One of the rarest Domna coins from Nikopolis

[Jochen]

Hi!

Yesterday I got this rare coin of Julia Domna from Nikopolis ad Istrum. Referring to Varbanov it is the rarest type.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Julia Domna, died AD 217
AE 26, 10.90g, 26.48mm
struck under governor Aurelius Gallus
obv. IOVLIA DO - MNA CEBA
        Bust, draped, r.; hair in seven horizontal waves and broad plate behind
rev. VPA AVR GALLOV - NIKOPOLITWN / PROC IC (OV ligate)
       Aphrodite in attitude of the Capitoline Venus stg. facing: left beside her Eros, winged,
       nude, stg. facing, head r., holding in lowered l. hand wreath and in r. hand torch
       downwards
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1455, pl. XV, 33 (1 ex., St.Petersburg)
      b) Varbanov (engl.) 2900 (R7!)
very rare, about VF, nice green patina

Pick: The A on the rev. always looks like a Lambda. So it could well read VP L AVR. Doubtlessly this depiction of Aphrodite shows the pic of a statue. Probably copies of these statues were located in Nikopolis too.
 
I have only found one pic with a similar composition: Venus felix with Cupido at her l. side. The Venus Felix is a sculpture of Venus and her son Cupid. It was dedicated by Sallustia and Helpidus to Venus Felix. Its head resembles Faustina the Younger. It is now held at the Museo Pio-Clementino of the Vatican Museums, Rome. But here Cupid has not the attributes wreath and torch as he has on the coin.

Best regards

[slokind]

That is one of the best specimens that you just got, but it really is only Scarce, pace Varbanov.  In such condition as yours it is rare.  I have three, and the first two are not well preserved; the third (attached) was more expensive.
It is a coin that particularly interests me, and it is one of those with the basic Capitoline Aphrodite type that this period liked so well.  Some copies of the Capitoline type do have an Eros by her legs (also he makes a good support for a marble statue), but not always the same pose of Eros.  On the coins of Nicopolis the use of the Capitoline type goes back to Auspex, and, without the Eros, you have her both for Domna and for Plautilla in the period of Caracalla's marriage when Gallus was governor.  As on a whole series of denarii at Rome, I think that here a Domna with an Eros beside Aphrodite alludes, none too subtly, to the empress as mother of the young heir.
Rarity doesn't really matter.  This is a delightful Eros (it also cements our refusal to call other little figures with wreath and torch anything but Eros).  It is by far the most interesting of the Nicopolis Aphrodite coins.
So far as rarity is concerned, if my own experience is any indication, the ones for Domna with Aphrodite alone are rarer.  This coin, like the Priapus ones, is rare in the sense that everyone would like to have one, and there aren't nearly enough to go around!
Congratulations.  My best one is better than the one in Pick's plates (AMNG I, 1, pl. XV, 32-33, for the Aphrodite alone and with Eros), and yours is at least as good as mine (better for patina). See attached.
Pat L.
CLICK to zoom.
P.S. Here is the Capitoline name-type with the Louvre and Uffizi ones that have Eros attached (old photos).  The Venus Felix is an Antonine pastiche, loosely based on the Capitoline (but it even lacks the bowknot of hair on top of head).  In my opinion, the Nicopolis coin has an original combination of an Eros type and the Capitoline Aphrodite type.

[rennrad12020]

I had to have this reverse with that cool OV ligature so I purchased one a couple of years ago.

AE 26 10.9gr.  Julia Domna Nikopolis ad Istrum Gallus

Ob: IOVΛIA ΔO / MNA CEBA
Draped bust right, hair in bun
Rev: VΠA AVP ΓAΛΛ8 (ligature) / NIKOΠOΛITΩN (iota faint)
Ex: ΠPOC I
Aphrodite pudica with small winged Eros standing to left

AMNG 1455 Varbanov 2900 This coin has the rare OV (depicted by the symbol 8 in Varbanov) ligature.

Varbanov incorrectly lists the obv. legend as K= ΘEA ΔOMNA CEBACTH This does not match the coin depicted on page 252  and seems improbable from the work I’ve done so far on grouping these reverse dies with obverses.   

