Valerius Maximus, ix. 12. § 6; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herennia_gens" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herennia_gens" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herennia_gens</a>. The obverse portrayal of Pietas is her very first depiction on a Roman coin. See      Crawford Vol. II p. 866 (subject index); <a href="http://numismatics.org/crro/results?q=pietas;" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://numismatics.org/crro/results?q=pietas;" rel="nofollow">http://numismatics.org/crro/results?q=pietas;</a> Jones, John Melville, A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins (Seaby, London, 1990), entry for “Pietas” at p. 243 (“Pietas (in the form of a female head wearing a diadem) first appears on Roman coins c. 108 B.C. on a denarius of M. Herennius”).  As Jones points out, the concept of pietas has “a wider sense than in modern English, covering not only one’s duty towards the gods but also towards the State and one’s family.” Id. All authorities agree that the scene on the reverse illustrates pietas, specifically filial pietas. There are, however, two possible identifications of the scene depicted -- namely, one of the Catanaean brothers rescuing his father from an eruption of Mt. Etna, or Aeneas rescuing his father Anchises from Troy.  See, e.g., the Roma Numismatics summary at<a href="https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=277&lot=379" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=277&lot=379" rel="nofollow">https://www.numisbids.com/n.php?p=lot&sid=277&lot=379</a> : “There are two possible interpretations of this reverse design, each with merit. The first is that the moneyer M. Herennius, who perhaps had a connection with Sicily, chose to illustrate a local example of [Pietas]: the brothers Amphinomus and Anapias, who are supposed to have saved their parents from an eruption of Mt Etna by carrying them from danger on their shoulders. The second interpretation reaches back to the mythological founding of Rome; Aeneas, during the fall of Troy, carried his father Anchises from the burning ruins of the city. Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome, through their descendance from him, made Aeneas progenitor of the Roman people. Long before Virgil makes reference to ‘pious Aeneas’ in his Aeneid, the Roman concept of piety was threefold; duty to the gods, to one’s homeland and to one’s family, which neatly links the reverse type with the obverse on this coin.” The cases for the two alternatives are summarized in slightly more detail in Clark, Anna J., Divine Qualities, Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford 2007) at pp. 155-156, discussing: [ATTACH=full]1305111[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1305112[/ATTACH] Although Clark expresses no preference herself as to which interpretation is correct, the Catanaean (sometimes spelled Catanian or Katanian) brothers interpretation has always been the view of the overwhelming majority of authorities since it was first proposed by Jean Foy-Vaillant in 1703. See J. Vaillant, Nummi antiqui familiarum Romanorum (Amsterdam, 1703), pp. 485–486. In agreement in the next century were T. Mommsen, Geschichte des römischen Münzwesens (Berlin, 1860), pp. 565–567; and E. Babelon, Description historique et chronologique des monnaies de la république romaine, vulgairement appelées monnaies consulaires (Paris, 1885), vol. 2, pp. 538–539. More recently, Grueber in BMCRR, RSC, Crawford, and Sear all also identify the scene as showing one of the Catanaean brothers; none even mentions the possibility that Aeneas and Anchises were intended. Despite this near-unanimity, Clark specifically notes that to the extent the Catanaean brothers interpretation is founded on a proposed association between the Herennia gens and the island of Sicily, an association based in turn on the fact that Herennius Siculus  (with Siculus meaning Sicilian) was possibly the moneyer’s father or other ancestor, such speculation on the moneyer’s Sicilian origins has been “increasingly discredited.” Thus, even Crawford, despite adopting the Catanaean brothers theory, states at Vol. I p. 318 that “ It is uncertain whether the moneyer was a descendant of Herennius Siculus the Haruspex and used the story of the Catanaean brothers to recall the loyalty of the Haruspex to C. Gracchus. . . . Herennius Siculus seems in any case despite his cognomen to have been Etruscan by origin . . ., and the type was doubtless chosen not for its Sicilian associations, but because the story of the Catanaean brothers provided a well-known example of pietas in action.” (Boldfaced emphasis added, citations omitted.) Crawford fails, however, to take the next logical step and address the question of why, given the absence of a Sicilian association, the Aeneas/Anchises story could not have served equally well as an example of pietas in action. Especially given that it is rather difficult to ignore the fact that there were two Catanaean brothers and their two parents in that story, but only one son and one parent portrayed on the M. Herennius coin -- just as in the story of Aeneas and his father. Nor does Grueber provide any strong evidence for the Sicilian association underlying the Catanaean brothers interpretation. See Grueber, BMCRR Vol. I p. 195 n. 2: “The Herennia