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 Memmia gens),

 

 

 

 

 

There is also a cheeky denarius of L. Julius Caesar, c.103 B.C., showing her biga drawn not by horses but by flying Cupids (here, on a double-struck coin).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Previously unpublished?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