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Message:: [QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 5347795, member: 110350"]Fascinating, and I love all the coins people are showing with the decapitated heads of Sol and Luna! But where do you draw the line, if at all, between an allegorical personification and an actual goddess that's part of the "pantheon"?  All the sources* I've seen, such as the glossary in Sear's RCV (which lists gods/goddesses and personifications separately), and John Melville Jones's A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins (London, Seaby, 1990) seem to refer to Aeternitas as the latter. You state yourself that she had no temples or altars. So is she really a "goddess"? Obviously it doesn't matter that much, because there were certainly personifications who did have temples, like the joint temple to Honos and Virtus. Here's the bulk of the entry for Aeternitas in Jones, at p. 9: [ATTACH=full]1226546[/ATTACH]The only coin I have with an "Aeternitas" legend -- AETERNITAS AVGG -- was clearly intended to represent "the eternity of the ruling house," in the context of the 1000th anniversary games in 248 AD (usually represented by the SAECVLARES AVGG legend, but not with this coin), rather than the personification herself. Philip I AR Antoninianus, ca. 247-248 AD, Rome Mint. Obv. Radiate, draped, & cuirassed bust right, IMP PHILIPPVS AVG/ Rev. Elephant walking left, bearing driver holding goad, AETERNITAS AVGG. RIC IV-3 58, RSC IV 17, Sear RCV III 8921. 23 mm., 4.2 g. [ATTACH=full]1226551[/ATTACH] * I can't think of a way of saying this without sounding like a snob, but the thaliatook website, while it has a great deal of interesting information, makes no pretense at being scholarly in nature, and is more of a new agey-type site.[/QUOTE]

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