1) Well, it's been a long time since I
had a 'new' Antonine
sestertius to identify. So I left you my process, not just the conclusion. Right or wrong (meaning, efficient or not), that's how I'd go about it if I
had a new one. One thing that's nice about coins that are NOT from
Forum is that the fun is left to one's own efforts. For me, that makes the coin mine. Also, I don't forget that I have it, if I've studied it myself. You
still could look it up in Paul
Strack. You also could read the text in the front of
BMCRE and
RIC. You could look for it in the studies of famous ancient buildings, such as Tameanko or
Price & Trell. You could read Ward-Perkins on Hadrianic
architecture in the Penguin
History of Art. And lots of other things. Notice that I didn't rob you of finding those books for yourself. I may go back and re-read some of them myself; after all, it's 5 years since I taught
Roman architecture. Anyhow, I always feel, with a coin like this one, that you have shared your pleasure. My privilege. I
hope I left you enough of your own pleasure.
2) Grading
Dyrrhachium drachms is not such a privilege. For me, these coins come in only two grades: nice and not nice. Yours is nice.
Sestertii are worth fussing over.
I attach the photo taken (by one of our students) from the Colosseum. As you see it today, it has the back-to-back apses in the double cella of Maxentius's restoration.
Maxentius was very conscious of Rome's significance. He began the
Basilica Nova which
Constantine finished after eliminating
Maxentius; you can see the brick end wall of the
Basilica Nova to the right of the platform. This platform shows how the
Romans were serious about how they created platforms for bearing temples. Today you can see the continuous vaults. Structures of this kind seem first to have been used for reservoirs and, for example, underneath the orchestra of a theater where you wanted a
deus ex machina effect and especially by the
Romans for supporting the cavea (seating) of a theater or amphitheater. They go back to the Republic period. Having natural cement from Pozzuoli (hence,
pozzolana) enabled their creating building methods with concrete (that is why you don't find such concrete vaulting elsewhere in the Empire). Maxentius's restoration made use of it, and so did
Hadrian and
his team at Tivoli, but he wanted to make a textbook Hellenistic Greek temple here, and it
had all straight walls and timber coffering ceilings in
his original design.
•
Rome,
Forum Romanum. View from the upper Colosseum across to the vault-supported platform of the Temple of
Venus and
Roma (the addorsed vaulted apses are not
part of the original Hadrianic design): remember that
part of the Domus Transitoria is embedded under the platform. We also see, from left to right, the Palatine, four colums of (?), the Arch of
Titus, the tower of the
Church of Sta Francesca Romana behind the Temple of
Venus &
Roma, the standing
side of the
Basilica Nova seen from this end, and, bright white behind it, the Vittoriano; below, the Via dei fori Imperiali.
Photo: Gabriele Chiocca
P.L.
CLICK for 100% zoom
P.S. I ought to have mentioned that the main weight-bearing arches were built of solid tufa or even of harder
stone. Concrete is lighter, but solid
stone has compression strength. The thick walls that look like brick are stuffed with concrete, too (which doesn't have to be fired, firing requiring
wood).
