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Author Topic: Furius  (Read 6517 times)

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Offline Numerianus

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Furius
« on: November 06, 2004, 03:06:03 pm »
I was very impressed by Jochen's comment on a Roman republic coins and hope to get
some information about the popular Furius Brocchus issue with "Curule chair between fasces."
However, there is a certain object laying above. What is it?

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re:Furius
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2004, 05:48:51 pm »
I think that's the upper surface of the chair.
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Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2004, 06:12:20 pm »
I agree with Robert! I think they are depicted 3-dimensional!
Look at http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s0365.html
There are some types with different surfaces of the curule chair (= two chairs compound). I think it was not comfortable to sit on one of these chairs!

Here is an information by CNG:
L. Furius Cn.f. Brocchus. 63 BC. AR Denarius. Bust of Ceres right between wheat-ear and barley-corn; III VIR across field, BROCCHI below / Curule chair between fasces, L. FVRI CN. F above in two lines. Crawford 414/1; Sydenham 902; Furia 23.
L. Furius Cn.f. Brocchus is known only from his coins. The moneyer family is called FURIA.

Regards,
Jochen

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2004, 09:34:13 am »
Ups! This means that this is a BISELLIUM and not just a curule chair.
The word is found in no classical author except Varro (L.L. v.128, ed. Müller), according to whom it means a seat large enough to contain two persons but designed for  a single one. The right of using a seat of this kind, upon public occasions, was granted as a mark of honour to distinguished persons by the magistrates and people in provincial towns.  See more in:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Sella.html


Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2004, 01:52:40 pm »
Hi Numerianus!

I think you are right! Here I have the information of Melville Jones, A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins:

SELLA. A backless seat (cf. Pulvinar, Subsellium) which among the Romans often symbolised powers of various kinds (as the concept of 'the Chair' does nowadays). The highest magistrates of the Roman state, the so-called 'curule' magistrates, used a chair in the approximative form of two Us, one inverted below the other, which was called a sella curulis. Military commanders used a chair in the form of an X with a small seat inserted into the upper part. This could easily be folded for transport, and was called a sella castrensis. A flat seat on four straight legs was associated with the quaestor urbanus, and is therefore sometimes called a sella quaestoria.

Beside this text is a pic of a coin with a similar chair like that on your coin. The comment: Denarius of Q. Pompeius Rufus, 54 BC. The coin names the dictator Sulla (the maternal grandfather of the mint magistrate) and his paternal grandfather, both of whom had held the consulship, and symbolises the office by representing a double or consular sella curulis on each side (of the coin).

This double or consular  sella curulis is the chair on your coin!
 
Regards,
Jochen
 

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2004, 05:38:52 pm »
I am sorry! I also could not come back to the page with copied address
where there is an article from:

William Smith, D.C.L., LL.D.:
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875.

Try Google bicellium.  

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2004, 06:26:28 pm »
Here I have a coin from Wildwinds with a bisellium in use:
It is an Augustus denar RIC I, 407; BMCR 115
Struck 13 BC by C Sulpicius Platorinus.
rev. C SVLPICIVS PLATORIN
       Augustus and Agrippa seated side-by-side on a bisellium

Regards,
Jochen


Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2004, 05:23:48 am »
But not correctly used! It was intended for a single person ...


To be honest, I still  have difficulty to interprete details of this armchair.
On its surface  there are some round forms which hardly believe to make sitting
more comfortable....

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2004, 06:37:28 am »
Hi Numerianus!

Ok, I agree that a bisellium can be a symbol of honour for a single person. But there are some depictions which show a bisellium used by two persons together. Not only Augustus and Agrippa as on the coin above, but also on the famous 'Gemma Augustea' (today we would say 'Cameo'!):
In the midth of the upper part on a bisellium are sitting Augustus with sceptre and lituus and on his right side Roma with Attic helmet and spear. So here the bisellium is a throne for two persons too!

Regards,
Jochen

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2004, 07:58:48 am »
Thank you, very beautiful camea!

It may be the idea of the bisellium: one place was reversed for the goddess, not visible but always
present.  However, here the example not is of a curule type, just a wide armchair.

I have an impression, a wrong one according to the comments, that there is some
sacred object put on the chair, a drum, maybe.  The image is organized like a front view,
without a perspective ...    

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2004, 01:07:20 pm »
I was thinking always that the curule chair is a sit like this one, of
the renaissance period.

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2004, 02:22:23 pm »
Hi Numerianus!

I think so too! Here is a denar of Titus. The reverse is described in BMCR as 'curule chair with wreath', and in RIC as 'wreath on two curule chairs'!
Now we see that RIC is correct, whereas BMCR is not!
And please look at the seat: that is the object laying transverse above the two chairs! And it's really not a sacred object.

