DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45583#0112
Dusares and the coin-types of Bostra
XXIX
Dussaud’s “baetylia” therefore can only be defended by citing the inscription AOYC...0GOC
which accompanies the similar type on the Rouvier coin, an argument which deserves
a word of comment by itself.
There is a small bronze of Elagabalus in the Princeton series of the following
description (Catalogue, no. 26. Fig. 20):
16 mill. AY ANTUNINOC Laureate bust of Elagabalus r. wearing paludamentum
and cuirass.
Rev. ΔΟΥ Platform approached by three steps in front; on platform, wine-
press with jar on either side. In exergue: OC. Dot border. Found at Bostra.
The description corresponds in all essentials to that given by Dussaud of the coin
in the Rouvier collection, mentioned above. There are some differences: for example,
Dussaud reads an LU on the Rouvier coin, while the Princeton example clearly has U ;
and the inscription Δ 0 V C ... on the Rouvier coin is described as retrograde, and on
the right side, while the opposite is true of the Princeton piece. Nevertheless, the
reverses of the two coins are at the most but variants of a single type, and may be
treated from this point of view as identical. The word Θ G 0 C, therefore, which is
apparently clear upon the Rouvier coin, permits the restoration of the complete inscription
on the two pieces as A0YCAPHC9€0C. Such an inscription should indeed accompany
a representation of the god in the type, but the type in this case is merely a miniature
of the larger composition on the above-cited coins of Trajan Decius and of Herennius
and Hostilianus, where one can scarcely question the torcular. The wine-press in the
artist’s eye was obviously the “Greek” variety described by Pliny13: Intra C annos
inventa graecanica, mail rugis per cocleas ambulantibus, i. e. the press operating by
means of a screw instead of a prelum.
Evidently the wine-press was a numismatic symbol of Dusares, since we read his
name on the Rouvier and Princeton coins which we have been considering. Dussaud
objects that it is “inadmissible qu’un dieu soit venere sous la forme d’un pressoir”,
but in this he mistakes the real significance of the type, since the wine-press is not
the god himself, but his symbol. Such a combination of a divinity’s name with his or
her symbol is not without parallel, and we may compare for example the coins of
Hieropolis Cyrrhesticae which bear a lion with the inscription: 0€AC CYPIAC13. The
same symbolic wine-press appears as a counter-mark on the obverse of a coin of
Antoninus Pius (Catalogue, note 2) and as a symbol in the field of the reverse of a
piece of Severus Alexander (Catalogue, no. 32. Fig. 23), where it assumes a form very
like the type which we have been considering.
Moreover, if the anthropomorphic type was adopted on the coins as early as
Commodus, as is clear from the head on the Princeton coin described at the beginning
of this appendix, it is not likely that the later monetary types returned, for their represen-
tations of Dusares, to the more ancient and barbarous cult-image. The transformation
of Arabia into a Roman province, nay, even the earliest contacts with Rome of the
Nabataean kingdom, must have introduced into its capital a fresh and lively strain of
Roman culture, whose influence could not fail soon to manifest itself in the outward forms of
Nabataean religion. One could still worship Dusares in the form of a pillar at Petra, and
at Adraa as an ovoid stone, but at Bostra, the capital, it was to be expected that the
god should appear in human form, under the steady pressure of Hellenistic materialism.
This indeed is the opinion of Dussaud himself: “on est en droit de se demander si
XXIX
Dussaud’s “baetylia” therefore can only be defended by citing the inscription AOYC...0GOC
which accompanies the similar type on the Rouvier coin, an argument which deserves
a word of comment by itself.
There is a small bronze of Elagabalus in the Princeton series of the following
description (Catalogue, no. 26. Fig. 20):
16 mill. AY ANTUNINOC Laureate bust of Elagabalus r. wearing paludamentum
and cuirass.
Rev. ΔΟΥ Platform approached by three steps in front; on platform, wine-
press with jar on either side. In exergue: OC. Dot border. Found at Bostra.
The description corresponds in all essentials to that given by Dussaud of the coin
in the Rouvier collection, mentioned above. There are some differences: for example,
Dussaud reads an LU on the Rouvier coin, while the Princeton example clearly has U ;
and the inscription Δ 0 V C ... on the Rouvier coin is described as retrograde, and on
the right side, while the opposite is true of the Princeton piece. Nevertheless, the
reverses of the two coins are at the most but variants of a single type, and may be
treated from this point of view as identical. The word Θ G 0 C, therefore, which is
apparently clear upon the Rouvier coin, permits the restoration of the complete inscription
on the two pieces as A0YCAPHC9€0C. Such an inscription should indeed accompany
a representation of the god in the type, but the type in this case is merely a miniature
of the larger composition on the above-cited coins of Trajan Decius and of Herennius
and Hostilianus, where one can scarcely question the torcular. The wine-press in the
artist’s eye was obviously the “Greek” variety described by Pliny13: Intra C annos
inventa graecanica, mail rugis per cocleas ambulantibus, i. e. the press operating by
means of a screw instead of a prelum.
Evidently the wine-press was a numismatic symbol of Dusares, since we read his
name on the Rouvier and Princeton coins which we have been considering. Dussaud
objects that it is “inadmissible qu’un dieu soit venere sous la forme d’un pressoir”,
but in this he mistakes the real significance of the type, since the wine-press is not
the god himself, but his symbol. Such a combination of a divinity’s name with his or
her symbol is not without parallel, and we may compare for example the coins of
Hieropolis Cyrrhesticae which bear a lion with the inscription: 0€AC CYPIAC13. The
same symbolic wine-press appears as a counter-mark on the obverse of a coin of
Antoninus Pius (Catalogue, note 2) and as a symbol in the field of the reverse of a
piece of Severus Alexander (Catalogue, no. 32. Fig. 23), where it assumes a form very
like the type which we have been considering.
Moreover, if the anthropomorphic type was adopted on the coins as early as
Commodus, as is clear from the head on the Princeton coin described at the beginning
of this appendix, it is not likely that the later monetary types returned, for their represen-
tations of Dusares, to the more ancient and barbarous cult-image. The transformation
of Arabia into a Roman province, nay, even the earliest contacts with Rome of the
Nabataean kingdom, must have introduced into its capital a fresh and lively strain of
Roman culture, whose influence could not fail soon to manifest itself in the outward forms of
Nabataean religion. One could still worship Dusares in the form of a pillar at Petra, and
at Adraa as an ovoid stone, but at Bostra, the capital, it was to be expected that the
god should appear in human form, under the steady pressure of Hellenistic materialism.
This indeed is the opinion of Dussaud himself: “on est en droit de se demander si