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Numism => Reading For the Advanced Ancient Coin Collector => Topic started by: Jochen on January 12, 2006, 06:58:45 pm

Title: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2006, 06:58:45 pm
As motto on top of this thread I have chosen the following word of Gottfried Benn ('Roman des Phänotyps'):

Aber Jahrtausende leben in unseren Seelen,
Verlorenes, Schweigendes, Staub; Kain, Zenobia,
die Atriden schwingen ihre Thyrsosruten her.


(But millenia are living in our souls,
Lost, silent, dust: Kain, Zenobia,
The Atreids sway their Thyrsos rods from afar.)

This thread should present coins in loose order with its mythological background. Please wait for some of my contributions to see how it works! The target group is not the scientific world but the interested layman as I am too. If you see errors please send me a PN. I will try to correct them.

The first coin I want to present is a coin of Caracalla. It is an AE22 from Alexandria/Troas with the depiction of Apollo Smintheus on the reverse. The legends are in Latin because this city was a Roman colony.

Apollo Smintheus

Caracalla AD 198-217
AE22, 6.1g
obv. ANTONINV - S PIVS AV
bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. GEN CO - L - AUG TRO
Genius standing facing, head l., holding cornucopiae l. and statue of Apollo Smintheus
in his outstretched r. hand.
cf. Lindgren & Kovacs 331 (different obv. and rev. legends)
about VF

The worshipping of Apollo Smintheus interestingly extends only to Asia Minor and not the Greek mainland. Especially Alexandria/Troas was the center of this cult. This is as is generally known one of the strongest arguments for the thesis that the origin of the Apollo cult was Asia minor. Here we have the mythological  explanation:

After the fall of Troy the Greeks start to spread to the East. They settled on the Aegaen islands and the western coast of Asia Minor. The worshipping of Apollo in this region have had a curious origin. When the old Teukri under their king Teucer came from Crete to the coast of Asia Minor, the oracle have said them to stay there where they could see their enemies creeping out of the ground. When they came to Hamaxitos, a city in this region, the mice creeping out of the ground gnaw at their shields in the night. So they saw the oracle of the god fulfilled, settled down and built up a statue of Apollo and at his feet laying a mouse, which in the Aeolian dialect was called Smintha. (Ovid Met. II, 5685)

There are known two different versions of Apollo Smintheus depictions:
a. A cult statue where he stands frontal holding a mouse in his hand. This version is characteristic of Alexandria/Troas. This is depicted too on my coin. The fact that the statue is hold by the Genius of the city may be an allusion that the temple of Apollo got governmental benefits. (Pat Lawrence)
b. A cult statue where Apollo is standing l. and has a mouse under his foot. Iin Chryse there was a statue made by Scopas, showing exactly this position. This statue too could be seen on coins.

The meaning of the epitheton 'Smintheus' is interpreted different ways:
1. The origin of the name is the city of Sminthe in Troas, where Apollo was worshipped  
    already in pre-hellenic times. So Apollo Smintheus = Apollo from Sminthe.
 2. In the Aeolian dialect 'smintha' means 'mouse'. So Apollo Smintheus = the mice-god.
     The mouse in ancient times was a symbol of prophetic power because it was thought
     mice were inspired by the exhailing coming out of the gound.
3. Apollo the mice-killer. The Greek already had recognized the mice as vermin and
    worshipped Apollo as protector against mice.

I for myself tend to #2. The last I think is too rationalistic.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2006, 07:00:03 pm
(continued)

The first mention of Apollo Smintheus is found in Homer's Ilias I, 39. The beginning of the Ilias describes how Apollo strikes the Greeks with a plague because Agamemnon has raped Chrysis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, and so has humiliated his priest.

The old man, afraid, obeyed his words, walked off in silence,
along the shore by the tumbling, crashing surf.
Some distance off, he prayed to Lord Apollo,
Leto's fair-haired child:
"God with the silver bow,
protector of Chryse, sacred Cilla, 40
mighty lord of Tenedos, Sminthean Apollo,
hear my prayer: If I've ever pleased you
with a holy shrine, or burned bones for you— [40]
bulls and goats well wrapped in fat—
grant me my prayer. Force the Danaans
to pay full price for my tears with your arrows."
So Chryses prayed. Phoebus Apollo heard him.
He came down from Olympus top enraged,
carrying on his shoulders bow and covered quiver,
his arrows rattling in anger against his arm. 50
So the god swooped down, descending like the night.
He sat some distance from the ships, shot off an arrow—
the silver bow reverberating ominously.
First, the god massacred mules and swift dogs, [50]
then loosed sharp arrows in among the troops themselves.
Thick fires burned the corpses ceaselessly.


(Translation by Ian Johnston, http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/homer/iliad1.htm )

To say the Greeks have recognized the mice already as transmitters of plagues, as I have read too, I would refuse because it is the rat flea, which is transferring plague, and so the bad guy is the rat and not the mouse.

Some more information under https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=22524.msg149938#msg149938

Lit.:
Der kleine Pauly
Homer, Ilias
Ovid, Metamorphosen

Thanks to Pat Lawrence for the other two coin pics!.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2006, 07:27:15 pm
Apollo Sauroktonos - The Lizardkiller

Nikopolis ad Istrum/Moesia inferior, Geta 198-202
Ae 25, 11.38mm
obv. L CEPTIMI GETAC KAICAR
       bust draped, bare head r.
rev. [YP AVR G]A[LL]OC NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICTRON
      Apollo, naked, laureate, with crossed legs, stg. r., r. hand raised behind holding arrow, l.     
      hand resting on tree before him; at the tree a lizard, touching Apollo
AMNG 1654, VF (lizard only partially visible due to a weak strike)
Rare

When we look at the reverse we see Apollo who looks a bit strange. We see the smiling Apollo looking relaxed at the lizard climbing a tree. But in the same moment he has already the arrow in his hand to spear this small animal. A shudder runs across our back! What's the matter with Apollo?

