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Greek Imperial Medallions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
True medallions, in the sense in which the Roman bronze medallions proper have been defined, were unknown to the classical and Hellenistic Greeks. We have no evidence that their governments ever adopted, the practice of striking special coin-like pieces for distribution to selected individuals on special or solemn occasions. When they struck coins of unusually large size, such as the 50-litra Demareteia, to take the most obvious example, they appear to have done so because sudden wealth—that of Carthage, in Gelon's case—had come their way and lured them into ostentatious and reckless coining. In spite of their abnormal size these pieces formed part of the regular coinage and share their commemorative types with smaller pieces of the same series : they were essentially media of exchange; and neither in style nor content do they display that special character which distinguishes the majority of Roman money-medallions, or multiples in the precious metals, from the ordinary gold and silver currency. It was to commemorate his victory over Demetrius, probably in 167 b.c., and the annexation to Bactria of the Indus country that Eucratides minted his vast gold pieces of 20 Attic staters, known from the example in the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris—the most hybristic display of opulence ever perpetrated by a minting authority in ancient times.
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- Copyright © Jocelyn M. C. Toynbee 1944. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
1 E.g. Toynbee, J. M. C., Arch. Journ. xc, 1942, 34 ffGoogle Scholar.
2 C.T. Seltman, Greek Coins 104 f.
2a Tarn, W. W., The Greeks in Bactria and India 198, 207Google Scholar.
3 Seltman, , op. cit. 235, pl. 55, no. 5.Google Scholar
4 E.g. Journ. internat. d'arch. num. 1913, pl. 18, nos. 17, 18.
5 Seltman, , op. cit. 235, n. 2.Google Scholar
5a Tarn, , op. cit. 104.Google Scholar
6 E.g. BM Cat. Greek Coins: Lydia pl. 26, no. 1 (head of city-goddess of Sardis, veiled and turreted, on obverse).
6a Some of the larger and rarer of these pieces may have been struck by the local minting authorities as ‘extraordinary coins’ commemorating particular occasions. But their style does not suggest that they were special pieces designed by special artists specially commissioned with the work.
7 G. Blum, ‘Numismatique d'Antinoos’ (JIAN 1914, 33–70, pls. 1–5).
8 E.g. ibid. pls. 1, nos. 10, 13–19; 2, nos. 1, 2, 5–9, 12–16; 3, nos. 1, 2, 6–11; 4, nos. 1, 2, 4–11, 13, 14; 5 nos, 1, 6–8.
9 E.g. ibid. pls. 1, nos. 20–22; 3, no. 12; 4, nos. 3, 12; 5, nos. 4, 9, 10.
10 Eg. ibid. pls. 1, nos. 9, 11, 12, 23; 2, nos. 3, 4, 8, 20; 3, nos. 13–17; 5, nos. 5, 11.
11 Pausanias viii, 9, 7–8; cf. Blum, , op. cit. 61.Google Scholar
12 Numismatic Notes and Monographs 17, 1923, 1 ff.Google Scholar, pl. 1.
13 Blum, , op. cit. pl. 4, nos. 5–10.Google Scholar
14 Mr. Mattingly has suggested to the present writer that the legend άνέθηκε may contain a reference to an actual άνάθημα, a statue or votive offering of some kind, represented by the medallion type.
15 Op. cit. 65.
16 Riv. ital. di num. 1911, tav. 4, no. 4. [Pl. iii, no. 1.]
17 No. 8 (classed with the Roman series). [Pl. iii, no, 2.] These legendless types are certainly peculiar for an Antinous piece. The reverse designs of his Alexandrian series (see Blum, , op. cit. pl. 5, nos. 1–11Google Scholar), which are legendless but for the letters denoting the year of issue, afford the nearest parallel. With the deep, undraped obverse busts on the Arcadian, Achaian, Bithynian, and Mysian Antinous medallions (Blum, , op. cit.pls. 1, nos. 14, 18–21; 3, nos. 9,11Google Scholar) compare the deep, semi-nude bust on Roman medallions of Hadrian (Gnecchi, I medaglioni romani ii, taw. 38, no. 9; 39, no. 2). Mr. C. T. Seltman and the present writer arrived quite independently at the conclusion that the former and the latter are both the work of the same hand. The reverse designs of the smaller medallic pieces sometimes show inferior technique, suggesting that they are the work of pupils or imitators of the great masters. Cf. infra. p. 68, n.29. The present writer is greatly indebted to Mr. Seltman for kindly allowing her to make use of his unpublished paper, Greek Sculpture and some Festival Coins, communicated to the Hellenic Society on 5th May, 1942. References are made here to Section V of that paper.
