Caligula: The First Living Princeps To Be Shown Radiate?

[Joe Geranio]

After seeing some radiate portraits of Caligula and the possible radiate head of the consensv dupondius(from Rome). I believe Caligula was the first living Princeps to be shown Radiate? (not Nero)

 

Go to: http://portraitsofcaligula.com/3/miscellaneous10.htm

 

I show 2 provincial isssues and the much debated Consensv Dupondius. Your thoughts. B. E. Levy advanced this interpretation on some of the coins and others I have researched and found other specicems. Your thoughts on this?

 

Joe Geranio

[phil25]

Analysis of coins is a specialised field, and it certainly isn't mine.

 

But I have stated elsewhere my theaory that deliberate policy rather than madness is evident in a consistency of policy throughout Gaius' reign. That policy, I believe was to establish a semi-divine autocracy on Hellenistic lines in Rome. Gaius wished to throw out the disguised monarchy of his predecessors and replace it with a Hellenistic style kingship. This may be traceable back through his mother Agrippina and his grandmother Antonia 9even more so) to Antonius the triumvir, and the style of Ptolemaic rule he associated himself with in Egypt.

 

Chancing my arms here - others will be much more expert than I - there may be another strand to Gaius' policy (assuming the interpretation and the coin are genuine).

 

That is - that the radiate crown was associated with the Sun God (Helios?); the Sun God was linked to Apollo; and Apollo was Augustus' specific guardian deity.

 

Could the assumption by Gaius of eastern style kingship, wedded to the use of Augustan symbols, have been an attempt to marry the policies of the great rivals into a single and novel form of government. Hellenistic kingship, perceived through a Roman lens and using Roman symbolism, transforming the established principiate?

 

Ot maybe I am assuming too much.

 

Phil