How to Read an Ancient Coin in the Early 1900s

Having established the visual source of Cavafy’s “Orophernes” in the previous chapter, we are in a better position to appreciate the poet’s aesthetic gaze as manifest in his reading of the coin portrait. As previously discussed, the artistic value of this particular portrait has been unequivocally praised by commentators, from its initial presentation in Newton’s article (1871) to recent years (Salvesen, 1991, pp. 6–8). But Cavafy clearly had no access to the portrait’s earlier aesthetic appreciations, nor was he aware of its rarity. All the poet had seen was a significantly downsized image of the coin’s obverse, along with ten more portraits from coins of the same period, printed on a plate that was inserted in a historical study. And yet his eye was able to discern in this small image a whole range of aesthetic qualities: allure, radiance, grace, aesthetic memory and more.