Vespasian Observation

That is bizarre...

A quick search shows that it is also standard amongst Vespasians coins to have Tyche looking like that.

Echizento;

Well this would be easy enough to check into. Are all Gods given his likeness or is it just Tyche and across the board? Did he impose a likeness on the Gods on Roman coins that were not Provincial or was this city just really trying to curry favor with him? Etc. Of course as we move into Passover remember he never put his likeness an only of our coins! (And then he kicked us out of Jerusalem so maybe not the best example.)

Well sure Titus and the Arch proves Titus won the war against the Jews, but if Vespasian did not want this to happen I wonder if the son would have had a free hand like that. So I said under Vespasian the Jews left Jerusalem.

But when you say, "there were two Jewish revolts over Roman rule. Which caused the ruin of the Temple.." did we really ever have a choice? Sure but would we have a functioning religion had we just assimilated completely? Allowed Caligula to put up his statue in our temple like the other Roman provinces? Remember the famous coins we produced during the rebellion that say "Freedom of Zion". If we did not have "freedom of Zion" were we even Jews or just some other group about to be swallowed up by history? The revolts probably saved us in some respects as a people. Just my opinion of course.

@LKS, that is an interesting coin and I see your point about the likenesses of the features.

Not to bring you too far off topic, but I wonder if you could comment on the three somewhat circular copper colored spots on Tyche's crown. Is this a fouree with the overcoat worn away on these high spots or some sort of encrustation? Down by the neck, there seems to be an irregular area that looks like an encrustation to me. Clearly, I'm not very knowledgeable about these coins, but just trying to learn more.

The spots appear to be encrustation on the top of the surface, the coin looks like it may have been lacquered in the past which it turning black and leaving the coin that color.

Actually the links to wildwinds don't work at first. It appears to be an old server so it takes a hit to wake it up and then the browser times out before it responds and gives the error message. Then once it is on you can hit it repeatedly. I use it all the time but I must admit I use the disk she sells and it speeds things up greatly. Like when you need every image on the Augustus thumbnail page having the wildwinds disk is quite a blessing as they instantly appear. (once you copy the disk to a fast harddrive.) Like here is the wildwinds image link again. I'll post, it will work and after a half hour or so of no one calling it the error again. We'll see anyway.
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/...RPC_1987.jpg

Wonderful images! We had a president at my school and when a statue of a man on a horse from what was supposed to be the 16th century, (our school mascot), when the very large metal statue was unveiled sure enough he had the face of our then president, God rest his soul. So some guys just like to see themselves I suppose. Thanks!

The "family" resemblance thing is quite common on imperial coinage. The "Livia" coinage of Augustus depicts Justitia Salus and Pietas. By an amazing coincidence they just happen to all look like Livia.
The family issues of Caligula all seem to depict highly realistic portraiture. Once Claudius assumes the office the coins honoring his father Germanicus (and grandfather Nero Drusus) suddenly veer toward the features of the grandson.
Likewise the Flavian portraiture has some twists and turns added to it.
Just today I lost out on a sestertius of Domitian as Caesar that depicted the spitting image of Titus.
Alas poor Tito .........
I have a Divus Augustus As issued by Nerva. The new regime sought to legitimize its place as the adopted heirs of the Julio Claudians and the portraits show it !




Roman period portraiture while usually highly realistic (warts and all) did make some twists and turns
Personally I think your Tyche looks more like Titus dressed up in drag !

I would add that Vespasian was famous for his self deprecating sense of humor. He tolerated many personal jokes that might have had many a comedian executed in other regimes.
The die engravers in Antioch may have been very familiar with his sense of humor. Vespasian himself may have laughed the loudest if he ever saw these coins.