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Gareth Harney Profile picture
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27 Nov, 8 tweets, 4 min read
1) Delighted to add to my collection this wonderful denarius of Hadrian, with the restless emperor shown near the end of his 21-year reign and celebrating himself as restorer of the lands of the world - in this case none other than his homeland of Hispania. Image
2) Where his predecessor Trajan had travelled mainly through military campaigns and his successor Antoninus never left Italy at all during his time on the throne, Hadrian spent more than half his long reign touring the provinces of a Roman empire at its most expansive. Image
3) In the last few years of his rule, having visited most of his provinces in person, the Roman mint commemorated the emperor's grand tour in an ambitious 'travel series' of coinage, celebrating the imperial provinces visited by Hadrian and their subsequent revitalisation. ImageImage
4) The series celebrated the province itself, visualised in a female personification (their Latin names being feminine nouns like 'Germania'). Other types also honoured Hadrian's safe arrival (Adventus), his beneficence (Restitutor) and his addresses to the army (Exercitus). Image
5) My denarius commemorates Hadrian's elevation of his home region Hispania (today's Iberian Peninsula), where he may have been born in January 76 AD at Italica near modern Seville. A toga-clad Hadrian is shown as 'restorer', helping a kneeling Hispania to her feet.. Image
6) Hispania has some wonderful unique attributes that differentiate her from other lands. In one arm she holds an olive branch symbolising the region's famed olive oil production. Spain remains the world's leading exporter of olive oil today. Image
7) Between Hadrian and Hispania sits a small rabbit - so famously abundant were they in the region, the poet Catullus would label it "rabbity Spain" (Cat.37). Indeed the very name name Hispania may derive from the Phoenician "Span" - with Ispania meaning 'Land of the rabbits.' Image
8) A final view of the spectacular ancient coin in hand. Those interested can enjoy this and other coins in my gallery here: harneycoins.com/imperial?pgid=… Image

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Gareth Harney Profile picture
26 Nov
1/4) Roman sarcophagus fragment depicting the death of the Greek hero Meleager, famous for killing the Calydonian boar. The emotive tableau focuses on the dying hero being carried home by his father and companions. 2nd century, The Met
2/4) The scene is powerfully realised in high relief emphasising the dying hero, unlike most other classical representations of Meleager which usually show the hunt for the Calydonian boar or the hero being laid to rest in a tomb.
3/4) An emotive detail of a grieving companion of the dying hero Meleager.
Read 4 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
21 Nov
1) Marble bust of a Roman empress, commonly identified as Agrippina the Younger (15-59 AD), sister of Caligula, niece and wife of Claudius, as well as mother of Nero by her first husband Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus..
2) The empress has intricately curled and braided hair with luxuriant plaits at the back. She wears a diadem of flame palmettes which has been partially restored..
3) While the bust has been dated to Agrippina's lifetime, around 40-55 AD, certain features like the treatment of the eyes suggest to me this may be a later posthumous portrait of the Julio-Claudian empress, perhaps from the Trajanic era. We know for instance that..
Read 4 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
13 Nov
1) During World War II, Malta was the most bombed place on earth, with more bombs dropped on the small island in two months of 1941 than on London during the whole war. When air raids were imminent, many took refuge in churches, praying for deliverance. As on 9th April 1942..
2) In the town of Mosta, in the Northern Region of Malta, over 300 of the town's devout Catholic inhabitants gathered defiantly for evening mass in the Rotunda of Mosta, under the spectacular dome modelled on Rome's Pantheon. Meanwhile, in the skies above..
3) Luftwaffe bombers returning from a raid on the nearby airfield of RAF Ta Kali, looked for targets on which to drop their excess bombs. At 16:40pm, as they passed directly over the great Mosta Dome, the Luftwaffe jettisoned their remaining payload...
Read 8 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
1 Nov
1) Roman marble statue of a draped female figure, no less beautiful despite missing head and arms. The woman wears a chiton buttoned up on the shoulders and over it, the heavier himation or mantle. Thanks to the surviving statue base she can be identified as none other than..
2) Livia, famed and long-lived wife of Augustus. Interestingly, the inscription identifies her as 'Ceres Julia Augusta', revealing that Livia is being presented in the guise of the maternal goddess of agriculture, the grain harvest and fertility.
3) In her own 87-year lifetime, Livia was regularly equated with maternal goddesses of the Roman state, especially on imperial coinage - including Pax (Peace), Salus (Health), Justitia (Justice) and on a later coin from the reign of Claudius, Ceres.
Read 7 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
17 Oct
1) New coin: Though I only recently added an excellent example of Publius Satrienus’ she-wolf denarius minted around 77 BC, I was drawn back to the series when I was able to acquire another intriguing example that offers a rare insight into the processes of the Roman mint..
2) Having explored the imagery of the type in my previous blog post, I won’t pause to re-examine its depiction of the famed she-wolf here. Do read my recent post here for an in-depth look at Rome's fierce but nurturing matriarch: harneycoins.com/post/publius-s… ...
3) As with many other Republican issues, the coin type is notable for its use of 'control marks', numbers or symbols designating the precise dies used to strike obverse and reverse, possibly as a means of quality control or a systematic method to keep track of large coin issues..
Read 11 tweets
Gareth Harney Profile picture
9 Oct
1) We have all found ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea or caught between the hammer and the anvil. The next time you're in a tricky dilemma, why not try out the ancient version: caught between Scylla and Charybdis..
2) In Book 12 of the Odyssey, Odysseus and his crew skirt by the island of the Sirens somewhere along the western coast of Italy. With Odysseus tied to the mast and his men's ears filled with beeswax, they avoid the lure of the Sirens' song, continuing south towards Sicily..
3) Soon they come to the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria. Both sides of the narrow channel were guarded by deadly monsters that proved inescapable threats to sailors - who attempting to avoid one, would inevitably come in reach of the other. On the Calabrian coast..
Read 11 tweets

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