Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Thanks and Acknowledgements

The initial version of this survey was completed on January 12th, 2018. Please ignore the dates and times given for the individual posts: they were manipulated to enable a thematic arrangement in the blog archive. Now I shall be adding new material, correcting mistakes, uploading better illustrations, and re-formatting. To avoid having to re-number the types should a tremendously rare singleton suddenly need to be accommodated, I have kept Type 24 (Miscellaneous Erotes, presently consisting of earlier coins, some Roman Imperial coins and medallions, artefacts, lead seals, and tesserae) for that eventuality.

Here is a provisional listing of those whove worked on or in different ways helped with the project or been consulted (the list is alphabetical, and doesnt give academic titles). Please contact us if weve forgotten you. Sincere thanks to everyone!

acsearch.info
Bartosz Awianowicz
Gilles Blançon
Gert Boersema
Peter G. Burbules
Dario Calomino
CNG (Classical Numismatic Group)
Curtis Clay
CoinArchives.com
Alfredo De La Fé
Dan Diffendale
Kurt Ellenberger
Emporium Hamburgense
Fabrizio Fazioli
Julia Finster
Mark Fox
G&N (Gitbud & Naumann Münzhandlung München GmbH)
Martin Griffiths
Wayne von Hardenberg
Jos Hemmes
Hans-Joachim Hoeft
Nina Hristova
ISEGRIM
Paul-Francis Jacquier
Francis Jarman
Gospodin Jekov
Jencek Historical Enterprise
Dane Kurth (Helvetica)
Ilian Lalev
Hubert Lanz
Patricia Lawrence
Derek Lewis
Hartmann Linge
Eberhard Link
Anne Lübke
Pierre-Damien Manisse
marcvs_aurelivs_caesar
Andrew McCabe
Ryan McVay
Malcolm Megaw
Steve Minnoch
Georg Morawietz
Alex Morley-Smith
Hans-Christoph von Mosch
Heinz-W. Müller
Wilhelm Mueseler
munzeo.com
Numismatik Naumann GmbH
Uwe Naumann
Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC)
Masis Panos
William Peters
Praefectus Coins
Michel Prieur
Vladimir Prokhorov
H. D. Rauch
Gerhard Rohde
Roma Numismatics
Roman Provincial Coinage Online (RPC)
Lars Rutten
Wayne G. Sayles
Wolfgang Christian Schneider
Joe Sermarini
Sorin
Peter Spohn
Dietmar Spurgarth
Clive Stannard
Joachim Stollhoff
Greg Terzian
Wolfram Tillack
TimeLine
Titiana & Slavey Art Numis
Bill Welch
Wildwinds
plus a number of private collectors who prefer to remain anonymous.




This Is All I Crave" - A Victorian wax seal (1860-80) from a British Museum series of “antique" motifs.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

But These Are (Probably) not Erotes

Eros, naked and male, is not to be confused with other winged beings or naked youths. 


 
 
For example, there are winged female figures like NIKE, here on a coin from Nicopolis ad Istrum (Moesia).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
On this coin of Gordian III from Phaselis (Lycia) the figures holding the veil of the cult figure of Aphrodite are clothed, not nude, and therefore Nikai rather than Erotes (RPC VII, 2, 2365).
 
 
 
 
 
 

This winged figure is NEMESIS, on the reverse of a coin from Tripolis in Lydia

 

or as an unattributed provincial countermark (= Howgego, GIC 283).








Naked boys or youths are not necessarily Erotes, though determining their actual identity is not always easy.


 
For example, the mysterious youth holding a bird in his outstretched hand on coins of Pergamon (Mysia), with obverse type of helmeted head of Athena, was identified by Imhoof-Blumer in 1908 (Zur griechischen und römischen Münzkunde, 2) as one of the MINOR GODS OF HEALING associated with Asclepius. These included Telesphorus, normally represented as a little cloaked figure, however, rather than as a naked youth, and Euamerion. Two reverses are shown here, of coins struck by Ioulios Pollion in the time of Hadrian (l.) and by Diodoros in the time of Commodus (r.).
 

There are similar nude boys depicted on the reverse of Hadrianic coins from Hierocaesareia in Lydia (photo courtesy of Numismatik Naumann GmbH), but these too are not winged.








Another mysterious reverse type comes from Serdica (Thracia) and shows a naked young god with a serpent-staff; by his side is a small figure, reaching up towards him. The two figures are not Aesclupius and Eros, but Apollo the Healer and, possibly, his son Aesculapius; alternatively, Telesphorus (as Patricia Lawrence has pointed out, the identification is difficult because of the lack of attributes; see the discussion of Aesculapius, Telesphorus, and Co. in Hans-Joachim Hoefts Münzen und antike Mythologie, 2011, pp.279 ff. and 289 ff.). Here are two variants: on the left (photo courtesy of Lübke & Wiedemann KG) the tiny figure is naked, while on the right (photo courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., www.cngcoins.com) he is wearing a chlamys over his shoulders, which might easily be mistaken for wings on a worn specimen of the coin. There is also a coin showing the same pair within a tetrastyle shrine (Varbanov 2456).




