Pan, Evander, Antigonus Gonatas

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This is RRC 19/2 as illustrated in Massa-Pairault’s 2011 piece on the Bolsena Mirror.  I agree one hundred percent that this is Lycaean Pan, less that it might represent Evander himself.

The prototype is likely to be Antigonus Gonatas’ tetradrachms which build on the iconography of Arcadian coinage.

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The date of 275-270 that Crawford gives seems early…. Must look into evidence for its assignment.

 

2 thoughts on “Pan, Evander, Antigonus Gonatas”

  1. Dear Liv, I’m not at all expert on coins, but I am currently very interested in Gonatas. Could you tell me, please, why you say that his coinage was based on Arcadian originals? Is it just because they look alike? But is it likely that a Macedonian king would have borrowed from such a source?
    Thanks. Robin Waterfield

  2. Yes, partly it is just the visual parallel and also tendencies in the medium of coinage. Coins tend to look to other coins and gems for artistic prototypes. The Arcadian coins are close enough in time and produced in large enough numbers that its plausible they were known. (You could make this argument more secure by tracing where such coins appear in hoards with documented find spots.) Arcadia was the home of Pan and thus their iconography carries authority as to what Pan ought to look like.

    Do we know Antigonos’ mint absolutely used an Arcadian coin as a model? No. Is it plausible, even likely? Yes. Could they both go back to an earlier shared prototype? Absolutely.

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