A ROMAN BRONZE SHIELD BOSS

CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY A.D.

Details

A ROMAN BRONZE SHIELD BOSS
CIRCA LATE 1ST CENTURY A.D.
Circular in form, the center with the head of Africa in high relief, the personification of the province wearing an elephant skin cap, its trunk lost, her hair center parted, her eyes articulated, the lips slightly parted, with a punched Latin inscription in the upper right reading COH I GAE FRVNTONI CVMVNI, "First Cohort of Gaetulorum," the edges with four perforations for attachment
8¼ in. (20.9 cm.) diameter

Provenance

English Private Collection.
with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1988 (The Age of Cleopatra, no. 83).

Literature

C.C. Vermeule and J.M. Eisenberg, Catalogue of the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Bronzes in the Collection of John Kluge, New York and Boston, 1992, no. 88-50.

Lot Essay

According to Vermeule and Eisenberg (op. cit.), the First Cohort of Gaetulorum "was raised in Africa and was based in Syria from 88 to 91 A.D. The Gaetuli or Getuli were a people of northwestern Africa, south of the Mauri and Numidiae, in the area of modern Morocco. They were conquered in Early Imperial times by Cn. Cornelius Cossus Lentulus, who thereafter bore the surname Gaetulicus. By the reign of Titus Flavius Domitianus (81 to 96 A.D.), they had been enrolled as loyal soldier-allies of Rome."

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