The female figure is a topographic personification like the Haimos, but for something that has a feminine-gender name. Particularly if that was a
Spring, perhaps the source of a tributary river, then it is quite all right, I think, to call it a Nymph; similarly, if she is a particular named Peak in the Haimos range, if it
had a feminine-gender name, a female figure would be used. For, as
Pick observes, she also occurs on a Pontianus
reverse in Nicopolis.
As it happens, I don't own the
Marcianopolis ones, and the one with busts is very important to me, because it shares that
reverse with one of the
confronted heads dies of Pontianus at
Marcianopolis that all but certainly are the
work of an engraver who worked for him at both places. A couple of the dies used with such Pontianus obverses at Nicopolis (these are the sharp-chinned ones that look like no other
Macrinus heads anywhere) continued to be used with reverses bearing Agrippa's name instead, as
Pick noted (
AMNG I, 1, p. 432), and I am extremely interested to see that the
confronted busts die is the multiply-linked one that it is!
Now I want to do a
bit of hunting off line. Meanwhile, here is a pair of coins illustrating the sort of
style I alluded to. Never mind whether it is the very same hand or not; it is the crossover that is significant.
Pat L.
Here is a stylistically more emphatic
Marcianopolis E coin to make the same point.
23 06 03 AE 26+ 14.97g
Marcianopolis Issued by Pontianus. Heads of
Diadumenian, to r., and
Macrinus, laureate, to l. AV K OPPEL SEVEta MAKRINOS and below K M OPPELI / ANTONIN / OS. All sigmas and epsilons squared. (This is the
rare die
Pick,
AMNG I, 1, p. 235, no. 716, known to
Pick only through a
cast of Imhoof's, and p. 246, no. 773 with a
Liberalitas reverse = 770, ex. 3, pl. XIX, 2).
Rev.,
Homonoia. bareheaded, stg. l. with
cornucopiae and
patera, making libation over burning garlanded
altar. VP PONTIANOV MARKIA[NOPO] and in
exergue LITON. The E for 5 is rounded, but the other letters recall those on
obverse, though a little less spiky. (Not in
Pick, but reasonably regarded as a variant of p. 245, no. 767).