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Roman Republican No. 56: Lion(ess) or Hound?
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<p>[QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 7594939, member: 110350"]Another unresolved question, although there's certainly not as much disagreement about it (at least anymore) compared to No. 55. Hence, a shorter footnote!</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, AR Denarius Rome 128 BCE [Crawford] or after 122 BCE [BMCRR]. Obv. Head of Roma right, wearing winged helmet and single-drop earring, stalk of grain [Br. Corn] upright behind, monogram (*) for value (XVI asses) in right field beneath chin / Rev. Victory driving galloping biga right, holding reins in left hand and whip in right; below, man with tall conical cap holding spear right, fighting lion (Crawford, RSC, Sear) or hound (BMCRR, Sydenham, Babelon) left; above, ROMA; in exergue, CN•DOM. Crawford 261/1, RSC I [Babelon] Domitia 14, BMCRR 1025, Sear RCV I 137 (ill.), RBW Collection 1056, Sydenham 514. 18 mm., 3.85 g., 3 h.*</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308078[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>*Because the moneyer’s <i>cognomen</i> does not appear on this coin, the attribution of the moneyer to the plebeian branch of the <i>gens </i>Domitia that used the <i>cognomen </i>Ahenobarbus [derived from the Latin for “bronze beard,” i.e. red beard] -- a branch to which many notable Romans belonged, including the emperor Nero’s father -- is not certain; he may have belonged instead to the Calvinus branch. The identity of the specific member of the Ahenobarbus branch who issued the coin (if the moneyer was one) is also uncertain. Thus, in BMCRR, Grueber identified the moneyer as the son of the Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus who was consul in 122 BCE, and grandson of a previous moneyer with the same name who was consul suffectus in 162 BCE. Therefore, he dates the coin subsequent to 122 BCE. See Grueber Vol. I at pp. 151-152 n. 2. Crawford, by contrast, dates the coin to 128 BCE (for reasons he doesn’t explain so far as I can tell), and suggests that the moneyer of this coin is “perhaps a Cn. Domitius Calvinus or a Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus from a collateral branch of the family” [i.e. collateral to the different Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus who was moneyer ca. 116 BCE; see Crawford 285/1 at p. 300]. See Crawford p. 286. Crawford names various second-century Calvini and Ahenobarbi as possible candidates. Id.</p><p><br /></p><p>[<i>See my follow-up comment at <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-republican-no-56-lion-ess-or-hound.381034/#post-7603773" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-republican-no-56-lion-ess-or-hound.381034/#post-7603773">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-republican-no-56-lion-ess-or-hound.381034/#post-7603773</a> below for a explanation of the hoard evidence underlying Crawford's date of 128 BCE, and a discussion of Mattingly's reliance on more recent hoard evidence, among other things, to push the date of the coin back several years farther to ca. 131 BCE. as well as Mattingly's specific identification of the moneyer as the Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus who was Consul in 122 BCE, and served in Asia under Mn. Aquilius from 129-126 BCE.]</i></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Grueber states that the scene on the reverse beneath the horses shows a man with a spear fighting a hound, and proposes that “[t]he reverse type probably relates to the defeat in B.C. 121 of the Gallic tribes, the Allobroges and the Arverni, under Bituitus, near Vindalium, by the Roman consul Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the moneyer’s father. In this engagement Bituitus is said to have sent against the Roman soliders packs of enormous hounds in order to frighten them [citing Babelon]. If this explanation is correct these coins cannot be attributed, as Mommsen has done . . ., to the consul of B.C. 122” -- who would not, of course, have been a moneyer after being consul -- “but rather to his son, who wished to record the great deeds of his father.” BMCRR, supra p. 152 n. 2.