LOOSE CHANGE: OCTOBER 20, 2024

 

Vae, puto deus fio – oh dear, I think I'm becoming a god, Vespasian is said to have joked when he experienced the first symptoms of the disease that would kill him later. Actually, it might be the case that Suetonius was indulging in anachronism at this point. After all, at the time of Vespasian's death in 79 AD, it was not as common for members of the imperial family to be deified as it was when Suetonius died in 122. Between the deaths of Augustus and Vespasian, only one emperor was divinized: Claudius. And Seneca's Apocolocynthosis gives us an idea of how weird his contemporaries found this practice: the title Apocolocynthosis is based on the Roman term for deification (apotheosis), and it refers to something being transformed into a pumpkin.

It was not until Titus and his brother Domitian that the deification of one's ancestors was systematically used as a political means by the emperors. To establish this practice as a ritual, they took their inspiration from the deification of Augustus.

To read the complete article, see:
Oh Dear, I Think I'm Becoming a God! Numismatic Testaments to the Consecration of Roman Emperors (https://www.kuenker.de/de/information/presseinformationen/aktuelle-mitteilungen/595)

Today's selection-- from Europe Recast by Desmond Dinan. The radical idea of a common European currency as it emerged in the 1980s through a bewildering array of ideas and institutions including the European Monetary System, the European Community (the executive branch of the European Union), and the European Monetary Union

To read the complete article, see:
the birth of the euro--10/8/24 (https://delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=5137)

 

A rare copy of the United States Constitution that was printed shortly after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and played a role in the document's adoption by the original 13 states sold for more than $11 million during a live auction on Thursday evening.

The copy of the Constitution was found two years ago in a filing cabinet in the house at Hayes, a farm once owned by Samuel Johnston, who served as governor of North Carolina from December 1787 to December 1789. The document's discovery garnered national attention for being an early copy of the document and for the role it played in the document's ratification.

After the Constitutional Convention and after Congress added a ratification resolution, copies were sent to the governors of the original 13 states, who then gauged interest among their residents. Among those copies was the one sold on Thursday.

To read the complete article, see:
Rare Copy of U.S. Constitution Sells for More Than $11 Million (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/19/us/us-constitution-copy-sold.html)

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