Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction X 27 September 2015
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Diva Faustina Senior AV Aureus. Rome, AD 141. DIVA AVG FAVSTINA, draped bust left with hair waved and coiled on top of head / CONSECRATIO, Faustina standing facing in quadriga galloping to left, holding hasta pura, and accompanied by Sol(?), who leans forward, his arm outstretched toward the horses. RIC 383; Calicó 1780; BMC 302. 7.27g, 19mm, 6h.
Good Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare. Two other examples of this reverse type are recorded on CoinArchives, both heavily worn, and neither with a left facing bust. Stevenson, in his Dictionary of Roman Coins, rightly refers to this coin as one of the rarest reverses of Faustina (p.374).
Annia Galeria Faustina was born into a distinguished and well connected family; her father Marcus Annius Verus was three times consul and prefect of Rome, and she counted Sabina and Matidia as her maternal aunts. Sometime between AD 110 and 115 she married Titus Aurelius Fulvius Boionius Arrius Antoninus (who would later gain favour with Hadrian, be adopted and succeed to the throne, and be known to history as Antoninus Pius). During her life, Faustina Senior was an advocate for the underprivileged, as well as for girls' education. When she died in AD 141, Antoninius Pius was said to be devastated. To honour her memory he had her deified, built a temple for her in the Forum and issued a prodigious coinage in her name as Diva Faustina. Additionally he established an institution called Puellae Faustinianae ('The Girls of Faustina') to assist orphaned Roman girls.
The commemorative coinage of Faustina Senior is unusual in that it survives in large numbers with a wide variety of reverse types, this being explained by the fact that her coins continued to be struck until the death of Antoninus Pius in AD 161. This particularly beautiful consecration aureus is notable for the form in which the apotheosis of Faustina is displayed; a parallel issue displays the funeral pyre of the empress and thus the manner of her ascension to godhood, and here we see her being conveyed to her place among the gods and other deified emperors and empresses. Faustina now holds the hasta pura, one of the insignia of the gods, and of the augusti and augustae after their apotheoses. Two other contemporary issues display further elements of Faustina's deification; one shows the carriage of her divine effigy in a wagon pulled by two elephants, the other illustrates its destination: the temple that Antoninus Pius built along the Via Sacra on the northeastern side of the Roman Forum for the ongoing worship of Diva Faustina. It is both a charming and moving type that must have been particularly affecting to Antoninus, and on the obverse we see Faustina still draped, in the manner of a living Augusta and beloved wife, and not yet veiled in death and divinity.
Good Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare. Two other examples of this reverse type are recorded on CoinArchives, both heavily worn, and neither with a left facing bust. Stevenson, in his Dictionary of Roman Coins, rightly refers to this coin as one of the rarest reverses of Faustina (p.374).
Annia Galeria Faustina was born into a distinguished and well connected family; her father Marcus Annius Verus was three times consul and prefect of Rome, and she counted Sabina and Matidia as her maternal aunts. Sometime between AD 110 and 115 she married Titus Aurelius Fulvius Boionius Arrius Antoninus (who would later gain favour with Hadrian, be adopted and succeed to the throne, and be known to history as Antoninus Pius). During her life, Faustina Senior was an advocate for the underprivileged, as well as for girls' education. When she died in AD 141, Antoninius Pius was said to be devastated. To honour her memory he had her deified, built a temple for her in the Forum and issued a prodigious coinage in her name as Diva Faustina. Additionally he established an institution called Puellae Faustinianae ('The Girls of Faustina') to assist orphaned Roman girls.
The commemorative coinage of Faustina Senior is unusual in that it survives in large numbers with a wide variety of reverse types, this being explained by the fact that her coins continued to be struck until the death of Antoninus Pius in AD 161. This particularly beautiful consecration aureus is notable for the form in which the apotheosis of Faustina is displayed; a parallel issue displays the funeral pyre of the empress and thus the manner of her ascension to godhood, and here we see her being conveyed to her place among the gods and other deified emperors and empresses. Faustina now holds the hasta pura, one of the insignia of the gods, and of the augusti and augustae after their apotheoses. Two other contemporary issues display further elements of Faustina's deification; one shows the carriage of her divine effigy in a wagon pulled by two elephants, the other illustrates its destination: the temple that Antoninus Pius built along the Via Sacra on the northeastern side of the Roman Forum for the ongoing worship of Diva Faustina. It is both a charming and moving type that must have been particularly affecting to Antoninus, and on the obverse we see Faustina still draped, in the manner of a living Augusta and beloved wife, and not yet veiled in death and divinity.