JUDAEA, Herodians. Herod IV Philip, 4 BCE-34 CE. AE (Bronze, 12 mm, 1.84 g, 11 h), Caesarea Panias (Caesarea Philippi), RY 34 = 30/1 CE. ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΥ Bare-headed and draped bust of Herod IV Philip to right. Rev. L ΛΔ within wreath. Bromberg I 38. Hendin 6263. Meshorer AJC, 12. RPC I 4950. Samel -. Shoshana -. Sofaer 143. Very rare and among the finest known examples of this highly important issue, bearing the first portrait of a Jewish ruler ever to appear on a coin. Good very fine.



Although the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images did not constitute an absolute ban on all figural art, it fostered a strong aniconic tradition in Jewish coinage, and both the Hasmoneans and the earlier Herodian rulers had refrained from placing human portraits on their coins. Herod IV Philip broke decisively with this convention by introducing portraits of Augustus, Tiberius and Livia, thereby expressing Roman supremacy and his own subordinate position as a client ruler with unprecedented clarity. More remarkable still, he also placed his own likeness on his coinage, creating the earliest known numismatic portrait of a Jewish ruler.

On the present issue, dated to regnal year 34 (30/1 CE), Philip reserved his own portrait for the smallest denomination. Whereas the larger denominations depict members of the imperial household and refer directly to Roman authority, this diminutive coin bears only Philip’s portrait and name, with his regnal date enclosed within a wreath on the reverse. Its modest size therefore belies its exceptional historical importance: by presenting Philip himself in the Greco-Roman tradition of ruler portraiture, it marks an even more radical break with Jewish numismatic convention than his adoption of portraits of the Roman imperial family.

The coin thus represents not merely an abandonment of earlier aniconic restraint, but a striking assertion of Philip’s individual identity through the visual language of the wider Greco-Roman world. Struck in 30/31 CE, it also belongs to the period traditionally associated with Jesus’ public ministry and may have been issued in the same year as the earlier of the two principal dates proposed for the crucifixion, although this association remains secondary to the coin’s fundamental numismatic significance.