Featured Caesar's elephant and snake: what do they mean?!?

Personally I've always thought it plausible that coin could've been interpreted in multiple ways by different audiences and possibly even intended as such by the designers (i.e. could be seen as snake AND carnyx, alluding both to Gallic and Pompeian enemies and/or poking fun at Pompey's humiliating triumphal elephant incident).

Clare Rowan has discussed this more than once but she has a very nice article in the Journal of Roman Studies arguing that such ambiguous messages and multiple meanings were among the greatest assets to a numismatic propagandist. (I don't remember if she discusses this type, but the point is a general one.) And, of course, such punning imagery was considered high wit in the Republic.

Available on JSTOR (anyone can sign up for free account, well worth it since they have Numismatic Chronicle and other useful journals):
Rowan, Clare, 2016, "Ambiguity, Iconology and Entangled Objects on Coinage of the Republican World,"
The Journal of Roman Studies 106: 21-57.

Incidentally, Debra Nousek's excellent (2008) article (cited in the original comment) is also available on JSTOR. (I always recommend it to anyone who has/wants an elephant denarius.)

My example won't settle any debates (photo credit: Triskeles/ VAuctions though I bought it later from Kirk Davis when it appeared in one of his FPL catalogs):



One last detail i find interesting about this type:

I have a couple (budget examples!) of the lifetime Caesar portrait denarii traditionally referred to as "the coin that killed Caesar" (the coins with his portrait & DICT. PERPETVO title were so offensive/threatening it was the last straw).

Aureo-Calico 353, 32: Grun 79, 1450:

Personally, I include the elephant in that category as the first of "the COINS that killed Caesar," since (per Nousek) striking these was one of his first official acts after crossing the Rubicon and taking Rome in 49 BCE, and these ones were likely considered highly offensive and threatening, just like his portrait denarii 5 years later (especially if people recognized that his name was on the front), since he did this without the consent of the Senate.

 

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There's also the matter of the standing (straight-legged) elephant and walking elephant; I prefer the latter. I think Forum might have one covered it, but no way to easily find the article.

I have a halfway decent one (walking), but it's holed and unphotographed.

I also have a portrait Denarius, but it must be one of the worst known.

 

Looks like you have a Jellyfish on your obverse

 

Surely the designer would have worked the most obvious form into the image if the intention was to represent a serpent: the “serpentine” line of the snake’s body.

 

And so they have - the snake's body is curved, almost without exception, not straight like a carnyx. That's partly what I was referring to when I wrote:

 

a curve is not serpentine.

 

I'm not sure that's a determinative factor. There are plenty of coins with snakes that aren't particularly serpentine, such as the Roman Alexandrian coins depicting a uraeus standing erect, and the Roman Republican coins with Juno Sospita on the reverse and a snake on the ground in front of her.







Admittedly, they're all curled at the bottom, which the "snake" on the Julius Caesar denarius is not. But it's still more curved than representations of carnyxes, like the one on the reverse of this denarius M Fovri L.f. Philus, which is completely straight:

 

Plus the snake is being trampled by an elephant. I imagine that would hamper its curves a bit.

 

We are discussing something that can’t be proven one way or another. I’m just observing that the images Severus and Donna both refer have at least one “s” shape in their form.

This fact is likely a clue to our puzzle.

If the curved object in question is indeed a snake it is the only example brought forth in this thread that is not serpentine (snake like).

 

This is always a lively debate ..

Interesting photo of a carynx:



Here is mine.. with a test cut(?)

 

I have to agree with this point. Would Caesar really cast himself as the victim here, or the victor? And remember who the intended "audience" is: these were coins specifically for Caesar's own troops, who were (I imagine) already fiercely loyal to him. I doubt that they needed any propaganda from Caesar trying to justify his actions, and I doubt that Caesar would have felt they needed it. If anything, I would think a morale-boosting image of a powerful Caesar (along with his legions) as an elephant trampling down an enemy would be far more likely to resonate with the troops than a message of Caesar's victimhood, as if he felt the need to offer excuses.

And even assuming Caesar was wanting to cast himself as the snake/victim, it seems that he went a little overboard on it...I mean, one's first impression of the coin is of an elephant completely overwhelming the snake. It's too strongly in favor of the elephant; the elephant is in complete domination.

 

Interesting discussion! It looks to me like it is intended to be a snake. Or a serpent-like creature, at least. I doubt we will ever be able to understand exactly what message the symbols were intended to covey. But the rivalry between the elephant and the serpent was pretty well established, Pliny spends a fair bit of Book VIII of his Natural History discussing it. From Loeb:


XI. Elephants are produced by Africa beyond the deserts of Sidra and by the country of the Moors; also by the land of Ethiopia and the Cave-dwellers, as has been said; but the biggest ones by India, as well as serpents that keep up a continual feud and warfare with them, the serpents also being of so large a size that they easily encircle the elephants in their coils and fetter them with a twisted knot. In this duel both combatants die together, and the vanquished elephant in falling crushes with its weight the snake coiled round it.

XII. Every species of animal is marvelously cunning for its own interests, as are those which we are considering. One difficulty that the serpent has is in climbing to such a height; consequently it keeps watch on the track worn by the elephant going to pasture and drops on him from a lofty tree. The elephant knows that he is badly handicapped in fighting against the snake’s coils, and therefore seeks to rub it against trees or rocks. The snakes are on their guard against this, and consequently begin by shackling the elephants’ steps with their tail. The elephants untie the knots with their trunk. But the snakes poke their heads right into the elephants’ nostrils, hindering their breathing and at the same time lacerating their tenderest parts; also when caught in the path of the elephants they rear up against them, going specially for their eyes: this is how it comes about that elephants are frequently found blind and exhausted with hunger and wasting misery.

What other cause could anybody adduce for such a quarrel save Nature arranging a match between a pair of combatants to provide herself with a show?

There is also another account of this contest—that elephants are very cold-blooded, and consequently in very hot weather are specially sought after by the snakes; and that for this reason they submerge themselves in rivers and lie in wait for the elephants when drinking, and rising up coil round the trunk and imprint a bite inside the ear, because that place only cannot be protected by the trunk; and that the snakes are so large that they can hold the whole of an elephant’s blood, and so they drink the elephants dry, and these when drained collapse in a heap and the serpents being intoxicated are crushed by them and die with them.