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<p>[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 4958635, member: 72790"]I was perusing my collection the other day when I noticed something I had not thought about before. My Greek coins had great pictorial representations, but not so much in the way of inscriptions whereas my Roman coins seemed to be loaded with as much writing as they could possibly cram onto them. I don't know that there is anything of cosmic significance in noticing this but I was wondering if it indicates anything different about Greek versus Roman in terms of what was important to them.</p><p><br /></p><p>I have formulated a number of questions I would like to throw out for comment and discussion. First of all am I correct in noting that Greek coins really do tend to use more imagery than verbiage on their coinage. If not, skip the rest and just enjoy the coins posted below. If it can be established that there is tendency for Greek city states and kingdoms to put more effort at imagery on their coins than the Romans and the latter more on writing, why might this be so? All kinds of possibilities have been going through my mind. Were the Greeks, on average, less literate than the average Roman and had to rely on imagery to have their coins recognized by many different peoples? Thus Greek coins frequently were mentioned by, not the state that was issuing, them but by names like turtles, colts, owls, etc which were instantly recognized as coming from a known city state. No need for much of any writing here. A rose, a honeybee, a young man riding a dolphin, a hoplon shield, that sort of thing was all that needed to be known. </p><p><br /></p><p>On the other hand, at least by imperial times, one emperor could look very much like another. Trying to figure out if it were Tiberius or Augustus, Vespasian or Titus, Marcus Aurelius or Lucius Verus ( or an older Commodus) could get pretty tricky. Best to have the emperor's name and offices on the coins to properly render credit to the right Caesar. or maybe it was just a matter of timing. Greek coins could get pretty wordy by the time of the Successor states, what with important sounding appellations being assigned to the rulers. One had to keep father lovers distinct from saviors or made manifests.</p><p><br /></p><p>So I don't really know if there is any rhyme or reason to what may have no significance at all. It may just be that as a state developed, any state, whether Greek or Roman, or Parthian or Carthaginian, there would be a tendency for all ancient states to put more wording on their coins for no other reason than they discovered that they could. After all early Roman coins often had nothing more on them than an image, a few dots and a big ROMA.</p><p><br /></p><p>What I am asking readers to do is to think about this a bit and think about why there may be a reason that has more to do with who was issuing the coins rather than when they were issued. If so please post what you might have accounted for this apparent observation and perhaps a few coins illustrating this. Below I have a few coins of my own which I admit might be indicative of nothing more than that I have a few nice coins. They are, from upper left to lower right, a tetradrachma of the Magna Graecia city of Leontini with a big lion (Leon in Greek) and the name, Leontini, in very small letters. ca. 450 BC. Next is the very recognizable Athenian "owl" where all you get beyond the image of Athena and the owl are the three letters, alpha, theta and epsilon, from ca. 425 BC. Third is a life-time tetradrachma of Alexander where all there is is his name, and a couple of control marks, ca, 325 BC. The last Greek is a tetradrachma of Laodikea with Tyche on the obverse and a statement of its autonomy and a seated Zeus, ca. 75 BC.[ATTACH=full]1192045[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1192046[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Moving on to the Roman coins is, first a simple, early Roman As with a nice representation of Janus and a big ROMA on the reverse, ca. 165 BC. Second a Republic denarius with Roma, but now surrounded by writing and on the reverse some very small writing on what is a pretty small flan, ca.118 BC. Third a nice Nero dupondius with a good deal of writing telling folks of all the names this emperor has accumulated with a nice self congratulatory accomplishment, ca. 65 AD. Last is a dupondius of Marcus Aurelius stuffed to the gills with inscriptions and good wishes, ca. 175 AD.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="kevin McGonigal, post: 4958635, member: 72790"]I was perusing my collection the other day when I noticed something I had not thought about before. My Greek coins had great pictorial representations, but not so much in the way of inscriptions whereas my Roman coins seemed to be loaded with as much writing as they could possibly cram onto them. I don't know that there is anything of cosmic significance in noticing this but I was wondering if it indicates anything different about Greek versus Roman in terms of what was important to them. I have formulated a number of questions I would like to throw out for comment and discussion. First of all am I correct in noting that Greek coins really do tend to use more imagery than verbiage on their coinage. If not, skip the rest and just enjoy the coins posted below. If it can be established that there is tendency for Greek city states and kingdoms to put more effort at imagery on their coins than the Romans and the latter more on writing, why might this be so? All kinds of possibilities have been going through my mind. Were the Greeks, on average, less literate than the average Roman and had to rely on imagery to have their coins recognized by many different peoples? Thus Greek coins frequently were mentioned by, not the state that was issuing, them but by names like turtles, colts, owls, etc which were instantly recognized as coming from a known city state. No need for much of any writing here. A rose, a honeybee, a young man riding a dolphin, a hoplon shield, that sort of thing was all that needed to be known. On the other hand, at least by imperial times, one emperor could look very much like another. Trying to figure out if it were Tiberius or Augustus, Vespasian or Titus, Marcus Aurelius or Lucius Verus ( or an older Commodus) could get pretty tricky. Best to have the emperor's name and offices on the coins to properly render credit to the right Caesar. or maybe it was just a matter of timing. Greek coins could get pretty wordy by the time of the Successor states, what with important sounding appellations being assigned to the rulers. One had to keep father lovers distinct from saviors or made manifests. So I don't really know if there is any rhyme or reason to what may have no significance at all. It may just be that as a state developed, any state, whether Greek or Roman, or Parthian or Carthaginian, there would be a tendency for all ancient states to put more wording on their coins for no other reason than they discovered that they could. After all early Roman coins often had nothing more on them than an image, a few dots and a big ROMA. What I am asking readers to do is to think about this a bit and think about why there may be a reason that has more to do with who was issuing the coins rather than when they were issued. If so please post what you might have accounted for this apparent observation and perhaps a few coins illustrating this. Below I have a few coins of my own which I admit might be indicative of nothing more than that I have a few nice coins. They are, from upper left to lower right, a tetradrachma of the Magna Graecia city of Leontini with a big lion (Leon in Greek) and the name, Leontini, in very small letters. ca. 450 BC. Next is the very recognizable Athenian "owl" where all you get beyond the image of Athena and the owl are the three letters, alpha, theta and epsilon, from ca. 425 BC. Third is a life-time tetradrachma of Alexander where all there is is his name, and a couple of control marks, ca, 325 BC. The last Greek is a tetradrachma of Laodikea with Tyche on the obverse and a statement of its autonomy and a seated Zeus, ca. 75 BC.[ATTACH=full]1192045[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1192046[/ATTACH] Moving on to the Roman coins is, first a simple, early Roman As with a nice representation of Janus and a big ROMA on the reverse, ca. 165 BC. Second a Republic denarius with Roma, but now surrounded by writing and on the reverse some very small writing on what is a pretty small flan, ca.118 BC. Third a nice Nero dupondius with a good deal of writing telling folks of all the names this emperor has accumulated with a nice self congratulatory accomplishment, ca. 65 AD. Last is a dupondius of Marcus Aurelius stuffed to the gills with inscriptions and good wishes, ca. 175 AD.[/QUOTE]
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