I’ve been spending time with Haberlin’s own aes grave collection here in Berlin. The really lovely thing about it is that I get to see many specimens of the same type at the same time to really get a feel for the characteristics and deep variation between the various specimens.
Many thoughts, too many for this blog post. But here is one. There is an uncanny similarity in size and shape between the wings of Pegasus on RRC 18/2 and the wing on Mercury’s helmet on RRC 14/1.
Also Haeberlin seems much more devoted to recording provenance for Asses than for smaller denominations. I have a strong suspicion that he acquired more of the Nemi material than his catalogue reports. I’d need to access his papers on some future trip to really know.
Finally thus far with only the occasional outlier (perhaps one specimen in 20) his weights are proving to be accurate against a modern well calibrated scale to a standard deviation of c. 0.4%. That is pretty darn accurate. But given the outliers which have been up to 6% difference, I feel I best keep re weighing as go.
I’m not even getting to his cast collection this trip–he tried to take a cast of every single aes grave he was not able to purchase that he ever help. Each cast has details of the original on the reverse. An amazing tool for provenance research given how few specimens relatively speaking he was able to illustrate on his plates.
I am about to move on to RRC 14 and 18 today, but as I sit down this morning and start closing tabs I wanted to jot down this thought
What follows are three images of the same Ariminium Quinunx specimen sold repeatedly in the early 20th century. As the photos are taken from casts rather than the aes grave itself the edges particularly the spue breaks present slightly differently.
1933 sale (weight reported as 182.20g)1924 sale (weight reported as 182.20g)1911 sale (weight reported as 192g)
The above specimen caught my attention because of how the spue break with a little peak in a center reminded me of this specimen owned by Haeberlin and now in Berlin which I was handling yesterday.
Basically I’m toying with the idea if such patterns in the spue breaks could be reflective of something in the manufacturing process that was consistent or typical…
I also find it interesting that this Ariminum quinunx was unknown to Haeberlin but appeared almost immediately aft his work was published from the collection of von Baldinger – Stuttgart
“One of these two pieces is probably identical to the example from the Bianchi collection in Rimini listed by Mommsen p. 250 with a weight of 157 grams (after Tonini, Storia di Rimini, P. 21 = 5 ounces, 13 den.). Furthermore, No. 2 is unmistakably the original of the illustrations at Marchi CI. IV, Tav. I, No. 3 and at Garrucci Tav. LIX, 3, which Garrucci’s weight statement on page 31 “157 gr.” is also correct. On the other hand, the indication of origin of Garrucci’s “Museo di Pesaro” is based on an error, as this museum neither owns such a Quatrunx nor, according to the available lists, has ever owned it”
(machine aided translation)
I am interested in Haeberlin’s certitude that his specimen–now Berlin 18237653, photographed, but not yet up on IKMK–is the same known to Marchi and also appearing in Garrucci.
The reason for my interest is that I had thought the Marchi/Garrucci drawing of the Kircher/Pesaro specimen looked very much like the one sold as part of Garrucci’s own collection in the Hirsch 1914 sale as lot 641. See earlier post.
Haeberlin is likely right rather than myself. His argument about weight convinces me. Garrucci’s coin is listed in the sale as weighing 132g.
BUT in another way perhaps we are both correct in noticing the similarities to the earlier drawings. I think the two coins could have been made from the same mold.
When thinking about these types of comparisons I often like to make on image transparent and try out overlapping the two images. The lighting of the two specimens in these two old photographs is very different on from another but it still helps to show the similarity of the lines and patterns in the design.
Another possibility is that Ariminum used a stamp to create the coin mold. The similarity doesn’t mean one is copied from the other in modern times but of course we have to consider that possibility too.
I’d also not the ‘similarity’ of the known objects to the earlier drawings may also result from the fact that all the quatrunx I’ve held in this series all have a very similar top sprue break on the head side that aligns with the bottom of the sword and scabbard side. So the drawing is capturing common artifact of manufacture.
And just as an aside as I worked through these coins I reweighed them and was delighted with how very cases was there anything even close to a 1% difference. Only one real outlier and I think here Haeberlin might have made a copy error.
I was flipping though sales catalogues of Bartholomeo Borghesi (for reasons not worth explaining), and I notice the distinctive crack in the plate specimen for the EID MAR coin (no. 711). As you can see from the Schaefer Archive image the crack has grown in the last century, but it is still fun to have found its pedigree going back to 1881!
I’m sitting in Berlin looking at tray after tray of coins and I’ve not been blogging as I want to maximize time with the coins themselves. But at this moment I find myself thinking intensely about the methodological problem of quantifying or just even communicating my experience of the condition of the coins taken as a group.
Right now I’m in the early 2nd cent BCE and holding many bronzes, mostly asses. I’ve been joking that only I love ugly coins more than pretty ones, but this is not strictly true. The coins aren’t that ugly but most are very very heavily worn. Anyone whose handled a decent amount of RR bronze knows this is typical. The head of Janus and prow are very often worn completely smooth by passing hand to hand to hand. Frankly I like the feel of these coins, the sense of human touch across the millennia is so immediate they almost feel warm.
This isn’t true of the smaller denominations I’m holding. I see many more clear fractional coins. When the small coins are ugly it looks like environment, not handling.
