Globes on Roman coins

[Red Henry]

I have a coin of Constantius II with the familiar phoenix standing-on-globe reverse, and it shows a fair amount of detail. Examining the globe carefully, I make out two criss-crossing lines which may be of latitude and longitude, as well as at least five stars on the globe's surface. These features indicate that a celestial globe may be depicted here.

In that case, I have a couple of questions for the experts:

(1) did the Romans make actual celestial globes? -- representations of the universe as they knew it? Or was such a globe's depiction on coins just an abstract idea without a physical counterpart? 

-- and, (2) are terrestrial globes, as opposed to celestial ones, depicted on any Roman coins?

Red Henry

[Jochen]

Please, take a look at this thread http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=64450.msg402794#msg402794

Because of the legend there is some probability that the depicted globe means the orbis terrarum!

Best regards

[commodus]

There is surviving material showing that the Romans did, in fact, produce terrestrial globes, though no actual original examples still exist. I suspect more of the globes depicted on coinage are terrestrial than celestial, judging by their accompanying elements and, in many cases, legends or their presence as attributes of certain deities for whom a terrestrial globe would make more sense than a celestial one.

[antvwala]

References:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47694.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47496.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47566.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47626.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47564.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47785.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47614.0

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47617.0

 

Antvwala

[cliff_marsland]

Doesn't Didius' Rector Orbis have one?  Also, Nero's Victory asses.

[commodus]

Doesn't Didius' Rector Orbis have one?  Also, Nero's Victory asses.

Yes, and many others as well. Indeed there are so many I cannot even begin to name them all.

[quisquam]

I don't think there are asses of Nero showing a globe on reverse.

Stefan

[areich]

There's the type with Victory and a shield:

http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=16135

[commodus]

There's the type with Victory and a shield:

http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=16135

That is a globe.
One of the attributes of Victory (Nike) is that she often stands beside or upon a terrestrial globe. In this case, the SPQR upon it is a proclamation of Rome's mastery of the world. Besides which, it makes no sense for a shield to be placed in that position. When she carries a shield it is held higher, before her chest, or opposite at chest level so she can inscribe it -- not before her feet! I know that there are numismatic references which (incorrectly) state that this is a shield, but they are wrong. I do wish that those compiling reference works were a bit better versed in Classics. I encounter many an error regarding the Classical deities and other representations, often -- as doubtelss was first the case in calling this a shield -- mere guesses. Then they are repeated by others who take them at their word and eventually it becomes virtually impossible to correct the error.

[pierre_p77]

Some other discussions about globes:

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=40755.0
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=345.0
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=47703.0

[curtislclay]

Commodus wrote:

"Quote from: areich on Today at 03:25:10 pm
"There's the type with Victory and a shield:

"http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=16135


"That is a globe.
"One of the attributes of Victory (Nike) is that she often stands beside or upon a  terrestrial globe. In this case, the SPQR upon it is a proclamation of Rome's mastery of the world. Besides which, it makes no sense for a shield to be placed in that position. When she carries a shield it is held higher, before her chest, or opposite at chest level so she can inscribe it -- not before her feet! I know that there are numismatic references which (incorrectly) state that this is a shield, but they are wrong. I do wish that those compiling reference works were a bit better versed in Classics. I encounter many an error regarding the Classical deities and other representations, often -- as doubtelss was first the case in calling this a shield -- mere guesses. Then they are repeated by others who take them at their word and eventually it becomes virtually impossible to correct the error."

My comment:

What Nero's Victory is holding on his asses is unquestionably a shield.

The type descends from those of Augustus commemorating the Senate's award to him of a golden "shield of prowess", for example the one below where Victory holds the shield, inscribed CL(upeus) V(irtutis), Shield of Prowess, while the donors of the shield, SPQR, are recorded in the left field.

[commodus]

On the Augustus types Victory holds a shield before her chest, no question of it. Placement at the feet is indicative of the globe of the Victory statue which stood in the Forum of Augustus (pieces of which still exist and are displayed in the Markets of Trajan). The coins are related types and conceptually somewhat similar, and while I do not question that one descends from the other (but does not copy), the one bears a representation of a shield and the other a representation of a globe, as indicated by their respective placement relative to Victory herself. Perhaps there is a double meaning on the Nero pieces; it seems plausible that this might be, as both shield and globe are attributes of Victory.

