From Art to Artifact:  Making Sense of Roman Coins

This coin (SNG ANS 146), minted at Bruttium during the Second Punic War while under Carthaginian control (216-211 BCE), shows a clever appropriation of Roman coinage by Hannibal. The obverse has a twin-faced head of the Carthaginian goddess Persephone, and the reverse depicts Jupiter in a quadriga. The design on this coin is almost identical to the Roman quadrigatus, differing only in the identity of the deity on the obverse and the absence of the ROMA inscription.

This type of this coin was clearly intended to speak to Carthage’s Italian allies. By directly appropriating the coin types of Rome, Hannibal proclaims Carthage’s status as a rival to Rome’s power on the peninsula.