My First Animal On A Coin.

Thanks, Paul. The griffin is indeed a scary looking beast. That description could also be true of Manto in that portrait.

My nails are usually cut back to the quick when working on the old Morris. If any of the 75 year-old crud, soot and oil gets under the nails it can be difficult to get them clean again.

Great (hi)story associated with that coin!

Thanks, @erafjel. I love researching this type of coin and imagining what it must have been like on the battlefield.


Thanks, Bob. I don't come across many of the Achaemenids. As a satrap for thirty years, Spithridates must have been a man with great power, but I didn't find much about him either.

Thanks, Paul. I was quite taken by that coin.

My eye caught the "bee" in the description of this coin, and that it was from Sardes/Sardis and not Ephesos. OK, it isn't much of a bee and isn't instantly recognisable as one, but it is a bee nonetheless. What was more interesting was a link between Sardes and Ephesos. In a publication of "The American Society For The Excavation Of Sardis", by W H Buckler and David M Robinson, from a fragment dealing with citizenship of Ephesos, it says that there was an agreement between Ephesos and Sardis fixing the conditions under which citizens of either city might acquire citizenship in the other. The Sardes bee must be a visual link to Ephesos.

There have been many posts regarding Sardes and it's coinage, so I turned my attention to the issuing official Lucius Iulius Libonianus. There wasn't a great amount of information about him, but Pretres Civiques org states: "L. Iulius Libonianus had responsibilities in the imperial cult at three levels: he was priest of Tiberius in Sardis, high priest of the 13 cities, that is to say of the koinon of Ionia, and high priest of the provincial temples of Asia in Sardis. However, this character was a strategist under the reign of Trajan. It is remarkable that a priesthood of Tiberius continued in this way nearly a century after his death. This cult may have been founded after the earthquake of 17 AD, following which Tiberius came to the aid of the cities affected."

Libonianus was highly thought of as can be seen from an inscription found on a monument to him (Text, now lost, seen by Cyriac of Ancona "in marmorea basi"; Dr. Pickering's copy printed by J. Spon 1685): "Lucius Iulius Libonianus, a man eminent by birth and lover of his city, high-priest of Asia of the temples of the Sardians in Lydia and priest for two terms of the most mighty Zeus Polieus, high priest of the Thirteen Cities, stephanephorus, priest of Tiberius Caesar, chief strategus for two terms and agonothete for life; when want came among the people, he nobly contributed toward its alleviation out of his private means a modius for each citizen, and he munificently discharged all the public offices for his native city."

Issues under the official Libonianus occur on coins during the reign of Trajan 98-117 AD.

Lydia: Sardes. Under the official Libonianus. End of 1st/early 2nd Cent AD. Provincial Semis.
Obverse: Head of the young Dionysos right, wearing ivy-wreath. Obverse Legend: CAPΔIA NON. Reverse: Filleted thyrsos; bee, viewed from above, upwards, in field to right. Reverse Legend: CTP ΛO IO ΛI-BΩNIANOV. Bronze. Diameter: 17mm. Weight: 3.89gm.
Reference: RPC III 2393; Imhoof-Blumer, LSM 290, 13.
https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/coins/3/2393

My only ancient animal. Common coin but one I like.

Another Roman eagle, this time on a coin of Elagabalus (c. 204 - 11 March 222). Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, but better known by his nicknames Elagabalus and Heliogabalus. Some dubbed him the Taboo Emperor of Rome, and he reigned from 16 May 218 - 11 March 222 when he was murdered, his naked body dragged through the streets, then thrown into the Tiber. At the time he was the youngest emperor to bear the title.

Sun worship had increased throughout the Empire since the reign of Septimius Severus, and as high priest of Elagabal from the age of fourteen Elabagalus saw this as an opportunity to install Elagabal (God of the Mountain) as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon. The god was renamed Deus Sol Invictus, (God the Undefeated Sun), and he had it replace the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter.

Much has been written about his eccentricities and debauchery, and in his four year reign he caused much controversy. English historian Edward Gibbon wrote: "Elagabalus abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures and ungoverned fury.", while Danish-German historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr said: "The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others, because of his unspeakably disgusting life." The Augustan history goes to great lengths to tell of the decadence and debauchery in all aspects of his lifestyle, though modern historians generally agree that these sections are unreliable, and may have been written to amplify his wickedness to later readers in the fourth century.

It is written that on his death, Elagbalus had "Damnatio Memoriae" decreed upon him, erasing him from all public records. However, although Damnatio Memoriae is Latin, the phrase was not used by the ancient Romans and first appeared in theses written in Germany in 1689.

Elagabalus, Silver BI Tetradrachm, struck at Antioch in Seleucia Pieria, Emesan Issue of AD 219.
Obverse: Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Elagabalus, right. Obverse Inscription: AVT K M A ANTWNEINOC CEB. Reverse: Eagle with spread wings standing facing, head left, holding wreath in beak; between the eagle's legs, star. Reverse Inscription: ΔHMAPX EΞ YΠATOC TO B / Δ - E. Silver/billon. Diameter: 24-27mm. Weight: 12.57gr.
Reference: RPC VI, 7954; McAlee 762; Prieur 251 & 264.

Thanks, Bob.