Exercise for "Coins and Money"

Coins and Money     This exercise created by Bob Cape				Identifying the Gods on Roman Coins The Romans were a deeply religious people and put images of their gods on most of their coins. Sometimes the person issuing the coin seems to be thanking the god or putting himself or herself in the god's protection; sometimes it seems the issuer wants the people to think of - or thank - the god or goddess for some reason. All of the major state gods appear on coins, though some were more popular than others. The coins often depict a specific aspect of the god rather than the general name we are accustomed to; for example, Jupiter Conservator (Jupiter the Protector), or Sol Invictus (The Unconquerable Sun), rather than merely Jupiter or Sol (although the simple name appears often enough). For this exercise you will learn how the Romans depicted their gods and goddesses on their coins. You will learn to identify the god or goddess by his or her stance and the items that are associated with him or her. With enough practice and by comparing the images with ancient statues, you could reasonably identify most statues and art showing the major Roman gods in any museum or art collection. Let's start with some easy gods. For each of the following, search for the god or goddess using the Virtual Catalog of Roman Coins main search page (http://artemis.austincollege.edu/acad/cml/rcape/vcrc/search/). Using half of a sheet of paper for each divinity, describe how the god/goddess is represented (standing, sitting, riding, flying, etc.), and note what implements are associated with him/her (chariot, thunderbolt, lyre, bow, animal, etc.), You might also note how the image changes over time, with the representation changing consistently or not. What aspects of the gods are portrayed? By what extra names were they called? Let's look at these gods: Jupiter   Juno   Minerva   Mars   Diana   Sol   After you have finished, take the quiz "Gods on Roman Coins" and record your score. How did you do? Can you name any gods who do not appear in the catalog yet? Most likely they did not appear often on Roman coins, but if they are major gods and goddess they probably did at least once! Congratulations! You have learned how to identify the major Roman gods by their iconography (how they are represented), and have learned something about the importance of Roman religion.