So, I’m on the sidelines right now from any shows so I thought I’d relay a funny/quirky story that I laugh about every now and then from a show a few years ago. The story involves this particular type of coin. CNG auction picture from a while back. So, I am at a show many years back and this type of coin was presented to me as something I might like by a dealer who knows what I buy and what I like. He hands me the coin and says it’s a popular type and it has a soldier on the back carrying a “dog”s head…that is what I heard. Well, I almost immediately was struck by the fact that it was a popular type and that he thought I was the type of collector who wanted a coin with a Roman soldier waving a “dog”s head around. What a terrible way to immortalize this inhumane act by presenting it on a coin. Who would want that coin? So, I really don’t even want to look at it, but I take the coin in hand and read the tag. The reverse description is as such…a soldier carrying a GAUL’s head. Within a second of reading that, I turn to the dealer and said, I’ll take it, I can see why it is popular. Who doesn’t want that coin? Transaction completed, I start walking to the next table with my awesome new purchase. Then, it hits me. What is the matter with me? When I thought it was a dog’s head, I didn’t even want to look at it. When I learned it was a Gaul’s head, I couldn’t pay fast enough. I tend to laugh at myself a lot, but every time I see this type, I chuckle. Whether it is the offense I felt or the relief when I could purchase the coin because it was a human head and not a dog’s head, I really consider both the comic and conflicting nature of being a human. Well, the answer to my existential crisis came pretty easy, I love the coin and the design, too bad it makes me a bad human. please add any stories or funny things that happened in your collecting life
This is one of the Republicans I still need for my "Barbarians, Captives, and Enemies" Collection. But the same experience applies to others in my "BCE Collection": The hardest thing about collecting "Fallen Horseman" coinage is the frequent "oh-that-poor-horse" feeling. So I can empathize with you (and with the horses, but, apparently, not with the Gauls). A few of my horses-in-peril: Plus a few "honorable mentions": My favorites may be the ones where the fallen soldier hugs his horse around the neck (or, perhaps, dies sacrificing himself by throwing his body upon the horse's in a desperate effort to protect it?): I must be a masochist as I have dozens more...
The representation of fallen war horses is relatively rare in ancient iconography. You can find the same kind of triumphal image in Sassanid Persian art. On this relief from Naqsh-i Rostam the Sassanid king Hormizd II (303-309) is dismounting an enemy (perhaps Papak, king of Armenia). I think the Roman die-cutters of 348, 40 years later, drew inspiration from Persian iconography to compose the fallen horseman reverse type. My favourite image of this theme is early medieval. It is this segment of the Bayeux Tapestry representing a French cavalry charge against an English entrenchment during the battle of Hastings. The Latin legend says Hic ceciderunt simul Angli et Franci in prelio : Here English and French fell together in combat. A similar tragedy happened in Waterloo, when during Ney's great cavalry charge the first ranks of cuirassiers tumbled into the sunken road on the ridge, and the following ones just passed on their bodies ... (as represented in the 1970 Russian movie Waterloo, by Sergei Bondartchouk)
There are some pretty graphic coins out there depicting some very grisly scenes, such as this Turkoman coin. Artuqids of Mardin, Husam al-Din Yuluq Arsian, AE dirham, AH 596 (1199-1200). Album 1829; SS 36.1. 14.7 grams