[curtislclay]

Commodus, it is a shield!

What globe could ever be held with one hand from the top? What globe ever had a rim in lower relief?

I would venture to say that on Roman coins any round object BEARING AN INSCRIPTION must be a shield rather than a globe.

[commodus]

I am not convinced there isn't possibly a double meaning and that this doesn't represent both the orbis terrarum (per the placement at Victory's feet) and, perhaps, a shield (owing to the style and inscription). She does not appear to hold, so much as point to it.
In any case, the concept of Victory accompanied by a globe at her feet is found on other previous coinage types as well, such as the denarius issue by Octavian and Lucius Pinarius Scarpus (Cr. 546/6) and another issued by Octavian alone (RIC 254b). See below (Cr. 546/6 first, RIC 254b second). Granted, these globes are not inscribed, but the globe at her feet as an attribute of Victory is clearly present.
In any case, Curtis, I will defer to your expertise here. Suffice it to say, either way, that globes -- and orbs that are probable representations of globes -- do frequently occur on Roman coinage.

[commodus]

For the record (since it is only linked to above), here is the Nero Victory type in question.

[commodus]

A few other types bearing globes (unrelated to the friendly argument above) that come immediately to mind are (in no particular order):

Augustus RIC 21 (denarius)
Tiberius RIC 64 and RIC 52 and variants (as)
Titus RSC 294 (denarius)
Titus RSC 497 (denarius) -- depicts both globe and shield on reverse
C. Cn. Lentulus Marcellinus Cr. 393/1a (denarius)
Antoninus Pius RIC 73 (denarius)
Augustus (Titus restoration) RIC 198(s) and RIC 460
Titus RIC 158 (aureus)

and myriad representations of Sol and Securitas, for whom the orb is a standard attribute (Sol as Rector Orbis or as Restitutor Orbis, and Securitas as guardian of the safety of the world).

These are but a few. There are many, many others.

[areich]

Impressive that you can immediately think of the corresponding RIC numbers. 
I guess that's where the experience shows.

[commodus]

Impressive that you can immediately think of the corresponding RIC numbers. 
I guess that's where the experience shows.

Thank you. I'd take credit for a phenomenal memory, but actually I just copied them off my flip labels. (all but the aureus; I don't have that one).

[antvwala]

 

[antvwala]

Different interpretations of "orbis terrarvm".

"Orbis terrarvm" translates as "earth." This is because Greeks and Romans knew perfectly well that the Earth is shaped like a globe.

"Orbis terrarvm" translates as "territories of the empire" too, because Romans believed that that those territories of the Earth were outside of the Roman Empire, did not deserve to be taken into account (very arrogance!) .

Hence the double meaning of "Orbis terrarvm, political and astronomical!

Antvwala

[Red Henry]

Do many of the globes, celestial or terrestrial, on Roman coins, show much detail besides the two bands on the "globe and rudder" type of Tiberias? I feel fortunate to have found that phoenix-and-globe coin of Constantius II showing lines and stars.

In search of surviving examples of Roman work, I find that an interesting (and solidly extant) example of a Roman celestial globe, copied after a Greek original, is discussed here:

http://www.physorg.com/news2711.html

--and two more ancient globes (whether or not they are Roman) are shown and discussed here:

http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page11-16.html
 

Red

[Romanorvm]

I know, just corrosion, but it always reminded me of the earth. It's pretty cool that the Romans realized (I think) that the earth was round well before the rest of the world.

[antvwala]

Latitude and longitude? Zodiacal circle? Lines of "centuriation"? Each people has a different opinion!

