adventures in my head
Ancestral inflation is nothing new, but the passage below is just a nice parallel for the fake “TER” (third triumph) claimed on RRC 415/1 (61 BCE). N.B. Crawford tries to make this coin accurate by having it refer to times hailed imperator. He says the (false) three triumph tradition is a ‘late’ but ILLRP 392… Continue reading Cicero decries ‘lying’ Monuments
A Work in Progress. Hint. The search bar to the right is actually your best way of finding what I’ve said on anything. Professional Musings Political Essays “_____ Lives Matter” Lawn Signs Electoral College and Anti-Democratic Intentions State of the Discipline, Then, Now and Future Controversies in Classics – discussion of Holt Parker, Thomas Hubbard… Continue reading Index
As evidence that this alliance did not meet universal approval we cite an example of this very coinage on which the reverse inscriptions were chiseled away (NAC 9, 1996, lot 115), presumably by a dissatisfied Locrian. quoted from here. Right now I need to find an image of this coin… Grrr…. My earlier posts discussing… Continue reading Political defacement of a coin, anti-Roman sentiment?
Link to EAGLE entry. I want to think more about this inscription in connection the coin of the Locrians many, many years before. I find reading A. Clark’s comments, she says of this inscription much of what I’ve thought and written about the Locrian coin issue.
So I read this bit of Polybius (below) and landed right back at this coin (above): For Hiero and Gelo not only gave seventy-five silver talents, partly at once and the rest very shortly afterwards, to supply oil in the gymnasium, but dedicated silver cauldrons with their bases and a certain number of water-pitchers, and in… Continue reading The Crowning Moment
οἱ δ᾽ εἰσελθόντες χρόνον μέν τινα διετήρουν τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν ἑαυτῶν πίστιν … … διορθοῦσθαι παρὰ τοῖς συμμάχοις τὴν αὑτῶν πίστιν. (Polybius 1.7.6 and 10) The very first episode actually narrated in Polybius’ Histories doesn’t really let the Romans come off that well. The garrison they sent to Rhegium seizes the city for themselves rather… Continue reading 301 out of 410 days: Pistis again
The San Martino in Pensilis hoard and Andrew Burnett’s analysis thereof is probably the most important new information on third century Roman and Italian Silver issues from the last decade. Highlights included: Evidence of a significant gap (ballpark 300-260BC) between Rome’s first and second silver issues The first Roma and Pistis Locrian coin in a hoard… Continue reading 291 out of 410 days: San Martino in Pensilis Hoard
This as of L. Rubrius Dossenus (c. 87 BC) has, instead of the standard Janus, a janiform head combining Hercules and Mercury. Alföldi connects this image, not to the palestra hermerakles imagery representing sound mind and sound body, but instead to a rather unusual vase image. (See yesterday’s post for bibliographical citation). Update 7/1/2020: Crawford judged… Continue reading 145 out of 410 days: Argos Panoptes?
Yesterday late afternoon whilst reading about sources for the Pyrrhic Wars for this book review (It’s a really good book thus far! But slow going because I want to look everything up and enjoy the fun along with the author.) I became obsessed with the image of Thetis on the hippocamp. Below is a rather… Continue reading 118 and 119 out of 410 days: Pyrrhus and Thetis
There is a good deal of concern and attention paid to the divine honors given to the personification of abstract concepts. The habit has it origins in the Hellenistic period. Think of the Nikes we’ve seen, not to mention much more famous examples: All of these turn the idea of ‘winning’ into a goddess… Continue reading 95, 96 out of 410 days: Divine Abstractions
Liv Mariah Yarrow 