Diva Faustina I Silver Denarius, RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a

Monetary and Political Context

The death of Annia Galeria Faustina, known to history as Faustina the Elder, in late AD 140 precipitated an unprecedented wave of posthumous commemoration across the Roman world. Her husband, Emperor Antoninus Pius, requested and received immediate senatorial consecration for his late wife. This act established the formal cult of Diva Faustina, complete with a dedicated temple in the Roman Forum, a college of priestesses, and an expansive charitable foundation known as the Puellae Faustinianae. Within the imperial currency system, this personal and political tragedy sparked one of the largest coin outputs of the second century, struck predominantly in gold, silver, and aes at the principal mint of Rome. The silver denarius catalogued as RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a belongs directly to this consecration program. In the mid-second century, the denarius served as the operational backbone of imperial state finance, facilitating state expenditures, bureaucratic salaries, public works, and military pay. By replacing the living empress with a divine counterpart on mass-market silver coins, the administration used daily currency transactions to reinforce Antoninus's filial pietas and matrimonial devotion. Furthermore, the selection of types connecting Faustina to civic nourishment and agricultural prosperity helped reassure Roman society of the regime's stability, generosity, and continued divine favour.

Production Standards and Minting

All specimens of RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a were produced exclusively at the single central imperial mint in Rome. During the Antonine epoch, the Rome mint maintained a high degree of departmental organisation, operating in distinct officinae that managed silver flan preparation, die engraving, and striking. Flans for the denarius were cast in molten silver alloy and subsequently cold-struck or slightly warm-struck between hand-carved steel dies. The typical weight of the Antonine denarius clustered between 3.15 and 3.40 grams, conforming to the reduced standard established under Trajan, while nominal diameters generally fell between 17 and 19 millimetres. In terms of metallurgic composition, Antoninus Pius maintained a remarkably stable standard of silver fineness, with the denarius consistently testing between 75 and 80 percent pure silver, the remainder consisting of copper alloy added to improve die striking durability. Die alignment at Rome during this phase was heavily regulated, exhibiting the standard imperial upright or inverse die orientation (principally 6 o'clock or 12 o'clock). Engravers working at the capital demonstrated exceptional technical proficiency in rendering delicate drapery folds and the intricate hair weaves characteristic of court portraits of the deified Augusta.

Obverse Iconography

The obverse of RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a presents a right-facing, draped bust of the consecrated empress Diva Faustina. Her likeness captures the elegant maturity associated with her official court profile, executed with refined realism that balances imperial majesty with serene divinity. The bust is carefully draped over the shoulders with a light mantle or stola, gathered smoothly across the neckline. Central to the classification of type 360a is Faustina's complex hairstyle, which set a prominent standard in Antonine female fashion. Her hair is elaborately dressed, parted across the forehead, drawn back in multiple deeply textured waves and parallel plaits that encircle the head, and gathered upward into a braided topknot or coiled chignon pinned securely at the crown of the head. Unlike earlier consecration portraits that sometimes featured veils or diadem elements, this specific obverse bust presents her hair exposed in its full domestic splendour, projecting the virtues of modesty, prestige, and Roman aristocratic tradition.

Reverse Iconography

The reverse of RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a portrays the Roman goddess Ceres standing facing left in an attitude of divine beneficence. Ceres appears fully draped in a long tunic (chiton) and mantle (himation), with a veil covering the back of her head, evoking both maternal dignity and the sacred rites of mystery cults. In her lowered right hand, she holds two ears of ripe grain pointed downward toward the ground, symbolising the bestowal of fertility, abundance, and the food supply upon the Roman citizenry. In her left hand, held vertically at her side, she supports a tall, lit torch. The juxtaposition of ears of corn and the lighted torch references the traditional mythic attributes of Ceres, recalling her nocturnal search for her daughter Proserpina across the earth. In the context of Faustina's consecration, this imagery held multiple layers of meaning. On an allegorical level, it assimilated the late empress directly to Ceres, the divine mother and patroness of the grain supply (annona). The lit torch provided light in darkness, signifying both resurrection into divine eternity and the unceasing maternal vigilance of Faustina watching over the empire and its grain welfare from the heavens.

