Hispano-Carthaginian triple shekel

In 237 BC, Carthage began its conquest of Iberia in search of new resources, especially precious metals from the mines in the south. Its ambitious expansion plan, combining military, diplomatic and colonising action, eventually caused the Romans to react. The two sides clashed once again, this time on Spanish soil, in the Second Punic War, until the final defeat of the Carthaginian leader Hannibal in 202 BC. The expenses of the conquest and war required large amounts of coins, which were partly minted in the peninsula. The large multiples of silver like this one were used as vehicles for ideological propaganda. Its stunning images, purely Greek in style, are laden with meaning: on the reverse, we see a war elephant, the terror of the enemy on the battlefield and symbols of Carthaginian military power on earth. On the obverse, we see the god Melqart, associated with the Greek Heracles with his club. The seeming realism of this head, shifting between the divine and the human, has always evoked the idea that it is a disguised portrait of Hannibal.