Lizard
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In debate today is the meaning of the lizard in Praxiteles’ Apollo Sauroktonos.
What was the young Apollo was actually intending for the lizard? Preisshofen suggests that Pliny confused the lizard with the myth of the serpent. Instead, the fact that the lizard is crawling up towards the sun suggests that Apollo actually wanted to heal it by showering it with sun so it can see.
Antoninus Pius
Moesia Inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum
138-161 CE
Æ 21mm 4.94 gm, 7h
Obv: ΑVΤ ΑΙ ΑΔΡΙΑ ΑΝΤΩΝΕΙΝΟС, Bare head right
Rev: ΝΕΙΚΟΠΟΛITΩΝ, Apollo Sauroktonos standing right, left hand on tree stump and holding arrow in right hand, preparing to stab lizard on tree to right
Not in RPC: RPC 4, 4328 (temporary) (var.- reverse legend); AMNG I__; SNG Copenhagen__; Varbanov I (E), 2116, “Unpublished” (Private collection); Rarity 7. HrHJ (2018) 8.6.7.3
Sicily. Kamarina
413-405 BCE
AE 14.89mm, 2.88g
Obverse: Head of Gorgoneion facing
Reverse: KAMA, owl standing right, head facing, holding lizard in talon; ••• in exergue
SNG ANS 1221