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Message:: [QUOTE="Orielensis, post: 5141484, member: 96898"]Pliny distinguishes the "panthera" from the "tigris" (tiger) and the "leo" (lion): "Panthera et tigris macularum varietate prope solae bestiarum spectantur, ceteris unus ac suus cuique generi color est, leonum tantum in Syria niger" (Historia naturalis 8,23; just above the passage that Donna cited in the original post). His disctinction between these three types of cats is purely phenotypical: panthers have spots, tigers have stripes, lions are monocolored. At least in Pliny, "panthera" thus doesn't mean any big cat, but only any spotted big cat. Since jaguars had not yet been encountered by Europeans, the word would have been used to refer to the animals we today call leopards and cheetahs. As Donna stated above, the Romans apparently did not really distinguish between these two species. Yet, since the ancient idea of a panther obviously differs from our modern zoological classifications, I prefer to just call the little animal on this coin a panther in the ancient sense:[ATTACH=full]1206432[/ATTACH] Septimius Severus, Roman Empire, denarius, 194 AD, Rome mint. Obv: L SEPT SEV PERT AVG IMP III, head of Septimius Severus, laureate, r. Rev: LIBERO PATRI, Bacchus (Liber), wreathed, naked except for cloak over left arm, emptying oenochoe in r. hand over panther, and holding garlanded thyrsus in l. hand 17.5mm, 2.53g. Ref: RIC IV.1 Septimius Severus 32.[/QUOTE]