The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

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QUAESTIONES CYKENAICAE. 285
may be suspected that the coin he describes is the one
actually under discussion. There is behind the camel
a long thick stroke which might have been taken for a
cornucopiae, but which seems to be almost certainly
the result of a break in the die. It is possible that the
A above the camel's back, which is not certain, may
be due to a similar cause. The obverse type of No. 124,
no less than the rough style and "Egyptian" fabric,
with bevelled edge, all point to North Africa as the
place of origin. And, if the A on No. 124 be accepted,
it makes its attribution to the Cyrenaica certain.
On the coins of the quaestor pro praetore A. Pupius
Kufus (M. i. 422-8) we get the same letter in both
Greek and Latin script, and there is little doubt that
it should be taken as the initial of Libya. 205 Even
without the support of this letter the camel points
surely to the Cyrenaica, where it has already appeared
as a type on the coins of Lollius (M. i. 391-4). In
imperial times the Greek language does not seem to be
employed on coins of North Africa except at Leptis
Minor and under Juba II of Mauretania. If any
language except Latin appears, we may expect the
coins to have been struck in a place where that
language was at home ;
thus in the towns west of the
Pentapolis (except Leptis) it is Punic which appears
with Latin. And Cyrenaica is the only district of North
Africa where the Greek language was naturalized. 206
Tiberius and Germanicus Caesar, sons of Drusus and
5 M. i, p. 164.
206
That the later Koman issues of the Cyrenaic mint bear Latin
inscriptions need not disturb the argument; cp. the hesitation
the two languages at Caesarea in Cappadocia under
Claudius-Nero-Vespasian (B. M. .: Galatia, &c., pp. 46, 47).