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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Herodotus, post: 6437173, member: 111387&quot;]Thanks for the link.&nbsp; I perused the article in its entirety.&nbsp; It, however, is not a discussion; rather it is the sole opinion of one Meriwether Stuart.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your post above states “the usual interpretation is...”</p><p><br /></p><p>The article itself openly starts with:</p><p><br /></p><p>“A wide divergence of opinion prevails concerning the identity of the structure represented...”</p><p><br /></p><p>The writer starts off spending some time comparing this coin with other coins minted during the later Imperial era and their depictions of bridges.&nbsp; This logic may be somewhat flawed, as artistic styles between the two distinct eras of Roman coinage are vastly different.</p><p><br /></p><p>How the bridges(or arches) on coins of Augustus (or Hadrian) are portrayed has limited (if any) basis to compare with a coin that was minted one hundred(or hundreds of) year(s) beforehand — w/ the Lepidus issue being among the first to potentially portray a bridge(an aqueduct or triumphal arch) on a Roman coin. </p><p><br /></p><p>The author is quick to dismiss the image as portraying a bridge with very limited reasoning to go by.</p><p><br /></p><p>But for the sake of his argument, I could show a later RIC minted under Valerian I in honor of the bridge that he had built over the Pyramus river at Mopsus, Cilicia.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1254671[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The author continues with similar comparisons attempting to dismiss the image as a triumphal arch (also based on later coinage).&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The remaining bulk of the wording is spent trying to determine which aqueduct is being represented.</p><p><br /></p><p>After reading the article, I’m not convinced his opinion is worthy of any sort of absolute consensus.&nbsp; It is merely the opinion of one writer. </p><p><br /></p><p>I’ll revert back to line #1 in the article.</p><p><br /></p><p>My 1st post ITT was intended to reveal that there are differing opinions from well-learned scholars about the imagery on the coin, and what it may be portraying.</p><p><br /></p><p>For me, the name connection between the moneyer and the bridge-builder has some strong merit, in that RR coinage often was minted with imagery honoring familial ancestry.</p><p><br /></p><p>If it were intended to be the Aqua Marcia, wouldn’t it be </p><p>minted by a moneyer named Marcius(related to Ancus)?&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Why would a family(Gens Aemelia) connected to the building of a famous bridge choose to instead depict the image of something not publicly attributed to them(an aqueduct) on their coinage?</p><p><br /></p><p>The author deals in some fairly unsubstantiated speculation and “suggested possibilities” trying to connect the dots in the other direction by using confirmation bias to connect Aemilius with the aqueduct.</p><p><br /></p><p>How about this possibility?</p><p><br /></p><p>Could it simply be that the moneyer Marcius mimicked the imagery of Lepidus for his own guy?</p><p><br /></p><p>Once again.&nbsp; Thank you for the link.&nbsp; It still made for an interesting and informative read concerning civil construction projects and the politics involved during the Roman Republic.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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