With this question we aim into the heart of the greek mythology. Because the greek mythological figures are not the invention of the Greeks alone, but have a long prehistory leading into dark times long ago and pointing mostly to the East, not only to ancient Asia but Sumer and Babylon. And this is fact with Apollo too!

We all know Apollo as bright god of light (Phoibos), the god of science, of the Muses and of prophecy. Nietzsche had called this 'Apollonian' in contrary to the 'Dionysian', the dark side of the libidinous and uncontrolled. Apollo so is the greek god kat' exochen. But if we look behind the curtain then we recognize strange, awful features. Already in his first days of life he strangled the Python (therefore the Pytheas in Delphi), he killed with his arrows unpitying the sons of Niobe and skinned the Marsyas. He 'is vwalking like the night' (Homer), launches the plague and assisted the Trojans against the Greek. Is the ethymology of Phobos actually 'phobos = terrible'? The Greeks were saying his name descends from 'apolymmi' (Apollo the annihilator).

He has an affinity to the chthonic-natural which we can see not only by his relations to trees and groves but to related deities too like Poseidon, Hermes, Dionysos and Hades. so he could become the master of Nymphes, Muses and other natural spirits. Bow and lyre - these two contrarion attributes characterize his ambivalent nature.

Because one of his epithetons is Lykeios, scholars has challenged an anatolian origin or his source should be Babylonian because altars were found inscribed with 'Apolunas' and cuneiform writings of 'Ap-pa-li-u-na-as' in a contract between the emperor of Wilusa and the hethitian king Muwatalli. But in the last time the name Lykeios is interpreted as 'god of the wolfs' and so the Hellenestic part of Apollo was strengthened. The result of all research is that we must confess we don't know his origin (Der kleine Pauly).   

In the mythology of Apollon I couldn't find a story with a lizard. From Pliny we know the description of a famous bronze sculpture of Praxiteles (4th century BC) named Sauroktonos, the Lizard-killer. He gave the description: A youthful Apollo standing beside a tree, holding an arrow and looking at a lizard crawling up a tree. The original sculpture is lost. We have two Roman marble copies, now in the Louvre and in the Musei Vaticani in Rome. 2004 the Cleveland museum of arts purchased a bronze sculpture which seems to be from 350-275 BC. These copies show Apollo in a bit different position than on my coin. We found this position on coins too (Look at Doug Smith's wounderful site!). But they miss the arrow Pliny mentioned in his description.

May be it is the pic of Pliny's description of the Sauroktonos of Praxiteles or may be not. But the reverse shows clearly the two sites of Apollo: Here the youthful smiling bringer of light and in the same moment the merciless killer for fun.
 
For a more detailed discussion see https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=21050.0

Best regards

The statue is the copy from the Musei Vaticani.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2006, 08:32:45 pm
Amphilochos - The seer

The next coin with a mythological theme is not about Apollo but about Amphilochos. It is an AE31 from Mallos in Cilicia.

Valerian I. AD 252-260
AE 31, 19.89g
obv. IMP C LIC VALERIANVS PI FE AVG (lat.)
bust cuirassed, laureate, r..
rev. MALLO COLONIA (lat.)
Amphilochos, nude except Chlamys, standing to l., holding laurel; at his feet
wild boar. Behind him tripod on platform with an egg(?) at top and a snake coiling around to eat the egg.
SC in ex.
SNG Levante 1298 (same obv. die); SNG France 1933 (same obv. die); BMC 13; SGIC 4498
Very rare (only 13 coins known from the time of Valerian), about VF, light roughness, small holes due to the fabrication
added to Wildwinds

Mallos was one of the oldest cities in Cilicia. It is told that the heroe Amphilochos was the founder. He was the son of Amphiaros and Eripyle and a great heroe and seer as was his father. As brother of Alkmaion he took part in the famous war of the Seven against Theben. He seems to be one of the suitors of Helena and has fightened at Troy.
Together with the seer Kalchas he traveled to Klaros near Kolophon where Kalchas was defeated by Mopsos in a competition of the seer and died of broken heart.

Mopsos, the son of Apollo and Manto, daughter of Teiresias, was the most famous seer in his time. Together with him Amphilochs founded Mallos in Cilicia. They make an arrangement for ruling Mallos alternately each for one year. Mopsos was first and Amphilochos went to his homeland Argos. When he came back a year later to take over the reign as contracted Mopsos refused and tried to chase him away. The embarassed inhabitants suggested to decide the conflict by duel. In this duel both killed each another. To avoid further controversy between the spirits of Mopsos and Amphilochos the pyres were erected to different sides.

But it happened that the spirits discontinued their controversy and joined in friendship and decided to establishe a combined oracle. This oracle in Mallos was the most famous after Delphi in ancient times, actually it is said that its oracles were more reliable than those of  Delphi. The priests got their answers in dreams and wrote them on wax plates. The price is said to be two copper coins.

Under the reign of Severus Alexander Mallos became Roman colony. Therefore the latin legends on the coin.

A discussion you can find here https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=22423.msg150311#msg150311

Lit.:
Der kleine Pauly
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
Kerenyi, Griechische Heroen-Sagen
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 06:51:06 am
Apollo Lykeios

Here we have another Apollo!