I had included this reference from wiki or some such online reference with my acquisition notes:

     The Aphrodite of Cnidus was one of the most famous works of the Attic sculptor Praxiteles (4th century BC). It and its copies are often referred to as the Venus Pudica (modest Venus) type, on account of her covering her groin with her right hand. Variants of the Venus Pudica (suggesting an action to cover the breasts) are the Venus de' Medici or the Capitoline Venus.

     The statue became famous for its beauty, meant to be appreciated from every angle, and for being the first life-size representation of the nude female form. It depicted the goddess Aphrodite as she prepared for the ritual bath that restored her virginity, discarding her drapery in her left hand, while modestly shielding her genitals with her right hand.


In addition, here is my other Venus rev from NadI (one of the ugly ducklings of my collection)

AE 26 11.6gr. Plautilla Nikopolis ad Istrum Gallus

Ob: ΦOV[Λ ΠΛAV / TIΛ]ΛA.CEB
Draped bust right
Rev: VΠ AVP∙ ΓAΛ]ΛOV / NEIKOΠOΛI ΠPOC IC
Venus Pudica

AMNG I/1 -; Varbanov (E) I 3202; Varb(B) 2529 (seller ID)

N.B.   NEIK… orthography.  This coin was harshly cleaned; pretty much stripped.

Nice coin Jochen, very attractive patina!


JPW

P.S. notice how the epsilon is starting to wear out on the obverse die.  This common obverse must have been used with many other dies before this reverse.  I think only one rev die of this type, all with JDomna.

[Jochen]

Thanks for your contributions. I have made the necessary corrections. Pick describes this Aphrodite as Capitoline type and the Aphrodite of the attached coins as Medici type. But even looking on many pics I can't recognize essential differences. Any help?

Diadumenian, AD 217-218
struck under legate Marcus Claudius Agrippa
obv. KM OPPEL ANTWNI DIADOVMENIANOC
bare head, r.
rev. VP AGRIPPA NIKO - POLITWN PROC IC / TIW(sic!)
Aphrodite in attitude of Venus Medici standing facing, head r., hair in bun, wearing palla,
holding puff of drapery in r. arm and l. hand before belly; r. flaming
altar, l. dolphin, standing vertical with head down
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1799 corr., pl. XV, 34 (3 ex., Bukarest, Turin, traded), same rev. die
b) Varbanov (engl.) 3667 corr. (cites AMNG 1799)
1st coin: AE 29, 10.59g, 28.97mm, about VF, unequal patina,
2nd coin: AE 27, 13.53g, 27.38mm, about VF, without patina, as found

Pick has written: in ex. TRW. But here as well on his pic it is clearly TIW. Directly at the right side of the I a vertical die break, seen on Pick's specimen too.

Best regards

[slokind]

I don't do this to be lazy, but the most useful compendium of Aphrodite types that I know of is that of my student Angel Arvello.  She set out to write on the Medici Venus, but to define it she had to study all the others.  It is the Medici type that is the more elusive, having fewer real copies.  By the way, the Mac-Dia one does refer to the Medici type, but it is aberrant, with its cloak and apparent boots!  The same engraver made the equally unintelligible Agrippa Sauroktonos.
http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04142005-032052/
At the bottom of the university's cover page you can download it.  This thesis was the biggest headache I ever endured, but the finished product does contain careful comparisons.  I made her remove some mystically feminist things, and another member of the committee wanted her to pursue nothing but those things.
Pat L.

[rennrad12020]

  Thanks for attaching that thesis Pat.  I read the numismatic chapter; a very interesting read! I knew this was super nuanced so have just contented myself with the Venus pudica attribution in the past.  This label seems to concisely state the pose, although certainly not as accurately as Medici or Capitoline.  My stripped reverse die is mentioned on p. 161, so I'm glad I included it.

