Cicero's Savior from Exile

I was pleasantly surprised to discover the DPRR today (Digital Prosopography of the Roman Republic). I don't know how long it has been around, but the copyright on the site is 2024. First impressions are that this is my new first stop before Broughton and RE.

Prosopography : a research method in historical studies that involves the systematic collection and analysis of information about individuals within a particular group, often focusing on their relationships, social connections, careers, and roles within a specific historical context.

I stumbled on it looking for material on this coin of Publius Lentulus Spinther, RE 238 - for whom it provides a rich set of references and information. The entry in DPRR is here: CORN2290 P. Cornelius (238) P. f. L. n. Lentulus Spinther

He was a relative of Sulla, the savior of Cicero, a friend fo Julius Caesar and he died an ally of Pompey the Great. His career in politics:

• 74 BCE Quaestor & Moneyer

• 63 BCE Aedilis Curulis

• 60 BCE Praetor urbanus

• 60-58 BCE (possibly?) Pontifex

• 59 BCE Promagistrate Hispania Citerior

• 57 BCE Consul

• 55-54 BCE Promagstrate of Cilicia

• 53-51 BCE Promagistrate of Italia

• 51 BCE Triumphator

His coin (my latest RR addition). Adding coins to my RR collection has been very slow over the last couple of years - fewer coins that attract my interest and the ones that I am looking for are few and not common at auctions (and when thy do show up - I am often outbid). Crawford reports only 6 obverse dies for this coin and there are 60 entries in ACSearch (with duplications) and Nov 2023 the last one sold in ACSearch.

Pub. Lentulus P. f. L. n. Spinther, AR Denarius (3.65g, 18mm, 2h), Rome, 74 BC.

Obv: Bust of Hercules right; Q•S•C behind / P•LENT•P•F•L•N

Rev: Genius of the Roman People seated facing, holding cornucopiae and sceptre, being crowned by Victory, flying left.

Ref: Crawford 397/1; Sydenham 791.

Crawford (In Roman Republican Coinage) describes the type of this coin as "asserting the claims of the Roman state against those of the rebel state of Sertorius".  The Genius of the Roman People appears to be standing on a globe and a prow asserting "domination" terra marique (over land and sea).

It is not coincidence that the Hercules resembles Iberian denarii from this time period. After Sulla's victory over Marius and the establishment of a pro-Sullan regime in Rome, Sertorius fled to Hispania. He took advantage of local discontent with Roman rule and established an independent power base. He held Hispania as an independent Roman Republic for 80-72 BC before he was assassinated by his own officers in 73 BC. Pompey the Great killed the assassins and ended the rebellion.

Iberia, Bolskan, circa 100-72 BC, AR denarius

Obv: Male head right; Iberian BON behind

Rev: Horseman right, holding spear; Iberian BOLSKAN below.

Ref: MIB MIB 79/11c [Palenzuela II] or MIB 79/11a [Pre-Palenzuela]

Publius Lentulus Spinther belonged to the Cornelius gens, a prominent patrician family (and the same family as the dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla).  He was the son of Publius Cornelius Lentulus, and his grandfather was Lucius Cornelius Lentulus. The nickname Spinther came as a reference to an actor who he resembled in some way. Pliny records a number of "Striking Resemblances":

"Vibius, a member of the plebeian order, and Publieius as well, a freedman who had formerly been a slave, so strongly resembled Pompeius Magnus in appearance as to be scarcely distinguishable from him; they both had that ingenuous countenance9 of his, and that fine forehead, which so strongly bespoke his noble descent. It was a similar degree of resemblance to this, that caused the surname of his cook, Menogenes, to be given to the father of Pompeius Magnus, he having already obtained that of Strabo, on account of the cast in his eye, a defect which he had contracted through imitating a similar one in his slave. Scipio, too, had the name of Serapion given him, after the vile slave of a pig-jobber: and after him, another Scipio of the same family was surnamed Salvitto, after a mime of that name. In the same way, too, Spinther and Pamphilus, who were respectively actors of only second and third rate parts, gave their names to Lentulus and Metellus, who were at that time colleagues in the consulship; so that, by a very curious but disagreeable coincidence, the likenesses of the two consuls were to be seen at the same moment on the stage."
-Pliny, Natural History, 7.10

As consul in 57 BCE he supported Cicero - recalling him from exile and restoring his property.

"But on the first day of January, when the widowed republic had appealed for succour as to its legal protector to the new consul, Publius Lentulus, the parent and divine restorer of my life, my fortunes, my remembrance, and my name, had no sooner made the customary religious proposal ** than he carried out his conviction that all other human measures should be postponed to one dealing with myself."
-Cicero, in a speech given upon his return from exile in 57 BCE, paragraph 10

Although Publius Lentulus Spinther had been favored by Caesar, in 49 BCE, he joined Caesar's rival, Pompey the Great, a career ending move. When he was captured as Corfinium, Caesar did not execute him.  This didn't stop him from rejoining Pompey, who was defeated at Pharsalus, Thessaly, in 48 BCE.  Lentulus escaped to Rhodes before being captured and this time executed by Caesar's orders.

His son P Cornelius P. f. P. n. Lentulus Spinther struck coins for Julius Caesar’s assassins, Brutus and Cassius, during the civil war with Mark Antony and Octavian.

Here is a coin struck by his son:

Roman Republican, C. Cassius Longinus, AR denarius (3.83g, 20mm), 42 BC, military mint moving with Brutus and Cassius, probably at Smyrna, P. Lentulus Spinther, legatus

Obv: C CASSI IMP / LEIBERTAS, diademed and draped bust of Libertas right.

Rev: LENTVLVS SPINT, capis and lituus

Ref: Crawford 500/3

This P. Lentulus Spinther (the son) was proscribed in 43 and died in battle at Philippi in 42.