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Author Topic: Spes with flower on head on Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus  (Read 925 times)

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Offline curtislclay

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Spes, of course, usually advances left, carrying a flower in her right hand and pulling up her skirt with her left hand. The type is quite common on old-style Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus and Julia Domna, where, however, Spes is also frequently given a second flower on her head, as I happened to notice today for the first time!

See the first coin below, which I purchased a month ago because of the unusual double break in the obv. legend (SE - V - PERT), the rather rare rev. legend form BONA SPES, and the two dots in the rev. legend at 11 and 5 o'clock.

Today I wrote a ticket for that coin and placed it in my trays, only noticing afterward, from my printout of the dealer's picture which was still on my desk, that Spes has a second flower on top of her head.

Looking for parallels, I found that this Eastern Spes quite often has a second flower on her head, sometimes with three petals like the flower in her hand, but sometimes with just two petals. One coin in my collection has just a single line above Spes' head, so we can't be sure a flower was meant; another coin has a small modius on her head, an attribute that is quite often given to other female divinities on these old-style Syrian denarii of Septimius and Julia Domna.

The second flower on Spes' head can be observed not only in Septimius' COS II old-style series, but in his IMP II and IMP VIII series; see Barry Murphy's photos below of two coins formerly in his Severan collection, the first an IMP II example with just two petals above Spes' head, the second an IMP VIII with three petals. The Spes type does not appear to have been used by the mint of Alexandria, so we cannot tell whether or not the second flower would have been added there too.  As far as I know a second flower was never added to the Spes type at the mint of Rome, but I haven't looked very far and certainly can't exclude that I might have overlooked it on some Rome-mint coins too!
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Offline curtislclay

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Re: Spes with flower on head on Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus
« Reply #1 on: March 22, 2017, 10:32:47 pm »
The second coin above (IMP II), has three petals above Spes' head; for IMP II with two petals, see the coin below, also formerly in Barry's collection.

In a quick search I am unable to find any published observation of this second flower in the Eastern Spes type. Barry Murphy didn't notice it, just like me. It is not described in BMC, where in a note to a Spes coin of Pescennius Niger Mattingly asserts that "Spes usually, but not invariably, wears polos on head." It was not noticed by B.A. Seaby in his Roman Silver Coins, nor by Schmidt-Dick in her treatment of the Spes type in her Typenatlas I, pp. 111-2. A further confirmation of the well-known truth that we are likely to overlook things that we were not expecting to see!
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Offline dougsmit

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Re: Spes with flower on head on Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus
« Reply #2 on: March 22, 2017, 10:58:12 pm »
Looking at mine, there seems to have been a lot of freedom in the matter.  1, 2, 3 modius?, dot and, of course, coins in poor enough shape it is harder to tell what was the intention.


Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Spes with flower on head on Syrian denarii of Septimius Severus
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2017, 03:55:34 pm »
Looking though my collection. There are about 15 eastern Spes examples. I don't have anything not listed above.

My only IMP VIII is from the same dies as Barrys coin.

My IMP II coins both seem to be 3 petal varities. Here is one.



My COS II seem to be 1, 2, 3, modius, Dot. Some are indeterminate but are probably Small 1s







Interesting. A detail that has completely passed me by.





 

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