Macrinus & Diadumenian AD 217-218
AE28 (Pentassarion), 11.86g
struck under the legate Furius Pontianus
obv. AVT KM OPEL CEV MAKREINOC KM OPE ANTWNEINOC
       confronted busts of Macrinus, draped and laureate, l., and Diadumenian, bare-
       headed, r.
rev. VP PONTIANOV MAR - KIANOPOLEITWN (AR ligate)
       Apollo, nude, with curled hair, standing facing, head r., holding r. hand above his
       head, bow in l. hand, r. before him a tree stump with a snake coiling around
       E in l. field
Varbanov I, pp. 91-92 No.881; Moushmov 520, pic 726
VF
Apollo in the attitude of the so-called Lykeios, typical for Marcianopolis

In Athens we have advices of a Apollo Lykeios cult already in very early times. If you want to look at coins, where Apollo is depicted really with wolfes you had to go to Cilicia. The Apollo depicted on this coin in this attitude is connected only to Athens, where the famous sculptor Praxiteles (or perhaps Euphranor) had made this statue for a sanctuary in the 4th century BC, obviously not as cult statue but for the Temenos, the park-like temple area of the Lykeion. This famous Lykeion was situated north-east of Athens outside the city and has included not only the sanctuary of Apollon but the Gymnasion too where the Sophists were teaching, Protagoras and then Aristoteles with his scholars. This is the origin of our Lyceum.

This statue immediately became famous and was copied over and over, in this typical, sensual hand-above-head position. Because this statue is standing frontal, it could well be used in temples, or as consecration gift iside and outside the sanctuary especially if a new founded city was in need of it. Lucian writes, that Apollo was leaning at a cippus, with a bow in his l. hand and the r. hand above the head as if resting after a great effort. Pick says, due to the fact that all Marcianopolis types are showing a tree stump, that the original statue was made of bronze and therefore doesn't need any support. The copies were made of marble mostly and have the support in various ways. Today we know the original was of bronze and have had the support of the cippus too, but for compositorical reasons only. For ancient sculptures Lucian is the best source because he had seen them with his own eyes!

As additum a pic of the most beautiful Louvre statue I know which reflects exactly the type of Marcianopolis.

Here a summary of the various Lykeios interpretations:
1. Lykeios = man from Lycia. This could be a good explanation for the fact, that
   Apollo defends Troy against the Greek, what could be an advice to an
   origin in Asia Minor. This is firmed up by interpretations of Hittite inscriptions. This
   was the opinion of Wilamowitz too.
2. Lykeios from Lykos = the wolfe. Apollo Lykeios so the defender of the herdsmen
    and their sheep against robbery by wolfes. This would be an expression of an old
    animal-like looking deity, the 'Wolfe-God' Lykan-Lykurgus.
3. Lykeios = the Bright, the Shining, like Phoibos, essential identical with the
    lionshaped, Anatolean god of light Syros.

Resume: Apollon in our recent knowledge was a great bow-carrying god of healing and death of the scythic-indoeuropean northern people, who in his wolfe symbolic reveals his chthonic aspects. At the time of the indoeuropean invasions in the Aegaeis he was melted with the Letoids of Asia Minor, the son and brother consorts of the mediterranean virgin-mother Leto-Artemis. The famous god of the oracle, that he was always in historical times, keeps always a certain strange character, what would explain the estimation of the Delphic Apollo by Kroisos the famous Lydian king.

Some more contributions here https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=21181.msg141126#msg141126

Lit.:
Der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon

Thanks to Patricia Lawrence

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 08:09:43 am
Apollo Lykeios - or rather not?

If you are busy with Apollo Lykeios the next coin belongs undoubtfully to this theme, an AE37 of Maximinus I from Tarsos, because the depicted Apollo is called regularly Apollo Lykeios.

Maximinus I AD 225-238
AE 37, 19.31g
obv. AVT.K.G.IOV.OVH.MAXIMEINOC
        P- P in li und re Feld.
        bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev.  TARCOV THC MHTROPOLEW
        Apollo Lykeios, nude, lauresate, standing facing, holdind a dead wolfe in each
        hand.
       AMK in l. field, G.B in r. field
SNG Levante 1099 (this coin); SNG France 1590 (same die)
(attribution by Barry Murphy)
rare, about VF

AMK is standing for 'PRWTH, MEGICTH, KALLICTH', 'the first, the Biggest, the most Beautiful'. These epitheta Tarsos got - like other cities too - AD 215 on the occasion of Caracalla's campaign against the Parths. G.B are numbers, 3 and 2. Its meaning is 'Metropolis of three provinces, holder of two neocories'. When Tarsos got a third neocory under Valerian the legend was changed to G.G. (Curtis Clay)

If you are looking more closely at the dead wolfes, then you can recognize that they look more like dogs than like wolfes. Patricia Lawrenc was so kind to direct me to another interpretation of the rev.
Bekircan Tahberer in 'Celator' suggests, that Apollo is wearing actually two dogs! Lychopron, a poet of the 3rd century, is speaking of the mythological figures Mopsus and Amphilochos as the 'dogs of Apollon', which were his companions like the deer of Artemis. So these two dogs on the rev. would symbolize Mopsus and Amphilochos. This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that until now there is no statue found in Tarsos of Apollo Lykeios as opposed f.e. to Mallos, where Mopsos and Amphilochos were highly venerated and where statues of Apollo were standing. Nor are there coins of Tarsos with the usual Apollo Lykeios depiction, we have seen in the contribution before. However there are coins with Perseus and Apollo holding 'the wolfes'. very different in Mallos: Mopsos himself was a son of Apollon and Amphilochos was the son of Amphiaraos from Argolis a priest of Apollon. So both have a strong relation to Apollon. His scrying art he has got from Apollon.

You should know that in this time an intense competition existed between cities for the establishing of neocories and sanctuaries. If a city like Mallos had a famous oracle then this was like the permission to struck money. The people from far away came into the city and with them the money and the city became rich and wealthy. This was like todays competition for the nomination as scene of Olympic Games. Mallos was one of the most famous oracles in Asia Minor due to the tombs of Mopsos and Amphilochos. When now Tarsos depicts these two as 'dogs of Apollon' it could obviously upvalue its position compared to that of Mallos, yes indeed it could have been the attempt to surpass Mallos.