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I see at least two obvious issues with this interpretation. First, it fails to account in any way for the ear of grain [Br. corn] on the obverse; indeed, Grueber expressly acknowledges that “[t]he reference of the ear of corn on the obverse has not been explained.” Id. Second, if the reverse scene show a Roman soldier battling a war hound, where is his helmet? Instead of a helmet, he wears a tall conical cap extremely similar to those shown as worn by participants in games, e.g., the jockeys and desultors on the coins of the Piso Frugis (father and son) and C. Marcius Censorinus. Indeed, there are many examples of this coin on which the man on the reverse appears to wear no headgear at all.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Crawford’s identification, rejecting Grueber’s, does account for the ear of grain on the obverse. See Crawford Vol. I p. 286 n. 1, footnoting his identification of the animal on the reverse as a lion (although it looks more like a lioness to me given the absence of a mane): “Not hound, contra Babelon and Sydenham. . . ; the type thus in no way refers to the exploits of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cos.121, against King Bituitus.” As he explains further in text (id. p. 286), “For the wild-beast fight on the reverse see W. Kubitschek, <i>NZ</i> 1913, 228; the fight and the corn-ear together seem to refer to the games and distributions of produce offered to the Roman people by an Aedile as a step to higher office.” </p><p><br /></p><p>[Edited to add: Certainly, if the coin was issued in 131 BCE or even in 128 BCE, the secondary scene on the reverse cannot depict a battle, using wild dogs against Roman soldiers, that took place in 121 BCE.]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Crawford’s identification and explanation seem more satisfying to me than Grueber’s and Sydenham’s (based, <i>inter alia</i>, on Babelon), especially for the reasons I noted above, and because the animal looks more feline than canine to me (see, for example, the long sinuous tail, which doesn’t much resemble most hounds’ tails I see on Roman coins) -- more like a lion(ess) than a hound. Perhaps it could even be a panther [leopard], even though the usual spots such as those seen on the denarii of L. Livineius Regulus and C. Vibius Varus (Crawford 494/30 and 494/36) are absent. In any event, if Crawford is correct, I believe the animal on the reverse of this coin would be the earliest lion depicted (at least in its entirety) on a Roman denarius.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Crawford’s interpretation has been generally followed, including by RSC, Sear, and the RBW Collection. Thus, even though RSC I’s numbering system and many of the identifications are taken directly from Babelon, the most recent edition (3rd ed. 1978, ed. D. Sear and R. Loosley) -- the first post-Crawford edition -- now identifies the reverse as depicting “a man attacking a lion below,” and dates the coin to 128 BCE. See RSC I Domitia 14, at p. 45. (However, as a result of what was undoubtedly an editing error, namely a failure to update the text of the previous edition, the italicized text after the entry for Domitia 14 still repeats Grueber’s explanation, stating that the reverse type represents “the defeat in B.C. 121 of the Gallic tribes under Bituitus by the moneyer’s father,” in which Bituitus is said to have “sent packs of wild hounds against the Roman soldiers,” etc. -- an explanation now rendered completely nonsensical by the change in date and identification. Id.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Is there anyone who disagrees with Crawford and still thinks the animal on the reverse is a hound rather than a lion?</p><p><br /></p><p>I have only one other Roman Republican denarius that uses a similar secondary reverse motif -- namely, a miniature scene on the reverse depicting humans and/or animals as a second substantive design element (and not simply as a control-symbol), beneath the hooves of the horses or other animals pulling the biga or quadriga constituting the primary design element. Oddly enough, and presumably as a result of pure coincidence, it's the technically anonymous denarius bearing the very next Crawford number, Crawford 262/1:</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic, Anonymous [<i>probably Caecilius Metellus Diadematus or Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus</i>], AR Denarius 128 BCE. Obv. Head of Roma right, wearing winged helmet, <b>*</b> [monogram for value: XVI asses] behind; otherwise anepigraphic / Rev. Pax or Juno driving biga galloping right, holding reins and long scepter in left hand and branch (olive or laurel) in right hand; elephant head under horses, facing right with trunk curving down, wearing bell dangling from neck; ROMA in exergue. Crawford 262/1, RSC I Caecilia 38 (ill.), BMCRR 1044, Sear RCV I 138, Sydenham 496. 