Whom this is I feel it is a majestic profile bust, To me it looks like it could be Trajan, what I do know is the reverse is one of the many River Gods & is a Roman Provincial period coin....
Obverse is a representaion of the Senate Inscription should be ΙΕΡΑΣ ΣΥΝΚΛΗ (or similar) Reverse is a river god. I cannot make sense of the ethnics Stylistically it is 2nd century AD
It doesn't look like the portrait of any emperor I've ever seen. I didn't know there were coins with a portrait representing the Senate.
Interesting that you are feeling this may be a senate member, what makes this coin so difficult is the obscured lettering, even though I am terrible at that... One does not come across many coins with consul senate members, Would there be some way to verify whom this individual might be or could it simply be a generalization of the Senate in a bust..?
@Steven Michael Gardner yours is a really beautiful Senate coin. Awesome!! in this recent thread: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/pseudo-autonomous-issue-senate-as-a-god.385703/ some coins showing the senate were posted. In my opinion, yours is the best I've seen
Thanks for pointing me to that thread, I noticed various bust examples as personifications of the Senate, I wonder who would have been the one to choose the bust style for one of these coins, would the Senate have been consulted at the time for approval and shown various engravings of artist examples of which to choose to mint a coin from at that period??? I like to think that the engraver had some latitude to come up with a certain look to such a bust, to me it resembles Trajan a bit, and I;m assuming that it was struck shortly after his reign or in that period? It is a very strong bust when compaired to many as well as the female personification... This is the first Senate representation that I have come across personally for myself, I will put it away with some of my other special coins...
The Roman senat had nothing to do with those representations on Roman imperial coins. For further reading I recommend this paper. https://tinyurl.com/399exkbc Unfortunately in German, but there isn't anything better - and translation nowadays is an easy task. I am still angry with myself for not being able to locate Steven's coin!
Please don't get angry, I appreciate the effort though, I too ran out of gas looking for it a while ago, there just was nothing that came close to this coin... Now if we are not talking about the Roman Senate what is it that personifications of the Senate is representing? I looked up the link, yet German does not register to well for me sooo...
Thank you so much for sharing this link. It is a quite long paper; I read the first 9 pages and summarize below what I think is relevant for this thread. According to this paper the Senate cult dates back to Tiberius, which was one of the questions I had. The article is about researching the integration of Roman provinces and its inhabitants into the Roman empire and also how Rome was integrated into the provincial environment. It is not about empire-wide integration, but locally circumscribed according to political organization and frequently at city level. One should not be limited to ask what was integrated, but the question of How - which actions took place - and who initiated those. A concrete example is given about the integration of the specific Roman institution “Senate” into the cultic context of the Poleis in Asia Minor, pointing out actors and actions to incorporate the Senate into this specific socio-cultural environment. Senatus – ΣΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΣ In contrast to other Roman institutions, the senate as object of cultic worship has characteristics that allow for a clearer differentiation between Roman and Greek view. The most important characteristic is linguistic: In contrast to the Latin senatus, the Greek Σύγκλητος is feminine, thus being the full denomination Ἱερὰ Σύγκλητος (to complement with Βουλή. The gender change had natural consequences for the representation of the Senate god (Senatsgottheit) in Asia Minor, since given the grammatical gender, actually a female personification ΣΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΣ ΒΟΥΛΗ or ΙΕΡΑ ΣΥΝΚΛΗΤΟΣ is to be expected. Therefore, it is understandable that despite the origin of the institution in the capital city, the personification as Genius Senatus was not adopted. The Genius Senatus has a fixed iconography by no later than the Flavian time. He is always represented as an old man with beard, long ideal features, locks of hair and wearing a toga. As the personification of the res publica the Genius Senatus usually appears with the markedly younger Genius Populi Romani, one of the earliest witnesses are the Cancelleria-Reliefs. The Genius Senatus basically differs in clothing and style of beard from most of the other genius that are represented as young men. This Roman city representation was not used in Asia Minor, but