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Webster, Olivia (2019) Identity, Religion and Empire: the Civic Coins

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Webster, Olivia (2019) Identity, Religion and Empire: the Civic Coins Identity, Religion and Empire: the Civic Coins of Roman Phoenicia Olivia F.H. Webster Thesis submitted to The University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 i Abstract This thesis will examine the role that religious imagery on civic coinage played in the expression of identities and religious mentality in Roman Phoenicia. This medium comprised low-value bronze currency, which was produced by individual cities for primarily local use. Their reverses preserve a vast corpus of imagery but, despite this repository of visual evidence, there are only a few studies that engage with the material and none that focus solely on Phoenicia. When working with numismatic evidence there has been a tendency either to accept the images shown as completely realistic, or to reject the informative potential of designs outright. This approach aims to seek a middle ground between these extremes: to accept the limitations and challenges of numismatic material, but also to demonstrate its validity as a resource. The aim of this thesis is to collate religious types – images of deities and sacred architecture – from a range of cities, to ask what they can reveal about how these cities wished to represent themselves to both inter- and intra-communal audiences, and how the communicative potential of coin reverses were exploited. In addition to using civic coins to explore identities on a local level, this thesis will also ask to what extent their designs interacted with the concept of a provincial Phoenician identity. It will also explore the impact of Roman authority and cultural influences, to examine what it meant to be Phoenician during the Roman period. Chapter One will conduct a survey of prior approaches to cultural exchange and interaction will be undertaken, and the methodology will be established. Chapter Two will address the practical function of civic coinage – how it looked, how it was produced, how it circulated – as well as exploring how previous studies have handled coin types as evidence. The following two chapters will divide the numismatic material into representations of deities and temples before being thoroughly analysed to ask what messages they can reveal. The final chapter will apply the findings of previous chapters to the city goddess Tyche, to ii examine her role in representing the city on coin types, and assess the wider implications for civic coins in terms of local, provincial and imperial identities. iii iv Acknowledgements I am indebted beyond measure to my supervisor team, Dr Mark Bradley, Dr Andreas Kropp, and Professor David Mattingly. Their knowledge, patience, and guidance throughout this process has been immeasurable. I would also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Midlands3Cities Doctoral Training Partnership during my second and third years of study, which made this project possible, and also to recognise the welcome assistance of the University of Nottingham’s Faculty of Arts Modern Languages Grant Scheme for allowing me to pursue French language classes. I would like to thank all of my fellow postgraduates at the University of Nottingham for their friendship over many years, and I am also grateful for the support of all of the staff in the Department of Classics and Archaeology. I must also acknowledge the diligence and patience of Jane Hanrott during her assistance with the proof-reading process. To quote Patricia Duncker, ‘writing a thesis is a lonely, obsessive activity’, and it is with great pleasure that I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt of gratitude to the people who made it less so, especially Will Marshall for his unwavering confidence in this project. In particular I would also like to thank my sisters, Harriet and Eleanor, whose unfailing humour and encouragement has also helped me beyond measure. Despite the quantity of words written for this thesis, I can find none strong enough to thank my parents, Adam and Cathy, for their love, patience and steadfast support, in all that they do and have ever done for me. As an expression of my gratitude, I would like to dedicate this thesis to them. v Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Thesis context .............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Prior approaches ....................................................................................................................................... 6 1.2.1 Romanisation ................................................................................................................................. 6 1.2.2 Graeco-Roman ‘veneer’ ............................................................................................................ 12 1.2.3 Phoenicia and Phoenician identities ................................................................................... 15 1.3 Research Questions ................................................................................................................................ 19 1.4 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 23 1.4.1 Identity ............................................................................................................................................ 23 1.4.2 Religious mentality .................................................................................................................... 26 1.4.3 Corpus of evidence ..................................................................................................................... 29 1.5 Thesis outline ............................................................................................................................................ 30 Chapter Two: Reading Coins ..................................................................................................................... 35 2.1 Numismatic scholarship ...................................................................................................................... 37 2.1.1 Coin imagery and identity ....................................................................................................... 38 2.1.2 Coins and architecture .............................................................................................................. 40 2.1.3 Coins and sculpture ................................................................................................................... 43 2.2 Civic coins: a medium ............................................................................................................................ 47 2.2.1 Incentives ....................................................................................................................................... 48 2.2.2 Appearance ................................................................................................................................... 52 2.2.3 Production ..................................................................................................................................... 55 2.2.4 Circulation ..................................................................................................................................... 56 2.3 The economic climate of Roman Syria ......................................................................................... 59 2.4 Methodological challenges: authority and audience ........................................................... 63 2.5 Coin imagery: symbolism and meaning ...................................................................................... 66 2.6 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................. 68 Chapter Three: Representing the Divine ........................................................................................... 71 3.1 Research focus .......................................................................................................................................... 72 3.1.2 Representing the divine ........................................................................................................... 75 3.2 Anthropomorphic images ................................................................................................................... 79 3.2.1 Melqart ............................................................................................................................................ 79 3.2.2 Poseidon ......................................................................................................................................... 98 vi 3.2.3 Supreme gods ............................................................................................................................ 117 3.2.4 Supreme goddesses ................................................................................................................ 129 3.3 Aniconic images ..................................................................................................................................... 139 3.3.1 Astarte .......................................................................................................................................... 139 3.3.2 Adonis ..........................................................................................................................................
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