Type 38: Eros with Aphrodite Riding

 

 

Venus appears on Roman Republican silver and Æ coins of L.
Memmius Galeria, late second century B.C., riding in a biga, with Cupid flying above. (Venus was the tutelary deity of the gens Memmia). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Venus was also the patroness of the gens Julia. On this denarius of Sextus Julius Caesar, 129 B.C., Cupid is riding in a chariot with Venus and offering the goddess a crown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a denarius of another Caesar, L. Julius Caesar, 103 B.C., showing the biga of Venus cheekily drawn not by horses but by flying Cupids (the coin is double-struck).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Provincial coins, Aphrodite is represented riding on a number of different animals: a bull, a swan, a goat, and (accompanied by Eros or Erotes, on coins of two Bithynian cities, Apameia and Bithynium-Claudiopolis) a dolphin, and the fabulous hippocamp, a mixture of horse and fish.

* Apameia in Bithynia, coins of Julia Domna and Caracalla (Münzzentrum, auction 156, September 2010, not illustrated here), with Aphrodite riding l. on a dolphin, Eros flying r. towards her.

Æ 27. Obv. IVLIA DOMNA AVG. Draped bust r. Rev. COL IVL CONC AVG APAM. As described above (Illustration from Bernhart).

 

 

* Bithynium-Claudiopolis in Bithynia, coins of Geta as Augustus (not illustrated) and of Julia Paula, with Aphrodite riding l. on a hippocamp, her veil held by two Erotes.

 

 

Æ 26, 7 h, 9.69 g. Obv. IOY • KOP • ΠAVΛA • CEB. Draped bust l., the r. hand extended holding a poppy.  Rev. BIΘYNIEΩN AΔPIANΩN. As described above.

CATALOGUE

Apameia Bithyniae / Julia Domna

References: Waddington, Recueil général, 65; Bernhart, Aphrodite, 327; SNG von Aulock 6920

Apameia Bithyniae / Caracalla
Previously unpublished?
Rarity: RRR

Bithynium-Claudiopolis / Geta

Reference: Waddington, Recueil général, 50 
Rarity: RRR

Bithynium-Claudiopolis / Julia Paula

Reference: RPC VI, 3664*
Rarity: Scarce