A familiar figure

Lucilla flips the coin in her hand and immediately notices the beautiful image of Venus Victrix on the reverse. The letters are barely visible, but she can still make out ENERI and VIC, which she knows from another coin she had last week make up the words VENERI and VICTR. Even if the legend were unreadable, Lucilla does not need it to recognize who this image represents. Venus’ curvaceous exposed back and bottom are clearly visible, as are the palm branch and apple she holds in her hands. Lucilla wonders where she has seen this image before and recalls a visit to the Theatre of Pompey, which holds a temple to Venus Victrix at the top of the grand audience seating. Whenever she and her husband attend a performance there, she cannot help but sneak upstairs for a little while to admire the monumental Venus Victrix cult statue.Although no Venus Victrix statue resembling the image on coinage survives from Antiquity, the column gives away that the figure was originally based on a statue (Venus Victrix appears on coinage as early as 31 BCE). Baron argues that the consistency with which the column is present on coin designs in combination with the specific pose of Venus, a weight-shift to the left leaning on the column, indicate that this must have been a statue support in the original monumental statue. (Catherine L. Baron, Venus Victrix: An Iconographic Study of the Image on a Roman Mirror from the Clarence Day Foundation Collection, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, p. 53)