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Author Topic: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis  (Read 9489 times)

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Offline slokind

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Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« on: October 21, 2004, 04:55:09 pm »
I have very definite views about calling these babies 'Thanatos'; this is no longer the era of Romanticism, no longer Germany im Spiegel der Antike.  Why are they put on the coins of infant heirs?  Would Septimius put a Thanatos on his baby's coin?  Why, he wouldn't even write a theta anywhere near him!
Apart from that, who can constructively help me with the description?  Varbanov's little images don't help.
19 10 04 Æ 19 (irreg.)  4.88g  axis 1:00  Philippopolis.  Caracalla, Caesar, draped bust to r.   ---] ANTONINOS.  Rev., Eros leaning on long torch (?) in his r. armpit, dangling garland from his r. hand.  Ph[IL]IPPO    POLEITON.  Cf. Varbanov III, 1342 and (obv.) 1338.  This is the coin that reminded me of the 'Weary Herakles'.  Eros épuisé.
Besides, is that a cute portrait of 196-198, or what?
Patricia Lawrence

Offline dougsmit

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2004, 05:54:33 am »
I have no answers for this question but offer an image of my coin which is similar and different at the same time.  The image is not good but the coin is no better.  The city and legends are the same but the style on both sides is different.  The portrait is longer and ends in a partial bust.  The reverse figure is slimmer, less baby-cherubic and seems to be carrying a long, thin stick rather than a dangling, 3D object.  Also interesting to me is that my remainder of a coin weighs 2.2g and is AE17 - significantly smaller than Pat's coin.  Part of this is from condition but the difference still seems a lot if both are to be taken as single assarion coins.

What accounts for the differences between these dies?  Is the portrait different in style or is the appearance just a factor of condition?  Pat's coin is double struck at the reverse left.  Does this add anything to the mix?

Offline slokind

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2004, 12:00:42 am »
Yes, it took me years to deduce when and why B. Pick listed some differences as mere deviations (Abweichungen) and made others the basis for a separate numerical listing.  The simplest statement I can think of is (a) requires a different description, such as 'with burning altar', or (b) has different verbal content (not just different spacing or differing degrees of abbreviation) in the legend.  And I agree that Pick probably would have counted the slender boy with at least one arm differently disposed as a different type of Eros, not just an engraver's deviation.
With different lighting the phi-iota of Philippopoleiton on mine is clear, and it definitely is double struck there; a wad had formed on that side that seems to have made the reverse die skid, sort of, or required a hasty move at the last nanosecond.
Does anyone know of a device that measures arcs of circles?  For identification, it is OK to take the maximum diamenter, or two diameters, of a ragged coin, but what one REALLY wants to measure is the outer diameter of the beaded (or not beaded) border of the face of the die.  At excavations, for getting ESTIMATED diameters of fragmentary pots, we have a board with concentric rings of successive diameters, and a fragment preserving an arc can be held against it.  With the coins, we seldom get fragments, but often have irregular flans with fragmentary rings of beading.  It really is hard (I am still struggling with it) to form a clear idea of what is one assarion and what is two.  Weight really won't work.  Maybe at Tomis, not inland.  They weren't at all fussy about the exact size of the wad/pellet/bead of copper they put on the anvil.  Diameter of the coin correlates also with how hard it was hit, how thin or thick it is.  The diameter of the design on the die, however, is what is deliberate.
Does anyone know of a tool to measure it?
Patricia Lawrence

Online Gert

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2004, 05:25:19 am »
Hello Pat,

I must admit your arguments for not describing this figure as 'Thanatos' sound convincing. But let me shed some doubt for the sake of argument.

- The imperial control on local coinage maybe wasn't as strict as was the case with imperial coinage. Maybe locally the minters weren't as concerned depicting Thanatos. Not writing theta's reflect the superstitious attitudes of mintworkers and die-engravers, not necessarily the concern of the emperor.
- Thanatos wasn't to be taken lightly, but still he was a god. The god of non-violent death. As this was the number 1 type of demise for an heir to the throne, it explains why this particular deity is depicted (honored/placated) on coins of young princes. (Although the putto also appears on coins of Sept.Severus).
- If the putto has nothing to do with death, how do you explain the torch he is holding/extinguishing. A satisfying explanation has to be offered for that aspect (I haven't heard of one till now).
 

