Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXV 22-23 Sep 2022
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Titus AV Aureus. Rome, AD 79. IMP TITVS CAES VESPASIAN AVG P M, laureate head to right / TR P VIIII IMP XIIII COS VII P P, Venus standing to right, resting on column, holding helmet and spear. RIC II.1 32; C. 167; BMCRE 8; Calicó 755. 7.23g, 19mm, 5h.
Near Extremely Fine. Rare; rated R2 by RIC.
Struck within the first few months of Titus' reign, the iconic reverse of this rare aureus depicts Venus Victrix holding a crested Corinthian helmet and spear. She had been the patron deity of Julius Caesar, who traced his ancestry from the goddess through Aeneas, son of Venus and of Anchises, and she had been greatly venerated in the last years of the Republic by generals such as Sulla and Pompey, with the latter dedicating a temple to her within his monumental theatre-temple complex in 55 BC.
This reverse composition closely resembles the statue of Venus Callipyge, a first or second century BC Roman marble statue of Venus which portrays her in the same contrapposto pose, although in the marble she turns her head to look over her shoulder down her bare back, drawing the viewer's gaze to her shapely derrière; 'callipyge' literally meaning 'of the beautiful buttocks'. The statue, which now stands in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples was thought to have been based on a lost Hellenistic bronze original from around 300 BC. The iconography emphasises both Venus' beautiful form and her status as ancestral goddess and protectress of the bellicose Romans by virtue of her military attributes. In addition, it serves as a reference to Julius Caesar, Augustus and to the Julio-Claudian dynasty as a whole, and thus forms part of the overt theme employed by the Flavians in their re-use of Julio-Claudian coin types to establish greater legitimacy for their dynasty through promoting a sense of continuity with the past.
Near Extremely Fine. Rare; rated R2 by RIC.
Struck within the first few months of Titus' reign, the iconic reverse of this rare aureus depicts Venus Victrix holding a crested Corinthian helmet and spear. She had been the patron deity of Julius Caesar, who traced his ancestry from the goddess through Aeneas, son of Venus and of Anchises, and she had been greatly venerated in the last years of the Republic by generals such as Sulla and Pompey, with the latter dedicating a temple to her within his monumental theatre-temple complex in 55 BC.
This reverse composition closely resembles the statue of Venus Callipyge, a first or second century BC Roman marble statue of Venus which portrays her in the same contrapposto pose, although in the marble she turns her head to look over her shoulder down her bare back, drawing the viewer's gaze to her shapely derrière; 'callipyge' literally meaning 'of the beautiful buttocks'. The statue, which now stands in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples was thought to have been based on a lost Hellenistic bronze original from around 300 BC. The iconography emphasises both Venus' beautiful form and her status as ancestral goddess and protectress of the bellicose Romans by virtue of her military attributes. In addition, it serves as a reference to Julius Caesar, Augustus and to the Julio-Claudian dynasty as a whole, and thus forms part of the overt theme employed by the Flavians in their re-use of Julio-Claudian coin types to establish greater legitimacy for their dynasty through promoting a sense of continuity with the past.