Luigi, and others:
Here is what
Pick said about the Haimos coins:
Pick on Haimos (
AMNG I, 1, p. 342): The proximity of the Haimos range led to the representation of the mountain god Haimos (pl. III, 22, 24, 25) [respectively Longinus for
Macrinus,
Agrippa for
Macrinus, Rufus for
Elagabalus]. He appears as a nude
youth with hunting boots and hunting spear, who looking backward and with
his arm on
his head sits at rest on a rock; besides the rock the mountain landscape is indicated by a tree and
animals. It is not at all likely that a statue served as a model for the
type; the representation gives altogether an impression as if it specially devised for the picture on the coin, naturally observing the rules for
personifications of topographical entities that
had prevailed since Hellenistic times and were also followed for all other mountain divinities on coins. [An ample footnote summarizes those noted by Wieseler in Göttinger Nachrichten 1876, pp. 53, ff.: Haimos, Rhodope, Peion, Idê, Olympos] On the majority of our coins the name of the figure represented is given in small letter: AIMOS; that the die-engraver thought that an explanatory label was necessary also shows that the
type does not show a reproduction of an artwork in the city but rather a new and special creation; it is only on the last Haimos coin (
Elagabalus, pl. III, 25) that giving the name is omitted, but probably only because by that time the
type was already understood. On coins of
Macrinus and
Diadumenian (no. 1810, Pl. XVIII, 5) sits yet another seated figure of a
youth, perhaps also to be regarded as a mountain god, but not certainly to be named; contrariwise, the female figure on
contemporary coins (no. 1682, Pl. XVIII, 7), which has been illustrated as a mountain divinity, is more likely Gaia or
still more probably the personification of the province.
[Then he goes on to the
river gods, with vases and flowing lines. I ought to have specified the HUNTING spear in describing mine. The whole character, I think, suggests not a cult place as on
Argaeus, but their beloved mountain range, which M. Grant’s entry for
Moesia in Guide to the Ancient World calls the main Balkan range, where they
hunt and, I daresay, mine and log. I also think of
Sofia’s Mt. Vitosha, almost a silent divine presence, or
Athens’ Pentele and Parnes.]
Pat Lawrence