Hey there, I'm a teacher of Latin and Ancient Greek from Switzerland.
Today however, I'm studying the First Punic War and, in my textbook, I have a picture of Siculo-Punic coinage dating from the early 4^(th) century BC. It looks similar to this one. I only have the right side, with the palm tree and the dates, though I suspect the other side is very similar to that of my link, having seen a few almost identical coins (you can find a lot more on this page)
The inscription reads ๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค mแธฅnt , which I found out means "army" or "encampment".
โ
My question is the following : why was this word used ?
My hypotheses, coming from a Latin/Greek background are :
The army controled the making of coins
There was actually a place called ๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค
โ
Do you have any better (educated) guesses ?
Thanks in advance for your interest ! Have a great day.
To my knowledge, the general consensus among numismatists is that the majority of high-denomination Siculo-Punic coins were intended for mercenary pay, with those mercenaries being predominantly Sicilian Greeks. The coin you include here contains noticeably Greek elements, particularly the winged Nike, as well as an example of a Greek canting badge: Greek for 'palm tree' being phoinix, and Greek for 'Phoenician' being Phoinix. See more on Siculo-Punic coinage here.. The probable explanation is that the ๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค inscription does indeed mean 'of the encampment' due to its function as military pay.
EDIT: I forgot to explain the term 'canting badge'. A canting badge is a feature of Greek coins, usually on reverse sides, where the pronunciation of whatever is depicted is intended to be a homophone or otherwise similar-sounding to the city itself, or in some cases evocative of it, rather than having any innate prior symbolism. For an example of the more direct type, Selinous on Sicily had a celery (selinon) plant, while for an example of something a little more oblique, Himera's use of a cockerel on the reverse has been suggested to be an indirect play on hemera (day).
