Arkadia. Mantinea
Caracalla (198-217 CE)
Ae 3.97g 21mm
Obv: M AYP ANTΩNINOC. Laureate head right.
Rev: MANTINEΩN. Artemis advancing right, holding bow and drawing arrow from quiver; at her feet, hound running right.
BCD Peloponnesos 1505 var. (bust type and obv. legend); NCP 2
Pausanias wrote about Mantineia: (VIII 9.1)
The second shrine is a shrine of Leto and her children. Praxiteles made these statues, the third generation after Alkamenes. ((On the pedestal of these are depicted the Muses and Marysyas playing the flute.
This same motif is repeated on many other provincials, likely because copies of Praxiteles’ famous works were copied across the Empire, then depicted on its coins. The base of this work was discovered in excavations of Mantineia and can be seen in the national museum in Athens. Praxiteles also sculpted a famous statue of Artemis at Brauron.