Archive issues

Author: Barbara Lichocka   |   Pages: 427–445


 

Abstract

This paper examines the iconography of billon/silver didrachms struck in Alexandria in Claudius’s third regnal year (AD 42/43), RPC I, 1255. The reverse side depicts crossed cornucopias surmounted by busts of Octavia and Antonia with a bust of Britannicus in the centre. A similar representation was depicted on bronzes minted in Patras. A representation of crossed cornucopias surmounted by busts of Germanicus and Tiberius Gemelli on sestertii issued in Rome under Tiberius, AD 22–23, could have been used as a model. An analysis of the motif of crossed cornucopias on coins and in other forms of arts leads one to believe that it was not just a different way of depicting two overlapping cornucopias (dikeras) typical of Ptolemaic iconography, but a visually appealing composition that was imbued with a different symbolic message.

 

 

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