The Roman ((Lituus ))..a question out of curiosity...

[zeid]

The Lituus symbol when  did they appeared on Roman coins ....

and when did they disappeared from Roman coins ?

[Steve Minnoch]

The latest I can think of is the priestly implements type for Tetricus II.  (I can't guarantee it definitely the last though).

e.g.
Moonmoth Coins Tetricus II

I'll check the indices in Crawford in a while to say if it gives a clue on the earliest, but in the meantime there is

Lituus Augurum in NumisWiki

Steve

[Ed D]

I think the last one was Carinus as Caesar in 282.

Best regards,
Ed D

[Steve Minnoch]

Cheers Ed.

If I can rely on Crawford's indices, the earliest appearance of the lituus was on his 242/1 a denarius issued by the moneyer C. Minucius Augurinus he dates to 135 BC.

Wildwinds Minucia SRCV 119

Steve

[Jochen]

Hi!
   
There is an obvious similarity between the lituus and the pedum. It is an very old sign of authority. Outside its Roman use a lituus-shaped staff was an insignia of the pharaohs and seen on the oldest depictions of Osiris too, who was the shepherd of souls.
In the 4th century AD by his privilegium fori Constantine I gave the permission to the bishops to wear the hooked staff as sign of jurisdiction.

Best regards

[zeid]

Amazing ...

So the earliest Roman was  Minucius Augurinus  dates back to 135 BC

So was  Augurinus a  descandent from a family of Augur priests  known of using such Augur Symbol ?

Since The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds (whether they are flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they are)

And what do you  think about early Roman king Numa Pompilius shown as Augur priest holding   (Lituus) and standing before an altar at which he is about to sacrifice a goat as depicted on Pomponius Molo coin (97 BC)

http://www.vroma.org

[zeid]

I think the last one was Carinus as Caesar in 282.

Best regards,
Ed D

Thanks Ed...

so we can say that it gradually disappeared as a symbol with the rise of Christianity...

 have you find accidentally any Tiberius or Caligula coins with a Lituus symbol?

because it's really strange that Pontius Pilate- a small Procurator of Judea  (AD 26–36)-used it as his unique symbol rather than his Caesar!

[areich]

have you find accidentally any Tiberius or Caligula coins with a Lituus symbol?

https://tinyurl.com/wtlpekh

[zeid]

Thanks areich ....the Link you gave me were really useful:

I found 3  different Caligula coins with Lituus Symbol

and I'm still searching for the Tiberius coin with Lituus


Regards...

[areich]

The first and the second are both described as Tiberius with lituus, I didn't look further but I'm sure there are more.

[Ed D]

A very nice article by Gert Boersema, a Forum member,  it's in Dutch.
Maybe he is willing to translate it?

http://www.oudgeld.com/webbib/priesat.htm

Ed D

[Robert_Brenchley]

To this day, bishops carry staffs which look rather like a lituus. They probably wouldn't admit the connection if it is there.

[Steve Minnoch]

The augurate was not a family institution, although if your father was an augur you'd have a fairly good chance of replacing him in the college when he died.  It seems likely that the cognomen Augurinus was derived from the priesthood, but exactly how the family came to use it is unknown.  It does seem to have been used by them for hundreds of years though, the earliest Minucius Augurinus in the consular fasti is early in the 5th century BC.

The representations of Numa with a lituus is not surprising, as the main practices of Roman religion were at least believed to have their roots in the time of the kings.  The powers and role of the king were supposed to have been divided between the consuls, who took the secular power (although it was never a purely secular job as we'd use the word) and the Rex Sacrorum a senior priesthood whose holder took the role in Roman religion previously held by the king.  

Steve
Steve

[Steve Minnoch]

because it's really strange that Pontius Pilate- a small Procurator of Judea  (AD 26–36)-used it as his unique symbol rather than his ceasar!

I don't think it's strange.  The emperor was (I believe) always an augur too, and it was a very prestigious position in itself.  Just look at the coinage of Mark Antony, whose coins feature the lituus, and often have the partial legend AVG, which shows how much prestige he attached to the office.  He was particularly proud of his election to that post, and the circumstances it happened.