Unfortunately we have the problem, that the early Anatolians have omitted to make notations or if they have they were not kept or were lost. In any case the depicted statue is a typical cult statue for a temple and not a pic for a small shrine standing in the landscape. Probably it was as beautiful and important as that from Kanachos in Milet where Apoll holds a stag on his hand. Sadly we have no possibility to get out wether it is originated really from the 6th century or wether it was only a 'wondrous decovery' in later times. (Patricia Lawrence)

In any case this is not an Apollo Lykeios, because he was depicted always as we could see him on the famous statue from Athens.

Some more information under https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=22373.0

Lit.:
Der kleinePauly
Bekircan Tahberer, Apollo Lykeos in Ancient Tarsus Numismatics, Celator #30

Thanks to Curtis Clay and Patricia Lawrence!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 02:34:13 pm
The Rape of Persephone

I want to talk about the reverse of a coin from Maionia in Lydia struck for Marcus Aurelius.

Marcus Aurelius AD 161-180
AE 35, 24.70g
struck under the 1st Archon Quintus
obv: AVT KAIC - ANTWNEINOC AVR
bust laureate, r..
rev: EPI KVEINTOV B ARX A MAIONIWN
Hades, in Himation fluttering in the wind, standing r. in Quadriga, going r., holding reins in l. hand, head l., holding with r. resisting Persephone, extending her arms in distress. Under the horses her basket with flowers , above all Eros flying l.
SNG von Aulock 3018; ex coll. Burnstein, ex Auktion Peus #366, 2000
Rare, about VF, two flan cracks, but beautiful blue-green patina of the fields in contrast to the figures

This coin I have purchased not because of the obverse but because of the interesting rev. motive. It shows the Rape of Persephone. This motive was picked up often by the painting and the sculpture. I remind here of the famous sculpture of Bernini in the Villa Borghese in Rome and of the paintings of Rembrandt, Rubens and Dell'Abate to name only some of them.

1. Mythology
Hades fell in love with Persephone, daughter of Demeter, and begged Zeus for permission to marry her. Zeus was afraid of offending his brother but was aware too that Demeter was never forgiving him if Persephone was banned into the underworld forever. So Zeus answered ambiguous that he can't affirm and can't deny his request. That encouraged Hades to rape Persephone when she was picking flowers in a meadow and to abduct her in his by horses drawn cart into the underworld.

9 days Demeter was seeking her daughter and was calling her vainly. Only Hekate gave her an advice but without much help. On the 10th day she came to king Keleus in Eleusis. There Triptolemos was herding his father's cattle. He gave her the desired information: When his brothers Eumolpos and Ebuleus were herding their sheep and their pigs a black cart has suddenly appeared whose driver has entwined a crying maid. With this evidence in hand Demeter called Hekate and both forced Helios who see all to concede that Hades was the kidnapper. Demeter was so disgusted that she interdicted all trees and plants to bare fruits so that all human beings should die.

Thus Zeus was obliged to send Hermes to Hades with the message that all were doomed if  Kore - another name of Persephone - was not given back. So Hades was pressed to give Kore back with the condition however that she never has eaten from the food of the deads. Therefore he agreed that Hermes should bring her back in his cart into the world above. Askalaphos however, a gardener of Hades, has seen that she has eaten seven seeds of a pomegranate, and so Hades command him to sit on the back of Hermes' cart. Demeter was full of delight when she could welcome her daughter in Eleusis. But when she heard of the pomegranate she fell in deeper mourning than before and renewed her curse over the earth.
 
Finally Zeus could convince his mother Rhea to find a solution. And so it looks: For 3 months each year Kore should be with Hades as queen of the underworld with the title Persephone, and the other 9 months with Demeter in the world above. Hekate should be aware of the compliance of this agreement. Given that Demeter decided to return home and cancel her curse. Before she founded in Eleusis the famous mysteries and teached Triptolemos, Eumolpos and Keleus in her worshipping. The traitor Askalaphos was enclosed in a burrow and then turned into an owl after he was freed by Herakles.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 02:37:06 pm
(continued)

2. Background
In Latin she is always called Proserpina. This goddess was worshipped in Rome since 249 BC together with Dis Pater in Secular Games. But the derivation of her name from Persephone is erroneous. She was responsible only for 'bellum prospere geri posse' in the Secular Games. She has nothing to deal with the greek Persephone. Whenever latin poets are speeking from Proserpina there is always meant the greek Persephone. She will be known in Italy since c.500 BC.

Persephone was the greek goddess of the underworld and the wife of Hades. But as often in greek deities her history goes far into the past. Variants of her name in Attic, Thessalic, Laconic and Locric let assume a pre-hellenic origin. So she is ethymological related to the semitic deat goddess Anat, to Persaeis (another name of Hekate), and to the Etruscan death daimon phersu (from which the word 'person' is originated). That is an argument for the theory of some scholars that the Etruscan came from Maionia, the Homeric name of Lydia.

Mycenic her name was Pe-re-sa, in Linear B there is the name pe-re-ja, from which Aphrodite is derived. She was at first a double goddess Demeter and Kore/Persephone. Not until Hesiod Kore became the daughter of Demeter. These double goddesses are known too in Lydic (Lametrus and Artemis), in Umbric as Torsa Prestota Cerfia and in Oscic as Ammai Kerriiai and Futrei Kerriiai. In Mesapic there were the two goddesses Damatira/Doimata and Grahis/Graiva, which means old wife in the sense of Earth Mother. Following Kerenyi the Rape of Kore so goes back into the 3rd millenium BC!

