Numism > Reading For the Advanced Ancient Coin Collector
Coins of mythological interest
ecoli:
These posts are excellent!
Jochen:
Thanks, Ecoli! There are some more to come!
Regards
Jochen:
The Sword Dance of the Kuretes
Here is the next mythological interesting coin. I know its conservation is not exceeding good F or so but in EF this type is hardly affordable. It is said this type is rare, only about a Dozen known!
Thracia, Mesambria, Gordian II. and Tranquillina, AD 241-244
AE 27, 12.71g
obv. AVT KM ANT GORDIANOC AL CEB / TRANKVLLIN
Confronted busts of Gordian III, draped and laureate, r., and Tranquillina, draped
and diademed, l.
rev. MECAM - BRIANWN
Two Kuretes, helmeted, in short Chiton and shoes, performing the Pyrrhic dance.
Standing turned away, but looking at each another, holding each a round shield
above their head and beating with short swords against it.
SNG Fitzwilliam 1560
This coin leads us to the great Creation Myths of the Olympic gods. Like many others Zeus was the son of Rhea and Kronos. Because Kronos frightened to be displaced by his children he was gorging them. When he must spew them out because Rhea has given him a stone wrapped up in a napkin to gorge she escaped with the little Zeus to Crete where she hides him in a cave of the Ida Mountains. To mask the crying of the infant to Kronos, the Kuretes were performing a clanking weapon dance in front of the cave with shields and swords. So Zeus was saved. Where the Kuretes came and who they are is not absolute clear. Sometimes it is said they are autochthon, sometimes the children of Rhea or of the Idaic Daktyles. Usually they were 2 or 3 Kuretes but sometimes 9, 10 or at least 52!
In historic times the cult of the Kuretes was known in whole Greece in connection with the cult of Rhea. Its ceremonies are mainly the perfomance of the Pyrrhic Dance (greek pyrrhiche) by priests to the companionship of hymns and flute musique. This should simulate the original deeds of the Kuretes.
A problem is arising from the fact that this dance has a strong simularity to the dances of the Korybantes. These are known as attendants of the Great Mother Kybele. In the beginning these two were strictly differentiated; the dance of the Korybantes was much more orgiastic, the dance of the Kuretes more moderate. But with the diffusion of the Kybele cult to Greece both are mixed together. Therefore it is difficult to discriminate between the various names under which these deities appear. A plausible theory from Georg Kaibel, Göttingen 1901, is seeing the Kuretes together with the Korybantes, the Kabires, the Idaic Daktyles and Telchines only as names for the same entities at different times and different places. Kabel suggests that they have a phallic meaning too and that they were in the beginning primitive fertility deities which have sunk to an indeterminate and subordinate position due to the development and formalization of the greek religion. So in historic times they have survived only as half divine, half demonic beings which were worshipped only in connection to the various forms of the great Goddess of Nature.
Background:
Kuretes = 'Youth, young warrior', a demonized collective of a primitive 'Männerbund' with hoplitic and artistic-orchestral orientation in the region of Greece and Asia Minor, as armed attendance of the Anatolic Mothergoddess a male equivalent to the Amazones. On Crete companions of the Minoic Birth-Godess Diktynna, Parhedroi of the Mother of Mountains Rhea, obstetrician of Zeus Kretagenes, they protect as Parastatai the holy act of birth by the apotropaic noise of their ritual weapon dances. The dict. Hymnos of Zeus appreciate them expressly in this function. It is allowed to equalize them with the 'daimones', which the Cretic Zeus as 'megistos kouros' leads on his procession through Dikte. This is suitable to the fact that the Kuretes on Crete are regarded as protectors of rural fertility and culture and act in this character as oath gods of Cretic city contracts. In contrast to this the epitheta 'philopaigmones', 'orchesteres' and 'chalkaspides' indicate the martial-ecstatic moment of the Pyrrhiche or Prylis (to Lykic prulija = war) and refer, like the bronze cymbal of Ida, to the cult milieu of a military strong Cretic-Minoic Youth-God which could be found in Kadmos or Herakles too. The ecstasis is a bridge to the demonic flute players and cult dancers of the Anatolic Kybele, the Korybantes, and other essential equal mythic-demonic groups like Anakes, Daktyles, Dioskures or Kabires with initiation and expiation character.
