Varangian,
(1) If eleven years sounds like too long a life for a die, which of the apparently certain dates are you doubting: c. 130 for the earliest
medallion of
Hadrian, or post 141 for the
medallion of
Diva Faustina?
I suppose you are questioning c. 130, but is it at all likely that after c. 131, when the
obv. legend HADRIANVS
AVG COS III P P became
standard on Hadrian's coins, a
medallion would revert to the HADRIANVS
AVGVSTVS /
COS III P P formula of c. 129-131? Or that Antoninus would go back to this old form when striking posthumously for
Hadrian in 138-9?
Other long-lived
medallion rev. dies, observed by
Dressel in
his splendid book on the
Roman medallions in
Berlin:
Dressel 36,
Marcus Aurelius TR P
XVI = 162 AD,
rev. the two emperors on horseback accompanied by soldier, same
rev. die reused for no. 55,
Lucius Verus,
his titles TR P
VIII IMP IIII
COS III added to the
rev. die, therefore 168 AD, six years later.
Dressel 41,
Marcus Aurelius TR P XXIII = 169 AD,
rev. COS III Victory leaning on
column, same
rev. die reused for no. 66,
Commodus TR P V = 180 AD, eleven years later, the original
rev. legend COS III being altered in the die to
IMP III
COS II P P.
Von Aulock, in one of
his provincial mint studies, found a
rev. die that was apparently reused some sixty years later, at a
mint that struck only small issues of coins separated from each other by long intervals!
(2) You write, "
Hadrian was not deified until nearly a year after
his death, and Antoninus
had to do some serious lobbying and
arm twisting to get it, which would presumably include a lot of public propaganda to put plebian pressure to bear as well."
Apparently you are following
Mattingly in
RIC, who claims that it took Antoninus "some six months to overcome the resistance of the senate" to Hadrian's
consecration. However, this chronology was decisively refuted by
Strack in
his book on Hadrian's coinage, pp. 189-192, arguments to which
Mattingly submitted in
BMC, p. xlviii, note 4. The apparent truth is that
Hadrian was consecrated maybe two weeks after
his death: the Senate put off the
act as long as Antoninus was absent, accompanying Hadrian's remains from Baiae back to
Rome, but could not resist Antoninus' entreaties once he returned to
Rome and appeared in person before the Senate.
Dio Cassius says that the Senate "persisted for a long time in its refusal to vote
Hadrian the usual honors", but also reports that when Antoninus "addressed many words to them with tears and lamentations", and threatened to resign as emperor since
his adoption was one of the acts of
Hadrian that the Senate intended to abolish, then "the senate, both through respect for the
man and a certain fear of the soldiers, bestowed the honours upon
Hadrian."
Do you suppose that it took Antoninus six months to come up with this argument? Isn't Dio obviously describing Antoninus' first appearance before the reluctant Senate after
his return from Baiae? Antoninus may have been moved to tears and lamentations on the first day, but he is unlikely to have repeated them on the second, third, fiftieth, and one hundredth days!
The
Historia Augusta reports that Antoninus "bore Hadrian's remains to
Rome with all
piety and reverance, and buried him in the gardens of
Domitia; moreover, though all opposed the measure, he
had him placed among the deified. On
his wife
Faustina he permitted the senate to bestow the name of
Augusta, and for himself accepted the surname Pius."
Aren't these all clearly the acts of the first Senate meeting after Antoninus' return to
Rome? Can it be doubted that the Senate's bestowal of the title Pius to Antoninus, stressing
his devotion to gods and family, was its rueful acknowledgement of defeat in its intention to condemn Hadrian's memory?
The coins fit perfectly with the chronology suggested by Dio and the
Historia Augusta. Two
rare and obviously short-lived issues correspond to the time before Antoninus appeared in
Rome, and before he became
PIVS:
1.
IMP ANTONINVS
AVGVSTVS /
TRIB POT COS DES II (
rev. as
his last issue as
Caesar).
2.
IMP CAES AEL ANTONINVS
AVG or
IMP T AEL CAES ANTONINVS
AVG /
PONT MAX TR POT COS.
The main issue, struck from then until the end of the year, is
3.
IMP T AEL CAES HADR(I) ANTONINVS /
AVG PIVS P M TR P COS DES II.
Antoninus has returned to
Rome,
had Hadrian consecrated, added
PIVS to
his name, and included HADR(I) in
his name for
good measure! Issues 1 and 2 were represented by a total of 17
denarii in the
Reka Devnia hoard, Issue 3 by 165
denarii, so assuming an even level of production over the 5 1/2 month period, Issues 1 and 2 will have lasted about two weeks after Hadrian's death on 10 July 138.
I think the main argument for a long-delayed
consecration of
Hadrian has been that he is not called Divus in
his epitaph of 139 AD,
ILS 322. But as
Strack points out, it was customary for the epitaphs of consecrated emperors to omit Divus, so this
inscription proves nothing. All other inscriptions of the later
part of 138, in contrast, for example
ILS 332-333, already call
Hadrian Divus, so prove that he was consecrated in any case before 31
Dec. 138.
There was, then, no time whatever for Antoninus to strike
posthumous coins or medallions of
Hadrian in an effort to persuade the Senate to consecrate him: as soon as he arrived in
Rome and pled for Hadrian's deification in person, he was successful!