gens appears to have been engaged in commerce, especially in the Sicilian and African trade and in the exportation of the silphium. It is not improbable that the family name originally came from Sicily.” “Not improbable” is not exactly a ringing endorsement. The most detailed presentation I have found in English in the secondary literature advocating the Aeneas/Anchises interpretation of the M. Herennius denarius (including the evidence that the moneyer was of Etruscan, not Sicilian origin) is made in a book by Jane DeRose Evans entitled The Art of Persuasion: Political Propaganda from Aeneas to Brutus (The University of Michigan Press, 1992) at pp. 35 and 37-39. Rather than attempt to summarize her arguments, I will reproduce the relevant portions of pp. 37-39 here. [ATTACH=full]1305114[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1305115[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1305116[/ATTACH] It is certainly worthy of note that the American Journal of Numismatics review of Evans’s book, by William Metcalf, agrees with her interpretation: <a href="https://archive.org/stream/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06_djvu.txt" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://archive.org/stream/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06_djvu.txt" rel="nofollow">https://archive.org/stream/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06/AJNSecond1993Vols05to06_djvu.txt</a> American Journal of Numismatics 5-6, 1993-1994, Second Series (1995) at p. 251: Book Review, William E. Metcalf, The American Numismatic Society p. 253: “Evans is quite correct to point out that scholars have too frequently conferred genealogies on moneyers without considering that a coin image using figures from the early history of Rome might be more easily understood as a social or political statement. The bulk of Evans’ book consists of a series of chapters that groupvarious images from monuments and coins around such general themesas Aeneas, the she-wolf and twins, Romulus, the Forum Augustum, theSabines and Rome, Numa Pompilius and Ancus Marcius, and Brutus. Ineach chapter, Evans summarizes Republican and Augustan images asso-ciated with the particular figure or legend and suggests possible reasonsfor using the theme. I believe that Evans is correct in identifying thescene on the reverse of a denarius of M. Herennius (Crawford 308/1) as Aeneas carrying Anchises rather than one of the brothers from Catana who carried their parents away from the dangers of Mt. Etna in eruption. Both stories are exempla of Pietas, the deity depicted on the coin’s obverse, but showing only one man carrying a parent is more likely to bring to mind the story of Aeneas than that of the Sicilian brothers. Although the coin type is a little different from the one traditionally associated with Aeneas and Anchises, Evans’ plates demonstrate graphically that it is almost identical with two later types more securely connected with the Aeneas story. Although scholars have traditionally identified the legend represented on Herennius’s coins as that of the Sicilian brothers and rejected any link with Aeneas, I think they have placed too much weight on the possible connection between the moneyer and a M. Herennius Siculus.” (Emphasis added) In a 2014 blog post, Prof. Liv Mariah Yarrow also mentions the M. Herennius denarius and Jane DeRose Evans’s argument that it portrays Aeneas and Anchises rather than the generally-accepted view that it illustrates the Catanaean brothers story. See <a href="https://livyarrow.org/2014/02/07/catanaean-brothers/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://livyarrow.org/2014/02/07/catanaean-brothers/" rel="nofollow">https://livyarrow.org/2014/02/07/catanaean-brothers/</a>: “I’m trying to make up my mind whether I think RRC 308/1 represents one of the Catanaean Brothers as most scholars think or if I am swayed at all by Evans’ claim that it is really Aeneas. Above is a coin of Catana showing the brothers.  Here is the Republican coin: [photos omitted] [Extended quotations follow from the ancient sources for the Catanaean brothers story, including Hyginus’s list of “Those Who Were Exceptionally Dutiful” -- including both Aeneas and the Catanaean brothers -- and the anonymous poem Aetna] . . . Can you represent just one Catanaean brother? There are other coins of Catana that show just one brother and parent per side, but they are still both there . . . . What would the contemporary Roman have seen?  Perhaps either narrative?  I’m not willing to follow Evans wholeheartedly but some doubt seems warranted.” Although it has been argued (see the Berdowski chapter quoted below, etc.) that the M. Herennius coin cannot have been intended to portray Aeneas because he was never portrayed as nude when carrying Anchises on art produced before the coin, such as on Greek vases, the fact that he was portrayed nude on later Roman coins generally accepted as portraying Aeneas would certainly seem to refute any notion that a nude portrayal of Aeneas was culturally out of place. See these examples (not mine) of Crawford 458 (Julius Caesar denarius) and Crawford 494/3b (Octavian aureus), both with reverses identified by Crawford as showing Aeneas and Anchises: [ATTACH=full]1305126[/ATTACH] To be continued[/QUOTE]

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