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The city of
Carteia
(Roman colony founded in 171 B.C.) in
Spain
Bronze Quadrans 18mm (4.36 grams) Struck after 44 B.C.
Reference: ACIP 2609; RPC I 116
Turreted head of Fortuna right; behind, trident.
Cupid
riding
dolphin
right.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
In
Roman mythology
,
Cupid (Latin cupido,
meaning “desire”) is the god of desire, affection and
erotic
love. He is often portrayed as the son of the goddess
Venus
, with a father rarely mentioned. His
Greek counterpart
is
Eros. Cupid is also known in Latin as Amor (“Love”). The
Amores (plural) or amorini in the later terminology of
art history
are the equivalent of the Greek
Erotes
.
Although Eros appears in
Classical
Greek art
as a slender winged youth, during the
Hellenistic period
he was increasingly
portrayed as a chubby boy. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow
and arrow that remain a distinguishing attribute; a person, or even a deity, who
is shot by Cupid’s arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire. The Roman Cupid
retains these characteristics, which continue in the depiction of multiple
cupids in both
Roman art
and the later
classical tradition
of
Western art
.
Cupid’s ability to compel love and desire plays an instigating role in
several myths or literary scenarios. In
Vergil
‘s
Aeneid
, Cupid prompts
Dido
to fall in love with
Aeneas
, with tragic results.
Ovid makes Cupid the patron of love poets. Cupid is a central
character, however, in only the traditional tale of
Cupid and Psyche
, as told by
Apuleius
.
Cupid was a continuously popular figure in the
Middle Ages
, when under Christian influence he
often had a dual nature as Heavenly and Earthly love, and in the
Renaissance
, when a renewed interest in
classical philosophy endowed him with complex allegorical meanings. In
contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown shooting his bow to inspire
romantic love, often as an icon of
Valentine’s Day
.
Legend
In the Roman version, Cupid was the son of Venus (goddess of hope) and Mars
(god of war).[2][3]
In the Greek version he was named
Eros and seen as one of the
primordial gods
(though other myths exist as
well). Cupid was often depicted with wings, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. The
following story of
Cupid and Psyche
is almost identical in both
cultures; the most familiar version is found in the
Metamorphoses
of
Apuleius
. When Cupid’s mother Venus became
jealous of the princess
a title=”Cupid and Psyche” href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche”>
Psyche, who was so beloved by her subjects that
they forgot to worship Venus, she ordered Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with
the vilest thing in the world. While Cupid was sneaking into her room to shoot
Psyche with a golden arrow, he accidentally scratched himself with his own arrow
and fell deeply in love with her.
Following that, Cupid visited Psyche every night while she slept. Speaking to
her so that she could not see him, he told her to never try to see him. Psyche,
though, incited by her two older sisters who told her Cupid was sparcker [a
monster], tried to look at him and angered Cupid. When he left, she looked all
over the known world for him until at last Venus told her that she would help
her find Cupid if she did the tasks presented to her by Venus. Psyche agreed.
Psyche completed every task presented to her, each one harder than the last.
Finally, Venus had one task left – Psyche had to give Pluto a box containing
something Psyche was not to look at. Psyche’s curiosity got the best of her and
she looked in the box. Hidden within it was eternal sleep placed there by Venus.
Cupid was no longer angered by Psyche and brought her from her sleep. Jupiter,
the leader of the gods, gave Psyche the gift of immortality so that she could be
with him. Together they had a daughter,
Voluptas
, or
Hedone
, (meaning pleasure) and Psyche became a
goddess. Her name “Psyche” means “soul.”
Portrayal
Caravaggio
‘s
Amor Vincit Omnia
In painting and sculpture, Cupid is often portrayed as a
nude
(or sometimes
diapered
) winged boy or baby (a
putto
) armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows.
On gems and other surviving pieces, Cupid is usually shown amusing himself
with adult play, sometimes driving a hoop, throwing darts, catching a butterfly,
or flirting with a nymph
. He is often depicted with his mother (in
graphic arts, this is nearly always Venus), playing a horn. In other images, his
mother is depicted scolding or even spanking him due to his mischievous nature.
He is also shown wearing a helmet and carrying a buckler, perhaps in reference
to Virgil
‘s Omnia vincit amor or as
political satire
on wars for love or love as
war.
Cupid figures prominently in
ariel poetry
, lyrics and, of course,
elegiac
love and
metamorphic poetry
. In epic poetry, he is less
often invoked, but he does appear in
Virgil
‘s
Aeneid
changed into the shape of
Ascanius
inspiring
Dido’s
love. In later literature, Cupid is
frequently invoked as fickle, playful, and perverse. He is often depicted as
carrying two sets of arrows: one set gold, which inspire true love; and the
other lead-headed, which inspire erotic love.
Carteia was a
Phoeniciann
and
Roman
town at the head of the
Bay of Gibraltar
in
Spain
. It was established at the most northerly
point of the bay, about halfway between the modern cities of
Algeciras
and
Gibraltar
, overlooking the sea on elevated
ground at the confluence of two rivers. According to
Strabo
, it was founded around 940 BC as the
trading settlement of Kʿrt (meaning “city” in the
Phoenician language
; compare
Carthage
and
Cartagena
). The area had much to offer a
trader; the hinterland behind Carteia, in the modern south of
Andalusia
, was rich in wood, cereals, oranges,
lemons, lead, iron, copper and silver. Dyes were another much sought-after
commodity, especially those from the
murex
shellfish, used to make the prized
Tyrian purple
.
