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The Date and Significance of the ‘Candelabrum’ Coins of Augustus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

C. H. V. Sutherland
Affiliation:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Abstract

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Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1944

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References

page 46 note 1 And not (as stated in Bmc Rom. Emp. i, p. 110Google Scholar) by a crescent. The two British Museum specimens illustrated in Bmc Rom. Emp., pl. 17, nos. 14–15, both have their reverses badly centred and partly off the flan. But specimens elsewhere show conclusively that the object surmounting the candelabrum is a patera (e.g. in the Ashmolean Museum: cf. also the Montagu sale catalogue (Rollin and Feuardent, Paris, 1896), no. 110; the J(ohn) E(vans) sale catalogue (Rollin and Feuardent, Paris, 1909), no. 22 = Collection R. Jameson ii (Monnaies impériales romaines) (Paris, Feuardent, 1913), no. 29; Hirsch's sale catalogues xxxi (Munich, 1912), no. 1056 and xxxiv (Munich, 1914), no. 916; and the Trau sale catalogue (Gilhofer and Ranschburg, Vienna, 1935), no. 283.

page 46 note 1 Cohen, H., Description historique des monnaies frapp´es sous ľempire romain, i 2 (Paris, 1880), p. 181Google Scholar, following the opinion of Prosper Dupré Grueber, H. A., Bmc Rom. Rep. ii, p. 36, n. 1 (ad Jin., p. 38), and p. 42Google Scholar.

page 46 note 2 Eckhel, J., Doctrina numorum veterum, vi 2 (Vienna, 1828), p. 122Google Scholar.

page 47 note 1 Bmc Rom. Emp. i, p. cxxviGoogle Scholar.

page 47 note 2 Id. i, p. 85, nos. 498 ff.; p. 88, nos. 513 ff.

page 47 note 3 These were held 105 years after the Augustan celebration, and thus anticipated the full annus magnus (no years: cf. Horace, Carm. saec. 21–2) by five years. The 110-year interval is explained by the proclamation of the praeco, who called the populace to games ‘quos nee spectasset quisquam nee spectaturus esset’ (Suet. Div, Claud. 21: cf. the Augustan, acta, Ephemeris Epigraphica, viii (1899), p. 229, line 56)Google Scholar.

page 47 note 1 Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 2, nos. 19–20 (ludio); pl. 3, no. 12 (cippus). Gagé, J., Recherches sur les jeux s´culaires (Collection dďétodes latines: Paris, 1934), p. 66 f.Google Scholar, has given good reason for identifying the curious figure of Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 2, nos. 19–20, as the ludio of the games: cf. Notizie degli Scavi6, vii (1931), pp. 313345Google Scholar, for the Acta denning the participants and ceremonial of Septimius Severus' secular games of A.D. 204. See also Gagé, op. cit., p. 9, n. 1, for the suggestion of Mommsen (Gesamm. Schr. viii, p. 569) that the cippus of Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 3, no. 12, is in fact the columna marmorea which, with a columna aenea, was set up with an inscribed record of the secular games of Augustus: cf. the Augustan, acta, Ephemeris Epigraphica, viii (1899), p. 229, lines 61 fGoogle Scholar.

page 47 note 2 Bmc Rom. Emp. ii, p. 327, no. 135 (pl. 64, no. 3)Google Scholar; p. 395, no. 429 (pl. 78, no. 10).

page 47 note 3 Bmc Rom. Emp. ii, p. 326Google Scholar, nos. 130 ff. (pl. 63, no. 18; 64, nos. 1–2); p. 328, no. 138 (pl. 64, no. 4).

page 47 note 4 See Daremberg-Saglio, Dict. des antiq., s.v. ‘candelabrum’.

page 48 note 1 Cf. Rushforth, G. McN. in Journal of Roman Studies, v (1915), pp. 151 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 2 Cf. Horace, Carm. saec. 23–4: also the Augustan, acta, Ephemeris Epigraphica, viii (1899), p. 228, lines 39 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 3 See Gagé, op. cit., pp. 25 ff.; Altheim, F., A History of Roman Religion (London, 1938), pp. 394 ff.Google Scholar; and, in general, M. P. Nilsson in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopädie, s.v.‘ saeculares (ludi)’, esp. cols. 1707 ff., and Blumenthal, F., ‘Ludi saeculares’, Klio, xv (1918), pp. 217 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 1 It is just possible that the object on top of the candelabrum is the actual oil-vessel (rendered in ‘unforeshortened perspective’) in which the flame burned, rather than a patera. But its form is identical with that of the paterae in the wreath. In any case the question is not one of great importance.

page 48 note 2 Cf. Gagé, op. cit., p. 48 f., and also the liturgy of the acta Severiana in Notizie degli Scavi, loc. cit.

page 48 note 3 Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 3, no. 3: cf. Gagé, op. cit., p. 59 f.

page 48 note 4 Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 10, no. 4: possibly also a denarius, cf. Bmc Rom. Rep. ii, p. 41.

page 48 note 5 Line 49, ‘quaque vos bobus veneratur albis.’

page 48 note 6 See the Augustan, acta, Ephemeris Epigraphica, viii (1899), p. 231, lines 103–4, 118–20Google Scholar.

page 48 note 7 It may be suggested that the wreath (of flowers) may allude to the important part played by Terra Mater in the ceremonies: it was to her that the third and final night was dedicated: see Ephemeris Epigraphica, viii (1899), p. 232, lines 134 ff. But cf. Horace, Carm. saec. 30.

page 48 note 8 We may note the absence of any obvious reference to Apollo and Diana, to whom (as is generally agreed) much greater prominence was given by Augustus than had been usual before (cf. Gagé, op. cit., pp. 25 ff.), and to whom Horace's Carmen Saeculare is in the first place addressed. May we suppose that this Augustan innovation was disregarded by the engraver of our reversetype in favour of the more traditional elements of the Secular Games? An alternative—and a precarious one—would be to suppose that the idealized portrait of the obverse-type represents Apollo. But the association of the obverse-legend Caesar would seem to render such a view imposible.

page 49 note 1 Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 2, nos. 19–20; pl. 3, no. 1: now regarded by Mr. Mattingly as representing not the Dictator but rather lulus.

page 49 note 2 Carm. saec. 37–48.

page 49 note 1 Virgil, , Aeneid, vi. 792 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 49 note 2 A few ‘secular’ types appeared at Rome in 16 B.C.: cf. Bmc Rom. Emp. i, pl. 3, nos. 8 and 12.

3 Ibid.., p. cxxvi. He has since suggested to me that, if Augustus coined a special issue for 17 B.C., such an issue might show a style otherwise unfamiliar to us.