Classical Numismatics Discussion
  Welcome Guest. Please login or register. 10% Off Store-Wide Sale Until 2 April!!! Explore Our Website And Find Joy In The History, Numismatics, Art, Mythology, And Geography Of Coins!!! Expert Authentication - Accurate Descriptions - Reasonable Prices - Coins From Under $10 To Museum Quality Rarities Welcome Guest. Please login or register. 10% Off Store-Wide Sale Until 2 April!!! Explore Our Website And Find Joy In The History, Numismatics, Art, Mythology, And Geography Of Coins!!! Support Our Efforts To Serve The Classical Numismatics Community - Shop At Forum Ancient Coins

New & Reduced


Author Topic: my pig of the day  (Read 6425 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Frans Diederik

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2918
  • carpe diem, vita brevis est!
my pig of the day
« on: October 07, 2006, 04:52:11 pm »
Last week I met my local dealer for the first time after the summer holidays. He had some stuff noboddy had seen before. Oh boy, I had a field day! I will be posting lovely and interesting coins in the coming period, but this one is my absolute favourite.
I wonder what you think of it...
ANTONINVS AVG.PIVS P.P.TR.P.COS III laureate head right,
IMPERATOR II Sow , suckling four piglets, one in front of her.
RIC 733


Frans

Scipio Helveticus

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2006, 05:15:00 pm »
Is that Antoninus Pius or Freddy Kruger? ::) (OK. Thats my stupid comment for the day!)

Offline Frans Diederik

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2918
  • carpe diem, vita brevis est!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2006, 05:45:36 pm »
 lol ;D

Frans

Offline Howard Cole

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 1655
  • Elymais forever!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2006, 05:52:01 pm »
Boy, did the Roman's have some ugly pigs!!  I do love the pig coins.

Offline maxthrax

  • Consul
  • ***
  • Posts: 135
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2006, 05:52:31 pm »
Is that actually a sow on the reverse? Well .. looks more like kind of a dog... ??? Pluto?...  ;) kiddin'!

Offline Frans Diederik

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2918
  • carpe diem, vita brevis est!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2006, 05:55:35 pm »
I have been searching for the wet drop falling from its nose...

Offline slokind

  • Tribuna Plebis Perpetua
  • Procurator Monetae
  • Caesar
  • *****
  • Posts: 6654
  • Art is an experimental science
    • An Art Historian's Numismatics Studies
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2006, 06:22:46 pm »
Different breed of pigs.  It is a wonderful, wonderful die, in beautiful condition: it is hard being a mother, even as a sow.  The engraver had seen and he captured it all perfectly.  Or, you feel that she looks...fulfilled?  Well, that, too.  Pat L.

Offline Jochen

  • Tribunus Plebis Perpetuus
  • Procurator Monetae
  • Caesar
  • *****
  • Posts: 12278
  • Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat.
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2006, 06:56:17 pm »
Hi!

The rev. shows the white sow of Lavinium. It is part of the founder myth of Rome. See Vergil's Aeneïs 3.388-3.395 where Helenus predicts Aeneas his destiny when he will land in Italy. See also 'The white sow of Lavinium' in the thread 'Mythological interesting coins'!

Best regards

Offline Heliodromus

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2176
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2006, 07:07:51 pm »
Super coin, Frans - I love that reverse!

Ben

Offline maxthrax

  • Consul
  • ***
  • Posts: 135
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2006, 07:23:47 pm »
Hey!

 My double reply was by mistake, and I apologize if I got too far. It is an interesting coin, indeed,
and the message it represents, like all the things Romans and other ancients left for us,
makes much more sense than many of the things we're expected to believe and to live with today.

Geta


virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2006, 08:57:32 pm »
"Boy, did the Romans have some ugly pigs!!!"

As Pat already mentioned, we are looking at a different breed of pig than "Babe".

People sometimes forget that the domestic animals depicted on Roman/Greek coins are fairly distant relatives of our modern animals.
They are, after all, separated by a couple millennia of active breeding for specific traits.

Other than that, I haven't really seen a pig which I'd consider the acme of beauty by any standards.
However, they are pretty tasty, once processed a bit:evil:

G/<

Offline Howard Cole

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 1655
  • Elymais forever!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2006, 06:09:21 am »
You heathen!  I bet you would eat that poor mother and her babies!  So would I. ;D

Now down to the evolution questions, there are still some ugly pigs around!  I have seen many out here in the Pacific Islands!  So cuteness has not bred into all of our domestic animals yet.

virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2006, 07:20:30 am »
You heathen!  I bet you would eat that poor mother and her babies!

I live in an ivory apartment tower and not in a heath nor in the pagus, so I'm definitely not a heathen.


Yes, I regularly boil calves in their mother's milk, so eating pig babies is the least of it.
Pass them apples!