The town’s strategic location meant that it played a significant role in the
wars between Carthage and the
Roman Republic
in the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC.
It may have been the site of
Hannibal
‘s landing with his army and elephants
in 237 BC, and in 206 BC the Carthaginian admiral
Adherbal
retreated there with the remnants of
his fleet after being defeated by
Gaius Laelius
in the
Battle of Carteia
. Around 190 BC, the town was
captured by the Romans.
Roman and medieval
period
Livy
records that in 171 BC, the
Roman Senate
was petitioned by a group of
Romano-Spanish people, the sons of Roman soldiers and Spanish women. Although
they were of Roman descent they were not regarded as Roman citizens, nor were
they allowed to marry Roman citizens. The Senate responded by elevating Carteia
to the status of a
Roman colony
and granting around 4,000
Romano-Spanish people the right to live there and receive a grant of land on a
similar basis to Roman colonists. The existing inhabitants were permitted to
remain there, while all of the inhabitants were given the right to marry Roman
citizens and to carry on trade with Romans. This marked a significant innovation
for Rome’s overseas colonies; the Carteians were the first outside Italy to
receive a civic status known as the
Latin Rights
, half-way between being a
non-citizen provincial and a full Roman citizen. Other cities in Spain were
later granted a similar status.
The Colonia Libertinorum Carteia (Freedmen’s Colony of Carteia)
prospered for another 580 years under Roman rule and grew to become a
substantial city. It gained its own mint, amphitheatre, temples and port, and
played a significant role in late Roman Republican affairs.
Pompey
made it his western base for his
campaign against Mediterranean pirates in 68 BC. His sons
Gnaeus
and
Sextus
raised an army there in 45 BC before
being defeated by
Julius Caesar
at the
Battle of Munda
. While Gnaeus was captured and
executed, Sextus escaped via Carteia’s port and fled to the Pyrenees.
Little is known of the remainder of Carteia’s Roman history, but it appears
to have been sacked by the
Visigoths
around 409 AD, by which time it was
probably already in decline. Nonetheless, archaeological evidence shows that
urban life continued there into the medieval period. A Visigothic necropolis
exists near one of the Roman temples, and
Byzantine
remains found at the site show its
continued occupation when Carteia was incorporated into the Byzantine province
of Spania
during the 6th-7th centuries. In the 9th
century, after the
Umayyad conquest of Hispania
, Islamic sources
referred to the town – which was probably not much more than a village by then –
as Qartayanna or Cartagena. A tower, known today as the Torre de
Cartagena, was built by the
Marinids
nearby using stones from the ruined
Roman walls.
Rediscovery
and current condition
The site of Carteia was rediscovered by a young British Army officer,
John Conduitt
, who served in Gibraltar as
commissary
to the garrison between April 1713
to early 1717. He identified the city as having stood on a hill then known as El
Rocadillo, which
Richard Ford
described in his
A Handbook for Travellers in Spain
(1845):
The coast road is intersected by the rivers Guadaranque and
Palmones; on crossing the former is the eminence El Rocadillo,
now a farm, and corn grows where once Carteia flourished … The remains of
an ampitheatre, and the circuit of walls about 2 miles, may yet be traced.
The Moors and Spaniards have alike destroyed the ruins, working them up as a
quarry in building Algeciras and
San Roque
. The coins found here are very
beautiful and numerous … Mr. Kent, of the port-office at Gibraltar, formed
a Carteian museum, consisting of medals, pottery, glass, &c.
Conduitt communicated his discovery to the
Royal Society
in London and was invited to read
a paper on Carteia on his return to the capital. He did so on 20 June 1717, with
Sir Isaac Newton
in attendance as chair.
Coincidentally, Newton was also interested in Carteia, as he was in the middle
of writing his work
The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms
, and he
invited Conduitt to his home to discuss the ancient city. It was there that
Conduitt met Newton’s niece,
Catherine Barton
. After a whirlwind courtship
the two were married on 26 August 1717, though Barton was almost a decade older
than Conduitt, albeit still renowned for her beauty.
An early 19th century writer, the anonymous “Calpensis”, described how he had
“often walked over the site of Carteia, attracted by the rich variety of broken
pieces of marble scattered over the fields. Part of the wall enclosing the
farm-house was then rudely made up of broken pillars, columns and cornices, of
marble of the finest workmanship.” Some of the earliest excavations were carried
out at the behest of the British; in 1811–12, Vice-Admiral
Charles Penrose
reached agreement with the
estate’s owners to allow amateur antiquarians from Gibraltar to “excavate and
examine any part of its ground for antiquities.” The excavations found the
remains of a tessellated Roman pavement, which was thought to belong to a
temple, as well as foundations of Roman buildings.
Although the area around around Carteia was open farmland in the time of “Calpensis”,
it is now heavily industrialised. The site of Carteia is surrounded on three
sides by an oil refinery. It was not given protection until as late as the
1960s, by which time the necropolis and city gates had been lost to encroaching
development. However, the main urban area has been preserved and can be visited.
A number of significant structures can still be seen, including the original
Carthaginian city gate, a monumental sandstone flight of steps leading down to
what was possibly the forum, a large temple, a number of houses and an extensive
Roman baths. The 16th century Torre de Rocadillo can also be seen. The
Carteia Archaeological Museum in San Roque displays archaeological finds from
the site.
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