18 A. B. Cook, Zeus iii, pl. 69 (reverses only); Toynbee, , op. cit. pl. 1, nos. 4–8.Google Scholar
19 Cook, A. B., op. cit. iii, pl. 69Google Scholar, nos. 1a, 1b; Zeitschrift für Num. 1912, Taf. 10, Nr. 1 (rev. only).
20 Illustrated London News, 27th September, 1941, 392; Toynbee, , op. cit. pl. 1, no. 8.Google Scholar
21 A; B. Cook, , op. cit. iii, pl. 69, no. 2; ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nr. 3 (rev. only).Google Scholar
22 ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nr. 3a (rev. only).
23 Cook, A. B., op. cit. iii, pl. 69, no. 3Google Scholar; ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nr. 4, 4a (revs. only).
24 Cook, A. B., op. cit. iii, pl. 69, no. 4Google Scholar; ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nr. 5 (rev. only).
25 In the three-quarters type the sceptre is held higher up than in the other types, possibly to avoid undue foreshortening.
26 For the general style of these obverse portraits on the Hadrianic Elean medallions compare the bareheaded busts of Hadrian on medallions of the Roman series (e.g. Gnecchi, op. cit. ii, tavv. 38, nos. 2, 3, 4 39, nos. 3, 6; 40, no. 6; 41, no. 2).
27 Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias 70–74. Cf. Head, Historia Numorum ed. 2, 426.
28 Imhoof-Blumer, and Gardner, P., op. cit. 71Google Scholar; Rhousopoulos Collection Sale Catalogue, Hirsch Munich, May, 1905, Taf. 29, Nr. 2587; Pausanias v, 24, 7 : άνέθηκε δέ έκατέρωθεν παρά τὁν Δία πέλοπά τε καἱ τὁν Άλφειόν ποταμὁν. Mr. Seltman (op. cit.) notes the resemblance of this figure to that of Alpheios in the east pediment of the temple of Zeus and considers the medallion design to be a free adaptation of the sculpture.
29 Imhoof-Blumer, and Gardner, P., op. cit. 74Google Scholar; ZN 1904, Taf. 3, Nr. 1; Toynbee, , op. cit. pl. 1, no. 10Google Scholar; Mr. Seltman (op. cit.) notes that the technique of this reverse is not so good as that of the other medallions and suggests that it may be the work of a less skilled hand. He also points out that the Kladeos of this design recalls by the shape of his smooth head the reclining Kladeos in the east pediment of the temple of Zeus.
30 Imhoof-Blumer, and Gardner, P., op. cit. 74Google Scholar; ZN 1885, 384; Toynbee, , op. cit. pl. 1, no. 9Google Scholar. As far as can be judged from the cut in ZN the obverse die is the same as that of the Paris medallion with the head of the Pheidian Zeus as reverse type. At any rate the legend reads ΑΥΤОКРАТωР ΑΔΡΙΑΝΟС, as on the Paris piece and on die Rhousopoulos Alpheiospiece, and not ΑΥΤОКΡΑ ΤωΡΑΔΡΙΑΝΟС, as on the Cambridge piece and on the Berlin and Athens pieces with the type of Zeus seated towards the right. The obverse portrait of the last two pieces is very similar to, if not quite identical with, that of the Cambridge piece.
31 Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, op. cit. pl. P, no. 24 (rev. only); BM Cat. Greek Coins : Peloponnesus pl. xvi, no. 4 (rev. only). [Pl. i, no. 3.] The obverse die of this piece appears to be the same as that of the Cambridge piece : the legend reads ΑΥΤОКΡΑ ΤωΡΑΔΡΙΑΝΟС.
32 Seltman, , op. cit.Google Scholar On the reverse of the Alpheios piece the river-god is represented with the head of Antinous and is obviously by the same artist who designed the obverse portraits of the Arcadian Antinous medallions. Mr. Seltman names him the ‘Alpheios engraver’. and suggests that he was personally familiar with Antinous and was perhaps also the author of the Marlborough Antinous sard (Burlington Fine Arts Club : Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art 1904, pl. 90, o. 87).
