Gkantzios Drapelova, Pavla The Representation of Tyche on Late Roman and Byzantine Coins after the Death of Constantine the Great († 337): The Fate of Ancient Personifications in the Byzantine Iconography

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2111-02-18
Title The Representation of Tyche on Late Roman and Byzantine Coins after the Death of Constantine the Great († 337): The Fate of Ancient Personifications in the Byzantine Iconography
Author email drapelova@slu.cas.cz
About author Gkantzios Drapelova, Pavla — Ph. D., post doc. The Institute of Slavonic Studies of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Valentinská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic.ORCID: 0000-0003-0198-5537
In the section Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art DOI10.18688/aa2111-02-18
Year 2021 Volume 11 Pages 216–231
Type of article RAR Index UDK 7.032 (37); 7.033.2; 7.033.12 Index BBK 85.103(3)
Abstract

The paper analyses the cases of Tyche’s representation on coins and multiples struck after the death of Constantine the Great († 337). The focus is given to the images of local Tychai that could be identified with a particular city, in which the coins were struck. The figures of Roma and Constantinopolis were omitted from the study because they are generally associated with the promotion of imperial power and not with the self-identification and self-representation of a particular place.

The analysis has demonstrated that the images of local Tychai were rather rare in the period under study. They were predominantly limited to specific places and did not belong to a general image repertoire but appeared only a few times and for a relatively short time. The sites that produced coins or multiples with such images were Antioch, Ravenna, Mediolanum and Carthage; and  Aquilea under the usurper Magnentius. Only once, in the second half of the 4th century an unspecified figure of a Tyche (a female wearing a turreted crown) appeared on coins and multiples across the Mediterranean.

The study observes a significant difference in the way the local Tyche was represented in the 4th and later, in the 5th and 6th centuries. All the fourth century, local Tyche is depicted alongside the emperor indicating that the personification was incorporated in the imperial propaganda, while in the rare cases from the 5th and 6th centuries, the female personification stands alone. Such cases were evidently related exclusively to the place representation. Moreover, the images from the 5th and 6th centuries tended to follow older iconographic models; similar images are found on issues struck in the 3rd century and earlier, while the coins images of Tychai in the 4th century are rather prototypes. This research shows that there existed a huge development in the use of figures of local personifications between the 4th and 6th centuries and that the cities of Antioch, Ravenna and Carthage in some moments returned to older iconographic models to emphasize their identity and tradition. In addition, a role of barbarians as transmitters is obvious in the case of the Western Mediterranean.
Keywords
Reference Gkantzios Drapelova, Pavla. The Representation of Tyche on Late Roman and Byzantine Coins after the Death of Constantine the Great († 337): The Fate of Ancient Personifications in the Byzantine Iconography. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 11. Eds A. V. Zakharova, S. V. Maltseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2021, pp. 216–231. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa2111-02-18
Publication Article language russian
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