Numismatic and History Discussion Forums > Greek Coins Discussion Forum
Who was that I saw riding your horse last night?
Enodia:
This coin was struck at a time when Taras (the polis) was appealing to the mother city Sparta for military support in their almost continuous war against the local indigenous tribes, and we see here a symbolic depiction of the colony in the son Taras pleading with his father Poseidon. If here then why not on the more ubiquitous didrachms?
So the young naked youth we see riding his horse is Taras, the son of the god of horses, on their most widely distributed medium.
Maybe it's time to give this divine child his due, and stop referring to him as a mere jockey.
~ Peter
shanxi:
Yes, the description as a jockey seems too simple.
The iconography is also discussed here, but to say the truth. Even with auto-translator I do not understand the interpretation of the author. :-\ (The relevant section is at the end of the article)
https://www.academia.edu/5356146/Le_iconografie_monetali_in_Messapia_e_il_mistero_Taras_
Jay GT4:
Excellent observations Peter!
Altamura:
--- Quote from: shanxi on August 22, 2021, 05:12:08 am ---... The iconography is also discussed here, but to say the truth. Even with auto-translator I do not understand the interpretation of the author. :-\ ...
--- End quote ---
As far as I understood it, the article is mainly about the dolphin rider.
But Carroccio also remarks that the human on the horse is sometimes so small that in these cases it cannot be seen as an adult hero.
Here we have a small, nude human on a horse holding a palm branch or wreath: http://numismatics.org/collection/1944.100.3395
here with an additional Nike: http://numismatics.org/collection/1957.172.137
This perfectly corresponds to the world of sports and to a jockey, being mostly young and small people because of the low weight.
Another with someone shoeing the horse, again a scenery from the turf: http://numismatics.org/collection/1978.64.41
And here we have two persons, the one on the horse clearly a child compared to the other:
http://numismatics.org/collection/1949.177.1
https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=5877677
But sometimes we have real warriors with different weapons (shield, spear, helmet) which are looking adult: http://numismatics.org/collection/1957.172.141
Here we even have two of them: http://numismatics.org/collection/1944.100.3401
Perhaps these horse riders are not always meant to be the same person. And perhaps this imagery is more about horses that about deities.
If it should be Taras, what is not obvious from the coins, why do we have so many different situations he is depicted in?
So I am not convinced that this should be Taras, for me this is too much speculation :-\ .
The most recent book about this coinage seems to be W. Fischer-Bossert, "Chronologie Der Didrachmenprägung von Tarent 510-280 v.Chr.", Berlin 1999 (where I don't have access to :( ), perhaps there can be found more information about that.
Regards
Altamura
Enodia:
Speculation? Of course it is! But not, I hope, without merit. There may be doubt in some of these examples, but the mere addition of other figures does not eliminate the boy Taras from consideration.
There are a number of different horsemen riding across these didrachms, but as I stated at the outset these musings are only dealing with the coins described as "naked youth", etc. We will try to deal with the other ridings shortly.
In the meantime here is another boy from an earlier issue,, this time a bit more active and apparently wearing a radiate crown...
(By the way, with the exception of the gold stater all of the coins shown so far are from my own collection)
~ Peter
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version