33 Vide supra p. 66. Cf. Seltman, , op. cit.Google Scholar
34 Strack, P. L., Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts ii, 133Google Scholar.
35 Toynbee, , op. cit. 39.Google Scholar Cf. Seltman, , op. cit.Google Scholar
36 The Wroxeter Diploma (D. Atkinson in CR 1928, 11–14, and Report on Excavations at Wroxeter (Birmingham Arch. Soc. 1942), 185 ff.), an official document, proves that Hadrian was not yet IMP II at this date.
37 IG xii, Suppl., 239, proves that Hadrian's second acclamation took place during his nineteenth tribunician year. CIL xiv, 4235, shows that Hadrian entered upon his twentieth tribunician year in December, 135. Cf. Seltman, , op. cit. (Appendix).Google Scholar
38 Toynbee, , op. cit. 39Google Scholar; cf. Seltman, , op. cit.Google Scholar
39 Seltman, , op. cit.Google Scholar The extant Hadrianic medallions truck at Elis comprise, then, three types of obverse portrait and eight reverse types, each of the former being combined with three of the latter: in only one case, that of the head of the Pheidian Zeus, is the, same reverse type coupled with two different obverse types. Coins of Elis struck in the names of Hadrian, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta show a type of the Olympian Zeus quite distinct from that of the Hadrianic medallions (ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nrr. 6–10). The god is seated three-quarters towards the left; his throne has no arms or decorated footstool; he has only a small bunch of himation shown on the left shoulder; his left arm is extended behind him; and the Nike faces away from the god. Three Elean pieces of Septimius Severus, in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna respectively, show the head of the Zeus of Pheidias on the reverse. They are obviously inspired by the Hadrianic medallions, although the god faces towards the left, and their technique is decidedly medallic (Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, op.cit. pl. P, no. 23; ZN 1912, Taf. 10, Nrr. 2, 2a). Possibly they were struck as special pieces for Septimius Severus on some such occasion as his sojourn in Thrace in 196, when he held military games in honour of Geta's birthday (SHA, Max. du. 2; JRS 1920, 164), or the celebration of his eastern victories, c. 203. The Hadrianic medallion types of Alpheios and of the Skopaic Aphrodite Pandemos were, also imitated on medallic pieces struck at Elis for Septimius Severus (Imhoof-Blumer, and Gardner, P., op. cit. 71, 72Google Scholar).
40 Pl. i, no. 4.
41 Gnecchi, , op. cit. i, tav. 1, no. 9.Google Scholar
42 JIAN 1907, pl. 8, nos. 1–3. Cf. Rev. num. 1903, 1–30, pls. 1–3.
43 JIAN 1907, pls. 9–14. Cf. H. Dressel, Fünf Goldmedaillons aus dem Funde von Abukir (1906). Dressel's arguments for the genuineness of the Abukir medallions are accepted provisionally by the present writer, who has only had access to the originals of the pieces in Berlin. But she understands that the authorities of the Museum of the American Numismatic Society, New York, are not entirely convinced by Dressel's arguments, after prolonged study of the eight examples from the Pierpont Morgan Collection. Nor did a piece similar to the Abukir medallions, shown at that Museum some years ago, add to their confidence in the original twenty medallions known, Much of the section which follows must, therefore, be regarded as tentative, pending further evidence for or against the authenticity of the Abukir pieces. Meanwhile it must be admitted that to doubt the antiquity of these medallions is to raise a serious problem. If they were not made in the third century A.D., they must be nineteenth-century work. Is it really conceivable, on general grounds, that a modern forger capable of such excellent workmanship, of such consummate mastery of style and subject-matter, should have remained undetected for nearly fifty years ?
44 JIAN 1907, pls. 9, no. 1; 10, no. 1; 11, no. 1; 3, no. 1; 14, no. 3.
45 Ibid. pls. 9, no. 2; 10, no. 3; 11, no. 2; 12, nos. 1–4; 14, no. 2.
46 Ibid. pls. 11, no. 3; 13, no. 3; 14, no. 1.
47 Ibid. pls. 9, no. 3; 10, no. 2; 13, no. 2; 14, no. 4.
48 The weight of one of the pieces of unknown ownership is not recorded.
49 See table in Dressel, , op. cit. 69.Google Scholar
50 JIAN 1907, 10, nos. 1, 2.
51 Cf. the similar type on the Philip (?) piece from Tarsus, which, although not identical with the Abukir type, doubtless served as its model. We note that this Abukir reverse shows, as does its Tarsus counterpart, the omega form ω, instead of the form Ω always found elsewhere on the Abukir medallions.