Steve

[amadis]

The augurate was not a family institution, although if your father was an augur you'd have a fairly good chance of replacing him in the college when he died.  It seems likely that the cognomen Augurinus was derived from the priesthood, but exactly how the family came to use it is unknown.  It does seem to have been used by them for hundreds of years though, the earliest Minucius Augurinus in the consular fasti is early in the 5th century BC.

The type associated with the particular issue in question (C. Minucius Augurinus) is one of the most studied in the entirety of the Roman Republican series (together with Ti. Minucius Augurinus), specifically due to the depiction of the Columna Minucia. The most commonly accepted explanation of the cognomen 'Augurinus' is that it refers to the augurate of M. Minucius Faesus, who was one of the first plebeians in the college of augurs in 300 BC. Most modern scholars follow the interpretation that the use of the cognomen for earlier Minucii in the consular fasti are interpolations from the later Republic: Oakley, S.P. 2005. A Commentary on Livy Books VI-X: Volume 6, p. 118; Rix H. 1995. Römische Personennamen. In Namenforschung I, pp. 724-732; and especially Wiseman, T.P. 1996. The Minucii and Their Monument. In . Imperium Sine Fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic. Historia Einzelschriften 105, pp. 57-71.

Sorry if I'm getting a little overly pedantic... I just have a special fondness for the issue in question - The example I own of C. Minucius Augurinus once belonged to E.J. Haeberlin and is by far the most impressive piece I have in my collection.

[Andrew McCabe]

Firstly, congratulations on the ex Haeberlin coin. Did you get it out of the AK collection which had many 1930s provenance pieces, some from Haeberlin?

There was a paper on this coin at the INC, by Jane de Rose Evans, "The Restoration of Memory, Minucius and his Monument". Roughly paraphrasing, it said that the scene depicted was a non-existent column with non-existent ancestors, all a made-up story to lend an undeserved gloss to family history. It was an attempt by the Minucii who had long been out of power to restablish their families reputation and promote the brothers into the Senate. The form of the column and its associated bells and whistles was a large part of her thesis. I was quite convinced anyway. She thinks the statue on top is "Consus", you can see coin here: https://tinyurl.com/sv67atf and read about Consus here: http://tinyurl.com/AriConsus

The possibiity that the Minucii were lying about their ancestry reinforces if anything the importance of the augurate.

Also worth noting are the opinions of J.Rufus Fears and contrary opinions of Elizabeth Rawson on the importance of the augurate in the last century of the Republic. Rufus Fears considered it hugely important, and cites Cornuficius' coin with the interesting augural imagery and titling https://tinyurl.com/qk3dnw9 as evidence. The debate is briefly summarised on my site if you scroll down the list of issues commented on by Michael Crawford in 1984, to Crawford 509 (Cornuficius): https://tinyurl.com/tyf3275.

[amadis]

Hi Andrew,

Yes, my ex-Haeberlin coin was one of those sold as part of the AK with provenance prior to that going back to the Cahn Hess auction of Haeberlin's collection.

Jane de Rose Evans thesis sounds very similar to T.P. Wiseman's thesis in the work I cited. He doesn't go so far as to dismiss the actual existence of a physical column, but he does dismiss the aetiological explanations for its existence from Livy and Pliny. Wiseman is a well-known skeptic of the school of thought that the narrative of early Roman history that we have is mostly factual, and I wouldn't be surprised if de Rose Evan's work is based on Wiseman.

[Andrew McCabe]

Hi amadis,

I'm obviously chatting to someone who knows the subject very well. A question: does Essays Broughton have any other numismatically interesting essays other than the Wiseman? Festschrifts can be hit and miss. I recently read and will shortly review online a paper by Loomis in Essays Badian about the early denarius, and it is great, with a comprehensive review of sources, although the only numismatic article within. And Festschrift Michael Grant has just been published, all about coins but unfortunately heavily biased towards the Auctoritas than Imperium end (mostly containing essays of provincial copper coins 27BC-10BC or thereabouts). I assume you know my library and reviews (link below). I just got Ezechiel Spanheim's massive (22 pounds) two volume illustrated work on coin typology Dissertatio de Praestantia et Usu Numismatum Antiquorum, Rome 1664 and am looking forward to browsing in my weak Latin for different older opinions. In 30 minutes browsing I already found one alternative story (for the letter L.P.D.A.P. on the bronzes of 90BC which he thinks stands for somethine different). More fun to follow. Something to fill those long winter evenings.

