15/08/2026
What connects the site at the Cricket club with the Odyssey?
Work on the post-excavation assessment of the Cricket Club material never really stops. I have just finished the coin catalogue for the site and one coin stands out from the rest. It is very worn and doesn't look much at first glance but when you understand the coin it gives an incredible story.
It is the oldest coin from the site, minted in Rome in 82BC by the moneyer C. Mamilius Limetanus during the dictatorship of Sulla when Rome was still a republic. What is amazing about this coin was in circulation for over 250 years before it was lost on the surface of the temple precinct, possibly left as an offering. Just imagine the stories this coin could tell and the hands it had passed through. This silver serrated denarius on its reverse side depicts a scene from the end of Homer’s Odyssey, Book 17. When after 20 years away fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus finally returns to his homeland of Ithaca, disguised as a beggar. Despite his disguise, he is recognised by his old, neglected but ever-faithful dog, Argos. You can just make out Odysseus as a beggar walking with his staff with Argos.
The god mercury is shown on the obverse side, it is very worn but you can still make out his winged hat. The man behind this coin, Mamilius Limetanus claimed to a related to the son of Odysseus, Telegonus. He was his illegitimate son, not related to his wife Penelope but Circe - sorceress and daughter of the god Helios, who captured Odysseus during his travels and later befriended him. This is quite an amazing family tree.
This is the passage from book 17 of the Odyssey that relates to this scene depicted on the coin:
"As they spoke, a dog who was lying there lifted his head and pricked up his ears. It was Argos, Odysseus’ dog; he had trained him and brought him up as a puppy, but never hunted with him before he sailed off to Troy.
In earlier times the young men had taken him out with them to hunt for wild goats and deer and hares, but he had grown old in his master’s absence, and now he lay abandoned on one of the heaps of mule and cattle dung that piled up outside the front gates until the farmhands could come by and cart it off to manure the fields. And so the dog Argos lay there, covered with ticks. As soon as he was aware of Odysseus, he wagged his tail and flattened his ears, but he lacked the strength to get up and go to his master.
Odysseus wiped a tear away, turning aside to keep the swineherd from seeing it, and he said,
“Eumaeus, it is surprising that such a dog, of such quality, should be lying here on a dunghill.
He is a beauty, but I can’t tell if his looks were matched by his speed or if he was one of those pampered table dogs, which are kept around just for show.”
Eumaeus replies: "This is the dog of a man who died far away," yet, summoning the last of his strength Argos wags his tail at the sight of his old master Odysseus, the only one to recognise his true identity.
"And just then death came and darkened the eyes of Argos, who had now fulfilled his destiny of faith and finally seen his master Odysseus again after twenty years.
I have attached an image of a well preserved example of the coin as a example. On this one you can see the caduceus behind mercury. This also provides a link to the head of mercury/pan we found embossed on the black burnished ware pot from CRI-U which also had a caduceus engraved onto the pot.
So there we have it, a rambling post about an amazing little worn coin. I