18.5 mm., 3.89 g., 11 h. [Footnote omitted.]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308082[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I know that others exist, such as the puppy beneath the Dioscuri on the reverse of the denarius of C. Antestius (Crawford 219/1e), but the elephant head is the only one I have. I do have one with a grasshopper beneath a biga of stags, but the grasshopper is technically a control-symbol (albeit present on the substantial majority of examples of that issue):</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic, C.. Allius Bala, AR Denarius, 92 BCE, Rome mint. Obv.: Diademed female head (Diana?) right, wearing necklace; BALA behind, control mark "R" below chin / Rev.: Diana in biga of stags right, holding sceptre and reins in left hand and flaming torch in right, with quiver over shoulder; control-mark (grasshopper) below stags; C•ALLI in exergue; all within laurel wreath. Crawford 336/1b; RSC I Aelia [Allia] 4 (ill.), Sear RCV I 221 (ill.), Sydenham 595, BMCRR 1742-1771 [no control-letter "R"]. 17 mm., 3.88 g. (Footnote omitted.)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308086[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Please post your own examples of this kind of secondary, miniature design element, depicting a living being, at the bottom of the reverse of a Roman Republican coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or: while we're here, post your Roman coins depicting lions or lionesses (no mere lion skins or lion heads, please!), particularly any from the Roman Republic:</p><p><br /></p><p>C. Poblicius Q.f.:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308095[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Faustina II, reverse depicting Cybele with lion at her side next to throne:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308097[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Septimius Severus with reverse depicting Dea Caelestis riding side-saddle on lion right:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308096[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Septimius Severus, Africa on reverse with lion crouching to her right at her feet:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308098[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Philip I, lion reverse, SAECVLARES AVGG (<i>Games commemorating 1,000th anniversary of founding of Rome</i>):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308099[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Gallienus lion:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308100[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Divus Maximian (issued under Constantine I), AE Half Follis:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1308101[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 7594939, member: 110350"]Another unresolved question, although there's certainly not as much disagreement about it (at least anymore) compared to No. 55. Hence, a shorter footnote! Roman Republic, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, AR Denarius Rome 128 BCE [Crawford] or after 122 BCE [BMCRR]. Obv. Head of Roma right, wearing winged helmet and single-drop earring, stalk of grain [Br. Corn] upright behind, monogram (*) for value (XVI asses) in right field beneath chin / Rev. Victory driving galloping biga right, holding reins in left hand and whip in right; below, man with tall conical cap holding spear right, fighting lion (Crawford, RSC, Sear) or hound (BMCRR, Sydenham, Babelon) left; above, ROMA; in exergue, CN•DOM. Crawford 261/1, RSC I [Babelon] Domitia 14, BMCRR 1025, Sear RCV I 137 (ill.), RBW Collection 1056, Sydenham 514. 18 mm., 3.85 g., 3 h.