Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXIII 24-25 Mar 2022
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Sabina (wife of Hadrian) AV Aureus. Rome, AD 128-129. SABINA AVGVSTA HADRIANI AVG P P, draped bust to left, wearing double stephane / Vesta seated to left, holding palladium and sceptre. RIC II.3 2485 (same dies); C. 86; BMCRE 927 (Hadrian, same dies); Calicó 1421 (same obverse die). 7.25g, 22mm, 6h.
Near Mint State; a beautiful portrait in high relief. Extremely Rare; only 4 other examples offered at auction in the past 20 years, of which this is by a very considerable margin the finest.
From the Isar Collection.
Sabina, newly proclaimed AVGVSTA on this beautiful type minted less than a year after she was granted the title in AD 128, accumulated more public honours than any other imperial woman since Augustus' wife Livia. Indeed, she was the first woman to have regular issues struck in her name at Rome, with a wider breadth of portraits and reverse types than ever before seen for female imperial figures. This visibility could be attributed to her key role in her husband Hadrian's accession: the Historia Augusta (Hadrian, 2.10) reveals that Plotina influenced her husband Trajan to allow the dynastic marriage of his great-niece Sabina to Hadrian, ultimately resulting in Hadrian's succession of Trajan as emperor in AD 118. Richard Abdy remarks that both Plotina and Matidia (Sabina's mother) were "key allies in Hadrian's rise to power and were given rare lifetime issues at the beginning of Hadrian's reign" (Chronology of Sabina's coinage at the Roman Mint, Revue Numismatique, 2014, p.75): it could be extrapolated that after their deaths early in Hadrian's reign, the decision to produce regular coinage with Sabina's image was both a continuation of this new emphasis on imperial women and an action designed to highlight Hadrian's secure connection to his revered predecessor. Her beauty was well-attested during her lifetime in the poetry of Julia Balbilla and is reflected here in a graceful high-relief portrait with a magnificent decorative hairstyle intricately rendered by the die-engraver.
This stunning anepigraphic reverse type features a detailed image of Vesta, a goddess associated with hearth, home and family who was central to the Roman state religion. Anthropomorphic representations of her outside of imperial numismatic images were extremely rare: the famous Roman poet Ovid wrote in AD 8 "for a long time I foolishly believed there were images of Vesta; afterwards I learned that there are none... in her temple an undying fire is hidden, but it holds no statue of Vesta nor of the fire" (Fasti, 6.295-298). She was often represented simply by this sacred fire, tended to by Vestal Virgins.
The first emperor Augustus established an integral link between Vesta and the imperial family after he assumed the role of Pontifex Maximus and incorporated a new shrine to Vesta within his private house in 12 BC. Coins of emperor Titus' daughter Julia Titi with this type of Vesta seated with palladium and sceptre, in fact the first coins completely dedicated to an imperial woman, reinforced the link between Vesta and the female relatives of the emperor (Lien Foubert, 'Vesta and Julio-Claudian Women in Imperial Propaganda', Ancient Society, 2015, p.198). The type next appeared on the coinage of Plotina, wife of Trajan, in AD 112. On the coinage of Sabina, it formed part of a more elaborate and systematised programme for the empress, amidst types of Concordia, Juno Regina, Pietas, Ceres, Pudicitia and Venus Genetrix, associating her with qualities of fidelity, chastity, piety and fertility. The image of Vesta, the personification of hearth and household, reflects the stability and integrity of the Roman empire under Hadrian's rule, but sadly does not tally with ancient accounts of the relationship between Sabina and Hadrian as at best platonic and at worst mutually adulterous, involving Hadrian's dismissal of more than one member of imperial staff for their behaviour with his wife. The Historia Augusta also notes that, despite celebrating and elevating Sabina above most previous imperial women, Hadrian "would have sent his wife away too, on the ground of ill-temper and irritability, had he been merely a private citizen." (Hadrian, 11.3)
Near Mint State; a beautiful portrait in high relief. Extremely Rare; only 4 other examples offered at auction in the past 20 years, of which this is by a very considerable margin the finest.
From the Isar Collection.
Sabina, newly proclaimed AVGVSTA on this beautiful type minted less than a year after she was granted the title in AD 128, accumulated more public honours than any other imperial woman since Augustus' wife Livia. Indeed, she was the first woman to have regular issues struck in her name at Rome, with a wider breadth of portraits and reverse types than ever before seen for female imperial figures. This visibility could be attributed to her key role in her husband Hadrian's accession: the Historia Augusta (Hadrian, 2.10) reveals that Plotina influenced her husband Trajan to allow the dynastic marriage of his great-niece Sabina to Hadrian, ultimately resulting in Hadrian's succession of Trajan as emperor in AD 118. Richard Abdy remarks that both Plotina and Matidia (Sabina's mother) were "key allies in Hadrian's rise to power and were given rare lifetime issues at the beginning of Hadrian's reign" (Chronology of Sabina's coinage at the Roman Mint, Revue Numismatique, 2014, p.75): it could be extrapolated that after their deaths early in Hadrian's reign, the decision to produce regular coinage with Sabina's image was both a continuation of this new emphasis on imperial women and an action designed to highlight Hadrian's secure connection to his revered predecessor. Her beauty was well-attested during her lifetime in the poetry of Julia Balbilla and is reflected here in a graceful high-relief portrait with a magnificent decorative hairstyle intricately rendered by the die-engraver.
This stunning anepigraphic reverse type features a detailed image of Vesta, a goddess associated with hearth, home and family who was central to the Roman state religion. Anthropomorphic representations of her outside of imperial numismatic images were extremely rare: the famous Roman poet Ovid wrote in AD 8 "for a long time I foolishly believed there were images of Vesta; afterwards I learned that there are none... in her temple an undying fire is hidden, but it holds no statue of Vesta nor of the fire" (Fasti, 6.295-298). She was often represented simply by this sacred fire, tended to by Vestal Virgins.
The first emperor Augustus established an integral link between Vesta and the imperial family after he assumed the role of Pontifex Maximus and incorporated a new shrine to Vesta within his private house in 12 BC. Coins of emperor Titus' daughter Julia Titi with this type of Vesta seated with palladium and sceptre, in fact the first coins completely dedicated to an imperial woman, reinforced the link between Vesta and the female relatives of the emperor (Lien Foubert, 'Vesta and Julio-Claudian Women in Imperial Propaganda', Ancient Society, 2015, p.198). The type next appeared on the coinage of Plotina, wife of Trajan, in AD 112. On the coinage of Sabina, it formed part of a more elaborate and systematised programme for the empress, amidst types of Concordia, Juno Regina, Pietas, Ceres, Pudicitia and Venus Genetrix, associating her with qualities of fidelity, chastity, piety and fertility. The image of Vesta, the personification of hearth and household, reflects the stability and integrity of the Roman empire under Hadrian's rule, but sadly does not tally with ancient accounts of the relationship between Sabina and Hadrian as at best platonic and at worst mutually adulterous, involving Hadrian's dismissal of more than one member of imperial staff for their behaviour with his wife. The Historia Augusta also notes that, despite celebrating and elevating Sabina above most previous imperial women, Hadrian "would have sent his wife away too, on the ground of ill-temper and irritability, had he been merely a private citizen." (Hadrian, 11.3)