The motive of picking flowers and the role of the fruit (pomegrantae) are minoic-mediterranean symbolism. It points to a pre-hellenic drama of vegetation. The disappearance and reappearance of Kore flows into mystic affected agrar-chthonic solemnisations, allusions to the existential phenomena of death, marriage and fecundation. In classic times important roles were played by the greek Mysteries in Eleusis, mesenia, in Graeca Magna and in Sicily, which had strong orphic-dionysic influences. Kore lived on in late-hellenestic times in the Mysteries of Isis, her other side, the original erinyen-like connected with Hekate-Artemis-Selene was saved in the Orphic and went over into the liturgy of the syncretistic Papyri Graecae Magicae.

Lit.:
Ovid, Metamorphosen V, 385-425
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 05:44:37 pm
The Stymphalean Birds - an ancient Bird Influenza?

This coin has me attracted because there was a similarity to the Apollo depictions. But then it was Herakles holding a bow! It is the only motive of Herakles with a bow where he is chasing the Stymphalean Birds. Alltogether these coins are not common, especially those showing the birds too!

This is an AE27 of Septimius Severus from Nikopolis ad Istrum.

Septimius Severus AD 193-211
AE 27, 11.73g
Av.: KAI CEP CEVHPOC
       bust, laureate, r.
Rv.. VPA POL AVCPIKOC NIKOPOLI PROC
       Herakles standing r., holding club r. and lionskin and bow l.
Moushmov 1009-A. No.2649. Not in Varbanov. Rare, VF

This type was struck under the legate Pollenius Auspex, who has this office for a short time at the beginning of the reign of Septimius Severus, before he was sent to Britannia, where he was governor AD 200-205 until Clodius Albinus was defeated. Cassius Dio tells about him: Auspex was the most intelligent and most imaginative man at joke and in conversation., but also of contempt of all men, in rewarding his friends and taking revenge on his enemies. Numerous bitter but wise words are passed down many of them aimed at Septimius Severus himself. Here is one of the last kind: When the emperor was accepted by the family of Marcus Aurelius Auspex said: I congratulate you, emperor, that you have found a father at least! This was an allusion to the fact that Septimius due to his dark origin was fatherless so far.

Mythology:
Following the standard count the Battle against the Stymphalic Birds was Herakles' 6th labour. When Herakles came back from the successful mucking out the stable of Augias, Erystheus charged him with a even more difficult task. He should drive away a huge flock of birds, which have gathered in a swamp near the city of Stymphalos laying in a deep forest. Herakles had no idea how to do his job, but Athena came to help him. She gave him two great flappers made of bronze (krotala) by which he was able to make a noise like snapper. But these were not the usual noise tools. They were forged by Hephaistos, the immortal artisan. Herakles climbed a nearby mountain and smashed the krotala so loud that the birds frightened were flying up and he could kill most of them with bow and arrows (others say by a sling). The survivors are said to have escaped to the islands of Ares in the Black Sea where they do much harm to Jason and the Argonauts on their search of the Golden Fleece, until they were expelled by Boreas, the Northwind.  

Background:
Some versions of the myth are saying, that these birds actually were terrible man-eaters with beaks from metal and feathers from bronze, which they could shoot like arrows. Their feet were too made from iron and would rust in the swamp and thereby threatened the surrounding localities by poison. They were the favourite birds of Ares. To Arcadia they were come on the flight from wolfes.
Pausanias the famous travel writer of the 2nd century has tried to get out what kind of birds they could have been. He wrote that at his time there was a kind of birds in the Arabic desert which are called Stymphalian Birds. They have been as dangerous as leopards or lions. They were sized like cranes and have had the shape of an Ibis but their beaks were stronger and not so curved as on the Ibis. (Pausanias 8.22.5)

Pausanias had seen the santuary too which the Greek had built in Stymphalos and sanctified to Artemis. He reports that the temple have had yet indentations made by the Stympalian birds right under the roof. Behind the temple have stood marble statues of Maidens with legs like birds. Here they had looked like Harpyies.

The ancient geograph Strabo suggested that the Stympalean Swamp was drained by a subterranean river which miles away came out on the other side of the mountains as a font near of Kefalari.
(Photo: Joel Skidmore)

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 05:46:13 pm
(continued)

Recent opinions (What I have found!):
1. There is an astrological explanation: If the sun stands in the sign of Sagittarius, the signs of Lyra, Eagle and Swane are rising. At this time of the year the evenings became darker and therefore this constellation of stars is seen as evil. At the same time in Greece the rainy season begins and makes swamps out of otherwise dry areas. For the Greeks the sign of Sagittarius has different interpretations including a flapper. Also the next sign which is crossed by the sun is the Dolphin whose myths report the rescue of the musician Arion. Herakles flushed out the Stymphalean Birds by noise and then shot his arrows. This shows that Sagittarius (Herakles as archer) with his arrow points to the next sign, the Eagle.
I think this is nonsense!

2. Searching for a realistic nucleus of the myth (if there is one!) I find the following explanation more plausible:
Most of the mythologists today suggest that the Stymphalean Birds are a symbol of a toxic ague. Already in ancient times existed public threats like pollution of the air. In this myth the waterfowls were demonized as reason for illness and epidemics around the Stymphalean Swamp. An expression of human anxiety and ignorance, not a metallophobia but of the threat that these animals could be the explosive reservoir of pathogenic germs. We can think at the Bird Influenza and the dangerous H5-virus. Each time the birds were flying to another region they propagated the plague by contact to other birds. Perhaps it was the West-Nil-Virus which migratory birds have brought into the western world possibly by infection of ornithophile mosquitos. These could then have infected other animals or men.
Moreover it is known that migratory fowls, ducks and geese, have the Influenza virus and could excrete it by the intestine. So they became a source for further epidemics in the homelike poultry. This means an immense threat for the public health.
About the West-Nil-Virus we know much more in the meantime. It is equally dangerous as in ancient times. But in contrast to Herakles we don't use flappers, bow and arrows, but pesticides, vaccines, antivirale drugs and sanctions like isolation and quarantine.