Regards,
Jochen

Offline curtislclay

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Re:Furius
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2004, 08:34:05 pm »
    I believe the curule chair was not like the renaissance chair illustrated by Numerianus.  The seat was not located at the crossing point of the legs, but at their top:  the tops of two pairs of legs shaped like chopped-off figure eights supported a flat seat.
    So we see a mat draped over this flat seat and hanging down at the ends, and the emperor sitting on top of the mat, e.g. on sestertii of A. Pius, BM pl. 46.7, sestertii of Commodus, Sear 5782 and 5765, aurei of Pius, Sear 4009.  Or a wreath atop the flat seat supported by the two pairs of legs, Octavian denarius, RSC 1, p. 135, no. 55, and Jochen's Titus denarius illustrated above.
    So Jochen's denarius of Titus and the comparable Republican coins, e.g. RSC pp. 30, 34-5, 51 (the Furia denarii), 58-9, 73, 77, 94, all show a single curule chair, composed of a flat seat supported by two pairs of legs.
      As far as I know there is no evidence whatever for Melville Jones' assertion, Dict. Rom. Coins p. 283, that what we see on these coins is a DOUBLE or CONSULAR sella curulis!  In fact it's the ordinary curule chair, which has nothing to do with a bisellium.
Curtis Clay

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #13 on: November 10, 2004, 08:29:47 am »
Indeed,  the bisellium is not relevant.

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #14 on: November 10, 2004, 08:39:43 am »
So I see there was much confusion with the 'curule chair' and the 'bisellum'.
Now I summ up the following
1 the denar of Furius Brocchus shows a curule chair,
2 the denar of  C SVLPICIVS PLATORIN shows indeed a bisellum,
3 so does the Gemma Augustea,
4 and  the Titus denar is a normal curule chair too!

I think the discussion was helpful and has now cleared the problems!

Thanks,
Jochen

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #15 on: November 10, 2004, 08:41:06 am »
Here is  a curule chair as depicted in  Smith's
 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
This image poses a problem: the X-form legs are not visible from the front view.
Does this means that it was an artistic licence to represent  on coins the legs as XX rather than I I?
Just to emphasize the symbol?  

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #16 on: November 10, 2004, 08:45:28 am »
This coin shows Claudius sitting on a curule chair (though honorable but not very comfortable).
The legs are X in the profile.

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #17 on: November 10, 2004, 08:50:32 am »
The images on the Furius coins, the Titus denarius (a beautiful one, Jochen!), and the one below
seems to show something more elaborate.  

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #18 on: November 10, 2004, 08:56:38 am »
After a long search, I found on web an image of a curule share that may indicate that XX form of legs (for the front view) may be due to  an artistic licence: the engravers had difficulties with the perspective.  

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #19 on: November 10, 2004, 08:57:26 am »
Hi Numerianus!

Is it correct that you think the coins have depicted the two x-shaped parts of the curule chair side by side whereas really they stand one behind the other?

Jochen

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #20 on: November 10, 2004, 09:06:20 am »
I think that the bas-relief gives a correct image while on coins the engravers put the legs to show their X-shape.  By the way,  one could interprete the image of the bas-relief as a sarcophagus.
This may give an explanation  why we see a wreath upon it on the Titus denarius.

Offline Jochen

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Re:Furius
« Reply #21 on: November 10, 2004, 12:54:29 pm »
Hi Numerianus!

Nice found, nice pic! But the wreath laying on the seat of the curule chair of Titus' denar is not related to death  I think. This wreath is called a struppus, and was used to describe an offering of this form laid upon a pulvinar at a lectisternium. It is derived from the Greek strophion, a band of cloth, worn as a head-band or as a support for the breasts, meaning something twisted into shape.

Best regards,
Jochen

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #22 on: November 11, 2004, 11:39:16 am »
So, let us summerize the discussion.

Apparently, you are write with you beautiful Titus coin. It  is a curule chair with a wreath  on it (slightly different from the one Claudius is sitting on). The legs are turned by the engraver to emphasize their X-shape.
This means that RIC is not correct!


However, I still have some doubts about, e.g.,   the last Republic coin. The  left object looks like a javellin (standing) rather than an arrow and this gives a (large) scale unit ...  

Offline curtislclay

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Re:Furius
« Reply #23 on: November 11, 2004, 12:06:31 pm »
I think the engraver was not at all concerned to show the various objects on the same scale.
Look at the rev. of the same Republican denarius (above).  Compared to the curule chair, the wreath to r. is drawn too SMALL, but the lituus to l. too LARGE.
A man on the scale of the curule chair could use that wreath as an ankle band, while the lituus could serve him as a cane!
Curtis Clay

Offline Numerianus

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Re:Furius
« Reply #24 on: November 12, 2004, 05:12:20 am »
Hi, Curtis, I believe that our discussion is still useful, at least, to understand  conventions
used by the Roman artists.  Of course, they ignored scales  and did not know well the perspective. It seems that you do not deny that it was admissible to rotate
legs on the image to show their X-shape.  

 Do you have in your archive  a better image of the reverse with Claudius
sitting on the curule chair? It is a "classical" form, without the back visible on the Titus denarius.

By the way, on the bas-relief  there is also a kind of small wreath and  the curule chair
(if it is one) contains two  "extensions" (sides?) with portraits.  

Maybe, I am  stupidly persistent on this issue but I would like to learn whether there were
other objects for which  X-shape supports were used.



 

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