JPW

[slokind]

Actually, Venus Pudica is a genre of her statuary: any representation showing hands used for shielding is Pudica.
Since the ancient Greeks and Romans of the Empire, all over it, did know which type they were choosing to use, it is right and sometimes important for us to recognize them, too.  The Medici type not only has different proportions but a different hairdo and she leans forward (the Medici one itself is restored not quite right; see the New York one, which never was badly broken, for the pose), and the head is turned much farther.  The determinedly ignorant are forever saying that Botticelli used the Medici as his point of departure; he used the Capitoline type.  Where the head has not been meddled with, the Captitoline always has that bowknot atop her head AND tresses on the sides down to her shoulders.  The coins are within their compass very attentive to this type's basic features and character.  Therefore, what wasn't just a "nuance" for them cannot be a "nuance" for us when we are studying what they have left us.
The first and last chapters of Arvello's thesis can be skipped by numismatists, but not the statues.  Those are what you need.
Pat L.
Note how like halves of grapefruit or cantaloupe melons the hard, round breasts of the Capitoline are, on all three copies of which I had pictures (above) and not only those copies.  The Medici, which has High Hellenistic elegance, also has soft and nuanced (if we want to use that word) breasts.

[Jochen]

Thanks for your posts and for providing the work of your student. Reading it will be my task for the Christmas holidays.

Best regards

[OldMoney]

My comment does not relate so much to the type, as to the fact
that this coin has been struck twice, an apparent flip-strike.
Rotate the obverse about 135° counter-clockwise and you will
see the undertype is the same or much the same as the reverse.
I think there are also fragments of the obverse undertype below
the present reverse as well.
Interesting!

I have fiddled with the image and pointed out the features I see.
I expect that a closer examination of the coin will reveal more of
these details to the viewer.
What do you think? !!
Best wishes,

Walter Holt

[rennrad12020]

Nuanced was not meant in any sort of pejorative way Pat.  It is only an indication of my own self-admitted ignorance on the distinctions between different statuary types.  Venus pudica is surely more accurate than Venus.

As I stated above, for me, the most important characteristics of this die are the OV ligature and the wear exhibited on the obverse dies of all our exempla (Varbanov’s depicted as well).   Perhaps this view is merely an indication of my own epigraphic and prosopographic methodology.

This singular die is probably best explained from a type approach as either being the “quotation” of a nonextant statue from N ad I or it and the later Macrinus/Diadumenian type could be evaluated, as Avello stated on pg 163(150) “The two types might also reflect different die makers and their particular familiarity with or preference for different statue types.” Two very different and speculative solutuions. 

I think it would be most productive to discuss the four Severan types together, which ceased to be produced after Gallus.  Some (Plautilla) for obvious reasons.  These would be:

Figure 4.10 (p.149) 2 types:
1.   Aphrodite alone Sept Sev (not signed)
2.   Gallus JDomna Capitoline originally posted by Jochen

3.Plautilla signed
4. JDomna unsigned

In addition why was this type (Venus) made during the tenure of Auspex and Gallus, but discontinued later until Macrinus?  It cannot be explained as being an exclusively female reverse since we have that Sept Sev witness (unless that is a mule).  Preferences of Caracalla?

Was the capitoline Venus reproduced again or on any other dies at NadI after AMNG 1455?  Perhaps this would indicate whether its source was an extant statue or engraver's imagination.  As Avello demostrated earlier in Chpt. 4 the engraver could add, subtract or even depict the pose inverted.

JPW

[areich]

Are not clashed dies a more likely explanation than I suppose what you would call a flip over doublestrike?

[Jochen]

I too think it is a double-strike. I have noted it in my description but not mentioned it here. Thanks for your mindfulness.

Hi areich, a clashed die always produces a mirrored picture. But here the visible part of the altar is not mirrored and can't be the product of clashed dies.

Best regards

[areich]

Yes, you are right. Quite unusual for these heavy coins to flip over.

