Sestertius of Faustina II 176 - 180

Editor: This is a Sestertius of Faustina II, housed at the Harvard Art Museums. It's a weighty piece, and its green patina speaks volumes about its age. What strikes you most about this coin? Curator: The coin, though small, embodies immense symbolic weight. Faustina II, elevated to Augusta, projects imperial power. More intriguing is the reverse: a temple façade perhaps, evoking not just divinity, but a promise of stability and order, meticulously etched for lasting cultural memory. What stories does this relic whisper to you? Editor: It makes me think about how images of power endure, even on something as commonplace as currency. Curator: Precisely. Currency serves as a potent vessel for ideological messaging, its iconography reinforcing societal values across generations. Studying it, we see power's enduring need for visual representation.