Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXII 7-8 Oct 2021
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Hadrian AV Aureus. Rome, AD 124-125. HADRIANVS AVGVSTVS, laureate bust to right, slight drapery on far shoulder / COS III, Capitoline wolf standing to left, suckling the twins Romulus and Remus. RIC II.3 709; BMCRE 449; Strack 195θ; Biaggi 598; Calicó 1233a. 7.45g, 19mm, 6h.
Extremely Fine; a superb aureus of Hadrian with this ever-popular motif of the foundation myth.
From the Kingsdown Collection.
The only shared component in the foundation legends recorded since the third century BC is that Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of a Vestal Virgin called Rhea Silvia. For the rest of the myth there are many variances, but one of the most commonly attested narratives is the one told by Livy in his History of Rome. According to Livy, Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, the rightful king of Alba Longa (the city founded by Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, at the foot of the Alban hills) who was usurped by his brother Amulius and his progeny killed or, in his daughter's case, deprived of hope of having children through being forced to be a Vestal Virgin. Rhea Silvia became pregnant through an encounter with the god Mars and the twins were set afloat on the flooded Tiber in the hope they would drown as ordered by the king of Alba Longa. Their crying attracted the attention of a she-wolf who nursed them and was so gentle that the shepherd Faustulus who found them, saw the wolf licking the human babies. The twins were then taken in by Faustulus and his wife and raised in the area around the Palatine hill until, as adults, they overthrew the usurper king and decided to found their own community where they had grown up.
This type can be traced back to the earliest coinage of the Republic; a silver didrachm (Crawford 20/1) dated to circa 264-255 BC depicts on the obverse a youthful Hercules wearing a lion skin around his neck, and upon the reverse are the twins being suckled by the she-wolf. The type, either alone or as an adjunct motif, was sporadically reused into imperial times and was prominently featured on aurei and denarii of Domitian. Perhaps it was useful for Hadrian, who spent more than half his reign outside Italy, to draw upon a traditional Roman image as a reminder of his connection to home while away on his travels across the empire. Later examples of the type include coins produced under Constantine I, who, from AD 330, issued a vast number of small coins celebrating Rome by pairing a helmeted head of Roma with the twins and she-wolf motif following his foundation of Constantinople as a new capital in the East. The coin type was probably inspired by ancient statues of the wolf and twins, which unfortunately do not survive but their existence is verified by several ancient accounts; Livy's History of Rome (10.23) states that in 295 BC a statue was placed near the Ficus Ruminalis (the fig tree at the foot of the Palatine hill which the legend says is the spot where the twins landed having floated along the Tiber) and Cicero reports how a statue of Romulus being suckled by the she-wolf was struck by lightning in 65 BC (Against Catiline, 3.19).
Extremely Fine; a superb aureus of Hadrian with this ever-popular motif of the foundation myth.
From the Kingsdown Collection.
The only shared component in the foundation legends recorded since the third century BC is that Romulus and Remus were the twin sons of a Vestal Virgin called Rhea Silvia. For the rest of the myth there are many variances, but one of the most commonly attested narratives is the one told by Livy in his History of Rome. According to Livy, Rhea Silvia was the daughter of Numitor, the rightful king of Alba Longa (the city founded by Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, at the foot of the Alban hills) who was usurped by his brother Amulius and his progeny killed or, in his daughter's case, deprived of hope of having children through being forced to be a Vestal Virgin. Rhea Silvia became pregnant through an encounter with the god Mars and the twins were set afloat on the flooded Tiber in the hope they would drown as ordered by the king of Alba Longa. Their crying attracted the attention of a she-wolf who nursed them and was so gentle that the shepherd Faustulus who found them, saw the wolf licking the human babies. The twins were then taken in by Faustulus and his wife and raised in the area around the Palatine hill until, as adults, they overthrew the usurper king and decided to found their own community where they had grown up.
This type can be traced back to the earliest coinage of the Republic; a silver didrachm (Crawford 20/1) dated to circa 264-255 BC depicts on the obverse a youthful Hercules wearing a lion skin around his neck, and upon the reverse are the twins being suckled by the she-wolf. The type, either alone or as an adjunct motif, was sporadically reused into imperial times and was prominently featured on aurei and denarii of Domitian. Perhaps it was useful for Hadrian, who spent more than half his reign outside Italy, to draw upon a traditional Roman image as a reminder of his connection to home while away on his travels across the empire. Later examples of the type include coins produced under Constantine I, who, from AD 330, issued a vast number of small coins celebrating Rome by pairing a helmeted head of Roma with the twins and she-wolf motif following his foundation of Constantinople as a new capital in the East. The coin type was probably inspired by ancient statues of the wolf and twins, which unfortunately do not survive but their existence is verified by several ancient accounts; Livy's History of Rome (10.23) states that in 295 BC a statue was placed near the Ficus Ruminalis (the fig tree at the foot of the Palatine hill which the legend says is the spot where the twins landed having floated along the Tiber) and Cicero reports how a statue of Romulus being suckled by the she-wolf was struck by lightning in 65 BC (Against Catiline, 3.19).