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA (http://www.cdc.gov)

Additional:
a) A pic of the Chase for the Stymphalean Birds on a black-figured Attic vase
b) A pic of  the Stympalean Swamp today

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: ecoli on January 13, 2006, 07:17:40 pm
These posts are excellent!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 07:27:29 pm
Thanks, Ecoli! There are some more to come!

Regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 07:32:05 pm
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
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 13, 2006, 08:41:37 pm
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
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 12:04:23 pm
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
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 01:09:00 pm
Haimos - the Mountain God

This is an AE27 of Elagabal from Nikpolis ad Istrum. Ister is the ancient name of the Lower Danube. Derived from it is Austria (Vienna!), not from Eastern Empire. Nikopolis was founded by Trajan and the name should remind of his victories over the Dacians. Actually it was located not at the Danube but at a smaller influent. Today it is Nikup near Veliko Turnovo in Bulgaria.

Elagabal AD 218-222.
AE 27, 15.94, struck under the legate Novius Rufus
obv. AVT M AVR - ANTWNEINOC
        bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. VP NOBIOV ROVFOV NIKOPOLITWN / PROC ICTR / ON
       The youthful mountain god Haimos sitting on rocks l., with hunting shoes(?),
       reclining back on a tree, hands above the head, behind him a stag jumping r., a
       bear coming out of his cave below.
AMNG 1953 (pl. III, 23, same rev. die); Varbanov 3084
rare rev. type, about EF (the most beautiful spec. I have ever seen!)

Haimos was a king of Thracia, son of king Boreas and his wife Oreithyia, faher of Hebron. He was married to Rhodope which he loved over all. Their love was so great that they called one another Zeus and Hera. Because of this blasphemia they were transformed by the real Zeus in the homonymous mountains.(Ovid, Met. VI, 87) I think the true reason was the enviousness of the gods!

Haimos and Rhodope are the most important mountain rages of the Balkan mountains. The Balkans are known as wild mountains today as well. In ancient times there were only few transit ways. They crossed at Nikopolis. The reverse of the coin with rocks, stag and bear reflects well the rough nature of this region. It was a favourite hunting ground and Haimos here is depicted in the pose of a hunter who is resting. The hand above the head is iconographically a symbol of exhaustion after a strong effort. On other, earlier types the word AIMOC is written in the field. But at this time the meaning of the reverse seemed to be clear for every observer.
 
That two lovers called each other Zeus and Hera and therefore were punished by the gods is a locus classicus. The same story is told of Keyx, king of Trachin, and his wife Alcyone, daughter of king Aiolos of Thracia. Keyx was transformed into a Loon and Alkyone into a Kingfisher. Because her eggs were washed away by the waves Zeus commanded the winds to rest during the incubation period of the kingfisher. This is between Christmas and New Year. These days were called therefore 'Alcyone Days'. (Ovid Met. XI, 410)
 
More information here:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=20649.msg137218#msg137218
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=18252.msg121643#msg121643

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphosen
Der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon

Thanks to Pat Lawrence for the coin!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 02:39:01 pm
Astarte, or Ba'alat Gebul, the Lady of Byblos

This is a coin of Diadumenian from Byblos in Phoenicia. This city was a center of the Astarte cult and had the honouring name 'The sacred Byblos'. Today it is Jbal at the coast of Liban. In ancient times it was the main port for exporting papyros to Greece. Hence our name Bible for the Holy Book.

Diadumenian Caesar May AD 218 - 8. Juni 218
AE 24, 10.81g
obv. M OP DIADVMENIANOC KAI
bust, cuirassed, bare-headed, r.
rev. BYB - LOY / IERAC
distyle temple, surmounted by arch of shell patern. Within Astarte, draped, with polos, standing right, holding spear, l. foot on prow, crowned by winged Nike standing on column.
BMC 40-43; Rouvier 399
rare, good F

Mythology:
Hesiod descibes Hekate in his 'Theogonia' as daughter of the Titan Perses and Asteria. So she belongs to the clan of Titanes of which she alone kept her power under the reign of Zeus. She was supposed to be the daughter of Nyx too. One of her priests was Medea. She was involved in the search of the raped Persephone and became her assistant and friend. So she became goddess of the Underworld too and was known as mistress of all magic beings and witches. It is passed down that in the night she together with the souls of the dead is straying on earth and often is resting at bifurcations. Hence her surname Trivia. Her arrival was announced by howling dogs. As goddess of midwifes she has some similarity with Artemis. She is not known by Homer.

Background:
1) Astarte, Phoenician Ashtoreth, Ugaritic ‘ttrt, Akkadian As-tar-tú,  was a major Northwest-Semitic goddess, cognate in name, origin, and functions with the East-Semitic goddess Ishtar. Astarte was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Astarte was accepted by the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite. The island of Cyprus, one of Astarte's greatest cult centers, supplied the name Cypris as Aphrodite's most common byname.

2) Other major centers of Astarte's worship were Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot in which a globe appears, presumably a stone representing Astarte. Other cult centers were Cytherea, Malta and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina. A bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BC found near Caere in etruria equates Astarte with Uni, that is Juno.

3) At Carthage Astarte was worshipped along side the goddess Tanit. In Tutugi near Granada in Spain a statuette of Astarte was found dating to the 6th or 7th century BCE in which Astarte sits on a throne flanked by sphinxes holding a bowl beneath her breasts which are pierced. A hollow in the statue would have been filled with milk through the head and gentle heating would have melted wax plugging the holes, producing an apparent miracle.
 
