What is a Cistophorus?

Here is the only Cistophorus I have. It features Emperor Claudius and his "black widow" wife Agrippina the Younger. The story is she poisoned him with mushrooms so that she could make her darling son, Nero, emperor.

The reverse features the goddess, Ephesian Diana, the goddess of fertility. Some say she had bull testicles instead of breasts. The high relief busts on the obverse of this coin resulted in a less than perfect strike on the reverse, which has robbed us of the opportunity to confirm exactly what Diana has on her body. Given what Agrippina did to her husband, she may also have had bull testicles.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Donna M, you never cease to amaze. Am I remembering correctly that you only got into coins all of three years ago? That's hard to get my head around. No, I believe you, but... well, just But.... Surely you had years of background in related disciplines...?

 

It would make me sound much more impressive if I allowed you to continue under that impression! And it"s entirely true that I began actively collecting ancient coins less than three years ago. But I actively collected British coins and historical medals, as well as some other world coins and medals, for about 35 years before that. As well as Roman, Greek, and Egyptian antiquities. And I actually bought my very first handful of wretched LRBs circa 1963 or 1964, when I was 8 or 9. I bought my first decent ancient coin in February 1986, an AR drachm of Alexander III (under Philip III Arrhidaeus) minted in Miletos, at the old Harmer Rooke gallery, where I had gone that day to look at antiquities. And I bought perhaps a half-dozen Roman denarii over the subsequent 30 years, using a copy of the 1981 edition of Sear to identify them. So I would say that I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the field as of 2017. But I've learned a great deal since then, and much more just since I joined this forum in late January. I'm reasonably good at absorbing lots of information when I'm interested in a subject. As opposed to, say, my geometry class in high school! And I pretty much slept through law school.

 

Thank you for the elucidation!!! Now I see the light. :<}

 

yup, i b e 1 (or as they say in Rome..E Pluribus Unum)

 

Having that! :<}

 

So... curious... why do you ask?

 

It goes all the way back to whatever thread it was, a few days ago, when, somehow or other, a few of us got deep in the weeds about Hillbillies. Reference was made to the movie, "Deliverance." (Promise you, I didn't start that.)
My mom and her family are from there, as some are to this day, on either side of the Missouri /Arkansas line. I got there exactly once, as a kid. It was memorable.

 

I believe Deliverance was in Appalachia, on the other side of the South from the Ozarks.

Glad you enjoyed the experience! @ominus1 is from the WRONG side of the ARK-MO border.

 

-Phoros comes from a Greek root phero, which means "to carry" or "to bear." A cistophoros simply means "bearing a cistus."

 

OMG, is it INFECTED???

 

Do I even Want to know which one that is? Especially since my family is from both.

 

At Ephesus, in 28 BC, a cistophorus was issued with the laureate head of Octavian on the obverse and the goddess Pax on the reverse - the type shown by Mike Margolis. The date is confirmed by Octavian’s titles which do not include AVGVSTVS. A significant coin, because it marks the beginning of the PAX ROMANA, which prevailed in the Roman Empire for the next hundred years. The title AVGVSTVS appeared on the subsequent silver issues of Octavian, but as there is no indication of where they were minted, it is uncertain whether the mint was Ephesus or Pergamum. C.H.V. Sutherland in his book, "The Cistophori of Augustus", concluded that only three types were minted at Ephesus from about 25 to 20 BC. On the reverse of the first type there is a Capricorn, the star-sign under which Augustus was born. A similar coin was minted at Pergamum. On the second type there is a bunch of six ears of corn. Again, a similar coin was minted at Pergamum. On the third type there is an altar, decorated with deer, of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, like this one:

Ionia, Ephesus, struck ca.25 - 20 BC
25 x 26 mm, 11.136 g
RIC I 479 or 482; RPC I 2215; BMC 694; BN 922; Sutherland group V–VIγ;

Ob.: IMP CAE-SAR Bare head of Augustus to right
Rev.: AVGVSTVS on garlanded and filleted altar; on the front, two stags facing each other

 

How so? I do not have that much knowledge about new styles.

 

Once one local bigwig has had his name immortalized on coins, everyone else wants to do it too: the Hellenistic bronze coinage of Cyme provides us with the names of no fewer than 104 different individuals (Masson 1986). Perhaps the most extraordinary example of competitive ‘grade inflation’ among mint-magistrates is the Athenian New Style coinage of the second and first centuries BC, already discussed several times in this book (Chapter 3, p. 57; Chapter 6, pp. 124–6). The very earliest New Style tetradrachms, dating to the mid-160s BC, carry fairly discreet monograms to the left and right of the owl on the reverse (Fig. 7.6). But these monograms are soon replaced by up to three different magistrates’ names spelled out in full, usually accompanied by one or more mint-symbols (Thompson 1961: 546–607; Mattingly 2004: 85–99). The result is that the – originally rather elegant – reverse type of the New Style coinage becomes increasingly cluttered. Fig. 7.7 illustrates an issue dating to 115/14 BC, with the abbreviation Athe for Athens followed by the three names Me¯trodōros, Miltiade¯s and Hermogene¯s, along with a bunch of grapes as a mint-mark and the letters Pe (of uncertain meaning) at the bottom. The whole thing is, frankly, a barely legible mess.

Athens New Style Tetradrachm c 115/4 BC
bs: Athena Parthenos right in tri-form helmet
16.56g 29mm Thompson issue 50
Thompson catalogue : Obs 639 : Rev ? (altered)
Rev : ΑΘΕ ethnic
Owl standing on overturned panathenaic amphora on
which month mark Γ/Β/Α control ΣΦ below
3 magistrates : METRODOROS DEMOSTHE(N) KALLIPH / PYRROS
RF symbol : Bunch of Grapes on vine leaf
All within a surrounding olive wreath


As I once said (or twice or more), prosopography is always valuable.
I think my Bunch of Grapes on Vine is lovely.
Frankly, what is there not to like?

 

Thanks. That seems obvious now but I can only assume how we got the o in place of e. I know Greek did such things to insure euphony but 'Cistopherus' does not grate on my ears as do some other combinations.