...and Domitian (91-96 AD).
Been out to find a coin for someone and whilst I was about it I decided I was going to add another coin to my gods collection. I saw this, I had to have it;
I kinda figured it would be Minerva but I wasn't sure for certain until I got it home. Bearing in mind I've just started with Roman couins so that was a bit of a gamble to take on my part!
I saw the shield and I just thought, I'm sure this is Minerva. How I missed the owl is beyond me but I did! When I got home I examined it properly (first without the book). I saw the war helmet (like Britannia) and I thought the stand looked fairly war like. Minerva is of course the goddess of war and wisdom. And then I saw the owl at her feet, I knew for sure in my own mind as soon as I saw that!
Minerva and her Greek equivalent Athena/Athene were represented by the owl. Minerva's connection with the owl comes from the fact that she was conflated (i.e combined with Athena). Athena and Minerva were technically two different goddesses, one Roman and one Greek. But when the Romans encorporated Greece into their own empire the two deities were remarkably similar, both wise, both warlike defenders of their people, and Roman religion was already based upon Greek anyhow before this. The Romans therefore saw it that Minerva and Athena were one and the same but had been worshipped differently by two different cultures. (Kinda like the Christians and Jews, they both worship the same god but in different ways).
Of course Athena is best remembered from the Athenian Owl Tets, where she is on the obverse and her symbol the owl (for wisdom) is on the reverse. This representation came about because an owl made it's nest in the eves of the big temple to Athena.
Domitian was devoted to Minerva and thus it is no surprise that she turns up on so many of his coins.
Domitian wasn't the worst Emperor of Rome but he had his moments he could be very cruel and was paranoid that everyone hated him and everyone was out to get him. His paranoia led to him taking pre-emptive strike action, which is what made him so hated and in the end what brought him to his doom. Forever afraid of being assasinated he shied away from mushrooms (as Claudius had died from eating poisoned mushrooms), however his father Vespasian once joked at Domitian that it was blades he ought to fear and not mushrooms.
A soothsayer had already predicted the year, month and hour of Domitian's death, and the Emperor grew more nervous as the year got closer, as the month crept closer and as the day arrived and the hour was upon him.
He was right to be worried about 5 o'clock that day as an assasination was awaiting him, when he asked the time he was told it was 6 o'clock (i.e one hour after he should have been topped), Domitian believed it and left the room he had been sealed up in (a room with manymirrors so he could see all round the room andmake sure no one was trying to sneak up on him). Thinking the danger was passed he went for a bath. Unfortunately they'd lied about the time as they were in on the plot, it was just before 5 o'clock.
A man who had been walking around the palace for several days with his arm in a sling feigning injury really had a knife hidden there. He rushed to Domitian and handed him a letter stating that there was a plot to kill him. As the Emperor averted his eyes to read the lteer the assasin struck.
Domitian was stabbed seven times in the stomach, but had continued to try to fight off his attacker until the end.
Posted 10/22/2005 12:45 pm
