Obverse: Bust of Young Beardless Male Assumed
to be Scipio
Reverse: Horse Standing to the Right, Palm Tree
in Background
Scipio Africanus is a famed general best
remembered for defeating Hannibal and
Carthage. He was the son of Publius Cornelius
Scipio, and from a very early age he considered
himself to have divine inspiration. In 211 B.C.,
the young Scipio was elected to the
proconsulship in Spain. He conquered New
Carthage (Cartagena) almost at once (209) and
used the city as his own base; within several
years he had conquered Spain. As consul in 205,
Scipio wanted to invade Africa, but his jealous
enemies in the senate granted him permission to
go only as far as Sicily and then gave him no
army. There, he trained a volunteer army. A
year later, he received permission to go to Africa,
where he joined his allies, the Numidians, and
fought with success against the Carthaginians.
In 202, Hannibal tried to make peace, but
Scipio’s demands were so extreme that war
resulted; Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama in
202, returned home in triumph, and retired from
public life. He was later named Africanus after
the country he conquered.
How many hands have touched a coin in your
pocket or purse? What eras and lands have the
coin traversed on its journey into our
possession? As we reach into our pockets to pull
out some change, we rarely hesitate to think of
who might have touched the coin before us, or
where the coin will venture to after it leaves our
hands. More than money, coins are a symbol of
the state that struck them, of a specific time and
location, whether contemporary currencies or
artifacts of long forgotten empires. This
magnificent coin is a memorial to an ancient
general passed down from the hands of
civilization to civilization, from generation to
generation.
- (C.2020)
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