All of this is terribly subjective. Duncan Jones tried to quantify wear by metrology and assumptions about time in circulation, but this assumes the coins of interest have a relatively knowable original weight and that we can have enough specimens from hoards where we think we know the date of deposition. Metcalf didn’t like Duncan Jones’ methods and most have thus let it fall by the wayside. It was revisited by Hoyer in 2013 and for Bronze:
Hoyer does more and better statistics with his data, but we just don’t have the same sort of data for these republican coins. And sadly few have engaged with Hoyer’s work.
I’m imagining something else, the ability to actually measure the smoothness of an individual coin and to do so in a way that would allow us to aggregate this data. A wear score as it were for the coin. Ideally not subjective but easy to apply…
This is from Carelli. I took the photo of the plate last week and haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
Currently I know of 4 whole bars in Copenhagen, BM, Vienna, Paris (Bank not BnF). BM and Copenhagen are illustrated in my 2021 article. Vienna and Paris have photos in binder 1 of the Schaefer Archive.
Lanzi in 1789 knew (or thought he knew) of three bars. The Guadagni bar (said by Sambon to be the same as the BM bar), The Florence Royal Bar and another in the Stosch collection that had already travelled to English by 1789. [Haeberlin doesn’t believe the Florence bar is real because of Fontana’s testimony and couldn’t track the Stosch bar]
Carelli‘s illustrations are of exceptionally mixed quality and many copied from earlier publications but I cannot tell where he got his illustration of this bar. He cites Riccio who claims to be illustrating a specimen in Naples, the drawing is hilariously awful. AND Riccio claims to know at total of FIVE such bars. Haeberlin dismisses Riccio’s claims.
Is there any connection between the three bar we now know of but which were unknown to Haeberlin?! Is there any connection to the earlier testimony about such bars. I’ve been here before many times but the Carelli image got me thinking again.
I was playing around with the idea that the Vienna bar might be the inspiration for the Carelli drawing, but then I got worried about something else.
The Vienna bar is far more similar to the BM bar than either are to Copenhagen or Paris specimens…. Almost too close? Could the Vienna bar have been made by casting the BM one? I’ll need better photos and probably to visit the Vienna bar before making any actual suggestions. It is also v curious that the Vienna bar is reported as the exact same weight as the BM bar….
“Central Italy, uncertain mint Æ Uncia. Local coinage in the late Roman Republic, circa 1st century BC. Bust of winged Eros to right, pellet (mark of value) behind / Eros standing to right before male figure (Pan?) seated to left on panther(?) raising his paw; MACER(sic) in exergue. Unpublished in the standard references, including C. Stannard, The Local Coinages of central Italy in the late Republic, Provisional catalogue 2007. 3.79g, 17mm, 3h.” – sales catalogue description
The obverse figure seems to have a Nodus, the central braid that starts with a poof at the forehead and then makes a ridge at the top of the head to the crown and down to the nap. I agree the figure looks like it has wings. The better identification might be Victory.
While most of the Victories with nodi hairstyles on the Republican series are thought to be portraits in the guise of important women (usually Fulvia; see below), arguably the first with a nodus was struck by P·SEPVLLIVS MACER in 44 BCE (RRC 480/25)
A mid 40s BCE date also fits the fashion for cupid
Now if you’re deep into the little ugly coins of this period you might say hey wait what about the sestertius of Paetus’ RRC 465/8 which is said to have cupid on the obverse. Is this Cupid?! maybe.
So maybe it is Cupid on that little uncia above, if this is cupid with nodus. Right now I should probably pull open my digitized copies of LIMC and check if Cupid ever gets this hair style in other media… Did that, nothing relevant under Eros and nothing under Cupid.
Here’s the portrait esque types I mentioned above.
Perhaps the most interesting question is if there is any chance that the small uncia is actually part of RRC 480. I’m not ready to claim that but I will entertain the possibility.
Must think more about what the cupids are doing on the reverse. We have lots of cupids doing stuff in mosaics from Pompeii in this general period. Numismatic examples of more than one cupid on the same design are rare. Thus far I’ve found just three tokens:
In provincial coinage we have these lovelies:
I don’t think RRC 320/1 counts in this same way.
Now my brain is bouncing back to the obverse and visual parallels. Let’s think about RRC 391/2
Definitely Cupid, Definitely a nodus. Certainly mid 70s and populist.
Ok questions: Did the nodus start out as a little boy hair style and then become a fashion trend for elite women?! I need to know more.
Let’s also remember that the only other scene with cupid as the main subject of the reverse on the republican series was on a quinarius of the Cinnan era (RRC 352/2)
AND of course there was another Macer who was a populist moneyer in the 80s… (RRC 354)
So where does this leave me and my brain dump?
Cupid seems populist. Maybe no surprise there but still fun. Also appropriate to small denominations. He’s small so there is a logic there. I still don’t know where we can fit the uncia into the Italic numismatic landscape. I think 40s more than 80s or 70s. Roman? Official? Maybe… just maybe…
One of my favorite follow ups to giving the AIA/SCS Metcalf lectures was the feedback I got on this slide regarding Papius symbol no. 47, a right sole and a hand holding a stylus
My colleague Wayne Rupp Jr, suggested I think about connections with the “in planta pedis” phenomenon of signing pottery with a name in the shape of a foot.
The reverse image is taken to be either the personification of Sors (the god of Lots) or a representation of the child tasked with drawing the lots at the oracle (Likely at Praeneste for Fortuna).
TIL we have the type of object surviving that would have been drawn at this type of oracle AND not only that at least one is likely republican in date based on spelling and letter forms.
BnF (wish I could find the Gallica link, but so far no luck)
Liv Mariah Yarrow 