Note |
This complex scene was introduced on the AE 33 of Antoninus Pius year 18 and repeated with variations in Marcus Aurelius year 5. The variations under Marcus led Dattari to describe the main figure in two different ways but the scene is clearly intended to be the same. The principal standing female figure has variously been described as Euthenia (by Dattari for Marcus), Isis Euploia (by Milne), Tyche (by Dattari for Pius), or Tyche-Euthenia (by Geissen). The figure does not have the characteristic basileion headdress of Isis. Euthenia, for whom ears of corn and a cornucopia are indeed appropriate, does not elsewhere hold a rudder, although Annona on imperial coins may. All three attributes (corn, rudder, and cornucopia) may belong to a city Tyche elsewhere and may be associated with Tyche at Alexandria itself (https://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/type/22498). So the principal female figure on our type may well be the Tyche of Alexandria (as LIMC I.1, p. 494 (79)) but might also be Euthenia. She is here described as Tyche-Euthenia following Geissen (also Bakhoum 1999, pp. 113-14). Two figures recline at her feet: a female who may hold a rudder or a dolphin, attributes of Thalassa, may be identified as the Sea (as Vogt 1924, pp. 129-30), and a bearded male, who may be crowned with lotus and hold a rudder or reed, is clearly Nilus.
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