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Figure 14.7A Copper-alloy coin of Sidon, issued in the second quarter of the second century BCE. The obverse depicts the city-goddess; the reverse shows a ship’s rudder, but it is the accompanying Phoenician inscription that makes this coin particularly interesting: “of Sidon, metropolis of Cambe (Carthage), of Hippo (a neighbor of Carthage), of Citium (in Cyprus), of Tyre.” On this coin, Sidon proclaimed its greater antiquity and therefore superiority as the founder of its southerly neighbor and rival Tyre. Naming Tyre last on the list may have been deliberate.

Figure 14.7B Silver drachm of the Nabatean king Rabbel II (70–106 CE), dated regnal year 3 (72/73 CE). The obverse has a laureate and diademed head of Rabbel, with an Aramaic legend “Rabbel, king of the Nabataeans, year 3” (the number is visible as three parallel strokes just above the shoulder); the reverse portrays his mother Shuqailat, with the Aramaic inscription “Shuqailat his mother, Queen of the Nabataeans.”

Figure 14.7C Copper-alloy coin of Trajan (98–117 CE) minted at Beroea. The obverse portrays Trajan; the reverse has the ethnic BEPOIAIWN (“of the Beroiaoi”) in a wreath. The meaning of the letter A at the bottom is uncertain but it is likely to be some kind of control mark connected with the organization of coin production in the city.