* [ATTACH=full]1308078[/ATTACH] *Because the moneyer’s [I]cognomen[/I] does not appear on this coin, the attribution of the moneyer to the plebeian branch of the [I]gens [/I]Domitia that used the [I]cognomen [/I]Ahenobarbus [derived from the Latin for “bronze beard,” i.e. red beard] -- a branch to which many notable Romans belonged, including the emperor Nero’s father -- is not certain; he may have belonged instead to the Calvinus branch. The identity of the specific member of the Ahenobarbus branch who issued the coin (if the moneyer was one) is also uncertain. Thus, in BMCRR, Grueber identified the moneyer as the son of the Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus who was consul in 122 BCE, and grandson of a previous moneyer with the same name who was consul suffectus in 162 BCE. Therefore, he dates the coin subsequent to 122 BCE. See Grueber Vol. I at pp. 151-152 n. 2. Crawford, by contrast, dates the coin to 128 BCE (for reasons he doesn’t explain so far as I can tell), and suggests that the moneyer of this coin is “perhaps a Cn. Domitius Calvinus or a Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus from a collateral branch of the family” [i.e. collateral to the different Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus who was moneyer ca. 116 BCE; see Crawford 285/1 at p. 300]. See Crawford p. 286. Crawford names various second-century Calvini and Ahenobarbi as possible candidates. Id. [[I]See my follow-up comment at [URL]https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-republican-no-56-lion-ess-or-hound.381034/#post-7603773[/URL] below for a explanation of the hoard evidence underlying Crawford's date of 128 BCE, and a discussion of Mattingly's reliance on more recent hoard evidence, among other things, to push the date of the coin back several years farther to ca. 131 BCE. as well as Mattingly's specific identification of the moneyer as the Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus who was Consul in 122 BCE, and served in Asia under Mn. Aquilius from 129-126 BCE.][/I] Grueber states that the scene on the reverse beneath the horses shows a man with a spear fighting a hound, and proposes that “[t]he reverse type probably relates to the defeat in B.C. 121 of the Gallic tribes, the Allobroges and the Arverni, under Bituitus, near Vindalium, by the Roman consul Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the moneyer’s father. In this engagement Bituitus is said to have sent against the Roman soliders packs of enormous hounds in order to frighten them [citing Babelon]. If this explanation is correct these coins cannot be attributed, as Mommsen has done . . ., to the consul of B.C. 122” -- who would not, of course, have been a moneyer after being consul -- “but rather to his son, who wished to record the great deeds of his father.” BMCRR, supra p. 152 n. 2. I see at least two obvious issues with this interpretation. First, it fails to account in any way for the ear of grain [Br. corn] on the obverse; indeed, Grueber expressly acknowledges that “[t]he reference of the ear of corn on the obverse has not been explained.” Id. Second, if the reverse scene show a Roman soldier battling a war hound, where is his helmet? Instead of a helmet, he wears a tall conical cap extremely similar to those shown as worn by participants in games, e.g., the jockeys and desultors on the coins of the Piso Frugis (father and son) and C. Marcius Censorinus. Indeed, there are many examples of this coin on which the man on the reverse appears to wear no headgear at all. Crawford’s identification, rejecting Grueber’s, does account for the ear of grain on the obverse. See Crawford Vol. I p. 286 n. 1, footnoting his identification of the animal on the reverse as a lion (although it looks more like a lioness to me given the absence of a mane): “Not hound, contra Babelon and Sydenham. . . ; the type thus in no way refers to the exploits of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cos.121, against King Bituitus.” As he explains further in text (id. p. 286), “For the wild-beast fight on the reverse see W. Kubitschek, [I]NZ[/I] 1913, 228; the fight and the corn-ear together seem to refer to the games and distributions of produce offered to the Roman people by an Aedile as a step to higher office.” [Edited to add: Certainly, if the coin was issued in 131 BCE or even in 128 BCE, the secondary scene on the reverse cannot depict a battle, using wild dogs against Roman soldiers, that took place in 121 BCE.] Crawford’s identification and explanation seem more satisfying to me than Grueber’s and Sydenham’s (based, [I]inter alia[/I], on Babelon), especially for the reasons I noted above, and because the animal looks more feline than canine to me (see, for example, the long sinuous tail, which doesn’t much resemble most hounds’ tails I see on Roman coins) -- more like a lion(ess) than a hound. Perhaps it could even be a panther [leopard], even though the usual spots such as those seen on the denarii of L. Livineius Regulus and C. Vibius Varus (Crawford 494/30 and 