Pesci come tipi principali o elementi secondari nella monetazione greca antica

In this contribution it is our intention to investigate the preferential areas and times when depictions of fish fauna, as main types or secondary elements, are found in ancient Greek coinage, and their possible interpretation in relation to the whole monetary context in which fish representations are found within the different spacetime coordinates.

In particular, two areas of major concentration of the fish image, predominantly tuna, as the main type were enucleated, one in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the area of the Straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus) and the Black Sea, which is chronologically older, and the other in the Western Mediterranean, in the area of the Strait of Gibraltar, between southern Spain and northern Morocco, dated between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD, with some offshoots in Roman-provincial coinage, although the role of this iconographic subject remains limited in the latter issues to that of a subordinate element. On the other hand, the fish as a secondary type or symbol appears to be more concentrated in the central Mediterranean area, mainly in the last twenty-five years of the 5th century BC, in Sicily in particular and marginally also in Magna Graecia, functioning mainly as an attribute of some specific subjects, nymphs and river gods.