Epigraphy and Legends

The legends on RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a are notable for their conciseness, solemnity, and lapidary clarity. The obverse legend reads DIVA FAVSTINA, arranged continuously along the outer rim, reading clockwise from the lower left. The designation DIVA conclusively indicates that the coin was struck subsequent to the formal deification decreed by the Senate. By omitting any imperial titles or filial patronymics, the legend elevates the empress into a transcendent, universally recognized status where the mere mention of her name and divine state sufficed. The reverse legend consists of the solitary title AVGVSTA, inscribed along the upper perimeter or curving around Ceres. While Augusta served as the standard title granted to living empresses, its appearance alongside the obverse DIVA creates a thematic bridge between her terrestrial dignity and her immortal authority. The lettering reflects the classic Roman monumental capitals of the mid-second century, characterized by crisply excised strokes, balanced serifs, and open internal loops on letters such as P, R, and A.

Typology and Chronology

The absolute chronology of the vast Diva Faustina coinage has long been a subject of numismatic analysis. Mattingly in BMCRE IV and Strack in his detailed corpus organized Faustina's posthumous issues into sequential phases: an initial group struck immediately upon her deification in AD 141 bearing legends such as DIVA AVGVSTA FAVSTINA, followed by subsequent extensive issues pairing DIVA FAVSTINA on the obverse with various reverse themes. RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a, which features DIVA FAVSTINA with reverse AVGVSTA, was initiated in AD 141 and likely struck over an extended window during the early to mid-140s as part of the primary consecration wave. Within the typology established by the Roman Imperial Coinage, type 360 is subdivided on the basis of portrait and iconographic attributes. Subtype 360a is defined specifically by the bust of Faustina facing right with the waved and coiled hair dress, combined with Ceres holding two ears of corn downward and a vertical lighted torch. Related varieties, such as 360b or other neighboring numbers in RIC, feature alternate arrangements of Ceres's torch (such as a transverse torch, a long staff, or a scepter) or distinct bust treatments such as veiled portraits. Isolating 360a allows researchers to trace the specific die pairs and iconographic continuity of the standing Ceres with downward corn-ears.

Circulation and Hoard Evidence

Because the deification coinage of Faustina the Elder was produced in immense quantities, coins of type RIC III 360a enjoyed wide geographical distribution and an exceptionally long circulatory life. Specimens are consistently recorded in major coin hoards found throughout the Roman world, from the northwestern frontier in Roman Britain and the Rhine-Danube limes to the Mediterranean interior and the eastern provinces. Notable examples include the vast Reka Devnia hoard in Bulgaria, which contained thousands of consecration denarii of Diva Faustina, demonstrating that these coins remained in bulk circulation for decades. Due to the relative silver stability maintained by Antoninus Pius, consecration denarii of this type were not systematically hoarded or culled in preference to earlier Trajanic or Hadrianic silver. Instead, they circulated continuously alongside them until the severe monetary debasements of the late Severan period and the third-century crisis. Many surviving specimens exhibit moderate to heavy wear consistent with several decades of daily exchange, while others preserved in military savings hoards demonstrate that Faustina's divine memory remained a ubiquitous feature of everyday commercial life throughout the late Antonine era.

References

1. Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, Vol. IV: Antoninus Pius to Severus Alexander. pp. 59-64
2. The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan. pp. 518-525
3. The Consecration Coinage of Faustina the Elder. Numismatic Chronicle 1940, pp. 1-22
4. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC III Antoninus Pius 360a. ric.3.ant.360a
5. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. III: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. p. 70, no. 360a
6. Untersuchungen zur romischen Reichspragung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, Teil III: Die Reichspragung zur Zeit des Antoninus Pius. nos. 400-425