New Coin Thread: Roman denarius struck in the name of the deified Antoninus Pius, minted soon after his death in 161 AD by his joint-heirs Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. The coin shows the lost Column of Antoninus Pius dedicated by the co-emperors in the same year. #LostRome 
Following his predecessor Hadrian's wishes, Pius held the Roman empire in trust for the young Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Even after a lengthy 23-year reign, he honoured the agreement, passing the throne peacefully to the joint-heirs who became Rome's first "co-emperors".
The new co-emperors raised a commemorative column on the Campus Martius soon after their adopted father's death in 161AD. It was made from a huge monolithic shaft of polished pink granite imported from Egypt, with no decorative reliefs like earlier the column of Trajan. #LostRome
A mason's inscription in Greek on a surviving fragment of the shaft reveals it was cut from the Aswan quarries under the supervision of the well-attested foreman Heraclides, by instruction of Marcus Rutilius Lupus, the Prefect of Egypt under Trajan. #LostRome
Amazingly, the quarrying of the shaft in Egypt can therefore be dated to 106 AD - over 50 years before its use in the column of Antoninus. It seems the monolith was intended for use in an unrealised Trajanic monument, but instead went unused for half a century. #LostRome
Set on an intricately carved marble pedestal, the red granite column measured an enormous 14.75 metres in height and 1.90m in diameter; one of the largest monolithic column erected in Rome – 3m taller than the columns of the Pantheon’s portico. #LostRome
The denarius, which gives a dedication "to the Divine Pius", shows that the column was surrounded by a fenced enclosure and was topped with a massive Corinthian capital, crowned like Trajan's Column before, with a colossal bronze statue of the Emperor. #LostRome
Though unlike the bronze statue of Trajan, this was a posthumous depiction of a deified ruler. As the coin attests, Antoninus was therefore shown heroically nude with partial drapery, and holding a globe and staff - likely very similarly to a statue in Rome's Palazzo Massimo.
The surviving square pedestal is also cut from an impressive single block of stone, this time white Carrara marble from Tuscany. On one side an inscription records it was raised “To the Divine Antoninus Augustus Pius, dedicated by his sons Antoninus Augustus and Verus Augustus."
Both lateral faces of the pedestal have remarkable depictions of a military 'decursio' sculpted in high-relief. The decursio was a ceremonial parade of cavalry, praetorians and standard bearers - here likely associated with the funeral rites of Antoninus and his wife Faustina.
Despite being skillfully carved in a magnificent high-relief, the scenes have been critiqued for their lack of naturalism, squat figures and confused perspectives, representing an artistic turning point away from Classical forms towards the rigid abstraction of Late-Roman art.
The last side depicts the apotheosis of Antoninus and also his wife Faustina who died over 20 years earlier. The deified couple are shown being carried to the heavens by a winged genius, accompanied by eagles and watched by the personifications of the Campus Martius and Roma.
By the Middle Ages only the broken remnants of the column projected above ground. The base was fully excavated in 1703 and two years later dragged nearby to Piazza Montecitorio where it lay for decades, visible here at the far-right of Giovanni Paolo Panini's painting.
In 1741 the column base was raised on a plinth in Piazza Montecitorio, where the artist Piranesi engraved it soon after. The surviving section of granite column shaft was kept behind the Montecitorio Palace where it was sadly damaged by fire in 1759.
In 1789 the surviving column fragments were used to restore the ancient Egyptian obelisk that had acted as the gnomon of the Solarium Augusti, the giant sundial (or horologium) in the Campus Martius. The pedestal was then moved to the Vatican.
The excellently preserved sculpted pedestal, all that survives from this important Roman monument, can today be enjoyed in the Courtyard of the Pinacoteca Vaticana, in the Vatican Museums. #LostRome #numismatics
The denarius and other recent additions to my Roman coin collection can be viewed here: garethharney.wordpress.com/highlights-fro…
