I am surprised that the coin was struck after the crossing of the Rubicon, to portray your rivals in a civil war as snakes does not seem like Caesar. He pardoned many who had been of Pompeys party, and wished to restore those who he had been at odds with to full citizenship. I suppose that it was the work of some of his partisans and was not something directed by Caesar himself. In his memoirs of the civil wars, he did not fight with the same sort of ruthlessness that characterized his Gallic campaigns. An interesting bit of history, and something I will bring up with a coin collecting friend who is into ancients.
Thank you for the coin and the discussion concerning the elephant. I found this article about the significance of the elephant and the serpent interesting: http://imperialcoins.com/newsletters/volume4/volume4-8.html I might not agree with this theory, I find it interesting, nevertheless. guy
As for the snake, do a search for the Celtic/Gallic carnyx. The carnyx was a Celtic war trumpet shaped like a serpent. It looks like the "serpent" on the Julius Caesar elephant denarius. If you wanted to represent the Celts being dominated in a simple image, the image of their ubiquitous war trumpet being trampled would do it. The carnyx would have been very familiar to the soldiers and die engravers of Julius Caesar's moving military mint. Do a Google image search for carnyx to see what it looks like. Not everyone believes it is a carnyx. But they don't have a better explanation for the serpent either. The "serpent" on this coin has been argued about on various coin forums and sites. I am in the "It's a carnyx" camp. EDIT: BTW, the carnyx has been engraved on a couple other Roman coins in connection with, and symbolism of, the domination of the Celts.
Plenty of Carnyx here: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=is....,cf.osb&fp=451d3769691a21f5&biw=1018&bih=620 My question is when was this coin minted? I would feel more comfortable with calling the "serpent" a carnyx if the coin was minted soon after the conquest in Gaul. guy
It was in the discription I posted, 49 B.C. Thanks Swish & I agree, cant stand ancients in plastic. Bothers me having them in flips lol.
Bart9349's link showed several coins including one from Beast (a very knowledgeable numismatist IMHO): http://www.beastcoins.com/RomanImperatorial/JuliusCaesar/JuliusCaesar.htm
Yeah, the Antony/Cleo silver has been on my achievable, (possibly), short list for a long time. Maybe one day. Yeah, I notice the ancient posts have died down. One is summer I believe. I know, though, I haven't been helping. Sorry guys, but with work, working on the house, and a baby at home I basically have zero time to myself. Its so bad I am seriously thinking of putting all my coins besides bulk world and wheat cents in the SDB so I don't have to think about them or feel as guilty about not working on them currently. I wish I had more time to actually work on them, and learn how to share them better.
I'm moving to the carnyx camp. Darn, those things are annoying : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trJWwO7-K2E guy