Antvwala

[antvwala]

The concept of a spherical Earth in ancient Rome

If the orbis terrarum truly represents the spherical shape of the globe, the inevitable question then arises whether the spherical Earth was an established concept in the greek-roman world. Answering this question is essential to give proper interpretation to the symbolism of not only Roman coinage, but also Byzantine.
In the ancient world, astrology and astronomy are the same science and reading universe is basically magic. Initially it is so even in the world greek: Thales for the Earth is an immense round raft that floats watery universe, under the vault of heaven, as the thought of the Egyptians and Mesopotamian peoples. However, in the sixth century BC, the pragmatic observation begins to oppose the interpretation of magic and so there is the idea that the Earth could be in the form of a globe.
The first to question the image Preclassic, was the philosopher Anaximander, born probably in 611 BC (Diogenes Laertius wrote that at the time of the 58th Olympiad in 547 BC, Anaximander had 64 years and then was born in 611 BC). Aetius states in "Place Philosophorum", received up to us in a very fragmented, which Anaximander said that the stars were wheel-shaped, that the Sun was great twenty-eight times the Earth and Moon nineteen, and that the Earth had the form of a coin and it was suspended in the air rather than floating on the ocean. For Anaximander must then revolutionary idea that beneath the ground on which we live, there was again the sky.
A century later, Parmenides, a disciple of Pythagoras, who first supported the roundness of the Earth, as the globe was, in his view, the geometric shape ideal for keeping balance in the universe (Diogenes Laertius writes and lives in the Gathering the doctrines of philosophers, ix.21, which in turn takes the news from Theophrastus.
Idea that, according to some scholars, is attributed to Pythagoras himself (575-490 BC). This same concept was later confirmed in a very authoritative by Plato (427-348 BC). However, it was Aristotle (384-322) who first formulated the scientific inference about the spherical Earth, noting that the shadow of our planet to the moon has a circular shape. The Pythagoreans took up the argument of Aristotle to go much further, arguing that the stars of morning and evening were identical and that all planets, including Earth included, do not they move around the Sun, but at a "central fire" universe.
Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC) had suggested that the Earth revolved around the Sun describes a circular orbit, as evidenced by Archimedes in a letter to Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. The idea of a heliocentric universe was reaffirmed by Seleucus (c. 150 BC), already no longer a hypothesis but as a certainty. The allegations of Seleucus we know through the writings of Sextus Empiricus, greek philosopher of the second century AD, a member of skepticism. In 230 BC Finally, Eratosthenes measured the size of the Earth, concluding that its diameter was 12,629 km, a figure lower than the exact one of just 0.9%!
The idea that the Earth has a round shape is an established concept in the Roman world. Cicero writes: "AC universal principle cernatur leased land based on average mundi, et globular solid undique et in sese ipsa suis nutibus conglobata, dressed floribus, herbis, arboribus, frugibus, quorum omnium incredibilis multitudo INSAT varietate distinguitur. (De Natura Deorum: Consider first the earth as a whole, at the center of the universe, solid round, covered with flowers, grass, trees and crops: the incredible variety of these stands for ' infinite variety of colors. "
A few years later, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) wrote that the spherical form was accepted by the intellectuals of the Western world and the great astronomer Ptolemy (100-175 AD) drew his papers considering the spherical Earth and developing concepts of longitude and latitude.
However, there is a profound difference between the approach of thinking of the Roman and greek. The first is oriented to philosophical speculation and to achieve a better understanding of the universe. The second, essentially practical, knowledge of cartography in order to build roads and the precise location of the territories in the wider Orbis Terrarum. So little interest to processing complex Greek geographers with their system of longitudes and latitudes, preferred, for all practical purposes, use the old image of a circular but flat ground, but not deny the roundness of the celestial sphere, as can be seen good in the world map attributed to Agrippa (63-12 BC), Roman general and politician, a friend of Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, who has survived transmitted by late-medieval copies.

Antvwala



Notes:

1) I do not know if the English is understandable: I do not know English and I translated it from Italian using google

2) This post is a very brief part of my long article (in Italian, but with many photographs of coins and details) on the representation of  the globe in Roman coins and its meaning. If someone wants to copy pdf of this article, simply request it by sending me your email address.

[commodus]

Thanks for your posts, antvwala. They are extremely intersting and the translation is surprisingly clear for an online translation.

That the Greco-Roman world knew the earth was spherical is a given, based on the written record. This record was not unknown to later people and there is no substantial evidence for the now-widespread belief that the majority of Europeans in the Medieval era thought the earth was flat. Most educated people certainly did not. Columbus, himself, in writing to the Spanish monarchs, makes comments that indicate that belief in a spherical earth was widespread and, indeed, was common knowledge in the late fifteenth century. His principal deviation from the prevailing point of view was to suggest that it might be more pear shaped than truly an orb.