Diva Faustina Silver Denarius, RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b

Monetary Context

The silver denarius functioned as the cornerstone of day-to-day administrative, military, and commercial liquidity throughout the high Roman Empire. Under the stable governance of Antoninus Pius, the imperial monetary system preserved the weight and fineness benchmarks consolidated during the Trajanic and Hadrianic periods. Denarii of this era were struck from silver alloys maintaining an average fineness of approximately eighty to eighty-five percent, with target weights clustering between 3.1 and 3.4 grams, corresponding to approximately ninety-six coins per Roman pound. The sudden demise of Empress Annia Galeria Faustina in late AD 140 or early AD 141 presented an immediate ideological imperative alongside routine fiscal requirements. Upon her death, Antoninus Pius secured her formal deification from the Senate, inaugurating an extensive cult that permeated public religion, monumental architecture, and the operations of the imperial mint. Rather than reducing overall silver output, the administration redirected a substantial proportion of denarius production toward consecrated types. RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b belongs to this first monumental wave of post-consecration silver. By circulating Diva Faustina denarii alongside ordinary state currency, the administration reinforced the perceived legitimacy, moral rectitude, and dynastic stability of the Antonine regime across all social echelons of the empire.

Production and Mints

All regular imperial silver coinage of the Antonine period was centralized at the primary mint of Rome. The urban mint operated through organized operational officinae, or workshops, staffed by specialized artisans including engravers, flan casters, and moneyers. Blanks for RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b were cast in pre-measured spherical moulds or cut from cast strips, subsequently flattened and brought to strike while either cold or slightly annealed. Die alignment across this series displays an orientation predominantly oriented toward twelve o'clock or six o'clock, reflecting the mechanical discipline of Rome's coining teams. Engravers at Rome exhibited high artistic mastery in executing the dies for type 384b, capturing both the intricate weave of the imperial coiffure and the delicate textural plumage of the peacock. Die wear and replacement were continuous, leading to micro-variations in relief depth, letter forms, and feather detailing across different surviving specimens. The production volume for the Diva Faustina denarii was exceptionally massive, running continuously through the remaining decades of the principate, although specific early consecration varieties like 384b represent carefully phased early typological groups within this long-lived production framework.

Obverse Design and Portraiture

The obverse of RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b presents the right-facing bust of Diva Faustina, rendered with a combination of solemn reverence and courtly elegance. Unlike its counterpart RIC III 384a, which depicts the empress with an uncovered head, type 384b features a delicate veil draped over the back and crown of her head, cascading gracefully downward to merge with the folds of drapery around her shoulders and neckline. The veil serves as a direct iconographic signifier of her deceased, consecrated status and religious piety, echoing the dress of Roman matrons participating in sacred sacrificial rites. Beneath and around the veil, her signature hairstyle remains prominently articulated: waved bands of hair are drawn horizontally from the front and sides into an elaborate vertical chignon or woven coil pinned securely at the summit of the cranium. Engravers rendered the facial features with the idealized composure characteristic of Antonine court portraiture, presenting smooth facial planes, a straight nasal bridge, and softly closed lips. The portrait conveys timeless serenity, depicting the deceased Augusta as an immortal inhabitant of the divine sphere while retaining recognizable physiognomic likeness.

Reverse Iconography

The reverse of RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b features the solitary figure of a peacock, walking rightward across an exergual ground line with its head turned back to face toward the left. In classical mythology and Roman imperial religion, the peacock (pavo) was the sacred companion, herald, and zoomorphic attendant of Juno, the supreme queen of the Olympian pantheon. Within Roman numismatic and funerary iconography, the peacock stood as the exact female counterpart to the Jovian eagle (aquila). Just as the eagle carried the soul of a deceased emperor upward to the celestial sphere during imperial apotheosis rituals, the peacock was believed to guide the ascending spirit of the deified empress to join Juno in heaven. The dynamic posture of the bird, striding deliberately forward while turning its crested head back toward its trailing plumage, provided engravers an opportunity to balance horizontal movement with vertical compositional harmony. Detailed dies articulate the individual eyes (ocelli) of the folded train feathers, the curvature of the neck, and the delicate crest atop the head, producing an unmistakable emblem of divine transformation and imperial apotheosis.

Inscriptions and Epigraphy

The epigraphic design of RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b is characterized by brevity and classical symmetry, omitting the lengthy administrative titles customary on contemporary issues of living emperors. The obverse legend reads DIVA FAVSTINA, struck continuously along the perimeter from the lower left to the lower right. The initial title 'DIVA' explicitly designates her status as a deified goddess, an honor ratified by the Roman Senate shortly after her demise. The reverse legend features the single word CONSECRATIO, arranged along the upper border above the peacock. Derived from the Latin consecrare, the term refers directly to the solemn senatorial rite of consecration and apotheosis whereby an imperial personage was formally admitted into the state pantheon. The lettering across both dies follows standard Roman capital script, executed with crisp serifs, consistent letter heights, and uniform spacing tailored to the curvature of the outer beaded border. The absence of consular dates, tribunician counts, or imperial acclamations highlights the timeless, religious character of the issue, divorcing the commemorated figure from transient earthly offices.

Types and Chronology

Modern chronological studies, particularly the exhaustive die and hoard analyses published by Martin Beckmann and earlier classification by Paul Strack, place type 384b in the initial stages of Faustina's post-mortem coinage. Faustina died around October or November of AD 140, and the Senate completed the consecration procedures early in AD 141. The earliest memorial denarii retained simple legends and explicit ritual scenes, contrasting with later issues that expanded into extensive personification types such as Aeternitas, Ceres, and Pietas. Within Harold Mattingly's arrangement in The Roman Imperial Coinage, type 384 is divided into two distinct portrait varieties: RIC III 384a, featuring an un編eiled, draped bust right, and RIC III 384b, featuring the veiled and draped bust right. Both share the identical reverse composition of the peacock walking right with head turned back left under the CONSECRATIO legend. Die linkage studies confirm that the veiled bust was introduced rapidly alongside or immediately subsequent to the unveiled portraits, marking the crystallization of Faustina's formalized cultic iconography within the opening months of AD 141.

Circulation and Monetary Life

Following its release from the Rome mint in AD 141, RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b integrated into the massive pool of silver currency traversing the Roman Empire. Archaeological evidence from coin hoards across Britannia, Gaul, the Rhine-Danube frontier, and the eastern provinces demonstrates that Diva Faustina denarii experienced unusually prolonged circulation. Due to their standard silver content and the sheer volume produced across the entire Antonine era, these coins remained an active component of market exchange for more than a century. They consistently appear in hoards deposited during the Severan period and survived in diminished quantities up to the monetary crises of the mid-third century AD. Wear patterns on recovered specimens range from minimal rub on early hoarded pieces to heavily smoothed surfaces and rounded rims on examples circulating into the AD 240s and 250s. The wide distribution and robust survival of type 384b substantiate its effectiveness not merely as a functional medium of exchange, but as a ubiquitous vehicle of Antonine dynastic propaganda throughout the Roman world.

References

1. Diva Faustina: Coinage and Cult in Rome and the Provinces. pp. 23-45
2. Online Coins of the Roman Empire: RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b. RIC III Antoninus Pius 384b
3. The Roman Imperial Coinage, Vol. III: Antoninus Pius to Commodus. p. 71, no. 384b
4. Untersuchungen zur romischen Reichspragung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, Teil III: Die Reichspragung zur Zeit des Antoninus Pius. no. 408