[zeid]

.........  The emperor was (I believe) always an augur too, and it was a very prestigious position in itself.  Just look at the coinage of Mark Antony, whose coins feature the lituus, and often have the partial legend AVG, which shows how much prestige he attached to the office.  He was particularly proud of his election to that post, and the circumstances it happened.

Steve

Sure it was a very prestigious position in itself...

TOP IMAGE: We can see Mark Antony in  38 BC. Denarius....proudly standing right, veiled and wearing the priestly robe of an augur, holding lituus

2ND IMAGE: Same thing can be said on Augustus as depicted in the altar of the Lares...he was shown In the center as a proud augur with the lituus

3RD IMAGE: This 82-80 BC.  Denarius showed M. Servilius Pulex Geminus, who was elected augur in 211 BC and held that office for about forty years, and was consul in 202 BC. According to Plutarch, he received numerous wounds in twenty-three single combats, being victorious in all ....

4th IMAGE: Augur priests can be ceasars...Great Warriors and fighters...and possibly Procurators

I think Pontius Pilate himself - was a  devotee Augur priest ..

Let us see what Robert_Brenchley  may say about this debatable assumption...

 

Bronze prutah- Caesarea mint

[Steve Minnoch]

As prefect of Judaea, Pilate should have been an equestrian.  I'd be astounded if there were any augurs not of senatorial rank.  In my opinion, the lituus refers to Tiberius.

Steve

[zeid]

As prefect of Judaea, Pilate should have been an equestrian.  I'd be astounded if there were any augurs not of senatorial rank.  In my opinion, the lituus refers to Tiberius.

Steve

he could be a descendant  from  a family of  Augur priests or other related Roman  religious sects:


the wikipedia mentioned that Pilatus was the name given to a hat worn by the devotees of the Dioskouroi. The Castorian cult was well established throughout the empire and persisted well into the 5th Century AD particularly among the Dacian and Sarmatian soldiers throughout the frontiers of the empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_pilate

while  Pontius, indicates that he was of the tribe of Pontii. It was one of the most famous of the ancient Samnite names. The surname or cognomen Pilatus indicates the familia, or branch of the gens Pontius. The name is uncertain, though some think it may have meant "armed with the pilum" (a spear or javelin). One interesting note is about another man in Roman history bearing the name. Lucius Pontius Aquila was a friend of  and one of the assassins of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March (44 BC) when the would-be king was murdered

http://www.bible-history.com/empires/pilate.html

1-Caesar was due to appear at a session of the Senate...2-Lucius Pontius Aquila  a friend of Cicero was one of the assassin...

Pontius Pilate a relative to Lucius Pontius Aquila ?...

or a descendant  from  a family of  Augur priests?

or an enthusiast  for Tiberius... the  biggest augur priest of his time...

who knows ?

[Andrew McCabe]

Zeid,

Excellent and well-illustrated post, I guess I'm a pedantic nitpicker but the obverse and reverse of the coin are switched from the normal layout (obverse left, reverse right) as Antony as augur is the obverse, and Sol the reverse. Same coin (which is in my collection) shown the correct way round: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/3569149814

It is not just a question of the pictures however, as the legend starts on the obverse (Antony as augur) and finishes on reverse (Sol).

Taken to its literal extreme however that would mean the obverse/reverse of Cornuficius' coins should also be reversed as likewise Cornuficius appears in his augural robes and a god's head on the other side.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've read this, but I don't believe it. I think the coin is the only thing linking Pilate with the augurate, and as Steve Minnoch said, he wasn't of high enough rank to be a credible candidate for the office.

[Bamba123]

As someone noted the Catholics to this date carry a shepards staff as the tend to the flock.  The Chi-Ro uses the staff.
"the royal priesthood of Christ’s faithful. It comprises the symbol of the Savior's Name, the two Greek initial letters “Chi” or “X” intersecting “Rho” or “P” at the center indicating the name “Christos”. “Rho” is formed in a shape of a shepherd staff. At the side of the Greek symbol of “Christos.  The church used many holidays and symbols from the "pagans" so I guess it is not too much of a stretch they used symbols from the Romans.

[zeid]

are you referring  to this kind of "Golden" shepherd's staff ?