As an addition a pic of the Ideon Andron Cave at the foot of the Psiloritis on Crete which is said to be one of the caves where Zeus was hidden.
http://www.crete.tournet.gr/Ideon_Andron_H_hle-si-1120-de.jsp
Sources:
Immisch, Kureten (in Roschers Lexikon)
von Ranke -Graves, Greek Mythology
Der kleine Pauly, Kureten
Hederich, Curetes
Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Best regards
Jochen:
Gigantomachia - The battle of the Giants
I want to share this coin.with you. It is an AE26 of Gallienus from Seleukia ad Calycadnum in Cilicia.
Gallienus AD 253-268
AE 26, 10g
obv. AVK PLK GALLIHN / OC
bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. C[E]LEVK - E - WN K / ALVK / ADN / W
Athena stg. r., shield in l. hand, stabs with spear on Giant with snakelike feet,
kneeling before her. He grabs her spear with l. hand and has a rock in his
raised r. hand to throw it on her.
SNG Levante 789; BMC 57
rare, about VF
1. Mythology:
The reverse shows a scene of the Gigantomachia. The Giants, called Ge-geneis (the earth born) too, were human shaped except their legs which were snakelike.They emerged from the blood of Uranos which was flowing from his genital, mutilated by Kronos, on Gaia (earth). Furthermore thus were created the Erinnyes (Furies) and the Meliai (nymphs of ash tree). When Zeus offended Gaia because he locked up the Titanes in the Tartaros Gaia sets her youngest sons, the Giants, on the Olympic gods. This war is called Gigantomachia. The attack should have been long after the offense but the memory of Gaia was good and her patience endless. But Zeus has expected the attack. The Giants couldn't be killed by gods, only by humans. So Zeus knew that without the help of a mortal the gods couldn't win the battle. He started his actions very early by giving a mortal wife a great and heavy challenged heroe as son: Herakles.
The battle occured at Phlegra in Thrace, the homeland of the Giants.The Giants were leaded by Eurymedon and had Alkyoneus and Porphyrion as their bravest warriors. The Giants walked against the gods throwing rocks and mountains on them. But Herakles shot a poisoned arrow on Alkyoneus and knowing he couldn't die in his homeland dragged him over the frontier where he died. Another Giant, Enkelados, was paralyzed by Athena with the head of Medusa and when he wanted to flee again she throw the island of Sicily on him where he was buried. His fire breathing came out of the Aetna until today. After defeating the Giants with the help of Herakles Zeus sent the Hekatoncheires to the Tartaros to watch over them.
2. Background:
Myths like that of the Aetna very early lead to the opinion, that the Giants are personifications of the vulcanic powers of earth. And it was assumed that the victory of the Olympic gods was the victory of civilisation and order over the chaotic and ferocious primitive times and a symbol of contemporary tussles and victories over the barbarians.
Peter Weiss related the battle between barbarianism and culture to the recent past. Archaeologists decoded the Gigantomachia as reference of the Attalides to their victory over the Gauls and interpreted the uncommon structure of the altar as synthesis of sacral and palace building, where logical consistent the Telephos frieze expressed the foundation myth of the rulers, who traced back themself to Heracles and his son
3. The Frieze of the Pergamon Altar:
If we speek about the Gigantomachia we must mention the Altar of Pergamon. Mosaics, frescos, pictures and sculptures decorated the residence on top of the 335m high mountain. It was all admirable, but the most impressive was the huge altar for which Eumenes III BC gave order. The Roman writer Lucius Ampelius praised it and its Gigantomachia in his 'Liber memorialis' and the Apocalypse of St.John calls it, unwilling fascinated, 'Seat of Satan'.
So it was like a meet again when between 1871 and 1898 the mighty relief plates of the Gigantomachia and the smaller of the Telesphoros frieze were digged out and brought to Berlin, where they found Thousands of admirers in Schinkel's Altem Museum.
