Hi! I want to share with you my new add. A Probus antoninianus, Ticinum mint.
This bust type is not recorded by RIC, and seems to be rare.
Yes indeed this
type is
rare, but not completely unknown.
I registered 5 similar coins : 2
Vienna, 1
Paris, 1
Budapest, 1
London.
Yours shares its
obverse die with the one in the British Museum. Here below is the coin in
London.
You'll notice on both coins that the figure on the
reverse is feminine, ie
Roma, pictured as an Amazon, right breast nude.
It has nothing to do with a "soldier" as
RIC V.2, 434-445 describes it.
The
Romans have a problem with the word
Virtus, which is feminine in gender, but derives from
vir and denotes the virile qualities, especially in war.
The
mint of
Ticinum has chosen in its 4th
officina to illustrate "the Emperor's virtue" with the representation of
Roma as an Amazon, but with the figure of
Mars walking left and hording
trophy and spear in its 1rst
officina...
It is rather funny to realize that we Modern have a
still more serious problem with
virtus: we distorted the word in the most absurd way, making "virtue" the principal
quality of woman, in the sense of modesty and chastity, when the Latin word means exactly the opposite, and forgetting that women, technically, cannot be virtuous...
Sylviane
Estiot
