Coins Mirroring Sculptures: New Evidence for the Understanding of the Images of Antinous (20 min)

Presenters

Alessia Di Santi, Scuola Normale Superiore

Abstract

If the numerous sculptures depicting Antinous are fairly well known, the numismatic sources, equally copious, have played a quite marginal role in the studies dedicated to the representations of this deceased young man who was heroized and deified by the emperor Hadrian. However, numismatic sources are crucial for understanding how the portrait of this young hero and god was invented and disseminated throughout the Roman Empire. Antinous is in fact represented both on the obverse and the reverse of numerous provincial Roman coins issued in his honor and, as this paper aims to show, these designs have a very close relationship with the better-known sculptures depicting the same subject.

This strong connection is evident looking at the portraits on the obverses, to which the first part of the contribution is dedicated. Here an iconographic analysis of some specimens is offered, in order to shed new light not only on the creation and dissemination of the well-known Antinous’s portraits types, but also on the possible existence of further overlooked portraits. Moreover, the correlation between sculptures and coins is clear in a number of obverses representing three-dimensional busts, confirming that the sculptures must have been not only the models but also the objects of these representations.

The reproduction of existing Antinous’s sculptures on coins’ reverses is the topic of the second section. Starting from the famous case of a statue from Delphi, which is depicted on the reverse of a coin issued by the same city, this part examines other possible cases of reverses bearing statues of the young man, otherwise unknown.

At the end, with the purpose of distinguishing the dedication of specific issues from that of statues represented therein, special attention is also paid to coin inscriptions.