These works were saved by its discoverer, the engineer Carl Humann, in the last minute: "I saw all covered by rank growth; aside a lime oven was smoking in which each marble block was going chopped by hammer bashes." Raw material for the plastering of new houses in the nest of Bergama - that was left of the "proud impregnable seat of the ruler".
Some more discussions https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=23945.msg158698#msg158698
Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
http://demo.interred.de
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar
Best regards
Jochen:
The two Nemeseis of Smyrna
Smyrna, Ionia, early 3rd century.
AE 27, 6.68g
struck under the eparch Pollianus during the 3rd neocory AD 211-260
obv. IERA CYNKLHTOC
youthful bust of the Senate, draped, r.
rev. CMYR G NE - EP PWLLI / ANOV
Two Nemeseis, draped, standing confronted, the r. one with wheel at her feet
holding a measure rod, the l. one reins. Both are picking drapery below the chin.
SNG von Aulock 7951; BMC cf. 227 ff.
F+
Ok, the conservation of this coin is not good, I think F+ perhaps. But what has attracted me were the two Nemeseis! Before I knew only of one Nemesis, the strong goddess of destiny. And so I want to answer the question: Where came these two Nemeseis?
I have found two possible explanations:
The first says, these are the two different sides of only one goddess, a friendly one and the other implacable. Nemesis is a goddess from Asia Minor, where she is known as Adrasteia and this means 'the Implacable'. On the one hand she is the goddess of the just distribution, but on the other hand the revenge goddess of hybris and pride. She takes care that trees not are growing into the sky.
The other explanation is based on a story of Pausanias in his 'Periegesis tes Hellados = Descriptions of Greece, 7.5.3.':
Alexander the Great once was hunting at the mountain Pagos near Smyrna, and after hunting he came to a sanctuary of the two Nemeseis finding there a font and a sycamore tree in front of the shrine growing over the water. Tired he fall asleep. In the meantime - so it is reported - the two Nemeseis came to him and gave him the order, to found a city at this place and to bring all inhabitants of Smyrna from the old city into this new one. And so the inhabitants moved unsolicited to the new city and worshipped from now on two Nemeseis and called her mother Nyx, whereas the Athenians supposed Okeanos to be the father of the Rhamnusian goddess (Rhamnos was famous for its temple of Nemesis). So referring to Pausanias the first Nemesis is the goddess of the old city of Smyrna the other of the new city. Historical fact is that Smyrna after beeing destroyed was built new at the time of Alexander.
The cult of the two Nemeseis of Smyrna is not old. It can be backtrapped only to the time of Julius Caesar. It gt its great importance not earlier as in the Imperial time together with the Imperial Cult. The reason of this cult was probably the integration of Smyrna into the Roman Empire. The depiction of the two Nemeseis on coins of Smyrna is often seen as symbol for an alliance of Smyrna with other cities. The last of these coins were struck under Gallienus.
Some notes to the legends:
HIERA CYNKLHTOC (to add BYLH) is the sacred Senate, here depicted as youthful portrait (in contrast to Rome where it is depicted always older and more dignified).
EP PWLLIANOY means the Eparchos Pollianos. This was the title of the governor of the province. Pollianos was a Strategos (commander) of Gallienus.
G NE is the abbreviation of G NEWKORWN, that is the 3rd neocory. A neocory was the privilege of a city to maintain a temple of the Imperial cult. This privilege was awarded by the Emperor himself and was a great honour for the city which increased its prestige significantly. Therefore there was a acrimonious competition between the cities for neocories. Proudly their numbers were annotated on the coins. Today we can use the numeration of neocories to date a coin correctly. The 3rd neocory of Smyrna lasted from AD 212-260. If an emperor was condemned to Damnatio Memoriae his neocory was deleted too and the number of neocories was decreased by one.
Isn't it amazing what is in such a inconspicuous coin? And this was only the surface I have scratched. That's why I love the provincial coinage so much!
Best regards
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