Greek & Roman Gods on Coins and Statues： Mythology in Ancient Art Explained
8 Video Views·Apr 18, 2026
Ancient Greek and Roman coins are more than currency—they are miniature works of art that reflect the same artistic traditions found in sculpture, pottery, and antiquities. This connection between mint engravers and sculptors suggests a shared artistic culture, where mythological themes were expressed across multiple mediums.
One of the most iconic deities is Zeus, often shown in both coinage and statuary, sometimes in hybrid forms like Zeus-Ammon, blending Greek and Egyptian traditions. Another central figure is Athena, whose owl coinage from Athens became one of the most widely circulated and influential coin types in the ancient world.
The theme of beauty and love appears through Aphrodite (Roman Venus), often depicted in statues and provincial coinage inspired by famous classical sculptures. Meanwhile, heroic strength is embodied by Heracles, frequently shown with his lion skin or club—symbols also adopted by rulers such as Commodus and Alexander the Great to associate themselves with divine power.
We covered this several years ago so I went back over and I kind of touched up everything and
redid it a little bit and I wanted to just kind of show the representation of ancient coins and
the art that was being produced at the time through the deities that were both very important
to Greek and Roman art as well as the coinage themselves and see those correlations between
the two because again you know it's the same artistry that was done for making ancient coins
was also producing the antiquities as well so I don't know of any I don't have any knowledge of
whether or not any of these mint workers die cutters were also creating antiquity I would
not be surprised if that was the case I think once an artist always artist so I think there's a good
chance I think I could be wrong but aren't some of the mint die workers probably sculptors as well
for the longest time they have been not so much and more because the introduction of cnc machines
but up until that point there was a fair amount of sculpting that needed to be known so that you'd
know how a coin would strike and other things like that so yeah so I'm sure in ancient times it was
even more prevalent with those artists now like there were some workshops that were producing
Greek vases at the time they probably didn't have time to be striking working on coins too
because they were pumping out so many Greek vases but I'm sure there were sculptors that were
creating sculptures and other artwork whether it would be on the side or for a workshop I think
wherever they could make money they were making money so it's my would be my my desk so let's go
to the first slide there so one of the most popular obviously in the whole ancient series
is going to be Zeus and so you get all different kind of portraits of Zeus whether it's on the
Ptolemy the second year the father of Alexander the Great or on this Ptolemaic issue in bronze
and you can see all of these statues and all the coins I picked are all stuff that's in the market
right now it's either stuff that Harlan Burke sold or another somebody else sold so you see
a lot of this different iconography that's done and Zeus some of these gods actually you'll see
will take on different personifications so for instance Zeus Amon is a mix between the Greek
and the Egyptian gods and you can see that on the Ptolemaic issue there the statue actually is a
Ptolemaic issue done of Zeus there so they call it Zeus Amon and you can see that really prevalent
on the Ptolemaic bronze coins you can see the horn of Amon right in his hair it's hard to see
on this picture but you can see it there we go to the next slide the ever popular Athena and of
course you have the Athenian tetragram you also have these very famous Athenian bases the owl of
Athena two olive branches on either side and there'll be an owl painted on each side these
were drinking cups called the Scyphos and they made them in the Attic period 5th century BC all
the way into the 4th and 3rd centuries BC in South Italy when the Greeks migrated to the Italian
peninsula peninsula and on the left there that's a actually a statue of Athena I sold many years
ago to a good client of mine that was in bronze with gold gilding really an amazing piece and you
can see the helmets on the Athena tetragram the Athena tetragram as we know is the most popular
coin it issued in the Greek period that was followed not only by weight standard by artistic
merit by Celtic tribes for hundreds and hundreds of years and so it's the Morgan dollar of its day
its popularity transcends even today and its popularity you see Athena on all different
kinds of coins whether it's Greek Roman provincial Roman she was a very very important goddess in the
ancient world and we see her representation everywhere so if we move forward we have
Aphrodite the Greek version and we have Venus the Roman version very very popular again where you
get it on provincial coinage on the reverse or on the reverse here of this solution coin below
the famous statue of her hiding her putting her hands over her private parts to higher nudity
both was a statue here again I sold a number of years ago with its original base a lot of the
times these don't come with the original bases this is actually done in the Roman period copied
from an ancient Greek original from a famous Greek statue so you a lot of the Romans were
copying the Greek the Greek artwork of the 5th century BC and so here you have a Roman version
of that in bronze which and this is probably one of the more popular ones that you'll see
of Roman bronze statues of the goddess of love and beauty and she's found everywhere whether
it's the judgment of Paris or different other different styles of her doing different things
and then we go to Hercules of course Hercules and very very much made famous by Alexander the Great
being that he took the lion skin and you can see here on the bottom image here of this Alexander
tetragram and probably meant to that amphipolis I believe and then you have above that you have
a coin of Commodus who also did the same thing Alexander did wearing the lion skin so here
Commodus was making himself into a into a god and you know a lot of people will say the bottom one
for a long this time they would just say that's Hercules and there's still people who wrongly
identify it as Hercules but if you look at the portraits or frescoes of or mosaics of Alexander
you can see that it's a portrait of Alexander most of the time Hercules is always bearded if
you look at the statue that I have right there you can see that he's always bearded so here we
know this is Alexander showing the socialist Hercules the coin above okay he's bearded but
we know that portrait is Commodus and Commodus is bearded and we know that way Commodus looks and so
it only goes to prove that that's Alexander as Hercules because here here's Commodus as
Hercules so he's doing the exact same thing that Alexander did and Commodus takes it a step further
by putting the club on the reverse which is also a big representation of Hercules whether it's the
lion skin or the club those are the two biggest ones you see either one of those you know that
has some kind of representation to Hercules the club in the statue actually sold sold a couple
of those they usually come from statues they broke apart and this one was cast separately
at the time so it survived in antiquity away from its original purpose but a cool representation
and you find Hercules symbol everywhere in ancient art and in coinage one of the most popular to
produce so wonderful to see those representations between the two