Faustina Friday – The Count de Caylus Catalog, Part 1

Roman Collector · November 22, 2024

Friday felicitations, fellow Faustina fanatics! I hope you have a wonderful weekend enjoying your collections. Today I’m going to begin a series about the aurei of Faustina I and II in the collection of Louis XV, king of France, as catalogued by the noted antiquarian and engraver, Anne Claude de Tubières-Grimoard de Pestels de Lévis, comte de Caylus, marquis d'Esternay, baron de Bransac, better known as Count de Caylus.[1] The Count’s catalog was published by Renouard in 1760 as Numismata Aurea Imperatorum Romanorum E Cimelio Regis Christianissimi (Gold Coins of the Roman Empire from the Collection of the Most Christian King).

Caylus’s catalog has been scanned by a few contributors and is available online. The highest resolution copy available is that from the Bavarian State Library.[2] The catalog contains no text; rather, it consists of approximately 1500 idealized representations of coins in the royal collection engraved by Caylus himself. Because the engravings are idealized, it is impossible to identify the plate coins, but an examination of the collection in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) as photographed by Roxane Gauthier-Dussart[3] strongly suggests they remain in the French national collection in Paris today. This is because Count Caylus’s catalog depicts several extremely rare coins, including hybrids, that would be otherwise impossible for the Bibliothèque nationale to assemble into one collection.

The catalog is arranged roughly chronologically by reign, but no attempt is made to order the reverse types of either Faustina by any clear pattern, such as in alphabetical or chronological order. In this series of installments, I will first show Caylus’ engraving, followed by Gauthier-Dussart’s photograph of the coin in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. I will then provide a description and comments about each coin in the catalog.

Here is the first listing for Faustina the Elder in the catalog, the Juno standing type of 1 March – 31 December 139 CE (RIC 331).

Obv: FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG P P, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: IVNONI REGINAE, Juno standing left, holding patera and scepter; peacock at feet.

Also issued in bronze with the same obverse inscription. This reverse type appears on a denarius with the later obverse inscription FAVSTINA AVGVSTA.

On the following page, Caylus illustrates several reverse types, but it is unclear with which obverse types they are to be paired, which would be confusing were they not now in the French national collection for examination.

The first of these, no. 500 in the catalog, is the peacock walking right reverse type, issued posthumously (RIC 384).

Obv: DIVA FAVSTINA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: CONSECRATIO, peacock walking right, head left.

The reverse type depicting the peacock of Juno was issued in gold and silver. These coins were part of a series of issues that commenced in 150 CE to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Faustina's death and deification.[4] On the aurei, the peacock may walk either right or left, and on the denarii, the bust type may be bare-headed or veiled. I have examined this reverse type in a previous installment of Faustina Friday elsewhere.

Caylus no. 499 depicts Concordia, issued during Faustina the Elder’s lifetime, from 1 January 140 until her death in late October 140 (RIC 337).

Obv: FAVSTINA AVGVSTA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: Concordia standing right, holding scepter and cornucopiae.

Inexplicably, Cohen interprets Caylus as suggesting the coin with this reverse type bears the obverse inscription FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG P P (Cohen 156), even though he was aware of this reverse type paired with the FAVSTINA AVGVSTA obverse legend (Cohen 157). This is an error.

There is also a reverse type depicting Concordia standing left, holding a patera and cornucopiae (RIC 336).

Cylus no. 498 depicts Venus standing.

Obv: FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG P P, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: VENERI AVGVSTAE, Venus standing right, drawing up palla from right shoulder and holding an apple.

This reverse type was paired with both the FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG P P (RIC 333) and the FAVSTINA AVGVSTA (RIC 342) obverse legends. It is unclear from Cylus’s catalog to which type he refers, but the coin in the BnF reads FAVSTINA AVG ANTONINI AVG P P and Cohen cites M. le comte Tyszkievicz for the variety with the FAVSTINA AVGVSTA legend (Cohen 280).

Cylus no. 503 is an early posthumous issue depicting the mule-drawn carpentum used for the empress’s funeral procession (RIC 389).

Obv: DIVA AVGVSTA FAVSTINA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: EX S C, carpentum drawn right by two mules.

