I finally got Lucilla!

Now I have the entire (relevant) family of my favorite Emperor Marcus Aurelius!

I have Marcus Aurelius himself, Faustina the Younger, Commodus and finally Lucilla! ^_^

Anyone happen to know what “VOTA PUBLICA” means? Or what it’s intended to mean on this coin?




Lucilla (AD 164-182/3). AR denarius (18mm, 2.77 gm, 6h). NGC AU 3/5 - 4/5. Rome. LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F, draped bust of Lucilla right, seen from front, hair weaved and coiled at lower back of head in small chignon / VOTA / PVBLI / CA, legend in three lines within wreath terminating in large jewel. RIC III (Marcus Aurelius) 791.

 

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That's one of the more expensive reverse types for this otherwise common empress. Szaivert dates the issue to AD 161/2. If this is to be believed (and not all authorities agree), she would have been 12 or 13.


Lucilla, AD 161-169.
Roman AR denarius, 3.38 g, 18.7 mm, 12 h.
Rome, AD 161/162.
Obv: LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: VOTA / PVBLI / CA within laurel-wreath.
Refs: RIC 791; BMCRE 329-330; Cohen 98; RCV 5494; MIR 22-4/10a; CRE 275.

 

A nice example of a scarce coin, @Gam3rBlake - CT's own @Valentinian has a page on these types for women here:

http://augustuscoins.com/ed/VOTA/VOTAPVBLICA.html

The Lucilla VOTA type is noted there: "BMC proposes that this type commemorates the vows at her marriage in 169 to a distinguished knight, after Lucius died. [BMC cxxxiv.]" This puts her at a more marriageable age!

Here is my budget example with pitting and a gouge:


Lucilla Denarius
(Wife of Lucius Verus)
(c. 164 A.D.)
Rome Mint
LVCILLA AVGVSTA, draped bust right / VOTA PVBLICA in three lines within wreath.
RIC 791; RSC 98; BMC 329
(2.59 grams / 17 mm)
eBay May 2017

 

here is something I found just by googling VOTA PUBLICA.

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:entry=vota-publica-cn

 

Oh wow so she was just a little girl then.

Yeah I was pretty shocked at the price. I paid $230 for it which is more than I paid for her brother Commodus’ denarius but at the same time I wanted a nice example of her denarius because she’s a member of Marcus Aurelius’ family and he’s my favorite Emperor so I just felt like it was worth it to get nice examples of his family.

If it was any other Emperor’s family member I probably would’ve passed on it but Marcus Aurelius is my boy

 

Thanks for letting me know

I think it’s pretty cool that it commemorates a historical event!

 

Nice pickup, @Gam3rBlake. I like the Lucilla portrait on your coin.

Here is my budget Lucilla denarius.


I notice you are collecting Marcus Aurelius, Lucilla, Commodus, and others. Any thought of creating a "family dinner gathering", such as my humble attempt here?

 

Thanks! Lol that’s actually my intention but I can’t think of any other members of the immediate family of Marcus Aurelius.

I have Lucilla’s first husband Lucius Verus. I also have Antoninus Pius already as well.

My Faustina the Younger denarius has both Commodus & his elder brother Marcus Antoninus on the reverse (as babies).

Unfortunately for Rome Marcus Antoninus died as a child and Commodus succeeded him as heir to the Emperorship.

It’s one of those “what if” situations. What IF Marcus Antoninus had survived? He would have become Emperor instead of Commodus and if he was anything like his father Marcus Aurelius perhaps Rome would’ve continued to shine as an Empire of gold instead of (as Cassius Dio writes) devolved into an Empire of “iron and rust”.

 

Just so you know I had that exact Lucilla for many years...



I also had every reverse type but parted with the set and only kept the rarest of reverse types.

 

I guess you just need to look for Faustina Senior and Crispina to complete a "family tree".

I agree that if Marcus Antoninus had survived, history could be rewritten as Cassius Dio believed. At least Commodus could continue to enjoy his own relaxing lifestyle, without the need to become a gladiator to prove himself worthy. So many other "what-if" scenarios could change the course of history as well. Imagine IF there were no Marcus Aurelius' health rumor at Germania. No Egyptian revolt, and Faustina Junior could have lived longer.

 

Wow! Nice to know my Lucilla is from another CT member.

 

Imagine if Germanicus had succeeded Tiberius instead of Caligula!

I think that is the biggest misfortune Rome ever faced.

One ancient historian even said that Tiberius purposely made Caligula his successor as a cruel revenge against the majority of Romans who hated Tiberius.

 

One of my favorite denarii from empresses.



Lucilla AD 164-182. Rome Denarius AR 18 mm., 2,89 g.
RIC III Marcus Aurelius 786
Date Range: AD 164 - AD 180
Obverse Legend: LVCILLA AVGVSTA
Type: Bust of Lucilla, bare-headed, hair waved and fastened in a bun on back of head, draped, right
Reverse Legend: VENVS VICTRIX
Type: Venus, draped with right breast bare, standing left, holding Victory in extended right hand and resting left hand on shield set on ground

 

I know what VOTA PUBLICA means in a literal sense.

I was asking what it meant for the occasion of the coin.

Because obviously Lucilla wasn’t taking a vow in front of the Senate to become dictator.

Or making a votive offering after escaping from a dangerous situation.

Google is useful for generalized questions but mostly useless for specific questions.

 

That is certainly a massive exaggeration. Caligula's reign of 4 years was a great misfortune for the many people whom he had murdered, but he did not cause the demise or decline of the empire. Most Romans would have experienced his reign as a time of many public amusements, internal peace and building activity.

