AN
ALEXANDRIAN COIN OF DOMITIA
By
G.F. HILL
Fine
portraits on coins of Alexandria are rare enough to
make it worth while to call attention of readers of
this Journal to the unusually well-preserved
bronze of Domitia Longina, the wife of Domitian, which
has recently been acquired by the British Museum. It
was formerly in the collection of Mr. F. A. Walters*.
The inscriptions are, on the obverse: ΔΟΜΙΤΙΑ CΕΒ ΔΟΜΙΤΙΑΝΟΥ ΚΑΙCΑΡΟCCΕΒ ΓΕΡΜ ; on the reverse ΕΙΡΗΝΗ CΕΒΑCΤΗ and
in the left field LΙΑ.
The reverse type is Eirene, standing l., holding in
her l. hand
a caduceus and the fold of her robe, in her r. hand
an olive-branch. The coin measures 26 mm., weighs 10.48
gm., and has a very fair greenish gray patina. A similar
specimen (to judge by the illustration in very poor
state) is in the Dattari Collection*.
A similar reverse type, with the same inscription and
date, is also associated with the head of the Emperor
himself*.
Among
the coins of this year is another representing Domitia,
this time seated, in the guise of Euthenia, holding
ears of corn and sceptre. On an ill-preserved specimen
in the British Museum, Poole gave the inscripition
of the reverse as [ΕΥΘΗΝΙΑ?] CΕΒΑCΤΗ.
But a better example illustrated by Dattari shows that
we should read ΔΟΜΙΤΙΑ CΕΒΑCΤΗ*.
The
eleventh year of Domitian (91-92 A.D.) was marked by
a great outburst of coinage at Alexandria. Out of the
186 bronze coins of the Emperor and Empress which Dattari
gives in his Catalogue, no less than 59 are of this
year. Further, in the tenth and eleventh years, the
old types are for the most part discarded, and new
ones introduced. Mr. Milne obvserves that the most
remarkable point about the bronze coinage of years
10-12 of Domitian at Alexandria is the change in style:
there is a sudden break, with a great improvement both
in art and fabric. Domitian is called in year 11, for
the first time, Θεου υιος. All this, as
others have seen, points to some connexion with the
Decennalia of the Emperor*.
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