best regards,
Gert

Offline slokind

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2004, 02:20:49 pm »
Another collector and student of these coins and I tentatively plan a study of the whole question, so I'll limit myself to two observations. (a) The extinguished torch and Eros resting on it refers to Eros being exhausted after a night's labor, I think, just as the Weary Herakles rests on his inverted club.  The reference for a little boy would be to his budding sexuality and to the hope of his continuing a dynasty (sorry that sounds so much like some textbook).  (b) While the Greeks made personifications into divinities (not gods) and represented them with bodies (though usually with wings), these divinized abstract nouns do not have cults, do not have temples, though some of them had popular shrines, as the nymphs had.  Athena Nike (winged, too) is the Victory aspect of the Acropolis goddess Athena.  Even Eros is basically just an aspect of his mother and is only present on the Parthenon frieze as such, leaning in her lap.  Thanatos has no cult at all.  The winged babies mourning on the corners of sarcophagi, even, stand for the extinction of Eros with death.  Add that already in Late Republican poetry the trope of exhausted Eros after an intense night is present; I haven't yet checked Hellenistic poets in the Greek Anthology, but I bet...
BUT WHAT ABOUT A DEVICE TO QUICKLY ESTIMATE DIAMETERS OF BEADED BORDERS WITH LESS THAN HALF THE CIRCLE PRESERVED????
Pat Lawrence

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2004, 02:32:49 pm »
Pat, if you are talking about trying to find the diameter of your coin if perfectly struck, I beleive all you have to do is trace the partial border of your coin and use a protractor to finish the circle.

Offline slokind

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2004, 02:37:17 pm »
THANK YOU.  So that's what the thing in my schooldays pencil box was for.  I never knew.  I'll get one and see if it's any easier than using a slide rule.  Yes, I'm really dumb about what I don't know at all.
P.L.

Offline Automan

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2004, 03:10:27 am »
An even simpler way would be to buy one of those transparant plastic things with different sized circular holes punched into them, that were used by architects and engineers before the days of CAD programs. I.e., they are/were used to draw circles, so for each hole the diameter is stated (haven't a clue what they're called).

Auto

Douglas

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2004, 07:45:34 am »
I believe the are called "templates".

Offline Britannicus

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2004, 09:14:04 am »
I have a couple of these coins, with types to left or to right, and the question is, what are the two things, the one he is leaning on and the one that is dangling from his hand? On the types to right, Eros is leaning on a stele or column or extinguished torch and holding a still burning torch downwards at an angle.
The types to left show Eros leaning on a stele or column or extinguished torch and holding something that is a bit smaller than on the right-facing coins. On the first coin shown here, from Philippopolis, of Commodus (image from eBay), the smaller object seems to me to be a flaming torch; on the second coin, of Philippopolis and Septimius Severus, it is very definitely a torch, with a nice, curling flame, and the longer object might be a torch held downwards onto a small altar.
And if anyone is sceptical about the idea of Eros with two torches, here is a little coin of Geta Caesar from Nicaea with yet another variant on the theme.

Offline featherz

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2004, 09:31:11 am »
Here is one from Deultum:



And of course there is my mystery Elagabalus that has one figure speculated to possibly be thanatos :



(figure on left)

Offline maridvnvm

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2004, 11:17:12 am »
I have a Geta example of this type and was persuaded it was Thanatos due to the brand on the reverse...

Martin

Offline Britannicus

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2004, 12:05:46 pm »
This type exists in Nicopolis ad Istrum for Severus, Caracalla and Geta. Eros is holding a torch (downwards) but also a bow. Here is a coin of Severus.

Offline slokind

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Re:Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2004, 01:50:52 pm »
Both Britannicus and I could post baby and young boy winged figures, with or without crossed legs (the free leg in front of the standing leg) by the dozen, as well as the figurines to go with them.  What looks like a brand (something carried in riot scenes in period epics on TV) and what looks like a torch (like, also, the shorter of the torches of an Eleusinian deity--used in real life for going out at night) are the same thing, I think.  Eros typically carries it to kindle his heat and for light; an arrow from his bow, of course, causes acute infatuation; the wreath of flowers celebrates the consummation of his efforts.  The Æ 26 for Julia Domna at Nicopolis ad I. issued by Gallus with the Capitoline type of Aphrodite has at her knees Eros with torch and wreath (attached).
But Heatherz contributions are something else.  The figure with Hermes on the mystery coin must indeed have to do with the journey to the hereafter, since in combination it is Hermes Psychopompos and if not Thanatos one of those other genii / daimones  that old Jane Harrison wrote about in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (see also Emily Townsend Vermeule's Sather Classical Lectures on death in Archaic Greek art)--don't take Harrison as irrefutable, though!  This winged youth is full grown and may well, like Hypnos and Thanatos on Eurphronios' famous New York, MMA, krater, taking Sarpedon off the battlefield, be a death daimon.  Also, this image is either unique or rare, whereas the Torch Babies are legion.
Pat L.

