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This is not a baby! A denarius of Julia Mamaea
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<p>[QUOTE="Orielensis, post: 7704803, member: 96898"]Thank you for bringing this up! As stated earlier, I, too, am puzzled by the fact that some of the Juno coins of Julia Mamaea show a palladium instead of an infant. The discussion in this thread has produced two possible interpretations of this reverse variety:</p><p><br /></p><p>1. "The change from infant to palladium was intentional and follows a meaningful iconographical program." This is the position proposed by Ryan's paper, my initial post as well as [USER=98537]@Aestimare[/USER] 's two replies. Since some of the coins clearly don't show a palladium, this view implies that the RIC numbers in question have to be split into different issues.</p><p><br /></p><p>2. "Julia Mamaea's coins were supposed to show Juno Lucina with flower and child, but some reverse dies were blundered by the engravers." That is what [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER] suggested in his reply to my first post. From this perspective, the palladium is an engraving error.</p><p><br /></p><p>After reading through this very fruitful thread a couple of times, I have changed my mind and now find the second interpretation a little more convincing, although I still assume that we see a "meaningful error" on these coins. Let me explain:</p><p><br /></p><p>On the one hand, Julia Mamaea's coinage almost exclusively copies reverses from the Nerva-Antonine period and the reign of Julia Domna. This probably wasn't lack of fantasy but communicated continuity and stability to the Roman population. After the escapades of Elagabalus, that was an important political message. It seems reasonable to assume that Mamaea's coins showing Juno were part of this program of conservative iconography and we’re supposed to give a traditional depiction of Juno Lucina. (Explained above by [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER]).</p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, the Rome mint at that point was staffed by a generation of engravers who over the course of Caracalla's and Elagabalus' reigns had gotten used to producing all sorts of deviations from traditional iconography, including Eastern deities, emperors in Syrian priestly garb, and other oddities. As the examples shown by [USER=98537]@Aestimare[/USER] illustrate, they must also have been familiar with depictions of Juno holding a palladium. Now these artists were tasked with copying a much earlier reverse type that may not have been immediately intelligible to them. We don't know what model they worked from, but even on the earliest depictions of Juno Lucina on coins of Lucilla, the infant tends to be less than clear. It therefore seems plausible that at least some engravers didn't recognize the object in Juno's hand as a baby and filled in the gap with a palladium, which they knew as an attribute of Juno from a recent issue of Julia Maesa.</p><p><br /></p><p>A die study, which so far none of us had the time or resources to conduct, could probably help to check the validity of this theory. If the reverses with the palladium and those without were regularly paired with the same obverse dies, it would imply that we are looking at a single issue. If not, two separate issues might be more likely.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Orielensis, post: 7704803, member: 96898"]Thank you for bringing this up! As stated earlier, I, too, am puzzled by the fact that some of the Juno coins of Julia Mamaea show a palladium instead of an infant. The discussion in this thread has produced two possible interpretations of this reverse variety: 1. "The change from infant to palladium was intentional and follows a meaningful iconographical program." This is the position proposed by Ryan's paper, my initial post as well as [USER=98537]@Aestimare[/USER] 's two replies. Since some of the coins clearly don't show a palladium, this view implies that the RIC numbers in question have to be split into different issues. 2. "Julia Mamaea's coins were supposed to show Juno Lucina with flower and child, but some reverse dies were blundered by the engravers." That is what [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER] suggested in his reply to my first post. From this perspective, the palladium is an engraving error. After reading through this very fruitful thread a couple of times, I have changed my mind and now find the second interpretation a little more convincing, although I still assume that we see a "meaningful error" on these coins. Let me explain: On the one hand, Julia Mamaea's coinage almost exclusively copies reverses from the Nerva-Antonine period and the reign of Julia Domna. This probably wasn't lack of fantasy but communicated continuity and stability to the Roman population. After the escapades of Elagabalus, that was an important political message. It seems reasonable to assume that Mamaea's coins showing Juno were part of this program of conservative iconography and we’re supposed to give a traditional depiction of Juno Lucina. (Explained above by [USER=75937]@Roman Collector[/USER]). On the other hand, the Rome mint at that point was staffed by a generation of engravers who over the course of Caracalla's and Elagabalus' reigns had gotten used to producing all sorts of deviations from traditional iconography, including Eastern deities, emperors in Syrian priestly garb, and other oddities. As the examples shown by [USER=98537]@Aestimare[/USER] illustrate, they must also have been familiar with depictions of Juno holding a palladium. Now these artists were tasked with copying a much earlier reverse type that may not have been immediately intelligible to them. We don't know what model they worked from, but even on the earliest depictions of Juno Lucina on coins of Lucilla, the infant tends to be less than clear. It therefore seems plausible that at least some engravers didn't recognize the object in Juno's hand as a baby and filled in the gap with a palladium, which they knew as an attribute of Juno from a recent issue of Julia Maesa. A die study, which so far none of us had the time or resources to conduct, could probably help to check the validity of this theory. If the reverses with the palladium and those without were regularly paired with the same obverse dies, it would imply that we are looking at a single issue. If not, two separate issues might be more likely.[/QUOTE]
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