Item: i60205
 
 
Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Roman Republic M. Volteius M. f. moneyer
Silver Denarius 17mm (3.81 grams) Rome mint, struck circa 78 B.C.
Reference: Volteia 1; B.M.C. 3154; Syd. 774; Craw. 385/1
Certification: NGC Ancients Ch F  4375823-063
Laureate head of Jupiter right.
M . VOLTEI M . F . below temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Mommsen has given an interesting explanation of the types and has shown that they probably relate to the five principal agonistic festivals which were celebrated annually at Rome. Jupiter and his temple refers tot he ludi Romani, celebrated in September. Hercules and the boar to the ludi Plebeii, held in Novermber. Liber and Ceres tot he ludi Cereales, held in April. Cybele to the ludi Megalenses, which were also celebrated in April. The head of Apollo and the tripod to the ludi Apollinares, held in July.

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In Roman mythology, Jupiter or Jove was the king of the gods, and the god of sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon. He was called Iuppiter (or Diespiter) Optimus Maximus (“Father God the Best and Greatest”). As the patron deity of ancient Rome, he ruled over laws and social order. He was the chief god of the Capitoline Triad, with sister/wife Juno. Jupiter is also the father of the god Mars with Juno. Therefore, Jupiter is the grandfather of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. Jupiter was venerated in ancient Roman religion, and is still venerated in Roman Neopaganism. He is a son of Saturn, along with brothers Neptune and Pluto. He is also the brother/husband of Ceres (daughter of Saturn and mother of Proserpina), brother of Veritas (daughter of Saturn), and father of Mercury.

The Ludi Romani (“Roman Games”; see ludi) was a religious festival in ancient Rome. Usually including multiple ceremonies called Ludi. They were held annually starting in 366 BC from September 12 to September 14, later extended to September 5 to September 19. In the last 1st century BC, an extra day was added in honor of the deified Julius Caesar on 4 September. The festival first introduced drama to Rome based on Greek drama.

These games—the chief Roman festival—were in honour of Jupiter, and are said to have been established by Tarquinius Priscus on the occasion of his conquest of the Latin Apiolae, though Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Cicero refer the establishment to the victory over the Latins at Lake Regillus.

At first they lasted only one day. A second day was added on the expulsion of the kings in 509 BC, and a third after the first secession of the plebs in 494 BC. From the year 191 to 171 they lasted ten days, and shortly before Caesar’s death they apparently lasted fifteen days, September 5 to 19. After Caesar’s death a day was added. This day must have been September 4, because Cicero says that there were 45 days from the Ludi Romani to the Ludi Victoriae Sullanae on October 26, so at the time the Verrines were composed September 19 must have been the last day of the Ludi Romani.

In the calendars during the Augustan era, the days of the games were September 4 to September 19. There was the Epulum Jovis on the 13th, and the Equorum probatio (a cavalry revue) on the 14th. Circus games lasted from the 15th to the 19th. In the Calendar of Philocalus (354 AD) they run September 12 to 15. The celebration was originally organized by the consuls, later of the curule aediles.

Yet Livy and the other authors who identify the ludi magni and Romani are not altogether in error: for the arrangement of the two kinds of games was similar. An incidental proof of this is that when Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ludi votivi in 70 BC, they lasted 15 days (Cicero In Verrem i. 1. 0, 31), like the ludi Romani; and we find similar sums, viz. 200,000 asses, bestowed for both ludi magni and ludi Romani. The actual ludi Romani consisted of first a solemn procession (pompa), then a chariot race in which each chariot in Homeric fashion carried a driver and a warrior, the latter at the end of the race leaping out and running on foot (Dionys. vii. 72; and cf. Orelli, 2593, where a charioteer is spoken of as pedibus ad quadrigam). This is a practice confined to the ludi Romani. In the exhibitions of riding, each rider had a second horse led by the hand (Festus, s. v. Paribus Equis), as it appears the Roman horsemen in early times often used two horses in battle, like the Tarentini in Greek warfare (Liv. xxxv. 28, 8). Such riders were called desultores.

Most likely, originally there was only one contest of each kind, and only two competitors in each contest (Liv. xliv. 9, 4), since at all periods in the Roman chariot-race only as many chariots competed as there were so-called factions, which were originally only two, the white and the red (Mommsen, R. H. i. 236, note). These few events allowed further minor exhibitions, such as boxers, dancers, competition in youthful horsemanship (ludus Trojae). It was allowed that the wreath the victor won (for this in Greek style was the prize of victory) should be put on his bier when dead (Twelve Tables, 10, 7, and Mommsen’s remarks, Staatsrecht, i.2 411, note 2). Also, during the festival the successful warrior in real warfare (as opposed to imaginary warfare) wore the spoils he had won from the enemy, and was crowned with a chaplet.

After the introduction of the drama in 364, plays were acted at the ludi Romani, and in 214 BC we know that ludi scenici took up four days of the festival (Liv. xxiv. 43, 7). In 161 BC the Phormio of Terence was acted at these games.

The Roman Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romana) was the period of the ancient Roman civilization when the government operated as a republic.

It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 509 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate. A complex constitution gradually developed, centered on the principles of a separation of powers and checks and balances. Except in times of dire national emergency, public offices were limited to one year, so that, in theory at least, no single individual could dominate his fellow citizens.

Roman society was hierarchical. The evolution of the Constitution of the Roman Republic was heavily influenced by the struggle between the patricians, Rome’s land-holding aristocracy, who traced their ancestry back to the early history of the Roman kingdom, and the plebeians, the far more numerous citizen-commoners. Over time, the laws that gave patricians exclusive rights to Rome’s highest offices were repealed or weakened, and a new aristocracy emerged from among the plebeian class. The leaders of the Republic developed a strong tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military and political success inextricably linked.

During the first two centuries of its existence the Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, from central Italy to the entire Italian peninsula. By the following century it included North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, despite the Republic’s traditional and lawful constraints against any individual’s acquisition of permanent political powers, Roman politics was dominated by a small number of Roman leaders, their uneasy alliances punctuated by a series of civil wars.

The victor in one of these civil wars, Octavian, reformed the Republic as a Principate, with himself as Rome’s “first citizen” (princeps). The Senate continued to sit and debate. Annual magistrates were elected as before, but final decisions on matters of policy, warfare, diplomacy and appointments were privileged to the princeps as “first among equals” later to be known as imperator due to the holding of imperium, from which the term emperor is derived. His powers were monarchic in all but name, and he held them for his lifetime, on behalf of the Senate and people of Rome.

The Roman Republic was never restored, but neither was it abolished, so the exact date of the transition to the Roman Empire is a matter of interpretation. Historians have variously proposed the appointment of Julius Caesar as perpetual dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Roman Senate’s grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian under the first settlement and his adopting the title Augustus in 27 BC, as the defining event ending the Republic.

Many of Rome’s legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states and international organizations. Latin, the language of the Romans, has influenced language across parts of Europe and the world.