4) Plutarch in his 'On Isis and Osiris' indicates that the king and queen of Byblos who unknowingly have the Osiris' body in a pillar in their hall are Melqart and Astarte. In the description of the Phoenician pantheon Astarte appears as a daughter of Sky and Earth and sister of the god El. After El overthrows and banishes his father Sky, Sky sends to El as some kind of trick his "virgin daughter" Astarte along with her sisters Asherah and the goddess who will later be called Ba'alat Gebul 'Lady of Byblos'. It seems that this trick does not work as all three become wives of their brother El. Astarte bears to El children who appear under Greek names as seven daughters called the Titanides or Artemides and two sons named Pothos and Eros. Later we see, with El's consent, Astarte and Hadad reigning over the land together. Astarte, puts the head of a bull on her own head to symbolize her sovereignty. Wandering through the world Astarte takes up a star that has fallen from the sky and consecrates it at Tyre.

5)  The cult of Astarte was one of the main competitors to the early Hebrew monotheism. There is a serious basis for the opinion that the Greek goddess Aphrodite (especially Aphrodite Urania) is just another name for Astarte. Herodotos wrote that the cult of Aphrodite originated in Phoenicia and came to Greeks from there. He also wrote about the world's largest temple of Aphrodite, in one of the Phoenician cities. Connection to planet Venus is another similarity to the Aphrodite cult, apparently from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Doves sacrificed is another.
 
Lit.:
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia
Online Lexikon
Donald Harden, The Phoenicians 1980

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 04:25:30 pm
Baetyl, the sacred stone

This is a contribution to the strange stones which especially in the Middle East, but not only there, were worshipped as gods. The most famous of them I think is the stone which was venerated as god Elagabal in Emesa and which his Highpriest Bassianus (the later emperor Elagabal) wanted to introduce in Rome. This here is the sacred stone of Sidon.

Phoenicia, Sidon, Elagabal AD 218-222
AE 30, 20.23g
obv. IMP CAESAR - M AV ANTONINVS
       Büste, drapiert und cürassiert, belorbeert, n.r.
rev. AVR PIA - SID - COL MET
      two-wheeled cult cart of Astarte, r., with roof on four columns, from which two palms
      emanate; on the cart the sacred stone (Baetyl) of Sidon
SNG Copenhagen 255
about VF, nice sandpatina

Baitylia, 'animated stones', are said to be invented by Uranos. This is a mythological circumscription of its celestial nature as meteorites which is confirmed by other references too: Baitylia come from the sky and move jumping through the air; they occur lonely or in swarms. Of various, sometimes changing, colour they hold in its spherical cover an extraterrestrial core. Some have magic power and the gift of prophecy, and are so the place of supranatural power; its annunciations based on the authority of mighty gods (Zeus, Kronos, Helios). In this way they are related to the many aniconic stone idols.

While the relicts of a stone cult in the whole mediterranean area are not rare, the evidence of a special worshipping of Baetyls is originated in the sphere of the Semitic ethnic: still the late time knows beside the pre-islamic cube idol of the Kaaba in Mekka  the black cube of Dusares in the Nabatean Petra and the omphalos-shaped stone of Elagabal-Ammudates in Emesa.

The rites of wrapping and clothing these cult objects constitutes the beginning of an antropomorphization, i.e. the attempt to humanize them. Mythologically this is performed in the figure of Xaabou, the virgin-mother of Dusares, but in Baitulos, the son of Kronos, too. In addition to it inscriptions from Dura-Europos and Kafr-Neb for Syria testify the worshipping of a Zeus Betulos. The relation between Baitulos, the Baitylia and the jewish-aramaic god Bethel who is named in the Old Testament is problematic. They all to trace back to the aramaic bet'el 'the house of god' goes probably too far. But it seems to be a word of mediterranean origin.

With it our view goes to Asia Minor and Crete: there is the black meteorite of Ma-Kybele from Pessinus and the stone of the cretic Rhea, who was gorged by Kronos, then spewed out, in Delphi - where it came to earth - being salved and wrapped with bandages. It is named explicitly 'baitylos'. This reminds strong of the clothed syrean Baitylos. Behind this myth stands the cult of the aniconic Zeus Kretagenes. This is approved by Lykophron when he mentioned a Zeus Diskos.

Source: Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 05:50:26 pm
Erichthonios - King of Athens

Now a new coin from Bulgaria. It is from Nikopolis ad Istrum (Nikopolis pros Istron) and was struck for Elagabal.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal AD 218-222
AE 27, struck under the legate Novius Rufus
obv. AYT K M AYPH - ANTWNEINOC
       bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. YP NOBIOY ROYFOY NIKOPOLITWN / PROC ICT
       Athena, with Korinthian helmet, standing l., holding branch in l. hand,
       behind her a shield on the ground, before her a olive tree with a snake coiled
       around
AMNG 1921
very rare, good VF, nice green patina

Background:
The reverse of this coin alludes on the foundation myth of Athens. Today there is an agreement that Erichthonios and Erechtheus are identical. Wether these two heroes or half-gods, already mentioned by Plato and Apollodoros, are actually Erichthonios or Erechtheus, or perhaps Erichthonios and the son of Erechtheus, who has the same name, is not sure, but very probably. Homer (Ilias I, 547; Odyssee VII, 81) knows only  an Erechtheus as original and king of Athens. The first author, differentiating between two persons, was Platon. The genealogists make him the grandfather of Erechtheus and so to the 4th king of Athens.

