Pompey and the Amazons

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Links to acsearch.info entry

This type (430/1) minted by the son of the the Triumvir, Crassus, doesn’t I think get enough attention.  The Venus is clearly Venus Victrix who appears on Pompeian types (cf. esp. 424/1 and 426/3) and will soon be co-opted by Caesar (cf. 465).  The reverse shows a standing Amazon leading her horse with her face in 3/4s profile.  This and the shield and cuirass below the horse make me 90% certain this is a statue being portrayed or at very least the designer is borrowing from a well known statue type and the cuirass and shield are part of the support system of the horse statue.

The reverse brought to mind this passage from Appian about Pompey’s adventures with the Amazons (12.103):

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Cf. Plutarch, Life of Pompey 35

Mayor even thinks Amazons were displayed in Pompey’s triumph in 61 BC.  She bases this on this passage from Plutarch:

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I feel I’m forgetting some famous Amazon statues at Rome in the republican period that would be relevant in this context.  I’ll remember at some point, or not.

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