Coin images as a spiritual battleground.
Shared imagery and iconography on coins from the Roman world and from the Celtic tribes may be an indication of life-or-death spin-doctoring. It happens in all religions: representations of deities as the fiercest, the brightest, the most fearsome to overpower their rivals from other cultures. Subverting and re-writing the meaning of the iconography that is familiar to both sides, goading, belittling, cursing, shaming.
To think that Iron Age men-of-skill slavishly copied Classical prototypes without attaching meaning is unrealistic and naive within a culture where knowledge resided more in the images of memory, word and association than in written text.
We may have missed some important messages in coin art by failing to recognise what the designers were sharing with their audience…..
The most obvious image battles are between the winged Victories and the eagles. The eagles are the primary guardians of the legions, so any use of that bird in coin art must have reference to the enemy, either by comparison or subversion. Both adversaries,( of course), have the gods on their side. The Victory image is not a benign buxom lady wafting a bit of shrubbery, she is only a herald of peace in the spin of the commentators. She is the same as the Furies and the Valkyries, a Goddess of Death and dismemberment, mascot of the winning team, carrion pecking out the eyes of the fallen foe….
In the art of the Tribes, the Victory image becomes overlain with the druid-shaman shapeshifter in feather cloak…
This coin image from a Bavarian tribe clearly echoes the Classical Victory, but here the female has become a wing-cloaked and feathered male holding, not a laurel wreath of Victory, but a torc – the quintessential and unambiguous sign of Celtic divine authority. Interesting too, that there are 13 pellets around the figure – a very lunar number. In this version of the design the surrounding lunar crescents have also become more animate, some now resembling bird and animal heads….
Some coins show eagles fighting, suggesting the Tribal totems attacking the war spirits of Rome and the Emperor. Many more show eagles in a context that suggests personal or tribal connections, such as eagles riding horses ( the image of the human rider replaced his or her personal power animal)….
Here the larger eagle is either carrying or attacking the smaller bird. The pentacle symbol and the equal armed cross may well represent druidic authority and the authority of the tribal elders( the pentacle long associated with magical and mental control, the cross with the four directions and thus the Land of the tribe)
Here the horse is transmuting into a stag and the rider has become an eagle.
The Tribes were in conflict long enough with the legions to be very familiar with the images on their standards and flags, and it may be that the images of Mithraism, so popular a mystery cult within the Roman Army, also became woven into the complex meanings of coin art. What adds to the complexity and ambiguity is the shared, or common themes found on both sides, ( without this basic similarity there would be no reason to maintain and carry over any Classical motifs into Tribal iconography – coin art is fundamentally a language and to carry power it must be clearly understood by all who see it…..
The cult of Mithras is the amalgamation of Indo-European and Persian prototypes combined with a plethora of Solar and resurrectional, warrior and sacrificial symbolism ( which made it so unpleasant to the new Imperial Christian cult when it was being formulated in the 4th century AD)….
The bull, and the bull sacrifice is the most familiar of Mithraic symbols, but the Sun, the Snake, the Fertilizing Blood, the raven, the Feast were also symbols of the Mithraic Mysteries. Many of these images are found in coin art and, it might be argued, represent, at least at some level of multi-layered interpretation, an attempt to vanquish the spiritual power of the enemy, to set the established, familiar tribal powers against the upstart, stolen or subverted imagery wrested from the many ancient cultures that were exterminated or assimilated by Roman expansionism…..
Almost nothing is known of the practices within the Mysteries of Mithras, but as the most important cult in the Legions, one can safely surmise it had little to do with compassion and peace. As a male-only secret society the potential for testosterone fuelled machismo would have been extreme. We do know that, at some point, the extremes of initiatory rites had to be proscribed by law. This would suggest that significant damage was occurring amongst the legionaries attempting to rise up the heirarchy of the cult – significant enough to impact upon a habitually thick-skinned and violence-acclimatised ruling elite of the Imperial Armies.
One of the main archaeological features in the cave-like ritual spaces were deep rock-lined pits. It is likely these were used for some kind of burial and rebirth re-enactment, and as Mithras is shown being born from a rock, it is likely that some lengthy endurance test was involved.
So possible links to Mithraism might be seen in the following types of imagery:
The bull, and particularly the bull sacrifice.
A raven flying around a bull or sitting on its back.
A dog and snake feeding on the spilt blood of a bull.
Two torches.
A scorpion.
A person (Mithras) being born from out of a rock.
A water miracle, water being brought forth from a rock.
Hunting or riding bulls.
Meeting and feasting with the Sun God.
The cavern.
A naked, lion-headed figure entwined by a serpent. The male figure has four wings and holds two keys and a sceptre.
The only evidence in writing describes the seven grades of initiation.
1st Grade: The Raven ( or crow). The symbols of this grade are the beaker, the caduceus, and is linked to the planet/deity Mercury.
2nd Grade: The Male Bride. The symbols are a lamp, a bell, a diadem, linked to the planet/deity Venus.
3rd Grade: The Soldier. The symbols are a pouch, a helmet, lance, drum, belt, bread plate, linked to the planet/deity Mars.
4th Grade: The Lion. Symbols are the ” batillum” ( a short-handled iron shovel for heating or burning), sistrum, laurel wreath, thunderbolts, linked to the planet/ deity Jupiter.
5th Grade: The Persian. Symbols are ” akinakes” ( a double-edged dagger or short sword derived from the Scythians and favoured in the eastern Mediterranean region, including the Persians), the Phrygian cap, sickle, crescent moon and stars, sling pouch, linked to the deity/planet Moon.
6th Grade: The Sun- Runner. Symbols are a torch, whip, robes and the image of the god Sol, linked to the deity/planet Sun.
7th Grade: The Father. Symbols are the mitre, crozier, a garnet or ruby ring, the chasuble, jewel-encrusted robes, linked to the deity/planet Saturn. ( no wonder Mithraism was anathema to the early Church, probably embarrassed about appropriating some of the cult’s main symbols for itself!).
Now across the ancient world, especially those geographically linked and deriving from the same prehistoric progenitors, it could be expected that a certain number of natural symbols would be shared without necessarily attaching precisely the same meaning to each. However, it is worth considering the possible subtexts from the power-art of conflicting cultures. Referencing well-known iconography always adds commentary and comparison that goes right to the heart of the message that is implicitly understood by the viewer.
Here the bull’s head or “bucranium” is juxtaposed with a solar symbol above the back of a horse, surrounded by serpentine vegetation. Do we interpret these symbols as representing the tribe or war leader, as attributes of protecting Celtic deities, or as spiritual weapons that counter the cult of Mithras, the glue of the Legions? A bucranium/lyre is a quite common motif associated with horses especially. The one here is interesting because it has been suggested that it is a bull’s head pendant that is specifically being shown, with the hanging loop clearly pictured between the horns…
