An Essay towards the Classification of Homeric Coin Types

Abstract

In dealing with any ideal portrait it is well to remember a remark of Pliny's concerning the portraits of the poet Alcman, not that Alcman is represented on any coin we know of, but because the phrase throws light on the whole question: Alcman poeta nullius est nobilior [Calamidis] there is no nobler portrait of the poet Alcman than that by Calamis. This passage implies that Pliny knew portraits of Alcman by various sculptors and preferred that of Calamis; nor is this surprising, if we consider the number of portraits of Homer and Sappho for example recorded by ancient writers. The obvious but often forgotten deduction to be drawn from the fact that different artists represented the same subject differently is, that it is not legitimate to assume that the identification of one type of portrait necessarily puts all other identifications out of court. When, for instance, the Ny-Carlsberg Anacreon was identified, all other types were discarded; as Bernoulli puts it, “Mit der Auffindung der capitolinischen Herme sind natürlich die früher aufgestellten Anakreondeutungen sämtlich in Wegfall gekommen.” (Gr. Ikon. i. p. 83.) Yet later representations of Anacreon existed, as the epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum, Eugenes, and Theocritus show, and coins of Teos represent him not only in the attitude of the famous Athenian statue, but seated in flowing drapery, playing or holding the lyre.