'[Cool's] Fasti was prepared in a similar way to the Graeca, as if being readied for publication. We have a title page, decorated with a drawing of the head of Roma from a coin, executed in the same style as the drawings interspersed throughout the annotated Occo. The title reads:
"FASTI TRIVM-
PHORVM ET MA-
GISTRATVVM
ROMANOR’
AB V.C. AD AVGVST’ OBITV’.
ADDITIS NVMMORVM DESCRIPTIO-
NIBVS.
Ex Hub. Goltzio opera I.C.O. conflati, anno
1588, Antuerpiae.
1597 (?) LONDINI"
This title page suggests that, as with his Graeca, Cole was intending to publish the work, but he never got round to doing so. We have already seen how it took him many years to publish his works on natural history, and we can see something of the same delay here, since the date of ‘publication’ has been changed several times. What I have given above as ‘1597’ looks orginally as if it may have been 1589, as on the Graeca. But it was then changed to ‘1597’ (?), or perhaps to ‘1607’, or even ‘1627’. It is hard to be exactly sure, but the 5 has been changed to a 6 at some time, showing that the manuscript sat around for many years, but that Cole picked it up for revision from time to time.
As in the Graeca, there is a short prefatory note, but in this case reading rather strangely as a summary selection from Goltzius’s own introduction ‘ad lectorem’, and using very similar language:
"FASTI TRIVMPHORVM ET MAGISTRATVVM HORVMQUE NVMMI Primum quod ad nummos attinet, lectori sciendum est, hos regum Romanorum nummos, ipsis regibus imperantibus cusos non esse, sed longo id intervallo post factum esse. Hoc enim in coss. numismatis observatum est, posteris eorum quorum egregia extarent in RP merita, a
Senatu concessum fuisse; ut praeclara maiorum suorum, aut a quibs oriundos videri volebant, facta, etiam longo post tempore, et pluribus saeculis, publicis nummorum monumentis impressa, in hominu’ memoriam revocaverunt: additis nonnumquam et vultibus ipsorum, quos ex antiquis cum statuis tu’ alijs imaginibus in ipsis nummis ad vivum exprimebant.
Haec coss. aliorumq’ magistratuum numismata eodem non semper anno aut tempore signata et publicata sunt quo ipsi ejusmodi magistratum gerebant. In paucis enim, consulatu’ expressum videmus; dictaturam vero in nullis, praeterquam in C. Caesaris; titulum magistri equitum nusquam: at censurae inscriptio primum in Ti. Claudij Caesaris numismate legitur.
Cum plerunq’ contingat, plures eundem simul obire magistratum, hinc non infrequens est, ut uni nummo nonnumquam duo, nonnunquam tria nomina inscripta legantur. Hoc. H. Goltzius.
Bigas lunae sacras fuisse, Soli quadrigas, Inferis trigas, Iovi sejugas, Lucifero & Hespero desultores, veteres tradiderunt, sed alia hic ratio ROMA est curruum in nummis triumphalium, nempe P.R. Victorias, Orationes, & Triumphos."
[CALENDAR OF THE TRIUMPHS AND MAGISTRACIES AND THEIR COINS
First of all, as far as coins are concerned, the reader should know that these coins of the Roman kings, were not struck while those kings were themselves reigning, but after a long interval. It has been observed as regards these consular coins that it was granted by the Senate to the descendants of those, whose merits seemed outstanding to the Republic, that they should recall for the memory of mankind the famous deeds of their ancestors, or of those from whom they wished to be seen to have descended, stamped much later, often many centuries later, on the public monuments of coins: and sometimes also the faces of these men were added, which they derived from ancient statues and other images and they portrayed as if alive on the coins themselves.
These coins of the consuls and other magistrates were not always stamped or issued publicly in the same year as they held the magistracy. We see the consulship mentioned on few, the dictatorship on none, except on coins of Julius Caesar; the title of ‘master of the horse’ is nowhere, and a legend referring to the censorship can be read first on the coins of Tiberius Claudius Caesar.
Since it often happened that many sought the same magistracy at the same time, it is therfore not infrequently the case that sometimes two names and sometimes three names can be read inscribed on a single coin. So, H. Goltzius.
The ancients related that chariots with two horses were sacred to the Moon, with four to the Sun, with three to the Underworld, horse leapers to the Morning and Evening Stars. But there is another explanation for the triumphal chariots on coins at Rome namely the Victories, Ovations and triumphs of the Roman People.]'
(Burnett 2020b, pp. 228-9)
