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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Valentinian, post: 2104507, member: 44316&quot;]VIRTVS is a characteristic of manly men. I think maridunum&#039;s coin is evidence that its personification can be male. It usually is. Without the legend, we might think the figure was Mars.</p><p><br /></p><p>John Melville Jones, in his &quot;Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins&quot; that the word is derived from &quot;vir&quot;, &quot;man&quot; but &quot;she is feminine in Latin grammar in spite of her supposed masculine quality.&quot; Gnecchi notes in &quot;Coin types of Imperial Rome&quot; that VIRTVS was adopted as a type by 71 &quot;princes&quot;. Here is one from Severus Alexander:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]396400[/ATTACH] </p><p>19 mm. 2.88 grams. Sear 7938. RIC 226 (AD 229-231). BMC 647 &quot;issue 11, AD 230.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Again, the personification is of a male in military dress. I think the figures on each of the coins is a male personifying VIRTVS, regardless of Latin grammar.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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