ROMAN COIN PORTRAITS
Michael Dworetsky
>Does anyone know if the portraits on roman coins bear any resemblance
>to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
>emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
>
> PROBUS
>
>
I don't suppose anyone 'knows' this but it is certainly widely thought
that the portraits are about as accurate as any of the idealized
portraits of real persons on modern coins. In some cases they can be
checked against statues or busts and they seem to be the same person.
For most of the emperors and other notables the coins are the only way we
have of knowing what they looked like.
--
Mike Dworetsky, Department of Physics | "It has been said that it is not
& Astronomy, University College London | the subject matter but the meth-
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT UK | odology employed that determines
email: m...@star.ucl.ac.uk | whether a study is scientific."
p...@pa.msu.edu
>Does anyone know if the portraits on roman coins bear any resemblance
>to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
>emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
>
> PROBUS
>
The portrait of each emperor appears to be consistent enough that I can
usually recognize a coin as belonging to a particular emperor without
reading the inscription. Later on, though, the portraits get harder to
distinguish between one emperor and the next. Apparently, accuracy was no
longer a priority, and the engravers were just going with a generic face,
probably because they had no first hand knowledge of what the emperor
looked like. There was probably still some superficial resemblance ,
though. But the artistry was declining, and if any of the emperors from the
4th century on actually looked like their coin portraits, then they must
have been deformed hideous beings.
Dan Pon
Matthew Rockman (CC 1997)
> Does anyone know if the portraits on roman coins bear any resemblance
> to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
> emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
>
> PROBUS
There are two factors: 1) are the portraits true to their models
and 2) are the portraits lifelike? It's obviously possible that a very
lifelike rendering may bear less resemblence to its model than a more
crude portrait. The plasticity of roman portraiture (lifelikeness) varies
according to the ability of the artist and the artistic style dominant at
a certain time. Fourth century artists may have been very talented but
the style at that time called for geometrical abstraction and
linearization.
The more interesting question is the first: do these coin portraits give
us information about the imperial person's appearance? The answer must be
yes, because, for example, we can recognize male and female portraits and
we know from history that the emperors were men and their wives were
women. But to know more exactly, we would have to have contemporary
likenesses to compare with. The only ones we have are portrait busts (and
very rare paintings, e.g. of Septimius Severus). The best we can say is
that portrait busts and numismatic portraits are highly consistent, so
coins and busts can be found that clearly show the same person. Whether
these are accurate depictions of reasonably high fidelity is a more
difficult question. For a very good and thorough analysis of Roman
portrait art, see Diane Kleiner's _Roman Sculpture_. The best summary is
that each coin portrait includes some features unique to the model and
some required by the political and artistic times. For example, the
Julio-Claudian emperors carefully model their portrait hair styles on
Augustus; later emperors intentionally mimic this style to draw
connections with Augustus, too.
Note too that coin portraits were based on physical models. Thus the
first coins of a new emperor have portraits closely resembling the old
emperor; apparently, portrait models took a while to be prepared and sent
to the mints. Such coins are known for Trajan, Hadrian, Macrinus, and
others.
This is an interesting topic worth exploration at greater length.
Matt Rockman
> >
>
>
PROBUS
Chris Nyborg
In Martin Henig (ed.): "A Handbook of Roman Art", London 1983:
"The portraits of Pompey, Caesar and Anthony are immediately
recognizable and not particularly flattering and it is tempting
to use of them the word 'realistic'. Logically, this word can
never be used of any Roman coin portrait, for we have no
independent chach on the correspondence between the man and the
portrait. The best that can be said [...]is that the portrayal of
each man in remarkable consistent [...]"
In J.M.C. Toynbee: "Roman Historical Portraits", London 1978:
"Obviously the most authentic of the portraits that concern us
here are those on coins, on which the names and titles of the
individuals represented are normally inscribed beside them."
Chris N.
PROBUS
>On Sat, 13 Jan 1996, PROBUS wrote:
>There are two factors: 1) are the portraits true to their models
>Matt Rockman
>> >
>>
>>
I would like to say thank you for your informative note, which sent
me back to the few books I have on roman coins. As regards the usage
of previous rulers dies,in regards to Postumus I was suprised to find
a strong resemplance to Valerian on many of his coins. Maybe I should
have expanded on my original query to include the fact that imho
Postumus appears to bear a homely,benefolent,jolly appearance which
seems to be a break from official policy. Could this this have been a
deliberate ploy on the part of Postumus, or his advisors, to win
popular support.?
PROBUS
- -
PROBUS.
May the gods be with you friend.
PROBUS
>Chris N.
Thanks for your note Chris,sorry but Im new at this email game,
please see new thread for proper reply.
Gary Marden
> to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
> emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
I guess they must have at least resembled the Emperor of the time,
although I would expect a fair amount of beautification.
Regards
Gary
Randolph Parrish
>> Does anyone know if the portraits on roman coins bear any resemblance
>> to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
>> emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
The early coins definitely were good portraits. Nero imported
artists and turned the coinage into works of art--portriats of people
as well as of buildings. You can watch him turn from youth into a
bloated middle age via his coins. Later, when the empire started
having trouble with its money (as well as other things) the coins got
smaller and cheaper ('sandwich coins'--only coated with silver, and
then finally, no silver at all) the portraits got cheaper, too.
Sometimes even the spelling was off (in the provinces). But the later
portraits will at least give you an impression of what the ruling
general of the day looked like (he will probably have a 'radiant'
crown, suggesting his divinity, instead of the earlier laurel
wreath--look for Constantine to get rid of the 'radiants' ) It's
thought that in the early days coins may have been copied at
provincial mints from busts which were brought there from Rome, so
they were pretty accurate.
kopfj
pro...@interworld.com.au (PROBUS) writes:
>On Sat, 13 Jan 1996, PROBUS wrote:
>
> Does anyone know if the portraits on roman coins bear any resemblance
> to the real person. I ask this question because the most livelike
> emporer I have seen IMHO is POSTUMUS. What are your thoughts.
Styles change...in the Republic, it was bad form to put a living human
on a coin. In the early Empire (strongly influenced by Greek ideas of
"realism"), it was important to put a realistic portrait of the Emperor
on the coins...to this end, one of the first things a new Emperor did
was to commission some poetrait busts to be shipped out the the mints
for the engravers to follow. By the late empire, the center had moved
east from Rome, and "oriental" styles began to predominate.
Eventually, instead of a portrait of THE Emperor, these became an ICON
for "Emperor", and they all started looking the same. The same trend
developed in the eastern church (the Orthodox churches still use many
Icons --- a SAINT rather than a particular saint).
JK