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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 5594244, member: 57495&quot;]My first pickup of 2021 is a large bronze with Nero on the obverse, and on the reverse, Olympias, wife of Philip II of Macedon and mother of The Great One himself, Alexander III. Huh? <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie12" alt="o_O" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; &nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1241838[/ATTACH] </p><p><b>NERO</b></p><p>AE Contorniate. 18.18g, 36mm. Rome, circa late 4th century AD. Alföldi, <i>Kontorniat</i> 200; Cohen VIII pg. 290, 129. O: IMP NERO CAESAR AVG P MAX, laureate head to right; engraved palm leaf before. R: Olympias reclining left on couch, extending hand to serpent coiled at her knee.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Okay, so this isn&#039;t a regular issue of Nero.&nbsp; In fact, it isn&#039;t a coin at all.&nbsp; Still, just as I love those enigmatic little bronzes of the Festival of Isis, I consider these 4th-5th century contorniate &quot;medallions&quot; with their groovy grooved edges to be pretty darn cool too. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Typical contorniates were made and used in Rome, likely employed as New Year&#039;s gifts by the elite and well-to-do of society.&nbsp; They usually featured portraits of beloved earlier emperors of Rome (hence Nero! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />) or other famous historical or legendary figures.&nbsp; An eclectic variety of scenes and subjects related to Greco-Roman mythology and the sporting games of the circus were common on the reverses.&nbsp; Pairings of obverse and reverse types were often random, sometimes making for rather incongruent mash-ups, such as one depicting the poet Homer on one side and a famous Roman charioteer (with his horses named) on the other, and another with a portrait of Alexander the Great paired with an aerial view of the Circus Maximus.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The frequent use of pagan and mythological themes might seem to suggest that those amongst whom contorniates were popular were, in small and private ways such as this at least, rebelling against the prevailing state religion, Christianity.&nbsp; At the same time, Christian motifs, symbols and graffiti are also sometimes found on contorniates.&nbsp; One seemingly unique head-scratcher even had Nero on the obverse and a large Christian cross on the reverse!&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The reverse of my example has Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great, getting cosy on a couch with a rather large serpent.&nbsp; The Latin translation of the <i>Alexander Romance</i> by Julius Valerius, who was consul in AD 338, would have popularized legends of Alexander and his family for a 4th century Roman audience, but even before that, there was Plutarch&#039;s <i>Life of Alexander</i> in the early 2nd century, from which the scene on this contorniate would appear to have been lifted -&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;<i>A serpent was once seen lying stretched out by the side of Olympias as she slept, and we are told that this, more than anything else, dulled the ardour of Philip&#039;s attentions to his wife.</i>&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>(As an aside, Plutarch also says that poor Philip was later instructed by an oracle of Apollo to &quot;<i>sacrifice to Ammon and hold that god in greatest reverence</i>&quot;, but not only that, he was also told that he &quot;<i>was to lose that one of his eyes which he had applied to the chink in the door when he espied the god, in the form of a serpent, sharing the couch of his wife.</i>&quot; Ouch! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie67" alt=":nailbiting:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />)</p><p><br /></p><p>This reverse type was also paired with obverses featuring Trajan and Caracalla.&nbsp; On one reverse die, the legend below Olympias reads REGINA.&nbsp; On the contorniate from the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-4803" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_R-4803" rel="nofollow">British Museum collection</a> below which has Alexander on the obverse, the reverse legend reads OLYMPIAS REGINA in full.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1241839[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>One last detail of interest on my example is the palm branch engraved in the field before Nero&#039;s portrait.&nbsp; I don&#039;t know if there are any definitive theories about why this and other symbols are (seemingly frequently) found on contorniates, but perhaps they were were applied when the contorniates were re-used, or were placed on them as decorative embellishments, with some of the engraved symbols even having been inlaid with silver.</p><p><br /></p><p>I won&#039;t go into the related topic of proto-contorniates here, primarily because I don&#039;t have one of them yet and haven&#039;t researched that topic deeply, but if anyone does and would like to share, I&#039;d be very interested to see them and read some comments about them.&nbsp; Please feel free to also share anything else that you feel might be related![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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