JEWS OR PAGANS? 137
Coins were minted only occasionally, when the need arose to put more
small coins into circulation or when there was something to celebrate. Mesh-
orer’s attribution of gaps in and resumptions of coinage to the vicissitudes of
the relations between the city and the emperor, a concern that dominates
his highly influential historical interpretations of the coinage and therefore
deservesspecialmention,ismisleading:itneglectsthefactthatemperorsmore
oftenreactedto requests fro mcities than exercised active supervision over
them—not surprisingly, given the number of “autonomous” cities in the
East.^19 And, in its exclusive concentration on Palestine, Meshorer’s view fails
to acknowledge the contours of the evidence as a whole.^20 To be sure, emper-
orsoccasionallydidrewardorpunishcitiesby,amongotherthings,grantingor
suspending rights of coinage, the best-known case being Septimius Severus’s
behavior in the aftermath of the civil war of 193. Nevertheless, only the very
largestcitiesproducedbronzecoinsuninterruptedly,andgapselsewheremust
not be overinterpreted.^21
WhatdotheTiberiancoinstellusabouttheinterestsofthecitycouncillors
and their peers?^22 The first issue, dated to the year 81 (probably 100C.E.),
includesthreedistinctreversetypes.(TheobverseofRomancitycoinsalmost
invariably shows a portrait of the emperor, Trajan in this case, or a member
of his family.) One of these depicts a palm branch flanked by cornucopias.^23
The cornucopia is a common image on city coins of all sorts but had also
appeared on “Jewish” (Hasmonean, Herodian, and revolutionary) coinage,
and the pal mhad powerful Jewish associations in ancient iconography. The
Iudaea Captacoins issued by Vespasian to celebrate the quelling of the Ju-
daean revolt depicted Judaea as a weeping woman seated beneath a palm
tree.^24 But the other two types are pagan: one coin shows the goddess Hygieia
(the personification of health) seated on a rock over a spring, holding a snake
eating fro ma bowl—clearly a celebration of the medicinal properties of the
hot springs just south of the city at Hamath.^25 The other type depicts Tyche
(Fortune), an old Greek goddess often pressed into service in the Roman east
as a city goddess, standing on a boat and holding a cornucopia.^26 Nine years
(^19) Thisisthemain,andprobablymainlycorrectthesis,ofMillar,EmperorintheRomanWorld.
(^20) Y.Meshorer,“SepphorisandRome,”inO.MørkholmandN.Waggoner,eds,GreekNumis-
maticsand Archaeology:Essaysin HonorofMargaret Thompson, (Wetteren: Cultura, 1979), pp.
159–71, with comments of K. Harl,Civic Coins andCivic Politics in the RomanEast, AD 180–
275 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 24, n. 34.
(^21) On Severus, see, e.g., Isaac,Limits of Empire, pp. 359–61. For a general account of city
coinage, see Harl.
(^22) Rosenberger, 3: 64–67.
(^23) Rosenberger, nos. 8–9.
(^24) ForadiscussionofthepalminJewishiconography,seeHachlili,AncientJewishArt,pp.80–
83; 256–67.
(^25) Rosenberger, nos. 6–7.
(^26) Rosenberger, no. 5.