Two Faced

Alex became intrigued by Sophia’s introduction. “Why is she on the coin as well though?” Alex asked. “This is quite astonishing, is it not?” Sophia replied. “In the hands of a Roman, this coin must also have seemed extraordinary. There have been a few previous Roman coins that have depicted two people like this. They stem from Augustus and depicted him with his deified father Julius Caesar or his right-hand man Agrippa. Furthermore, the convention stems from the Hellenistic world, where kings sometimes include their wives on coinage.”

“Hellenistic coins however, depicted two people jugate, meaning overlapping with a clear image of who was the more important of the two. The Romans copied this practice, and also introduced the style we see here, which we call confronted. Our coin here is the first case however, where a woman is depicted in such a way.”