Ancient NEWSmismatics: The Two Faces/Forces of the Second Punic War by L.A.

Hambly

Anonymous. Ca. 225-214 BC. AR didrachm or quadrigatus (22mm, 6.52 gm, 5h). Laureate head of Janus / Jupiter, hurling thunderbolt with right hand and holding scepter in left, in quadriga right driven by Victory; ROMA incuse on raised tablet below. Crawford 28/3. Sydenham 64a. RSC 23

I'm your best friend, I'm your worst enemy, I'm Janus, God of Doorways. Beginnings. Endings. Choices. The anonymous issue coin is one of the principal coins of the Roman Republic, a numismatic type that continued well into the period of the Second Punic War. Associated with doorways and gates, Janus is the god of beginnings and ends and so gave name to the first month of the Roman calendar Januarius - which was a reformation of the Romulan calendar by Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven traditional kings of Rome in the 8th Century B.C.E, a period of time in early Roman history in which religious life was marked by the predominance of the divinity of Janus. Depicted with two faces in opposite directions, Janus looks from the past to the future, a gift bestowed upon him by the god Saturn; in this composite perspective, he is a god of beginning and transitions and was the divine inspiration for Numa's Ianus Geminus, an arched passage at the entrance of theForum Boarium, essentially, an entrance to the sacred hearth at the center of the city and a passage which ritually opened during times of war. In its interior, sacrifices and vaticinia were held to forecast the outcome of military deeds. It closed when Roman arms were put down and the city was at peace-- during the Republic, an extremely rare occurrence. In 29 B.C.E Livy wrote in his Ab Urbe Condita, a macropaedia of Roman history, that the doors of the temple had only been closed twice since the reign of Numa: The first time in 235 B.C.E., after the first Punic war, and the second time after the battle of Actium in 31 B.C.E In consideration of the earliest possible dating of this coin, 225 B.C.E., a temple of Janus, said to have been consecrated by the consul and First Punic War hero Gaius Duilius in 260 B.C.E. after the Battle of Mylae in the Forum Holitorium ("vegetable-sellers' market[Latin macellum], might well have been in the collective memory of those anonymous persons responsible for issuing struck coinage during the early years of the Hannibalic War. Since Janus looks both ways simultaneously, the term Janus-faced is used to

describe someone who is duplicitous - a rare bit of irony not lost on the coin collector or the content. One might calculate this coin as the price of Hannibal's greed: Although Hannibals forces were defeated on the field at the Battle of Zama (202 B.C.E.), an end unknown to the anonymous issuer(s) of this coin, the die was cast for Hannibal's failure early on in the Second Punic when the Carthaginian Senate refused to support the general on campaign, a tactic they used on Hannibal's father Hamilcar Barca during the First Punic War, in which it obstinately refused aid and reinforcements in the hope that he would somehow defeat Rome without their having to bankrupt the Carthaginian treasury. So as Hannibal, who resided for some time in Gades (modern Cadiz), just beyond the 'Pillars of Hercules' or today's Gates of Gibraltar, mobilized his forces and prepared to pass through Spain to begin his invasion of Italy, he moved toward a series of colossal tactical victories that would earn him undying fame, but ultimate failure and defeat. On the 'flip side' of the coin, the historical narrative culminates in a Roman victory, symbolized by the quadriga, the original chariot of the gods.

Ancient NEWSmismatics: The Two Faces/Forces of the Second Punic War by L.A. Hambly