[slokind]

JPW:
I just used one picture above.  In the web page https://www.forumancientcoins.com/ayiyoryitika/Auspex_Dies.html you will find that the primary and signed and dated one for Septimius is 1b which is used with the primary, and probably first, obverse die for Septimius and which bears the signature of Pollenius Auspex (on whom see A. Stein and Beamtennamen since in the 1890s he was just beginning to emerge, when Pick wrote).  Be careful not to yield to the temptation to schematize before you have in hand all the available material.  On that web page, see obverses 1, 4, and 5 (and in another thread Curtis argued that "5" is really two dies: I'm still not sure) and for the complete coins 1b, 4a, and 5b.  The unsigned ones are evidently secondary.  So, it isn't just that Septimius has an Aphrodite of this kind but that he has one before Domna at N ad I has any datable coins at all, let alone any Aphrodites.
I wish we still had Coin Archives, to check for a tetrassarion-size signed Aphrodite for Domna.  Perhaps, indeed, her Gallus with Eros counts as such.  I don't know.  At one time I thought that the Domna portrait on that coin might be linkable with coins for Caracalla and Plautilla  from the brief 'honeymoon' of their marriage.  I haven't worked on these for a while.
Also, because she lived so far from LSU, I was unable to prevent Arvello's use (which wiser heads had made me abandon long before she turned in the thesis) of the term "quotation".  As with all other such metaphors, great care is needed.

[Britannicus]

That is one of the best specimens that you just got, but it really is only Scarce, pace Varbanov.  In such condition as yours it is rare.  I have three, and the first two are not well preserved; the third (attached) was more expensive.
[...]
So far as rarity is concerned, if my own experience is any indication, the ones for Domna with Aphrodite alone are rarer. 

Yes indeed. I've also got three of the Domna Aphrodite-with-Eros coins, and on recent trips to Bulgaria saw several more on sale. They don't seem to be terribly rare, whatever Mr. Varbanov may think. Pat's is the nicest one that I know of, although back in 2004 there was another attractive specimen in an internet auction (not eBay), I've lost the information unfortunately. 
On the other hand, I've only got one of the Aphrodite alone types, and one of the Diadumenian Aphrodite-with-altar-and-dolphin coins.

Francis

[slokind]

The awareness of not quite remembering something has been nagging at me ever since I posted my two Julia Domna Aprhodites above, near the head of this thread.
It is an all-important die link for the Domna with Aphrodite alone.
When, deo volente, I get the rest of Francis Jarman's Eros types (most of which he sent me months ago) up into Prolegomena Eros, https://www.forumancientcoins.com/ayiyoryitika/ProlegomenaEros/ProlegomenaEros.html
you will find that Type 16 is Eros Asleep, a coin I most ardently desire and lack.  But Francis has one, and, by permission, he illustrates one also in Varbanov (Engl) I, no. 2856.  This wonderful, unique reverse is
(a) AMNG I, 1, no. 1468, for Julia Domna (her Capitoline Aphrodite being Pick's no. 1467)and (b) AMNG I, 1, no. 1489 for Caracalla, the reverse die, Eros Asleep, being shared.
Now, Caracalla is Caesar, and Domna looks even daintier than in her sole larger, signed Tertullus obverse die: see her with the Haimos and with Nike driving a Quadriga here: http://picasaweb.google.com/slokind/TERTULLUSSTUDYGROUP#
Therefore, this unsigned coin, of triassarion size, Æ21, and brass, antedates Caracalla's becoming co-Augustus in AD 198.
And the Domna with Aphrodite alone, unsigned, also falls within the years 196-198 when Caracalla was Caesar.  We have no larger coins than these for either the child Caesar or his mother before Tertullus.  We have a tetrassarion-size Aphrodite alone for Septimius on a signed (as well as those unsigned: see above) coin issued by Auspex.
Unless both Auspex and Gentianus have to fit into the span when Caracalla was Caesar, it is likeliest that the Sleeping Eros and the other coins that share her obverse die, such as the above, were issued by Gentianus, in which case it is possible that the medium size brass, with his head to left, of Septimius were also issued by Gentianus—but in that case the Auspex Aphrodite of Capitoline type for Septimius remains the earliest at Nicopolis for the Severan family.
Pat L.
P.S. As the intermediary between Francis Jarman's catalogue and its completed posting in the web page I am culpable for its being further delayed.  I badly need help in dealing with Dreamweaver CS3 and my site.  I'll try to get help, if I can't figure it out (with new eyeglasses) by myself.  If only I'd dared to learn basic html and write everything in code, as Doug Smith and Bill Welch did!
Pat L.