IMP T AELIVS
CAE - SAR ANTONINVS, bare-headed, draped
bust r., seen from
sidePIETAS in
exergue, TRI[B -
POT COS] around,
S - C across
field,
Pietas standing r., extending open r. hand over
altar at her feet and holding incense box in l. hand
27.75 g,
axis 6 o'cl. Ex Naumann E45, 3 July 2016, lot 757; their photograph is reproduced below.
The restoration of the
rev. legend TRI[B -
POT COS] is suggested by the wide spacing of the three visible letters T - R - I. The other possibility, TRI[B
POT -
COS DES II], would have required that TRI be more closely spaced, in order to fit in B
POT too to the left of
Pietas.
PIETAS sestertii of Antoninus as
Caesar usually have
bust type Head bare right. Bare-headed, draped
bust right is a
rare variant.
Strack knew only four such
sestertii, all with the variant
rev. type Pietas sacrificing left rather than right: with
legend PIETAS in
exergue in
Vienna, and with PIE - TAS across
field in BM, Naples, and Bologna.
After receiving the coin I noticed
(a) that its
obv. die seems to be the same as that of Frans Diederik's
rare Concordia seated
sestertius of Antoninus as
Caesar, which he showed us in
Forvm in July 2015; I reproduce
his picture below. That die link to Frans' coin supports the restoration TRI[B -
POT COS] of my
reverse legend, since
Concordia seated seems to have been an early
rev. type of Antoninus as
Caesar, used only in
his issue dated
COS and not continuing, as the
Pietas types did, into
his second issue with title
COS DES II.
(b) The
altar before
Pietas in the coinage of Antoninus as
Caesar is quite often shown lighted and garlanded, but on my coin an extra detail is added, a
bucranium (bull's skull) on the
side of the
altar below the garland. Maybe this was one of the earliest
Pietas sesterius
rev. dies of Antoninus as
Caesar, since such an extra detail is more likely to have been introduced at the beginning of a type's life, and soon dropped, than to have been intruded in the course of the type's life, being both preceded and followed by dies without the detail. If correct, this idea would of course require the restoration
COS rather than
COS DES II in the
rev. legend of my coin.
I can't recall seeing such a decoration on an
altar on any other
Roman coin, but then again, I haven't really looked! A bronze
medallion of
Antoninus Pius of 140-144 AD shows
Jupiter standing facing holding
thunderbolt and
scepter, between an
eagle on the right and an
altar decorated with the
Wolf and Twins on the left:
Dressel,
Berlin Medallions, no. 17, Plate II. On a unique
sestertius of
Galba in
Paris,
Paris catalogue pl. XVIII, 242, the
altar before a standing figure of
Pietas is decorated with a relief of
Aeneas carrying
his father
Anchises and leading
his son Ascanius by the hand.
