There was a recent post on FORVM about the FEL TEMP below. In the first coin pictured, the small barbarian looks like he might be holding something similar to a bow. RIC even has a note on this -- ...Sydenham hoard. In the L specimen. The small figure appears to hold a bow in right hand. (RIC VIII pg 435 footnote 71). Note the use of the word "appears" which indicates uncertainty.
I do not believe that this is a bow; but I can see how someone might think that. Of course the problem is that once you see a bow, your mind makes it hard to see other possibilities. First I will discuss the improbability of it being a bow.
The themes on LRB's with captives are pacification and subjugation, so what are the chances that the captive would be allowed to have a bow? Bows are not even seen in Constantinian LRB's (Aurelian has some coins with Sol holding a bow). In fact, the only time that weapons and captives are seen together are when the weapons are a trophy of arms (e.g. VIRTVS EXERCIT) or broken spears (e.g. GLORIA ROMANORVM); but captives never hold weapons. So the image of a captive holding any weapon, much less a bow, is unprecedented on LRB's.
I firmly believe that what is being shown is part of the hut. If you look at the first picture, only the left side of the hut is shown. The right side is not shown because the captive is in that section. I believe that the engraver wanted to give the sense of the hut though, so engraved one wavy line that is supposed to give the impression of part of the wall. On coin 2, the line has much more of a curve and really looks like the right edge of the hut. You can see that if the engraver had completed the line, it would have gone through the barbarian, or been really close and started to clash. Coin three looks nothing like a bow and I think it also represents some background part of the hut.
I have already mentioned that once you see a bow, it might be hard to see anything else. This might just be a numismatic Rorschach test with no easy agreement.