52 The Perseus and Andromeda type doubtless alludes to Olympias' love for her husband, while the Meerthiasos scenes suggest the train of Thetis, from whom Olympias claimed descent. Cf. Dressel, , op.cit. 18, n. 3, 49.Google Scholar
53 Gaebler, , Die antiken Münzen Nord-Griechenlands iii, 1Google Scholar, Nr. 875, Taf. 4, Nr. 1. [Pl. iii, no. 5.]
54 JIAN 1907, pl. 14, no. 4.
55 Dressel, , op. cit. 58.Google Scholar
56 Ibid. 56.
57 E.g. SHA, Alex. Sev. 25, 9Google Scholar : ‘Alexandri habitu nummos plurimos figuravit, et quidem electros aliquantos sed plurimos tamen aureos.’ ‘Lampridius’ continually returns to the theme of the Emperor's cult of Alexander (e.g. ibid. 5, 11, 13, 30, 31, 35, 39, 50, 64).
58 Dio 78, 7–8; [Aurelius Victor,] Epitome de Caesaribus 21; SHA, Caracalla 2.
59 Dressel, , op. cit. 55 f. But cf. JIAN 1912, 276–281Google Scholar, where Svoronos, rejecting the view that Δ—ΟС signifies the date, explains it as an abbreviation of δόμος— ή έπιγραφή όλνμπία δός δύναται κάλλιστα νά σημαίνη τἠν ούρανίαν κορνφήν δεδμημέην ώς στύλον φέροντα τὀν ούράνιον θόλον, ἢτοι τὁν δόμον τών θεών, έξηγούσα ούτως αύτὁν τούτον τὁν στύλον, έφʹ ού έπιγέγραπται—a theory more ingenious than it is convincing, in the opinion of the present writer.
60 Op. cit.57; JIAN 1907, pl. 11, no. 3.
61 Gnecchi, , op. cit. ii, tav. 109, nos. 4, 8.Google Scholar
62 Ibid. ii, tav. 99, no. 7.
63 Ibid. ii, tav. 105, no. 6 (struck in 241).
64 BM Cat. Coins of Roman Emp. iv, cviii.
65 Gnecchi, , op. cit. ii, tavv. 103, no. 4; 104, nos. 1, 5, 7, 8; 106, nos. 1, 9.Google Scholar
66 Dressel, , op. cit. 30.Google Scholar
67 Grueber, Roman Medallions in the British Museum 30, no. 45.
68 Gnecchi, , op. cit. iii, tavv. 144, no. 12; 146, nos. 3, 4, 7.Google Scholar
69 Scritti in onore di Bartolomeo Nogara raccolti in occasione del suo lxx anno (1937), tav. 65, no. 8.
70 Gnecchi, , op. cit. ii, tav. 65, no. 3; iii, tav. 150, no. 7.Google Scholar
71 Ibid. ii, tav. 81, no. 6. For a general discussion of the niketeria designs and their prototypes see Dressel, , op. cit. 21–52.Google Scholar
72 Op. cit. 59–65.
73 A. Alföldi, A Festival of Isis in Rome 39, n. 59; 41 and n. 79; Klio 1938, 253; Die Kontorniaten : ein verkanntes Propagandamittel der stadtrömischen heidnischen Aristokratie in ihrem Kampfe gegen das christliche Kaisertum (Budapest, 1943)Google Scholar.
74 The use of coin and medallion dies as models may possibly be an explanation of the contorniates with incised or intaglio designs.
75 Were ‘proofs’ or dies of the Antinous moneymedallions also preserved at the Roman mint? The rare Antinous contorniates were obviously inspired by the obverse portraits of the large medallic pieces. Cf. Blum, , op. cit. pl. 5Google Scholar, nos. 13, 14 (deep, nude bust of Antinous to right, with pedum) and Num. Chron. 1909, pl. 4, no. 1 (similar Antinous contorniate in the Hunterian Collection, Glasgow) with Blum, op. cit. pl. 4, no. 14 (Antinous with pedum) and pls. 1, no. 18; 2, no. 1; 3, no. 14 (Antinous without pedum). J. Sabatier (Description générale des médallions conformates pl. 16, no. 5) figures a contorniate with blank reverse and on the obverse a fine head of Antinous to right with the legend ВϵТΟΥΡΙΟС.