This second-century B.C. gold coin demonstrates the cultural syncretism of the classical world. Minted by the Ambiani tribe of northern Gaul, whose capital is present day Amiens, France, the coin bears an abstract image of the Roman god Apollo with laurelled hair. The image is, moreover, modeled after the tetradrachma of distant Macedonia. Very little is known about Gallic religion or Celtic religion in general. Julius Caesar, who left a thorough yet thoroughly unreliable description of Gallic civilization, created an enduring confusion by equating Gallic gods with Greek and Roman ones, calling them by their Greek and Roman names […]