Zeugetana

[Misanthropus]

This coin, I was told, could be explained from reading Vergil.  The people escaped, and a prophecy had it that they would establish a new community where they found a horse.  In North Africa, the Punic people stopped at an oasis and discovered a buried horse's head.  Does anyone know more?  This specimen came from a respected numismatist and is attributed SG 6491, SNG Cop 141; it measures 20 mm. and weighs 7.47 gm.

[Misanthropus]

Here is the horse again, with a palm tree (perhaps the prophesied place of encampment) and the star (indicating the prophecy itself, a chance of survival/hope?).  No legend on either side!

[Peattie]

Tradition has it that the city of Carthage was founded by Dido, a Phoenician queen, in the ninth century B.C. after her flight from Tyre. Arriving at the site of Carthage after a vision a priestess of Juno dug in the ground and discovered the head of a bullock. This was not a good omen as bullocks and oxen were servile animals. The priestess again dug and this time found a horse's head, a far better omen as a horse is symbolic of war and martial glory. A temple to Juno was built on the spot, and the figure of a horse's head was adopted by the Carthaginians and used on their coins.

You are therefore correct the horse relates to the legend of the founding of Carthage, Regarding the Palm, one possible answer is the Greek for palm tree I understand is
'phoinix", which was also their name for a Phoenician

[Misanthropus]

I am appreciative of the information, Bolayi.  I have read enough of Vergil to know about the horse's head, but I missed that part of the finding of the bullock's head.  I was unaware, also, of the connection of "phoinix" with both "palm" and "Phoenician."  I am afraid that I tend to stamp my Western preconception of symbolism on all that I see and that perhaps my idea of the importance of the star may be in error.  

It strikes me that such finely executed coins would not be imprinted with casual images of just "this-and-that," whatever struck the celator's fancy, that each image had some significance, and to see these three images appear again and again must indicate deep significance.   I write this and then reflect on the sterility of coins produced by the United States, "my owne countree"!

[LordBest]

the figure of a horse's head was adopted by the Carthaginians and used on their coins.

That why the coin mafia leave Punic tetradrachms in peoples beds.
                                               LordBest.

[Misanthropus]

Hoohah!  Ain't you cute?  I could wish for a few more of these horse heads to be found thereabouts in my bedchamber.  All I get be spiders, live ones, although I wonder what coins do bear images of spiders....  That would be something to explore!

[Peattie]

In ancient times the north star was known as the phoenician star, (obviously due to their sailing prowess). This could be one reason for the star on the coin, one of probably a hundred .

[Misanthropus]

I knew about the Phoenicians' sailing expertise, but you may very well be right about that star!  After all, they settled Spain, correct, long before other Mediterranean cultures dared to venture out of sight of land...?  The puzzle pieces are beginning to fall into place!  Soon, now, we shall solve the problem of Free Will!  Ah, I do love this place....  Coin collecting is the nexus for all else great and good.  Blessed be!

[Peattie]

One other possibility for the star is that it could be Tanit, a pervasive figure in Carthage coinage, who is also a variation of Astarte, otherwise known as the morning star, though she is normally represented by a sun and crescent moon, so scratch that thought.

I think I prefer your theory it is far more interesting .

[Misanthropus]

Well, consider that star to the right of the horse on my didrachm, far too close to the horizon, yes, to be Polaris?  Perhaps celator's license; after all, there is poetic license....

[LordBest]

Maybe the Celator was depicting the sun shining out Rome's a....
                                      LordBest.

[Misanthropus]

300-264 B.C., if Rome were not a pewling infant, then it was a disgusting and arrogant child.  Scarcely a noble image, that, sol ex anus.

[LordBest]

disgusting and arrogant child.  

Why does that sound familiar? There had been a Punic war or two by this stage, hadnt their? Maybe the Celator was lookign around and smelling the garum.  
                                           LordBest.

[Misanthropus]

'Struth, I find Siculo-Punic coinage singularly pure.  Surely untouched by rotting fish and liquifying flesh!  Clarity of purpose, methinks.  I have but two such coins, pining for another whenever I fall heir to my family's fortune, but I have seen many pictures, and I sense they are even more uncluttered than most of the Greek issues.  They tend to have more balance as I intuit.

[LordBest]

I adore their coins also, particularly those with portraits of Tanit, as opposed to those with Apollo. I cannot tell the difference, so effeminate was Apollo depicted.
                                         LordBest.

[Misanthropus]

Tanit has earrings!  Apollo is Man Beautiful, not the overwrought muscle-bound
Creature, irresistibly attractive to women yet ever doomed to failure in his liasons with women.  Dionysos has his head wreathed usually with vines, but yet, you are correct, sometimes the depictions seem to blend one into the other.  I'd prefer to be Dionysos rather than Apollo, myself.  Can you recall any depictions of either showing them with jewelry?

[Peattie]

... and I always thought that Ancient coin collecting was filled with stuffy senile old men, who drool alot.

[Misanthropus]

Those are Jonathan Swift's Struldbrugs, I think.