DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51762#0098
HISTORICAL ROMAN COINS
type known in the famous sanctuary of Aricia. She
was essentially the goddess of childbirth and the
helper of women. It is donbtfnl whether she would
be represented as the goddess is represented on our
coin, although figures of the Diana Nemorensis from
Nemi do represent her, owing to Greek influence,
as a huntress. If we could suppose the coin-type to
be meant for the Romano-Greek Diana-Artemis, we
should have an interesting historical combination,
accounting for her appearance on the coins at this
time. For in 187 b.c. the consul M. Aemilius
Lepidus, during his campaign against the Ligurians,
vowed a temple to Diana, which he dedicated during
his censorship in 179.1 But it is probable that the
Greek Artemis would also have been represented as
the huntress-goddess, even as we find her on the coins
issued at Syracuse just before this period, during the
democracy of 215—212 b.c. The goddess on our
coins is so evidently characterized as Luna or the
Moon that we have no justification for calling her
anything else.
Now this goddess was much revered at Rome.
Her chief temple, said to have been founded by
Servius Tullius,2 lay on the slope of the Aventine,
1 Liv. xxxix. 2, xl. 52. This, and a temple of Timo Eegina, dedicated
at the same time, were in the neighbourhood of the Circus Flaminius.
2 Ovid, Fast. iii. 883 ; Tac. Ann. xv. 41. In 182 b.c. a storm
forem ex aede Lunae, quae in Aventino est, raptam tulit, et in posticis
partibus Cereris templi affixit (Liv. xl. 2).
58
type known in the famous sanctuary of Aricia. She
was essentially the goddess of childbirth and the
helper of women. It is donbtfnl whether she would
be represented as the goddess is represented on our
coin, although figures of the Diana Nemorensis from
Nemi do represent her, owing to Greek influence,
as a huntress. If we could suppose the coin-type to
be meant for the Romano-Greek Diana-Artemis, we
should have an interesting historical combination,
accounting for her appearance on the coins at this
time. For in 187 b.c. the consul M. Aemilius
Lepidus, during his campaign against the Ligurians,
vowed a temple to Diana, which he dedicated during
his censorship in 179.1 But it is probable that the
Greek Artemis would also have been represented as
the huntress-goddess, even as we find her on the coins
issued at Syracuse just before this period, during the
democracy of 215—212 b.c. The goddess on our
coins is so evidently characterized as Luna or the
Moon that we have no justification for calling her
anything else.
Now this goddess was much revered at Rome.
Her chief temple, said to have been founded by
Servius Tullius,2 lay on the slope of the Aventine,
1 Liv. xxxix. 2, xl. 52. This, and a temple of Timo Eegina, dedicated
at the same time, were in the neighbourhood of the Circus Flaminius.
2 Ovid, Fast. iii. 883 ; Tac. Ann. xv. 41. In 182 b.c. a storm
forem ex aede Lunae, quae in Aventino est, raptam tulit, et in posticis
partibus Cereris templi affixit (Liv. xl. 2).
58