494/36) are absent. In any event, if Crawford is correct, I believe the animal on the reverse of this coin would be the earliest lion depicted (at least in its entirety) on a Roman denarius. Crawford’s interpretation has been generally followed, including by RSC, Sear, and the RBW Collection. Thus, even though RSC I’s numbering system and many of the identifications are taken directly from Babelon, the most recent edition (3rd ed. 1978, ed. D. Sear and R. Loosley) -- the first post-Crawford edition -- now identifies the reverse as depicting “a man attacking a lion below,” and dates the coin to 128 BCE. See RSC I Domitia 14, at p. 45. (However, as a result of what was undoubtedly an editing error, namely a failure to update the text of the previous edition, the italicized text after the entry for Domitia 14 still repeats Grueber’s explanation, stating that the reverse type represents “the defeat in B.C. 121 of the Gallic tribes under Bituitus by the moneyer’s father,” in which Bituitus is said to have “sent packs of wild hounds against the Roman soldiers,” etc. -- an explanation now rendered completely nonsensical by the change in date and identification. Id.) Is there anyone who disagrees with Crawford and still thinks the animal on the reverse is a hound rather than a lion? I have only one other Roman Republican denarius that uses a similar secondary reverse motif -- namely, a miniature scene on the reverse depicting humans and/or animals as a second substantive design element (and not simply as a control-symbol), beneath the hooves of the horses or other animals pulling the biga or quadriga constituting the primary design element. Oddly enough, and presumably as a result of pure coincidence, it's the technically anonymous denarius bearing the very next Crawford number, Crawford 262/1: Roman Republic, Anonymous [[I]probably Caecilius Metellus Diadematus or Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus[/I]], AR Denarius 128 BCE. Obv. Head of Roma right, wearing winged helmet, [B]*[/B] [monogram for value: XVI asses] behind; otherwise anepigraphic / Rev. Pax or Juno driving biga galloping right, holding reins and long scepter in left hand and branch (olive or laurel) in right hand; elephant head under horses, facing right with trunk curving down, wearing bell dangling from neck; ROMA in exergue. Crawford 262/1, RSC I Caecilia 38 (ill.), BMCRR 1044, Sear RCV I 138, Sydenham 496. 18.5 mm., 3.89 g., 11 h. [Footnote omitted.] [ATTACH=full]1308082[/ATTACH] I know that others exist, such as the puppy beneath the Dioscuri on the reverse of the denarius of C. Antestius (Crawford 219/1e), but the elephant head is the only one I have. I do have one with a grasshopper beneath a biga of stags, but the grasshopper is technically a control-symbol (albeit present on the substantial majority of examples of that issue): Roman Republic, C.. Allius Bala, AR Denarius, 92 BCE, Rome mint. Obv.: Diademed female head (Diana?) right, wearing necklace; BALA behind, control mark "R" below chin / Rev.: Diana in biga of stags right, holding sceptre and reins in left hand and flaming torch in right, with quiver over shoulder; control-mark (grasshopper) below stags; C•ALLI in exergue; all within laurel wreath. Crawford 336/1b; RSC I Aelia [Allia] 4 (ill.), Sear RCV I 221 (ill.), Sydenham 595, BMCRR 1742-1771 [no control-letter "R"]. 17 mm., 3.88 g. (Footnote omitted.) [ATTACH=full]1308086[/ATTACH] Please post your own examples of this kind of secondary, miniature design element, depicting a living being, at the bottom of the reverse of a Roman Republican coin. Or: while we're here, post your Roman coins depicting lions or lionesses (no mere lion skins or lion heads, please!), particularly any from the Roman Republic: C. Poblicius Q.f.: [ATTACH=full]1308095[/ATTACH] Faustina II, reverse depicting Cybele with lion at her side next to throne: [ATTACH=full]1308097[/ATTACH] Septimius Severus with reverse depicting Dea Caelestis riding side-saddle on lion right: [ATTACH=full]1308096[/ATTACH] Septimius Severus, Africa on reverse with lion crouching to her right at her feet: [ATTACH=full]1308098[/ATTACH] Philip I, lion reverse, SAECVLARES AVGG ([I]Games commemorating 1,000th anniversary of founding of Rome[/I]): [ATTACH=full]1308099[/ATTACH] Gallienus lion: [ATTACH=full]1308100[/ATTACH] Divus Maximian (issued under Constantine I), AE Half Follis: [ATTACH=full]1308101[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]
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