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DE Lactating mother. Feeding with animal milk. She-wolf; Romulus, Remus. Grigorescu-Gaspé. Bank note, Romania 1947.
Billete 5 millions lei, Woman breastfeeding. Capitoline she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, Titus Livy. Illustrations Nicolae Grigorescu, engraving E. Gaspé.
Dimensions: 104 x 216 mm
5 million lei banknote from 1947 at the height of the inflationary period caused by the calamities of the war. It reproduces the 1941 1000 lei banknote. Paintings by the Romanian painter Nicolae Grigorescu (Pitaru, 1838 - Cîmpina, 1907), a painter influenced by the French Barbizon school. On the recto, scenes of farm work with women and children, one of them taking a break from mowing to breastfeed. Engraving by E. Gaspé.
In the centre of the obverse, the Capitoline wolf.
Lupam sitientem ex montibus, qui circa sunt, ad puerilem vagitum cursum flexisse; eam summissas infantibus adeo mitem praebuisse mammas. (A thirsty she-wolf from the nearby mountains strayed towards the crying children and meekly bent over them and offered them her breasts).
This is the wonderful (but incredible) description of Titus Livy (59 BC to 17 AD) in his Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome from its foundation, 1:4).
Unbelievable, because the composition of canine milk is so different from that of female milk that the children would have died within a few days.
Titus Livy himself does not concede the veracity of what he has just recounted, for a few lines further down, he believes that the legend may be due to the profession of the shepherd's wife who took the children (a whore, a prostitute in a brothel, a "she-wolf", as the shepherds used to say).
5 million lei banknote from 1947 at the height of the inflationary period caused by the calamities of the war. It reproduces the 1941 1000 lei banknote. Paintings by the Romanian painter Nicolae Grigorescu (Pitaru, 1838 - Cîmpina, 1907), a painter influenced by the French Barbizon school. On the recto, scenes of farm work with women and children, one of them taking a break from mowing to breastfeed. Engraving by E. Gaspé.
In the centre of the obverse, the Capitoline wolf.
Lupam sitientem ex montibus, qui circa sunt, ad puerilem vagitum cursum flexisse; eam summissas infantibus adeo mitem praebuisse mammas. (A thirsty she-wolf from the nearby mountains strayed towards the crying children and meekly bent over them and offered them her breasts).
This is the wonderful (but incredible) description of Titus Livy (59 BC to 17 AD) in his Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome from its foundation, 1:4).
Unbelievable, because the composition of canine milk is so different from that of female milk that the children would have died within a few days.
Titus Livy himself does not concede the veracity of what he has just recounted, for a few lines further down, he believes that the legend may be due to the profession of the shepherd's wife who took the children (a whore, a prostitute in a brothel, a "she-wolf", as the shepherds used to say).