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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 4386332, member: 110350&quot;]Another new animal has joined the crowd:</p><p><br /></p><p>Roman Republic, Mn. Fonteius C.f., AR Denarius,&nbsp; Rome Mint 85 BC. Obverse: Laureate head of Apollo* right, MN. FONTEI behind (MN and NT in monograms), C.F below chin, thunderbolt below neck / Rev. Cupid or winged Infant Genius** seated on goat standing right, caps (pilei) of the Dioscuri above, thyrsus (staff surmounted by pine cone) of Bacchus below; all within laurel-wreath. RSC I Fonteia 10 (ill.), Crawford 353/1c, Sydenham 724a, Sear RCV I 271 (ill.). Size: 20mm, 3.93g.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1104604[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>* RSC I (at p. 49) identifies the obverse head as Vejovis, a little-known Italian deity whose temple contained a statue depicting him holding arrows and standing next to a goat.&nbsp; See J.M. Jones, <i>A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins</i> (Seaby, 1990) at p. 315 (entry for Vejovis). Crawford and RCV I disagree and identify the head as Apollo.&nbsp; Given that David Sear was credited, along with Robert Loosley, with the revisions for the 1978 Third edition of RSC I (which continued to identify the obverse as Vejovis, four years after Crawford was published), I think it&#039;s safe to assume that Sear had changed his mind about this identification by the time RCV I was published in 2000.&nbsp; (In the 1981 edition of RCV at p. 67, Sear identifies the head on this coin as &quot;Apollo Vejovis&quot; -- a halfway position, I suppose!)</p><p><br /></p><p>** RSC I (at p. 49) identifies the winged figure on the reverse as an &quot;infant Genius,&quot; whereas both Crawford and RCV I identify the figure on the reverse as Cupid. See Crawford Vol. I at p. 369, RCV I at p. 123. Crawford also characterizes the reverse as Dionysiac, presumably given, among other things, the association of the thyrsus with Bacchus.&nbsp; See Crawford Vol. I at pp. 369-370; see also RCV I at p. 123 and Jones at p. 128, mentioning this coin and calling it &quot;likely . . . Dionysiac&quot; in the entry for &quot;Goat.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>_____</p><p><br /></p><p>I looked at several examples of this coin at the NYINC in January and was very tempted to buy one, but didn&#039;t because I thought that on all of them, the reverse figures looked disproportionately tiny compared to the size of the coin. I&#039;m glad I waited; the Cupid and goat seem much more proportionate to me on this example.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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