Odd Question Raised From Raised Hand On Statues On Coins:

If they waived good-bye...it meant that they would not return..that's why they said "safe travels" sounds good. P.S. always enjoy your post of ancient coins..

This coin has an obverse and reverse that has figures with hands raised, but they are not waving. The Sol on reverse is so small the details are hard to make out, but Constantine shows more of what is going on. RIC VII describes this bust as showing imperatorial gestus.gestus is a great German word which means physical gestures that convey the attitude, or "gist'. So, the raised hand for Constantine (note the fingers also) is meant to convey a sense of regalness and authority. Sol, of course as befitting a god, also has a raised hand.

Waving wouldn't have been a "friendly greeting" in ancient times, due to the similarity with another universally understood hand gesture with a much deeper meaning.

And no, not the "Roman salute", as promulgated by the Italian fascists - which appears to be a fanciful modern invention as there is no literary or pictorial evidence that Romans saluted each other in the fascist fashion, with rigid-arm and palm-down.

Raising the right hand, with palm up or half-up, was commonly used in antiquity as a symbol of pledging trust, friendship or loyalty. It's a "you can trust me" gesture. In Greek-style Rhetoric and Oratory which the Romans adopted, the tradition evolved of a speaker holding his hand out in this manner for most of his speech - again, the message is "you should listen to me because you can trust what I'm saying". Because you had to hold your hand out there for quite a long time, if you were in the habit of giving long speeches, the held hand was in a relaxed, half-open position (rather than a flat palm or clenched fist). The Emperor Augustus is doing this in the famous statue of him known as the Augustus of Prima Porta.