Liberty, birth of an icon

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by GinoLR, Dec 2, 2021.

  1. GinoLR

    GinoLR Well-Known Member

    I am still not at all convinced this coin shows an allegory of Liberty. And it would be too long if we discussed the exact meaning of Eleutheria in Greek and Libertas in Latin. To make it short, for me (but it's my personal opinion) Eleutheria means "independence", and Libertas "Republican regime".
    I don't know any Greek allegory of Liberty, but there is in Athens an allegory of Democracy crowning the People :
    democracy.jpg
    ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/26577257 )
     
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  3. Valentinian

    Valentinian Well-Known Member

    Eleutheria = Freedom, or, as @GinoLR wrote, "independence".

    I don't know about Greek coins, but there are coins of the Roman provincial period at Cherson (in Crimea, in the north Black Sea) that explicitly mention "EΛEVΘEPAC" [freedom] with the "AC" in exergue and the name of the mint city "XEPCONH..." with Artemis spearing a stag.

    ChersonFreedom30.jpg

    22-19 mm. 5.21 grams.
    Anokhin Cherson 293. Attributed to near the time of Caracalla (without much evidence)
    Anokhin gives weights but one problem with his books is the photos are often not to scale (10-15% larger is common and life size is common, but they are never distinguished) , so it is hard to be sure of the diameters (which are not explicitly given). His 293 is illustrated at 18 mm and said to be 3.55 grams. Mine is significantly larger--possibly a double of his denomination?

    Cherson received its "freedom" (liberty) under Antoninus Pius according to the Anokhin translation by H. Bartlett Wells (p. 77).
     
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