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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 2848293, member: 81887&quot;]Okay, that title may be a little bit click-bait, but it is actually relevant to the coin I&#039;m posting:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]675457[/ATTACH] </p><p>Roman Empire, Rome mint.&nbsp; AE sestertius.&nbsp; Sabina, wife of Hadrian (d.137 AD).&nbsp; Obverse: Draped and diademed bust right with hair in long plait, SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG PP around.&nbsp; Reverse: Vesta seated left, holding palladium and scepter, VESTA around, SC in exergue.&nbsp; RIC (Hadrian) 1036.</p><p><br /></p><p>Vibia Sabina was born in 83 AD, the daughter of Matilda (niece of the future emperor Trajan).&nbsp; After her father&#039;s death the next year, she was sent to live with her grandmother Marciana in the household of Trajan and Plotina.&nbsp; Trajan became emperor in 98, and in the year 100 Sabina was married to Trajan&#039;s presumptive heir Hadrian.&nbsp; It was apparently a strictly political marriage, as neither spouse showed any great fondness for the other.&nbsp; Hadrian seems to have had no sexual attraction to any women, but did have a series of affairs with men.&nbsp; Sabina is rumored to have had her own affair, with the historian Suetonius, which led to him losing his official position in the bureaucracy.&nbsp; (Perhaps it&#039;s fortunate that Hadrian did not particularly love his wife, or else Suetonius might have lost his life as well, depriving us of one of the more entertaining historical documents of the Roman era.)&nbsp; Oddly, although Hadrian became emperor in 117 AD, Sabina was not awarded the title of Augusta until 128- perhaps another indication of how far apart the pair were.&nbsp; In 123, Hadrian met a Bithynian Greek youth named Antinous, who would become the love of his life.&nbsp; By 128 Antinous had become the &quot;favorite&quot; of Hadrian, who brought him along on his travels through the Empire, wrote him love poems, and gave him honors unprecedented for someone not a member of the Imperial family, including having his portrait on the coins (which are today rare and quite sought-after, I don&#039;t have any in my collection).&nbsp; In 130, Antinous died while traveling on the Nile with Hadrian.&nbsp; The exact circumstances of his death are mysterious, with various writers suggesting an accidental drowning, a conspiracy within the court, or even a voluntary human sacrifice as part of a ritual to restore Hadrian&#039;s youth.&nbsp; What is certain is that Hadrian established an official cult to the memory of Antinous, associating him with the Egyptian god Osiris who rose from the dead.&nbsp; The cult, although not as large as some others within the Roman world, did spread throughout the empire and was still in existence in the fourth century AD.&nbsp; Sabina, meanwhile, despite this was never divorced from Hadrian and died in 137 AD, just a year before Hadrian himself would die.&nbsp; Sabina was deified posthumously, though I suspect this was out of a sense of duty rather than any great love for her.</p><p><br /></p><p>I won this coin at Frank Robinson&#039;s latest auction at $42.&nbsp; The reverse is pretty lousy, but the portrait is not bad for the price, and it is a satisfyingly heavy chunk of Roman bronze.&nbsp; The portrait looks to me like Sabina is stubbornly maintaining her dignity despite her husband&#039;s wantonness.&nbsp; Please share your coins of Sabina, Hadrian, or (if you&#039;ve got them) Antinous.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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