a female image according to the Greek usage was not conceived either, in analogy to representations of council meetings like Boulê or Gerousia. The cultic worship of a political council appears at first more astonishing than the worship of a person like an emperor; however, the Roman senate as a cult receiver has been proved without a doubt. In Asia as a senatorial province, the senate was perceived as an important political and legislative instance, particularly the honorific titles like Neokoros were awarded by the Senate. Therefore, it is understandable that still in Imperial times in interactions with Rome and also under the Poleis the Senate was perceived of crucial importance. Even though the Senate surely was worshiped at city level under Augustus, the establishment as a provincial cult finally took place under Tiberius in Smyrna, where a temple was dedicated to Tiberius, the emperor mother Livia and the Senate as is told by Tacitus. Kienast convincingly interprets Tacitus stating that the Syncletos cult dates back to Tiberius. The foundation of this temple is shown on a coin from Smyrna (see Fig.1 in the paper): Ob.: Syncletos as a young man with long hair and diademed head of Livia; Rev.: togate Tiberius capite velato holding a simpuvium in his right hand. It is unlikely that a personification of Syncletos as young man existed already in the Augustean time. Surprisingly, the iconography corresponds not to the later Genius Senatus type, but rather to the Genius Populi Romani. The best parallels to the youthful, long-haired busts are to be found on one of the famous Boscoreale cups or already on the Ara Pacis. The new and quickly adopted usual type of the young genius with shoulder-long hair was therefore elaborated under Augustus, while the Genius Senatus as a personification of the Senate is a later invention.
Wow, thank you for doing that translation & summary... I have gleaned so much more from your passage of that long German paper that I ever could have accomplished myself--even in elglish, dyslexia tends to complicate things at times for me! As I am understanding it now, The Roman Senate had quite a bit of influence when concerning these coins, not directly but for the incorporation of the many foreign provincial environments, territories & peoples... The object as I see of such coins is to help mold outlying provinces to become more Roman? To behave in the more cultish worship / reverence for the Senate that many had, the closer one would reside to the mother ship of Rome & the Aura of the Senate itself..? Isn't everything behind what Rome did to convert others to their way of thinking, never heaven forbid the other way around! I assume now concerning my coin bust image, it is that of the younger "Genius Populi Romani" type, which is one more stone added on the road to a more definitive ID...?
Not to forget that under Julius Caesar the definite victory over Gallia and its incorporation as a Roman province was necessary as a contribution to the glory of the Republic and of course his own, and was presented to the Senate and the people. It is also relevant (in my opinion) to mention that Julius Caesar reorganized the provinces and his provisions had a definite influence on the organization of the Roman Empire: Caesar increased the number of provinces from 10 to 18; he confirmed as provinces the administrative entities that the senate had created (Bithynia, Creta et Cyrenae and Syria), and he established the provinces of Achaia, Illyria, Africa Nova and Africa Vetus and the conquered Gallia Comata. He strongly promoted settlements of veterans in the provinces and gave the opportunity to the city proletariat to own land in the provinces. Many communities that had shrunk as a consequence of the civil wars, received newcomers and the romanization in the conquered territories had a strong impulse. Some were awarded the Ius Latii, which was a crucial complement for merging with the sons of Rome and Italy. The incorporation of provincials, in particular from Gallia, Germania and Iberia, into Roman units where they served and fought together, shared honors with the Roman-Italic legionaries, and of course the unifying bond towards the "Imperator" that lead them to victory, opened the Romanization of the provinces into the already emerging imperial, roman-Hellenic civilization. However, as far as I understand from the paper, it is not that Rome did everything to convert others to their way of thinking, but the integration (or merging) was bidirectional: the integration of Roman provinces and its inhabitants into the Roman empire and also how Rome was integrated into the provincial environment. Regarding your awesome coin, since in Asia as a senatorial province the senate was perceived as an important political and legislative instance, I agree with @Dwarf that it is the Senate as a young man, like the representation of the Senate shown on the Smyrna coin, and was minted not earlier than the time of Tiberius.
