I was wondering how to say it for the last two days. It is our wretched inexact vocabulary. The one on your
antoninianus is (a) not independent of the
Victrix statuary
type, and (b) does not look like her, because of the slouched pose, the floppy (though nice-looking) drapery, and other details of that kind, plus the thing she holds on her hand, evidently a Victoriola.* She is, therefore, what a careful art historian calls a Variant of the
Victrix Type. One uses language like this when the derivation is plain but there are significant, not accidental changes. I am reasonably comfortable going as far as Plautilla's
Venus Victrix (
RIC 369, pl. XIII, 14) without saying Variant, but the addition of
Eros and the
head, made to look like
Plautilla herself, would justify calling it a variant. On the other hand,
Julia Domna's, though simplified relative to the Augustan and
Flavian Venus Victrix, has the customary back view (it seems the statue was made to be viewed primarily thus) and LOOKS like the
Venus Victrix Type, especially with respect to her stance. The use of a
Type (and we are talking here of an image in
Rome that everyone knew) on a denarius-size coin or an
aureus need not be exact in every detail but it must be unmistakable at a glance and not introduce significant variations. I
hope that is clear. I didn't want to open a can of worms. A very reasonable question (but without an answer) is whether in some other shrine, let's say in the suburbs or in some Horti, a statue like the one on Caracalla's antonininaus
had been made. That is not impossible. None is among the
statues from the
Baths of
Caracalla, so far as I know (wouldn't that be nice for us coin collectors!). And there is so much variation in
reverse dies, where some of the engravers might not have been natives of
Rome, that the existence of a Variant actual image cannot be posited on the strength of
reverse die variations alone. Anyway, if there WAS a new variant somewhere, the
Romans would promptly give it a new designation, let's pretend one such as
Venus Britannica or
Venus Parthica. depending on when she was made. Just so, we must not extend a
Type name to a statue that merely has a kindred allusion and utilizes reference to a famous
type (and Septimius used it for
Julia D. because it was famous). But, yes, the mature Caracalla's
antoninianus has a Variant
type of the
Victrix; it is not in the same category as Galeria Valeria's
follis (which is why I posted the picture: that is the label of one famous
Type stuck on the MOST famous
Venus type for
Rome, as
Genetrix of
Rome herself).
The Tetrarchy was not very Rome-centered, to put it mildly, and it is plain that Rome's shrines and their images were not decisive at Kyzikos or Thessaloniki or any other the other mints where Galeria's folles were struck.
P.S.
Personifications are not, mostly, famous
Types but elaborations of boilerplate sculptural conventions; they may vary more. When they were famous, as the
Tyche of Antioch by Eutychides, set up c. 270 BC, was, they are used just as exactly as the famous
types of the Gods were.
Patricia Lawrence*On closer examination, I think it may be a
Palladion?
