I considered this question, which seems very subtle to speakers of less inflected langauges, when (for a different purpose, as a photograph) I posted the other day my
Caracalla denarius with
SAL(us)
GEN(eris) HUMANI. My Latin reading instinct told me that this isn't lile
SPES PROBI, though it pushes the envelope, more than suggesting that this child-Augustus (like the little princes in Virgil's 4th eclogue and the infant
Britannicus lifted in Messalina's arms) is something like the Light of the World--and indeed, all the way down to the Pre-Raphaelites, that imagery, verbal or pictorial, goes back to the infant heirs to ancient thrones), though the
Roman precedent for
Caracalla is Trajan's (and Domitian's?
No. Commodus. RIC 396, no. 260, and 434-5, nos. 600 and 606, for sest. and as.
Trajan has different figural
type.
SALVS POSTVMI is more like
SPES PROBI: the well-being / the
hope (inherent in)
Postumus /
Probus. Similarly for the empire, its VIRTVS is of
Probus: true
genitive, as in My
hope is of the Lord--in some old translation of the psalms of David.
But it is the relative novelty and, as G/< said,
his laying it on thick, that probably called attention to it on Probus's coins.
Still,
Virtus,
Pietas,
Salus are characters residing in the
Res Publica. They do seem different from accomplishments of the emperor and
his legions, such as Victoria and even
Pax, or claims to titles such as Restitutor,
Imperator,
Pater (titles of agency), or even
Dominus.
Like Roberrt, I was thinking about this. Clementia is also the name of an official
act, not solely the name of a virtue, but
Vitellius may not have cared whether we made a distinction!
Pat L.
