Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gavin Richardson, post: 2597875, member: 83956&quot;]Ah, I love those Tanit/horse coins. One day I’ll pick one up. I understand that the horse head is an allusion to the legend that the Phoenicians/Tyrians who founded Carthage decided to found their new city at the site where they dug up the head of a fiery stallion (“caput acris equi)”—a foreshadowing of their vigorous and warlike spirit. And Tanit is the North African Juno. Vergil makes use of both associations in Aeneid 1:</p><p><br /></p><p>Lucus in urbe fuit media, laetissimus umbra,</p><p>quo primum iactati undis et turbine Poeni</p><p>effodere loco signum, quod regia Iuno</p><p>monstrarat, caput acris equi; sic nam fore bello</p><p>egregiam et facilem victu per saecula gentem. 445</p><p>Hic templum Iunoni ingens Sidonia Dido</p><p>condebat, donis opulentum et numine divae,</p><p>aerea cui gradibus surgebant limina, nexaeque</p><p>aere trabes, foribus cardo stridebat aenis.</p><p><br /></p><p>“[441] Amid the city was a grove, luxuriant in shade, the spot where the first Phoenicians, tossed by waves and whirlwind, dug up the token which queenly Juno had pointed out, a head of the spirited horse; for thus was the race to be famous in war and rich in substance through the ages. Here Sidonian Dido was founding to Juno a mighty temple, rich in gifts and the presence of the goddess.”</p><p><br /></p><p>I wonder if the Juno/Horse head legend preceded the coin, or if it was a tradition that developed long after the coin. Fagles’s notes to the Aeneid assumes the tradition predates and explains the coin imagery, but I don’t know how far back that tradition is attested.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in