Danube Bridge Sestertius

CNG 87, Lot: 995. Estimate $500. Sold for $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Trajan. AD 98-117. Æ Sestertius (33mm, 25.43 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa mid AD 107-110. Laureate bust right, slight drapery / Arched, single-span bridge with seven posts across Danube River; single-bay arches at either end, surmounted by statues; boat sailing left in river below. RIC II 569; Woytek 314bD; Banti 262. Near VF, green and brown surfaces, light roughness.

From the Clarence and Helen Zaar Maritime Collection.

The bridge on the reverse of this coin has been generally thought to be that constructed across the Danube by Trajan’s architect, Apollodorus of Damascus, in AD 104. There is good circumstantial evidence for this. The date range for this coin’s issue is closely contemporary with the date of the bridge’s construction, and would fit in well programmatically with those war-related issues of the same time frame. The statuary displayed along the roof line of the attic of the arches situated at either end of the structure – one of which is clearly a trophy – suggests that these arches are triumphal in nature and that the bridge should be associated with some war-related construction. There is no literary or epigraphic evidence describing the construction or restoration of another bridge during Trajan’s reign. The only plausible structure is the bridge across the Danube.

Based on the tenuous assumption that all architectural types on Roman sestertii must depict structures located within the civic boundaries of Rome, Philip V. Hill (The Monuments of Ancient Rome as Coin Types [London, 1989], pp. 105-6) posited a possible alternative attribution, that the bridge may be the ancient wooden Pons Sublicius. Built by Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome, it was the first bridge to span the Tiber, connecting the city environs with the region of Janiculum. It was also the site of the heroic defensive stand of Horatius Cocles against the invading Etruscan army of Lars Porsena around 506/5 BC. Hill based his attribution largely on the dissimilarity in the depiction of the coin’s bridge with that of the bridge on the Column of Trajan, a fact which, Hill states, “alone is sufficient to cast doubt upon it.” Such a dissimilarity, however, can be reasonably explained by the fact that the construction of Trajan’s Column and its decoration was not completed until AD 113 – long after this coin was issued – and, since Apollodorus of Damascus was the architect of both Trajan’s Forum (including the Column) and the bridge across the Danube, the more-accurate rendition of the bridge on the Column would have been the result of the architect’s own input.

Strack (Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts. Teil 2: Die Reichsprägung zur Zeit des Traian [Stuttgart, 1931], p. 129) argued for the Danube bridge: it was not meant to be an exact representation of the actual structure, but it was contrived so as to provide an overall general impression of the structure, or to emphasize specific prominent features. Strack noted that Trajan’s sestertius issue with the Circus Maximus on the reverse was oriented in such a way as to emphasize those features of the complex which the emperor had restored, rather than to provide a strict representation of the Circus itself. Mattingly, who, prior to the publication of Strack’s findings, initially entertained the possibility that the bridge depicted was the Pons Sublicius (RIC II, p. 239), completely reversed his view a decade later when, now armed with Strack’s evidence, he stated categorically (BMCRE p. ci) that the bridge “can hardly be anything but the great bridge over the Danube near Dobretae.”

Hill’s evidence for maintaining Mattingly’s abandoned theory that the bridge might be the Pons Sublicius is tenuous at best. First, he chose to ignore Strack’s argument regarding the attribution to the Danube bridge, even though Mattingly does note it in his own discussion in BMCRE – something of which Hill should have been aware, especially since he does point out Mattingly’s change of opinion. Hill suggests his awareness of Strack’s views about the orientation of the Circus Maximus on Trajan's coins concludes that it was done “undoubtedly to show its monuments more clearly,” and that such a practice was not that unusual in other media, as well. If the engraver of the Circus Maximus was allowed to exercise a certain amount of artistic license in his depiction, then why couldn’t the engraver of the bridge do the same?

To support his own attribution of the bridge as the Pons Sublicius, Hill also cites a portion of his correspondence with Lino Rossi, an important scholar of Trajan’s Column. In an article in the 1968 issue of Antiquaries Journal (p. 42), Rossi fancifully mused that while the coin was struck in celebration of the building of the Danube bridge, the depiction was “probably reminiscent of the famous Pons Sublicius, thus linking the work of Trajan with ancient tradition.” Ironically, though, Rossi (like Strack) discounted the argument of the dissimilarity of the bridge on the coin to the depiction of the bridge on the Column, noting a mosaic at Ostia that represented the twenty-spanned bridge across the Rhône at Arelate, depicted with only one span. Hill also undercuts his own argument by noting that even the depiction of the bridge on the Column is not exact in its proportions, but is a "simplified representation" (p. 106). In light of the contradictory evidence, Hill’s main arguments, that the bridge on the coin is not an exact representation of the Danube bridge and does not resemble the depiction on Trajan's Column, collapse.

Historical evidence also contradicts the suggestion that the bridge is the Pons Sublicius. Being a wooden bridge built on wooden pilings, the Pons Sublicius was frequently damaged or swept away when the Tiber flooded. As noted by Hill (pp. 105-6), the bridge was always rebuilt by the Romans as a matter of religious practice (cf. Pliny the Elder, NH 36.23.100). Considering the bridge’s ancient origin, built during Rome’s initial civic expansion beyond its original seven hills, as well as the religious requirements regarding its reconstruction or rebuilding, it would seem highly unlikely that triumphal arches with war-related statuary would have ever been included. Likewise, the frequent nature of this religiously significant rebuilding, especially with its association with the heroism of Horatius Cocles, would certainly have been commemorated by other emperors, as such an event would have provided the emperor an opportunity to promote his pietas. Only two other issues in the Imperial series are known to depict a bridge. One, a sestertius of Septimius Severus dated to AD 208, depicts a bridge of a style similar to that on Trajan’s, but with highly decorated, triple-bayed triumphal arches on either end. It must not have been a restoration or rebuilding of the Pons Sublicius, and Hill does not attempt to link it to that bridge, instead associating it with the Milvian Bridge. The other issue depicting a bridge was struck in Constantinople on the dedication of that city in AD 330. Although there is no legend on the reverse, the obverse type of Roma suggests the bridge depicted was the Milvian Bridge, an appropriate type in a Constantinian commemorative issue. That no other imperial issue, in any denomination, is known to commemorate the restoration of the Pons Sublicius, something one would expect considering its susceptibility to frequent damage, one must conclude that Hill’s argument should be rejected, and that the bridge is none other than that constructed across the Danube.