This coin is securely dated to 140 CE and is among the first aurei issued for the deified empress.[5] Reverse types that were issued subsequent to this type have been found paired with aurei of Antoninus Pius dated to 140 CE,[6] definitively proving Faustina the Elder died in 140 CE, not 141 as some numismatic references report.[7]

Cylus no. 502 is also among the first issues struck for the deified Faustina and depicts the currus elephantorum for the empress’s funerary proceedings.[8]

Obv: DIVA AVGVSTA FAVSTINA, bare-headed and draped bust, right.
Rev: EX SENATVS CONSVLTO, Statue of Faustina holding corn ears, seated left in currus drawn by pair of elephants, left.

A number of varieties are known for the aurei. The coins may bear the empress’s full title, DIVA AVGVSTA FAVSTINA (RIC 390a) or the abbreviated DIVA AVG FAVSTINA legend (RIC 390b) on the obverse and the full EX SENATVS CONSVLTO legend around the rim on the reverse. The bust type is always right-facing but may be bare-headed or veiled,[9] and the cart is only depicted as being drawn to the left. The currus elephantorum reverse type was also issued in bronze. I have previously written extensively about this issue.

Cylus no. 501 is a somewhat later posthumous issue depicting two figures in a quadriga.

Obv: DIVA AVG FAVSTINA, bare-headed bust, left.
Ref: CONSECRATIO, Faustina I standing, holding scepter, in quadriga driven left by Sol (?), who stands behind her, leaning forward to horses.

Beckmann dates this coin to 143 or 144 CE, and proposes that it depicts the quadriga that served as the acroterion of the Temple of Diva Faustina, which was dedicated in 143 or 144 CE.[10] As such, it would have been issued as part of the series of coins minted to commemorate the temple’s dedication. I have previously written extensively about some of these issues. However, the coin is known only from two reverse dies, which Beckmann was unable to link to other aurei in his die-linkage study, and Strack suggested the quadriga depicted was that used on the funeral pyre for the empress and therefore would date to 140 CE. For this reason, Beckmann cautions the reader that the date is therefore not known with certainty.[11] The identities of the figures in the chariot are not known with certainty, but Paul Dinsdale suggests they represent Faustina and Sol.[12] This is not an unreasonable hypothesis.

The coin was struck with two reverse dies in combination with three obverse dies, bare-headed and draped busts facing left and right, and a veiled bust facing right. Cohen appropriately cites the specimen in the BnF for the left-facing bust variety (as illustrated above), but inexplicably cites Caylus for the type paired with a bare-headed, right-facing bust (Cohen 168). As you can see from the plate in Caylus’s catalog, above, this reverse is clearly paired with the left-facing bust type. Cohen cites Wiczay for the variety with the right-facing, veiled bust type (Cohen 169).[13]

We will continue our exploration of the coins illustrated in Caylus’s catalog in a future installment of Faustina Friday.

Please post comments, coins, or anything you feel is relevant!

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Notes

1. “Anne Claude de Caylus.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Aug. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Claude_de_Caylus.

2. Also available here: Numismata Aurea Imperatorum Romanorum E Cimelio Regis Christianissimi - Anne Claude Philippe de Caylus - Google Books.

3. Gauthier-Dussart, Roxane, et al. "Entre Rome et Alexandrie: Le Monnayage d'antonin Le Pieux (138-161), Idéologie Du Règne et Adaptations Locales."l'Université de Montréal, 2017, pl. 85 ff.

4. Beckmann, Martin. Diva Faustina: Coinage and Cult in Rome and the Provinces. American Numismatic Society, 2012, p. 69 ff.

5. Beckmann, op. cit., pp. 15, 20, 34 and Die Chart 1.

6. Beckmann, op. cit., Die Chart 1.

7. Notably, Harold Mattingly (BMCRE), David Sear, and David Vagi. Moreover, the Fasti Ostienses (tablet O, lines 11-12) reports the empress died on 23 October 140 CE; quoted and translated by Beckmann, op. cit., p. 22.

8. Beckmann, op. cit., pp. 15, 20, 33 and Die Chart 1

9. This veiled bust type is unlisted in RIC, BMCRE, or Cohen. Strack (no. 411) cites a specimen in Gotha; I have not been able to confirm the existence of this type despite an exhaustive search of online databases.

10. Beckmann, op. cit., pp. 15, 32.

11. Beckmann, op. cit., p. 32.

12. Dinsdale, Paul H. Antonine Coinage: Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Caesar AD 138-161; Second Revised Edition. Leeds, Paul H Dinsdale, 2021, p. 293.

13. See NAC 49, 21 October 2008, lot 258 and Christie’s 8 October 1985, lot 91 (Calicó p.332, 1782), respectively, for examples of the right-facing bare-headed and veiled obverse bust varieties.