Dacia holding military standard, draco or staff surmounted by ass's head

[Tejas]

11 minutes ago, Dwarf said:

To my knowledge the reattribution started with Jochen's post in 2004.

The acsearch results are all from after 2004 and mostly from the last 5 years or so. The idea has certaintly gained traction, but it doesn't appear to be universally accepted yet. I think that it is basically correct, even with the qualification that the die engravers of the third centuries may not have been aware of the true nature of the object which they depicted. 

[curtislclay]

According to Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum 7, c. 1795, p. 244, this is a question that goes back at least several decades further than Cohen or Jochen. Eckhel's three most relevant sentences, translated from his Latin, are as follows:

"Instead of an ass's head, our colleague Engel sees on these coins the head of a Dacian draco attached to a staff, with its tail and body omitted either by sloppiness of the engraver, or to save him extra work, or because of lack of space on the coins. For the sculptures on Trajan's Column show that the Dacians used dracos attached to pikes as military standards. But on sharply preserved coins of this type the beast's ears are so long that it seems impossible to doubt that an ass's head was intended."

Thanks for the interesting discussion and links!

Edited March 21 by curtislclay

[Edessa]

2 hours ago, curtislclay said:

According to Eckhel, Doctrina Numorum 7, c. 1795, p. 244, this is a question that goes back at least several decades further than Cohen or Jochen. Eckhel's three most relevant sentences, translated from his Latin, are as follows:

"Instead of an ass's head, our colleague Engel sees on these coins the head of a Dacian draco attached to a staff, with its tail and body omitted either by sloppiness of the engraver, or to save him extra work, or because of lack of space on the coins. For the sculptures on Trajan's Column show that the Dacians used draco heads attached to pikes as military standards. But on sharply preserved coins of this type the beast's ears are so long that it seems impossible to doubt that an ass's head was intended."

Thanks for the interesting discussion and links!

I do guess that implies that the Celators knew how long a dragon's ears should be?

[DonnaML]

5 hours ago, curtislclay said:

"on sharply preserved coins of this type the beast's ears are so long that it seems impossible to doubt that an ass's head was intended."

The examples shown in this thread have convinced me that the engravers are unlikely to have always intended to portray a dragon. But they also make me skeptical of Eckhel's opinion that they were always intended to portray an ass, either. Rather than a wolf or the other creatures mentioned. One problem is that I can't find an example on OCRE of an ass or donkey portrayed on any other Roman Imperial coin, to which this type could be compared. The only Roman Republican example I could find is Crawford 195, on which the small ass depicted on the reverse is difficult to see on the examples I looked at, but on which its ears seem to point off diagonally or to the side rather than pointing straight up, or slightly forward or to the back. See, e.g., https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/sear5/s0825.html , https://www.biddr.com/auctions/aphroditeartcoins/browse?a=2955&l=3327093 , https://www.arsclassicacoins.com/biddr/#!/auction/lot?a=1088&l=388&c=23095 , https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahala_rome/48927790263/ .

And regarding Eckhel's point about the length of the animal's ears on the Decius coin, are the ears on my specimen -- which I don't think could be a griffin; that's not an eagle's beak -- really that much longer (or broader) than the ears on wolves as portrayed on other Roman coins of mine?

Compare this:

To these two coins:

 

But I also have to ask: I understand that there are examples of the "draco" on Trajan's column, but are there any actual dragons portrayed on Roman coins to which the Decius coin's creature can be compared? Did the Romans even have any concept of a creature such as a "dragon" in their world-view, as distinct from a griffin?

Edited March 21 by DonnaML

[DonnaML]

15 hours ago, Tejas said:

PS: On the gold coin, the animal looks like a goat

If it's the beard that makes you say that, don't forget that the griffin is sometimes portrayed with a beard; it's not solely an attribute of goats:

[Dwarf]

I suppose that the actual depiction of a dragon will remain a mystery.

Especially as we will never know, whether the sculpturer war ordered to show a Norwegian Ridgeback, a Hungarian Horntail, or even a Romanian Longhorn.

 

[Tejas]

I think the only real draco standard (which was found at Niederbieber in Germany) shows that the Romans had a concept of how a dragon looks like, which was not too dissimilar to our modern ideas - including pointed teeth, scales, a head or neck crest.

I found this picture below. The head of this Roman dragon is quite similar to some of the depictions on the Dacia coins (especially on those by Aurelian).

[Ursus]

10 hours ago, Tejas said:

I found this picture below.

I would interpret the creature on this mosaic as the sea monster Cetus/Ketos, which is similar but not identical to what we would today call a dragon.