This temple on the
rare sestertii of 151-2 has sometimes been misidentified as the temple of
Divus Augustus and
Diva Livia, because a very similar eight-columned temple of Corinthian order, with two seated cult
statues between the columns and
statues on bases before the outer columns of the temple, also appeared on coins of Antoninus eight and nine years later, in 159-60 (TR P XXII-XXIII), now with the explicit
legend TEMPLVM DIV AVG REST COS IIII (
S - C) or AEDE DIVI AVG REST
COS IIII (
S - C); see image from
CoinArchives below. That
legend means, of course, "Antoninus
restored the Temple (or Shrine) of the Divine
Augustus", so the temple shown on these coins is without doubt that of
Divus Augustus.
Eckhel in the 1790s, however, already realized that the temple on the earlier
sestertii of 151-2 was probably instead that of Divus
Hadrian and
Diva Sabina, and this
identification was argued at length and persuasively by
Strack (1937), pp. 144-6. The main arguments are:
1. Since Antoninus, as the coins prove,
restored the Temple of
Divus Augustus in 159, there was no reason for him to show the same temple on
his sestertii eight years earlier.
2. On the coins of 159-60, the
legend explicitly states that the temple shown is that of
Divus Augustus, which Antoninus
had restored; but on the
sestertii of 151-2 the only descriptive
legend was
PIETAS. Now Antoninus' restoration of the Temple of
Divus Augustus could be called an
act of
Pietas or Duty, but he exhibited that virtue much more strongly by deifying and building a temple for
his adoptive father
Hadrian! The Senate hated
Hadrian and
had resisted Antoninus' wish to consecrate
Hadrian after
his death in July 138; but when Antoninus insisted, the Senate reluctantly complied, consecrated
Hadrian, and voted Antoninus the name Pius, because he was so insistent on honoring
his adoptive father. PIVS was from then on a constant element in Antoninus' name on the coins, and it has become
part of
his modern name too,
Antoninus Pius. PIVS meant that he
had consecrated
Hadrian; therefore
PIETAS was the appropriate
legend on
his sestertii showing the Temple of
Hadrian in 151-2.
3. On
his coins of 138-early 139, Antoninus added Hadrian's names
Aelius and Hadrianus to
his own, to
honor his father and since those names were now
his too because of the adoption. But in the course of 139 Antoninus dropped these names of
Hadrian from
his coins, because, we may assume, the circumstances of
his accession were now fading into the past, and in order not to irritate the Senate unduly.
These names of
Hadrian only returned one more time to Antoninus' coins, namely from sometime in the course of
his fourteenth until sometime in the course of
his fifteenth tribunician year. In these years Antoninus' numismatic titulature changed from
ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P XIIII /
COS IIII to
IMP CAES T AEL ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P /
TR POT XIIII
COS IIII, adding
IMP CAES T AEL (very briefly, these coins are very
rare) to
IMP CAES T AEL HADR
ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P /
TR POT XIIII (or XV)
COS IIII, adding HADR too, the titles of the
PIETAS sestertii, and finally back to
ANTONINVS AVG PIVS P P TR P XV /
COS IIII, omitting
IMP CAES T and Hadrian's names as earlier.
It is hard to resist Strack's conclusion that the
PIETAS Temple
sestertii explain this reemergence of Hadrian's names in Antoninus' numismatic titulature: in 151/2 Antoninus completed and dedicated
his Temple of Divus
Hadrian, and he therefore once again added Hadrian's names to
his own on the coins.
4. Finally, there are small differences between the temple shown on the coins in 151-2 and that shown in 159-60, confirming that they were in fact different temples.
a. The Temple of
Augustus has two small altars (?) on the steps of the temple, which are missing from the steps of Hadrian's temple.
b. In Hadrian's temple, only the statue on the left,
Hadrian himself, holds a
scepter, in
his left hand. In the temple of
Augustus, both
Augustus and
Livia hold scepters, and in their right
hands not their left.
c. The Temple of
Augustus never shows the mysterious
palm trees of the Temple of
Hadrian; perhaps, I suppose, a reference to Hadrian's suppression of the
Jewish revolt, or, more likely, festive decoration for the dedication of the temple, indicating
victory more generally. A marvelous bronze
medallion of Philip I-II and
Otacilia Severa shows that for Philip's Millennial Games of 248, the obelisk on the spina of the
Circus Maximus was transformed into a
palm tree!
In conclusion, the
PIETAS sestertii of 151-2 pretty certainly depict the Temple of Divus
Hadrian, and teach us two facts that were otherwise unknown: that Antoninus completed and dedicated
his Temple of Divus
Hadrian in 151-2, and that that temple also included the statue of
Diva Sabina, and was clearly the center of her cult too.
Sabina had died and been consecrated a year or two before
Hadrian.
Similarly, the coins of 159-60 prove that Antoninus must have
restored the Temple of
Divus Augustus in 159, and that Augustus' temple also included a statue of
Diva Livia and must have been the center of her cult in addition to Augustus' cult, two facts that, again, are otherwise unattested!