Coin talk > Late Roman Bronze coins

Captives

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livingwater:
Hello,
I saw this coin on ebay this morning from seller denant.  It has nice detail.  I've never paid much attention to the captives.   This one seems to show a male on the left and a female on the right.  Maybe this is normal?  The right captive does look like she could go to Vicky Secret for a new bra like my wife does :).   

Victor:
I have only ever seen male captives depicted and believe that this one is male also. Despite having good detail overall, the captive on the right is reduced to basically an outline, probably from a weak strike, so it is hard to tell what is exactly going on. Every other example I have seen, from all the mints, seem to depict men, though the hairstyles sometime vary. Boudica being an exception, I also believe that the Romans would have been fighting armies made up of men.

livingwater:
Yeah all male probably, but there are two issues I can think of that show female captives, the Judaea Captive series and a Republican type that shows two Roman soldiers carrying away Sabine women.

Victor:

--- Quote from: livingwater on May 17, 2014, 09:57:37 AM ---there are two issues I can think of that show female captives,

--- End quote ---

Both of those issues are different though, The Judea type is a female personification of Judea and the Sabine women is from the tale of the rape of the women, not victory over them in battle...rather they are spoils of war- like a trophy. Captives portrayed on types proclaiming "the valor of the army" have to be men as there would be no valor in declaring your victory over women. Some of the VIRTVS types even have the trophy of arms with captives on either side.

I was very interested in the barbarians on Constantine coins and wondered if they might be representations of actually tribes or just generic barbarians. There are two basic types- the ones most typically found have straight hair like a bowl cut and the others have long hair in sort of a ponytail. I have attached a picture.

The most common types of Constantinian coins with captives are IOVI, SARMATIA, DAFNE, ADVENTVS, FVNDAT PACIS, VIRTVS EXERCIT and some SOL INVICTO. The rare types with captives are FELICITAS PERPETVA SAECVLI, PRINCIPI  IVVENTVTIS, SPES REIPVBLICAE,  VICTORIAE LIBERAE, VIRT PERP CONSTANTINI AVG, VIRTVS AVGG ET CAESS NN, and VIRTVS CONSTANTINI CAES

Two books on the topic of captives on coinage that I enjoyed are- Annalina Calo Levi, "Barbarians on Roman Imperial Coins and Sculpture." American Numismatic Society 1952 (offprint) and Burns, Thomas S. and Bernhard H. Overbeck. Rome and the Germans as Seen in the Coinage. Emory University, 1987.

Genio popvli romani:

--- Quote from: Victor on May 17, 2014, 12:15:07 PM ---
I was very interested in the barbarians on Constantine coins and wondered if they might be representations of actually tribes or just generic barbarians.

--- End quote ---

I was too, and remember that there are sometimes significant differences between mints about the representation and the attitude of the captives. I have in mind two virtus exercit, one from Trier which is now in Nikko's collection (my avatar) and another one from Siscia that are depicting very differently the barbarians. Note that Siscian barbarians look more barbaric than Trier's ones.   :)

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