If the BOY ON A DOLPHIN isn’t winged, he probably isn’t Eros. On this coin, from Tarentum in Italy, it is Taras.











Here is another Taras, from Brundusium. For other dolphin-riders, see Type 21.







It is the infant HERACLES (and not Eros) who is portrayed carrying the club and lionskin on a coin of Heracleia Pontica in Bithynia (SNG von Aulock 423), or fighting, on a coin from Serdica (Thracia), with the serpents sent to kill him by the jealous Hera.

 

Nor should his son TELEPHUS, shown here with Heracles on another coin from Serdica (photo courtesy of Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger), be mistaken for Eros. Compare the pose of Telephus on this coin with that of the child (Eros?) on the coin of Nicomedia (Type 42), who seems to be floating in front of Heracles rather than squatting on his arm.




But the child most easily mistaken for Eros is DIONYSUS, shown here on a coin of Geta from Nicaea (photo by courtesy of Münzen & Medaillen GmbH), riding on a panther.

 







Dionysus is also represented as a child in an improvised cradle, actually a corn-sieve for separating wheat from chaff, here on a coin of Septimius Severus from Nicaea in Bithynia (photo by courtesy of Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger).






On other coins he is shown being looked after by various helpers, including Silenus, on an extremely rare coin of Sardes, illustrated on p.295 of Hans-Joachim Hoefts Münzen und antike Mythologie, or by Hermes, here on an extremely rare coin of Septimius Severus from Philippopolis in Thracia, misread by Varbanov (1252) as Naked Apollo stg. r., resting on column and holding bow (?)”, but reproducing the famous statue by Praxiteles at Olympia, of which the Philippopolitans presumably had a nice copy. There is a similar coin (of Marcus Aurelius Caesar) from Anchialus (AMNG 427), also exceptionally rare.

 

On charming coins of Marcus Aurelius at Philippopolis (Thracia), Dionysus (or a Baccchic child) is shown dancing, holding a thyrsus and a cantharus (from a private collection, photo by permission); there is a cruder version of a similar type for Commodus at Nicopolis ad Istrum (Moesia), although the figure on that coin probably represents Pan.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This coin of Antiocheia in Pisidia was sold as a coin of Gordian III with reverse of seated Aphrodite with Eros! The seller must have been thinking of Type 28. The figures on the reverse are Roma and a CROUCHING CAPTIVE, and the coin was struck under Volusian (RPC IX, 1278).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Here is another Lycian coin of Gordian III, from Patara. The strange figure on the reverse is a WINGED CREATURE holding a branch and a fillet (?)  (RPC VII, 2, 21508*). Winged deities featured on various earlier (pre-Roman) coins of the southern seaboard of Asia Minor (Caria, Lycia, Cilicia). Or this might even be a kind of gryllos, a hybrid ctreature (Mischwesen) often found on gemstones and tesserae.
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
This figure on the reverse of a coin of Marcus Aurelius from Colybrassus in Cilicia has been identified as a possible Eros, but that seems highly unlikely to me. He has no wings, wears drapery and a radiate crown, and is lightly bearded. HELIOS perhaps?
 
 
 
 
 
On rare coins of Caracalla from Pessinus in Galatia there is a bearded winged figure in a short chiton rushing r. and holding a smaller winged figure on his extended l. hand—a group identified by Imhoof-Blumer (Griechische Münzen, p.754) as representing DAEDALUS AND ICARUS.
 
On ancient coins, it is not always easy to distinguish between Erotes and winged genii, although the context in which the image appears and its probable function should help. 

Here is a modern example of a torchbearing, naked, winged boy who is not Eros but a WINGED GENIUS. On this silvered plaquette by the renowned medallist Louis-Oscar Roty, issued to commemorate the 1900 International Exhibition in Paris, a youthful genius representing the new millennium is taking a torch from the grasp of a fainting woman who represents the old. 
The idea of a torch relay, resurrected for the preliminaries of the modern Olympic Games, derives from the torch relays that were a feature of ancient festivals like the Panathenaic Games, though not the Olympics.
  
 

There are rare representations of the naked HERMAPHRODITE on provincial coins, including the famous statuary type of the Sleeping Hermaphrodite (there are many surviving Roman copies of this risqué statue), on a coin of Augusta Trajana in Thracia (Varbanov 847, misread as Dancing maenad (Genius?) naked, stg. facing, hd. r., holding veil in raised r. hand, and 854 f., River-god swimming r.),

 

and a remarkable coin of Septimius Severus from Hadrianopolis in Thracia (Varbanov 3392, though wrongly described) that shows Hermaphrodite dancing with Pan (photo courtesy of Peter G. Burbules).





