Speaker
Description
It is usually assumed that when a new portrait model was introduced at Rome, it would be sent to the provinces for copying. Provincial coin portraits of Plotina, Matidia and Marciana, the three Trajanic women who appeared on imperial coinage, suggest otherwise. While these women each had one canonical portrait type at Rome, these appear on only about half of their types on+ provincial coins, with others depicting these women instead using models of Flavian women. The Trajanic women also appear on a significantly smaller percentage of provincial coins during Trajan’s reign than the Flavians or Sabina in their respective administrations. These data suggest that models of Trajanic women’s portraits were not sent to the provinces thoroughly or consistently. This runs counter to the traditional model of portrait type dissemination, which assumes a static process of each new official model being automatically introduced to the provinces for coin and statuary production.
