AHENOBAR



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AHENOBAR. - The denarius on which this abbreviated word appears is a numismatic monument of the greatest rarity. Of this the erudite antiquary above-mentioned, has given an engraving in his Roman Iconography (TAB. V.*) an he presents it as preserving the portrait of Cneus Ahenobarbus. It is (says Visconti) a piece of gold money, which was probably struck at the period when this Roman admiral received intelligence of the death of Cassius and of Brutus, and regarded himself as the head of the republican party. The head, entirely shaved, is seen on one side of the coin, of which the surname AHENOBARbus forms the legend. On the reverse we see his other names, and his title, CN. DOMITIVS. L. F. IMP. (Cneus Domitius, son of Lucius, imperator). The letters NEPT. stamped in the field of the reverse, point to the temple of Neptune, which is the type, and in all probability was designed to represent, that edifice which Cneus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the ancestors of the personage in question, had built in the circus of Flaminius at Rome, in honour of the god of the sea, and which he had filled with sculptural chefs d 'oeuvre from the chisel if Scopas. Cneus Ahenobarbus seems thus to ascribe to the zeal of his progenitors for the worship of Neptune, the constant safety and success of his own vessels on the stormy waves of the Adriativ." - p.221-22. - See also Morell Thesaur. Fam. Domitia gens.

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