Domitia
Denier - Rome (82-83)
Rare et magnifique exemplaire.
Légères concrétions.
Exemplaire de la vente Bertolami Fine Arts & ACR 6 Auction des 10 et 11 décembre 2012, N°854
3.33g - C. 2
Superbe - AU
Ovid (Metamorphoses 1) related the story of Io who, after being caught with her lover, Jupiter, was transformed by Juno – his wife – into a white heifer. She was later freed when Mercury distracted her guard, the giant Argus, by Mercury playing the pan- pipes and telling stories, and then killed him. To remember him, Juno transferred Argus’s eyes to the tail feathers of the peacock.
This attractive bird had long been admired, with Alexander the Great even forbidding their killing after he discovered them in India, but Romans instead ate the bird and its eggs. Nevertheless, on this coin’s reverse, the peacock is meant as the animal familiar of Juno: it is a type specific to the coinage of empresses from Domitia (shown in profile) and Julia Titi (shown facing) onwards. Juno was one of the Capitoline Triad, with Jupiter and Minerva, and – as goddess of marriage and childbirth – she was believed to protect the state and the women of Rome. The myth related by Ovid also renders the bird a symbol of immortality.