Far greater misfortunes of Rome were things like Marcus Aurelius' Marcomannic wars, which depleted the state treasury and above all his decision to break with the practice of adoptio by nominating his incompetent and cruel son Commodus as his successor. Commodus' failed reign ushered in the period of unrest, civil war and decline that characterised the 3rd century and which brought the empire to the brink of collapse.

Again, that is unlikely to be true. Caligula's reign started out promising. He descended into madness only after the first two years in power, which Tiberius could not have known.

 

Actually Caligula depleted the treasury far worse than Marcus Aurelius.

Tiberius left him a vast fortune of 625 million denarii and Caligula spent 1 billion sesterces in 1 year and by the end of his reign the huge fortune Tiberius left behind was depleted. Poor Claudius .

Marcus Aurelius spent a lot defending & expanding the Roman Empire but Caligula just wasted it on his own extravagances and luxuries.

As to Tiberius purposely naming Caligula as his heir to damage Rome:

I’m just saying what Suetonius wrote.

 

... but still Caligula's 4 year-reign did nothing to derail the Roman empire. Yet, Marcus Aurelius' foolish campaigns and change of the mode of succession eventually ruined the empire and brought it to the brink of collapse.

The difference is that Caligula (just like Commodus) was a mad tyrant, while
Marcus Aurelius was an intelligent and moderate man with good intentions. However, what do they say about good intentions and the path to hell?

But I don't want to belabour Marcus Aurelius. My point is that Caligula was not the greatest misfortune of the Roman Empire. What about the battle of Adrianople in 378? It certainly was a huge step towards the ultimate demise. The sack of Rome in 410? The arrival of the Vandals in Africa in 429, which cut off grain supplies? The sack of Rome in 455? The loss of Britain and Gaul in the 5th century? In short, I think Rome suffered far greater misfortunes than the short, but brutal reign of Caligula.

 

Pace Mattingly, but subsequent work by Szaivert,[1] Fittschen,[2] and Schultz,[3] and later summarized by Szaivert[4] and by Tobias Bärmann und Robert Schneider,[5] has called into question the notion that Lucilla's coinage began with her marriage to Verus in AD 164 and suggests this coin dates to AD 161 or 162. In light of this recent work, the notion that this coin was issued in AD 169 to commemorate a marriage to someone outside the imperial family is untenable.

This research is based upon comparing her numismatic portraiture to sculpture and also upon die studies. This work strongly suggests that coins in her name began to be issued soon after the accession of Aurelius and Verus, probably upon her engagement to Verus in AD 161, and was certainly in place by 162. This makes sense of the titulature on her early coinage, LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F ("For Lucilla Augusta, daughter of Antoninus Augustus"), which focuses on her relationship to her father, Marcus Aurelius. Then, upon her marriage to Verus at Ephesus in 164, she assumed the shortened legend, LVCILLA AVGVSTA, when she was no longer simply the daughter of Aurelius, but the wife of the co-emperor. I find Szaivert's reasoning convincing, though there are others, such as Rachel Meyers, who argue that her coinage began with her marriage to Verus in AD 164 and may have continued even after the death of Verus in AD 169.[6] I hope that @curtislclay visits this thread to offer his opinion.

Meyers concurs with Fittschen and Szaivert that the longer legend is the earlier one, being paired with Lucilla's first portrait type, while the short legend was used on coins with her second and third portrait types. She notes that the switch to the short legend could have been prompted by the birth of a child, the death of Lucius, or no specific event at all.

The consensus of scholarly opinion, then, even among those who disagree with Szaivert about a date of AD 161 or 162 for the onset of Lucilla's coinage, is that the VOTA PVBLICA type is early: it bears Lucilla's earliest hairstyle and her earliest obverse legend. The notion that it was issued in AD 169 to honor her engagement to her second husband is out of the question.

~~~

1. Wolfgang Szaivert. "Zur Chronologie der Lucillapraegungen," J.N.G. 30, 1980, pp. 7-14; also "Die Prägestrukturen im 1. und 2. Jahrhundert in Rom," T.
Hackens and R. Weiller (eds) Actes du 9ème Congris International de Numismatique: Berne, Septembre 1979, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982.

2. Fittschen, Klaus. "Die Bildnistypen der Faustina Minor und die Fecunditas Augustae," Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 3rd Series, no.126, Göttingen, 1982.

3. H.-D. Schultz. "Zur Chronologie des Lucilla-Portraits auf Münzen," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität 31 (1982), pp.283-286.

4. Szaivert, Wolfgang. Die Münzprägung der Kaiser Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus und Commodus (161/192), Moneta Imperii Romani 18. Vienna, 1989, pp. 231-33.

5. Bärmann, Tobias, and Robert Schneider. "Die Reichsprägungen Für Annia Galeria Faustina Minor Und Lucilla Unter Marcus Aurelius." Universität Potsdam: Römische Kaiserfrauen Auf Münzen, https://www.altegeschichte.uni-osnabrueck.de/Kaiserfrauen-auf-Muenzen/marc-aurel.html.

6. Meyers, Rachel. "Filiae Augustorum: The Ties That Bind in the Antonine Age." Classical World, vol. 109, no. 4, 2016, pp. 487–505 (see pp. 496-97 in particular), https://doi.org/10.1353/clw.2016.0043.

 

I'm convinced! You had me at non-Imperial wedding in the first paragraph.

 

Lucilla Augusta, AD 164-169.

Æ sestertius, 30mm, 24g, 6h. Rome mint.

Obverse: LVCILLA AVG ANTONINI AVG F; Draped bust right.

Reverse: IVNONI LVCINAE; Juno seated left, holding infant and flower // SC

Reference: RIC 1747.

From the Mat Collection.