Offline Jochen

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #14 on: August 12, 2005, 09:47:42 am »
Hi!

I know this is an old thread. But I think this coin I should show. On the reverse it is Eros holding a torch in his raised r. hand. It is the same putto which was seen on all of the above posted coins. How illogical would it be if this putto is called Eros and then only by turning the torch will become Thanatos! So this coin with Eros holding an upside torch will proof the Eros theory of the turned torch too.

I know the relations between Eros and Thanatos (and the 'petite mort'), but I don't know wether the ancients have had the same point of view on this subject.

Best regards

Offline slokind

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2005, 02:49:59 pm »
Ay, the very cutest one.  Not only is the little prince wearing a rather new laurel crown but look what Eros offers him on the reverse.  This is indeed the coin that made me bold to plead the case when I got it a couple of years ago.  Even if we can't be certain what the Romans called the little fellow (he's a Genius, a Daimôn, in any case), we can be confident he wasn't called Mors or Thanatos.
Somewhere in Catullus, if I remember correctly, the petite mort finds its locus classicus; probably that's where the Elizabethan poets got it.  Or somewhere in Ovid; the middle ages, astonishingly, did read Ovid and made him moralisé.  Goodness, the English Bible makes the Song of Solomon "the love of Christ for his church".
Pat

Offline Jochen

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #16 on: August 12, 2005, 02:58:17 pm »
Perhaps there may be a connection between Eros and Thanatos at Anaximander. When he says The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time. then it means that by the birth (Eros!) of a thing injustice is done to the other things and therefore it have to die (Thanatos!).

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Offline Arminius

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #17 on: February 18, 2007, 05:32:56 pm »
Another one:

Philippopolis in Thracia, Septimius Severus, 193-211 AD.,
Æ Assarion / Æ18 (18-20 mm / 3.50 g),
Obv.: AY K Λ - CЄVHPOC , laureate head of Septimius Severus right.
Rev.: ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΠΟΛЄΙΤΩN , Thanatos "resting on a stele or column or extinguished torch and holding something that is a bit smaller".
Moushmov 5250 .

Maybe a strange theory or silly question: Had these reverses been issued after the death of an important person or a big disaster like an eartquake?

Regards

Offline slokind

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #18 on: February 18, 2007, 07:25:09 pm »
I think that, especially in the late Middle Ages, in the world described by Huizinga, or, on the contrary, in groups with less evolved literary clichés than those of the Middle Empire (taking that from Hadrian through, at latest, the Gordiani), they might indeed have issued fertile and vital symbols following, say, a plague or seismic event or a great war.  This is not to say that one need admire Severan culture, only that it seems not yet to have been a period when people became frantic.  Consider: after World War I, as bad as anything could be, Europe did produce Dada but not anything like Eros to counteract Thanatos.  There are some hints of frantic feeling perhaps in Late Romantic Eichendorff?
Anyway, those Weary and Jaunty Eros coins coincide with the young heirs of the Severan dynasty.  That's when there's a spate of them.  They even seem to be issued when the father seems to regard the boy as pre-pubescent, or proto-pubescent, rather than just a little boy.  That may be why poor Diadumenian (not more than just 10 when killed) did not (that I know of)** get any.  And neither did the females.  Domna got a lion and a Priapus but not an Eros.  Check out Commodus.  It could, I suppose, have started with him, Marcus Aurelius's sole surviving boy child.  One thing I am confident of: the Eros is a trope in visual form, like a figure of speech in poetry.  Not a symbol, properly, but a token of a notion.  The figures are of course common in terracotta figurines, not only the lovely late Myrina ones but from the Tanagras of early Hellenistic onward.
There is a sort of correspondence, but the Hypnos or Thanatos figures are more adolescent.  We do find Eros terracottas in tombs.  But, unlike the Etruscans, the Greeks were loath to put Death explicitly in tombs.  The little flying figures found at Eretria in tombs are not figures of Death as such.  I think that, like the sad babies on the corners of some sarcophagi, they embody libido or élan vital or desire or eros (raw) stymied by death, and saddened by it.
Pat L.
** See below

Offline slokind

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #19 on: February 19, 2007, 01:08:03 am »
Candor demands.  There IS funerary art that has boys with torches.  I have a digital snapshot of a half life-size one in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.  Note, however, that it is an adolescent, that he has no wings, that he has two torches.  The neo-Severe statues of the end of the Republic and the early Empire, of the Pasitelean kind, that are of this kind are life size and are funerary, tomb statuary.  The photo is through glass, but here it is.  Pat L.

