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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 7951933, member: 110350&quot;]I won this coin in the recently-completed Nomos Obolos 20 auction, and it arrived today from Switzerland. It&#039;s a type I&#039;ve long admired and wanted, but it seems quite rare to find one with the entire reverse design -- particularly, both wings of the eagle -- present on the flan. (The outer wing is at least partly off the flan more often than not, probably because its tip extends beyond the coin&#039;s border, effectively &quot;breaking the fourth wall.&quot; In fact, it&#039;s not uncommon for the entire eagle to be missing.)</p><p><br /></p><p>So I bid on this specimen because the eagle and its wings are entirely visible, even though it&#039;s not my usual practice to buy at auctions and even though the condition isn&#039;t the greatest. I have no idea what the &quot;grade&quot; would be and don&#039;t care -- I find the coin visually appealing, and that&#039;s what matters. (The banker&#039;s mark on the obverse over Juno Sospita&#039;s ear is hardly noticeable, and doesn&#039;t bother me at all.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic, L. Papius Celsus, AR Denarius, 45 BCE, Rome Mint. Obv. Head of Juno Sospita right, wearing goat’s skin headdress tied at neck; circular banker’s mark “well hidden” [<i>per</i> email from Dimitrios G. Gerothanasis, Nomos AG] over Juno’s ear / Rev. She-wolf standing right, holding stick in mouth which she places on fire; to right of fire, eagle standing left fanning the flames with open wings (and with tip of outer wing extending beyond coin’s border); CELSVS III • VIR&nbsp; above; L. PAPIVS in exergue. Crawford 472/1, RSC I (Babelon) Papia 2 (ill. p. 71), Sear CRI 82 at pp. 51-52 [David Sear, <i>The History and Coinage of the Roman Imperators</i> 49-27 BC (1998)], RBW Collection 1647 (ill. p. 349) (2014), BMCRR I 4018 (ill. BMCRR II Pl. L no. 22); Sear RCV I 461 (ill. p. 158), Sydenham 964. 18 mm., 3.08 g., 1 h. <i>Purchased Oct. 3, 2021 at Nomos Obolos 20, Lot 1059.*</i></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377843[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>*According to Crawford (Vol. I p. 481), the moneyer is “not otherwise known, but perhaps the son of no. 384” (L. Papius, Obv. Juno Sospita/Rev. Gryphon). The type (i.e., portraying Juno Sospita) “refer(s) . . . to the moneyer’s Lanuvine origin . . . ; the reverse . . . seems to portray a prodigy associated with the foundation of Lanuvium, D. Hal. I, 59, 4-5.” Id. p. 482. See also David Sear’s discussion of the type at CRI p. 52: “L. Papius is known only from his coinage though it seems likely that he was the son of the Lucius Papius who had held the office of moneyer about three and a half decdes before (cf. Crawford 384). Both moneyers indicated their origin by the depiction of Juno Sospita, the goddess clad in a goat’s skin, who was especially sacred to the inhabitants of Lanuvium (modern Lanuvio), an ancient Latin city in the Alban Hills about twenty miles south-east of Rome.” The depiction of “the she-wolf and eagle kindling a fire . . . appears to illustrate the legend of the foundation of the city as recorded by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his Roman Antiquities (i. 59), written during the reign of Augustus.” Id.</p><p><br /></p><p>The details of the myth portrayed on the reverse are set forth in the text accompanying a May 13, 2020 CNG sale of an example of this type (see <a href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6982290" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6982290" rel="nofollow">https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6982290</a>): “The curious scene depicted on the reverse of this type refers to a foundation myth for the city of Lanuvium, parent city of Rome. According to a legend related by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Roman Antiquities [i, 59, 4-5], the hero Aeneas saw a fire burning in a nearby forest and went to investigate. As he drew closer, he saw the fire was being fed by a she-wolf, who was dropping sticks into the blaze, while an eagle standing nearby fanned it with his wings. A fox kept intruding, trying to snuff out the fire by wetting his tail in a nearby stream and beating the flames down with it, but was driven off by the eagle and wolf. The fox was interpreted as Carthage, trying to snuff out Rome before its flame could burn brightly, while the eagle and she-wolf are symbols of the Roman army and people respectively.” See also the discussion at BMCRR I pp. 519-520 n. 2.</p><p><br /></p><p>Regarding the CELSVS III • VIR legend on the reverse, see the Numiswiki entry for IIIVIR, at <a href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=IIIVIR" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=IIIVIR" rel="nofollow">https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=IIIVIR</a>: “On coins of the Roman Republic IIIVIR is used as a shortened abbreviation for IIIVIR AAAFF, which abbreviates ‘III viri aere argento auro flando feiundo’ or ‘Three men for the casting and striking of bronze, silver and gold,’ a moneyer or mint magistrate.” The other two moneyers for 45 BCE, together with Lucius Papius Celsus, were Lollius Palicanus and Lucius Valerius Acisculus. See CRI p. 51. “Collectively, their coinage represents the last normal republican issue from the Capitoline mint prior to the fundamental changes introduced by Caesar at the beginning of 44 BC, which, within a few years, were to lead to the complete cessation of regular production.” Id.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is my sixth Roman Republican coin depicting Juno Sospita. Here are the other five, without the descriptions:</p><p><br /></p><p>Thorius Balbus (Crawford 316/1):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377780[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>L. Procilius (Crawford 379/1):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377781[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>L. Procilius (Crawford 379/2):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377782[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>L. Papius (Crawford 384/1):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377783[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>L. Roscius Fabatus (Crawford 412/1):[ATTACH=full]1377784[/ATTACH]</p><p>It seems that I&#039;m now missing only two Roman Republican coins depicting Juno Sospita (Crawford 480/2 and Crawford 509/1), since there were eight such coins in all. According to OCRE, there were also six Roman Imperial coins portraying Juno Sospita, issued by Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.</p><p><br /></p><p>I took these photos with my phone a little while ago, with no attempt to make the lighting uniform, just to give a general idea (if you zoom in on them) of what my 63 Roman Republican coins look like together in their tray (along with my one Imperatorial coin issued by Octavian, although it&#039;s too dark to see any details):</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377793[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377794[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377795[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1377796[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>There&#039;s one more Roman Republican denarius I&#039;m considering trying to buy in a few weeks, but after that, budgetary concerns dictate that I may be done for the year. Almost time to start thinking about my top 10!</p><p><br /></p><p>Please post your coins of Juno Sospita, and/or your Roman Republican wolves or eagles, and/or anything else you think is appropriate.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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