Being where you are, Howard, I hope you haven't acquired the taste for "long pig", however.
Or the inclination to be a filcher.  :evil:

G/<

Offline Frans Diederik

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2918
  • carpe diem, vita brevis est!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2006, 07:52:46 am »
Before this thread ends in a cookery book or a principal discussion about eating pork yes or no, I would like to thank you all for your contributions and especially Jochen who wrote this fantastic series of articles about Mythology and coins, which, I think, everyone should read from before going to bed :angel:

Frans

Offline Robert_Brenchley

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 7307
  • Honi soit qui mal y pense.
    • My gallery
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2006, 04:52:39 pm »
If anyone's ever tempted by long pig, just google for 'kuru'.
Robert Brenchley

My gallery: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/index.php?cat=10405
Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Offline areich

  • Tribunus Plebis Perpetuus
  • Procurator Monetae
  • Caesar
  • *****
  • Posts: 8706
    • Ancient Greek and Roman Coins, featuring BMC online and other books
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2006, 04:58:54 pm »
Even our modern pigs are not like babe. We once had a rabbit jump into the pig pen. You can probably imagine how that story ends. Although I was quite fond on one of our pigs whose unofficial name was David Bowie, because he had one blue and one brown eye. Still, he would have eaten me too, had the possibility arisen.
Andreas Reich

virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #16 on: October 08, 2006, 06:19:01 pm »
If anyone's ever tempted by long pig, just google for 'kuru'.

I think there are good reasons to avoid ANY organ meats, and brains specifically.

"Garçon, I will have the pâté, but hold the prions, s'il vous plaît!"

As for temptation... Hey, the long pig fancier is looking at 30-50 year incubation period,
which is better odds than for anyone who eats fugu on a regular basis!

Still, he would have eaten me too, had the possibility arisen.

There's a reason why they, and we, are called "omnivores". ;-]


Question is, how the heck do we bring this brainy digression back to pigs on coins? ;D

G/<


+


"Hrumf, hrumf, hrumf!"

That Messana coin certainly serves up a platter of tasty possibilities for the Athenian pig.
Epicuri de grege porcus.


Offline moonmoth

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 2454
    • What I Like About Ancient Coins
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #17 on: October 09, 2006, 04:11:08 am »
OK, here's another famous piggy coin, with the same long-snouted tough-looking pig as the first coin.  This time her three little piglets are running along beneath her.   The same mythical signicifance, I wonder?  Vespasian did a bull coin also, which would make a good parther to this one.

(No doubt this coin could be cleaned up to remove its spots, but it would lose the nice contrast with the silver pig if I tried that.)
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline Howard Cole

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 1655
  • Elymais forever!
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #18 on: October 09, 2006, 05:32:23 am »
On the Vespasian coin the pig is a symbol for one of the legions.  I think it was Legion X Fretensis, but I may be wrong on this.  This legion participated in the Jewish war and was later station in Jerusalem.

virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #19 on: October 09, 2006, 03:38:29 pm »
You are right. X Fretensis (of the straits). Mommsen says* it was thus called because it guarded the straits of Messina (Fretum Siculum),
and participated in battles at Mylae and Naulochus.

The Judaeans were no doubt just thrilled to bits with having to contend with another legion of "Roman pigs"
for over a century and a half! The pig emblem was visible in several places in Jerusalem, and it must
have been infuriating to the population.

Here's a fascinating LXF countermark on a coin of Domitian (as Caesar, ~81/2 CE) from Sebaste in Samaria:


G/<

* In his critical edition of Res Gestae Divi Augusti. RGDA 2, p. 69.

Offline ecoli

  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 1122
  • Every coin is sacred, every coin is great.
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #20 on: October 09, 2006, 03:49:00 pm »
An european wild boar:


Offline Rupert

  • Procurator Caesaris
  • Caesar
  • ****
  • Posts: 1993
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #21 on: October 09, 2006, 04:35:17 pm »
Interestingly, there are animals that we despise most although, or because, they are a lot like man in some aspects: they will eat almost anything, they will survive under almost any circumstances, and they are very close to civilized mankind: rats and pigs; the first in our sewers, the latter on our platters.

Rupert
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #22 on: October 09, 2006, 04:56:07 pm »
animals that we despise most

Well, that's the case in our culture, not in others.
Although I'd prefer not to have a guy in the building who has Vietnamese miniature pigs as pets!

Personally, I don't despise either pigs or rats that much. Another pair of creatures, with which we
humans have much commonality, is the hyaena* and the cockroach. The former is much maligned
while misunderstood. I merely dislike it. Whereas the ubiquitous hexapod I heartily detest!

G/<

* - What happens when hyaenas decide to become coin collectors: http://tinyurl.com/gf5yq



Offline slokind

  • Tribuna Plebis Perpetua
  • Procurator Monetae
  • Caesar
  • *****
  • Posts: 6654
  • Art is an experimental science
    • An Art Historian's Numismatics Studies
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #23 on: October 09, 2006, 05:33:52 pm »
The European Wild Boar looks right to me, but here is one quite close to the date of the Legend of the White Sow of Lavinium--a wild one, naturally.  The oinochoe was found all broken and with the paint missing (Corinthian clay has too much lime to hold the glaze-paint as well as the Attic does) in stratified fill, a well shaft at Corinth, and it dates from the end of Early Corinthian, as near as makes no difference c. 600 BCE.  In honor of the well shaft this hand is called the Pighadhi Painter (rather than give the hand a number!).  It is an excellent drawing of a boar, published in a tracing because the lack of paint defeated photography.
Pat L.

virtvsprobi

  • Guest
Re: my pig of the day
« Reply #24 on: October 10, 2006, 12:55:29 am »
Another Sus scrofus from a wonderful brick of Legio XX. Razorback!

G/<

 

All coins are guaranteed for eternity