Offline Bacchus

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2007, 07:23:51 am »
Hi Pat,

Thanks for a very interesting thread.  One small point is that there were Eros (spent torch) reverses issued for Diadumenian for both Marcianopolis and Nicopolis ad Istrum.  I have posted a couple below.

Ob. M OPELLIO ANTWNEINOC - Bare headed bust right
Rev. (MAKIANOPOLEITWN - varient) Eros, standing, leaning on burning inverted brand
Ref. Moushmov 591; Hristova/Jekov (V2) 6.25.41.1 (r6), p.127 - this coin -
Size AE16


Ob. K M OPEL DIADOVMENIA Bare headed and draped bust right
Rev. NIKOPOLIT-WN PROC Eros, standing, leaning on burning inverted brand
Ref. Moushmov 1313
Size AE19


The Nicopolis ad Istrum one appears to be the scarcer of the two - as I have a couple of examples of the former.  Perhaps this is indicative of a general "youth" type rather than directly linking it to the individual youths involved.

all the best
Malcolm



Offline Arminius

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #21 on: February 19, 2007, 08:16:51 am »
What about this interpretation of the - eros - torch without fire - reverses:

For the boys: The torch is already there but the fire is not yet burning.
(For Septimius maybe: ...still there but the fire is lost.)

A.

Offline Jochen

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #22 on: February 19, 2007, 08:25:44 am »
 ;D

Offline slokind

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #23 on: February 19, 2007, 02:22:48 pm »
I wouldn't dare propose it in hard copy, but what Arminius said did occur to me, and I meant to hint at it, in connection with that very cute Caracalla with Eros holding out an unlit torch.  There is at best insufficient and indirect evidence, but I've known parents who get almost pruriently interested in the sexual maturation of their children, and I really wouldn't be surprised if Caracalla's parents were among them.  I'm NOT talking about child abuse!  Just vulgar fantasizing.
The snuffed torches, though, really must be rather different, even if the ready but unlit torch is taken as parental prurience/dynastic expectation.
Thanks to Malcolm for sharing his Diadumenians, too; nothing so well as failure to check to bring friends out of the woodwork.  Students, too.
Pat L.
Owing to bad keywording last November, I failed to pick up the Diadumenian to go with the other leaning ones that Britannicus posted near the top of the thread.  I even had put it in the Tiny Provincials thread when I got it.
• 27 11 06 Æ16 3.05g axis 12h.  MarcianopolisDiadumenian, bust, with mantle over armor.  M OP[---   ---}NINOS.  Rev., Eros, standing in 3/4 view to l., leaning on a large unextinguished torch, inverted onto an altar (?), both his elbows on the butt of the torch, his face, 3/4 view, pensively resting in his r. hand.  His weight is on his l. leg, his r. is crossed in front, the toe resting for balance (the pose being more extreme than usual).  His half-open wing fills space at the right.  This figure seems to be based on a fine-arts prototype.  MARKIANO    POLEITÔN, the AR ligatePick, AMNG I, 1, no. 796, cites only the Loebbecke collection, and Varbanov I (Bulg.) no. 1022 cites only Mushmov-Pick.  Hristova & Jekov, p. 127, has an 18mm specimen, both dies like this one, but like the Loebbecke specimen lighter than this one.  The coin is today perhaps only scarce, but probably scarcer than Hr & J "R6' (20-50 specimens) reports.  The last cites Mushmov 591, but the description under that number, of a Genius with hand over head is NOT this reverse; this reverse is that of the coin illus. by Hr&J and described by Pick from the Loebbecke coll.

Offline Jochen

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Re: Eros épuisé from Philippopolis
« Reply #24 on: March 05, 2007, 04:02:19 pm »
Here I want to show a coin which I think is the same type Arminius has shown before (Septimius Severus from Philippopolis). The figure on the reverse looks much older than the usual putto like Erotes on the other coins. I think the rev. depiction is similar to Dougsmit's coin in reply #1.

Best regards

 

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