Mercury is the god of trade and profit, and therefore the patron of Merchants and travelers. Earlier he was more specifically the god of the trade in grains. He had a temple in Rome on the Aventime Hill which dates back to 495 BCE. During the time of the Roman Empire his cult was widely spread, especially among the Germanic and Celtic peoples.

The animal on the back of the Mercury coins is often described as a hippocamp, and superficially they are fairly close. The hippocamp has the foreparts of a horse with a sea-serpent tail. However, while the creature on the Mercury coins has a similar tail, the head of the animal has ram's horns, making it more likely to be the "criocamp", or Egyptian sea-ram.

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All coins from the author's collection. Not a commercial site, these coins are not for sale.