 
Finally, a curious Roman coin, of Constantine I, mint of Rome, that seems to refer to Eros. The mintmark in the exergue reads R EPOC P. The word Eros is written in Greek (ερωc), with the letters epsilon, rho and omega in a ligature. Was a pun intended? Eros = Amor, and Amor is an anagram (and a palindrome) for Roma. The wordplay is well attested in ancient Rome. In Virgil’s Aeneid (4.347) Aeneas says to Dido that the Lycian oracle commands him to go to the land of his amor. This land is of course Roma. And there is the inscription from Aquincum with the palindrome Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor (For by my labours thou shalt soon reach Rome, the object of thy wishes), attributed to Sidonius Apollinaris (430-480). Amor was the secret name of  Rome. Could this issue even have something to do with resistance from the (pagan) elite of Rome to Constantine's programme of Christianisation?

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Type 56: Eros or Erotes with Tyche or other Personifications

Eros is shown with Tyche on coins of Aegeira in Achaea and Midaëum in Phrygia.

* Aegeira in Achaea, coins of Plautilla showing Eros r., holding a long sceptre, facing Tyche l., holding a long staff and cornucopiae; between them, a burning altar. The BCD Collection specimen is holed, and BCD himself has added a charming comment in the auction catalogue: “Tyche and Eros, what a meaningful combination! This coin was surely pierced and carried as an amulet (probably suspended with a cord around the neck) by someone who wished to be lucky in love. If we judge by the amount of wear it has it seems to have produced good results.



 
 
 
Obv. ΦOYΛBIA ΠΛAYTIΛΛA. Draped bust of Plautilla r. Rev. AIΓEIΡATΩN. As described above.






* Midaëum in Phrygia, coins of Caracalla, Severus Alexander (not illustrated), and Maximinus I (not illustrated), showing Tyche seated on a rock; on the Severus Alexander coins she is accompanied by Eros and the river-god Tembris, on those of Caracalla and Maximinus I by two Erotes with torches.



Obv. ANTΩNEINOC AYΓOYCTOC. Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Caracalla r. Rev. MIΔAEΩN. As described above.
Note: I made no record of the origin of the photographs of this coin. If the owner of the images or of the coin would be so kind as to contact me, I'd be happy to add an appropriate acknowledgement (or delete the images if required). 




* Erotes also appear on coins of Prymnessus in Phrygia of Gordian I (not illustrated) and Gallienus, riding on hippocamps below a figure of Dikaiosyne enthroned. Prymnessus, situated at a crossroads, was a busy trading town, and Dikaiosyne with her scales was a common type on its coins. The legendary Midas was claimed as founder, and it is not inconceivable that the scales (for weighing gold) were also a reference to him.


 
Æ 35, 7 h, 16.16 g. Obv. AYT KAI Π [ΛIK] ΓAΛΛINOC [sic], in field C-EB. Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gallienus r. Rev. ΠΡYM[N]HCCE, ΩN in field. Dikaiosyne wearing polos and holding scales enthroned l.; Nikai to l. and r.; Erotes riding on hippocamps in exergue.



 
 
 
 * Antiocheia in Pisidia, coins of Gordian III with Annona seated r., holding a palm-branch and with her l. arm resting on the bows of a ship, an Eros hastening towards her. Why the ship, on a coin of an inland city? Pisidian Antioch was a place of some importance, and presumably involved not only in river trade—the river-god Anthios figures on its coins—but with the coastal cities too. 


Æ 34, 7 h, 23.06 g. Obv. IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AVG. Radiate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gordian III r., seen from behind. Rev. ANTIOCHIA COLONIA CAESARIA, SR in exergue. As described above








CATALOGUE

Aegeira / Plautilla
References: LHS, auction 96: Coins of Peloponnesos: The BCD Collection, 422.4Imhoof-Blumer & Gardner, Ancient Coins Illustrating Lost Masterpieces of Greek Art (A Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias), p.91 and Plate S, ix
Rarity: RR

Midaëum / Caracalla
Uncertain source, see note above
Rarity: RRR 

Midaëum / Severus Alexander
Reference: RPC VI, 5728*
Rarity: RRR 

Midaëum / Maximinus I
Reference: RPC VI, 5734*
Rarity: RRR

Prymnessus / Gordian I
Reference: RPC VII, 1, 776
Rarity: RRR

Prymnessus / Gallienus
Reference: von Aulock, Münzen und Städte Phrygiens II, 1143-47; BMC 36
Rarity: Scarce   
 
Antiocheia Pisidiae / Gordian III
Reference: RPC VII, 2, 2693
Rarity: Common