Mythology:
When Hephaistos want to sleep with Athena the goddess repulsed him and his sperm fall down on earth and by Gaia or Atthis, daughter of Cranaos, he became father of Erichthonios, who was at whole or to the half snake-shaped. Athena brought this being up without the cognition of the other gods, commanded a dragon to watch over it, hid it in a chest and consigned it to Agraulos, Pandrosos and Herse under the interdiction to open the chest. But the three disregarded the interdiction and opened the chest. Beholding the child in the shape of a snake (or coiled by a snake) they  were got by madness and jumped from the Akropolis, referring to others into the sea. The snake fled into the shield of Athena and was saved by her (Apollod. III. 14. §16; Ovid Met. II, 554) When Erichthonios grow up he expelled Amphiktyon from Athens and took the reign over Athens himself and his wife Pasithea give birth to his son Pandion.

It is said that Erichthonios has introduced the worshipping of Athena and has established the celebration of the Panathenaia. He should have built the temple of Athena on the Akropolis. When Athena and Poseidon disputed about the ruling over Attica Erichthonios took side of Athena. He was the first using a cart with four horses (problaby due to his snake feet) and was set to the sky as Auriga (charioteer). And finally it is suggested that he has teached the Athenians the treatment of silver which was discovered by the scythic king Indus. He was buried in the temple of Athena and his veneration on the Akrpolis was connected with Athena and Poseidon. His famous temple, the Ereichtheion, stands on the Akropolis and within there there were three altars, the first for Poseidon, on which was sacrified for Erechtheus too, the second for Butes and the last one for Hephaistos (Pausanias I.26.§6)

Translated after:
William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870
online under http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/

Added a pic of the Ereichtheion on the Akropolis. It shows the famous part with the Karyatides

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2006, 08:46:54 pm
Marsyas - the skinned

Now I have a republican denar from L. Censorinus of the gens Marcia. Steve Minnoch has pointed out that Marsyas could probably be an allusion to the moneyer's gens Marcia.

gens Marcia, L. Censorinus
AR - Denar, 3.68g, 24.17mm
Rome 82 BC.
obv. (without legende)
laureate head of Apollo, r.
rev. L. CENSOR
Marsyas advancing l., staring upwards, raising r. hand, carrying wine sack above shoulder; behind him column with draped figure (Minerva?)
Crawf. 363/1d; Syd. 737; Kestner 3155; BMCR Rome 2657; Marcia 24
VF+/EF-

This coin is interesting because it alludes to the myth of Marsyas. Marsyas was a Silen or Satyr, an attendant of Pan, who found the flute, which some time before was invented by Athena. But seeing her face in a mirror and how awful it looks when she played the flute and how all other goddesses were laughing about her, she throw it away with the curse that he who would raise the flute should suffer the worst fate. This Marsyas didn't know. He learned to play the flute better and better and when he felt at top of his art he coltish challenged Apollon for a competition. The winner should be allowed to do with the loser what he wants. Arbiters should be the Muses. But Apollo outsmarted Marsyas. When playing his Kithara he started to sing. This was not possible for Marsyas with his flute. So he lost the competition. And Apollon hung him on a tree and commanded a Skyth to skin Marsyas alive. It is said that by his blood - or the tears of the Muses and the other Satyrs - the river Marsyas has arised. (Ovid Met. VI, 382-400)

Cultural-historical the meaning of Marsyas exhausted not in being a clumsy Satyr. He originally was a Phrygian river god or a spring daimon of the river Marsyas which flow in the valley Aulokrene near Kelainai. He was the protecting heroe of Kelainai and played an important part in the defense against the Galati (the Anatolic celts). Already early he came to to circle of Kybele. It were the Greek who made him a Satyr.

Then I have a pic of the famous Marsyas sculpture of the Capitoline Museum in Rome which I visited on our class trip on 1962. It shows the Roman copy of a lost hellenistic original from the 2nd century BC. This motive is outstanding because it is the only time in ancient art where a hanging figure was depicted, a motive which later in the Christian art became the leading theme in the figure of Christ hanging at the cross.

For all interested in a more detailed discussion here the link:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=21015.0

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 15, 2006, 10:44:37 am
Triptolemos - the bringer of culture

1.The coin:
It's a coin of Severus Alexander AD 232-235 from Perinthus in Thracia.

AE 35, 19.8g
obv. AVT(?) KM AVR CEV - ALEXANDROC AV
bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, radiate, r.
rev. PERI - NTHIW - N / DIC NEWKO / RWN
Triptolemos, with waving Chlamys behind, standing r. in Biga with two winged snakes, joined together, holding reins in l. hand and sowing grain with raised r. hand.
Schönert pl. 45, 737 (same dies); Varbanov 4072 (same dies)
rare, VF, nice green-brown patina

PERINTHOS was renamed in the time after Aurelianus as HERACLEA (THRACIA).

2. Mythology:
We have heard about TRIPTOLEMOS already in the myth of the Rape of Persephone. He was one of the five sons of king Keleus of Eleusis and his wife Metaneira. Both have admitted Demeter friendly as guest when she was in search of her daughter Persephone, even though she was disguised and they haven't recognized the goddess. When the elder brother of Triptolemos began to critizise her because she, caused by thirst, was emptying a whole jar of beer, she angrily transformed him into a lizard. To reparate her deed she decided to make the youngest son immortal by holding him above a fire. But Metaneira - anaware of this - interrupted the enchantment and her son died. Keleus was breaking out in tears and complained the fate of his sons. Because of that he is called Dysaules too. Demeter consoled him: "Dry your tears, Dysaules, you have still tree sons from whom I will give Triptolemos such abilities that you will forget the loss of your other two sons."

Triptolemos had realized Demeter and gave her the crucial advice by which she could finally get her daughter back. Thankfully  she teached Triptolemos, his brother Eumolpos and Keleus in worshipping her divinity and in her mysteries. Triptolemos got seed, a wooden plow and a cart dragged by two winged snakes. On the Raric plain in Attica - therefore sometimes called the son of king Raros too - she teached him in the art of agriculture and then sent him over the whole earth to teach all other people. (Ovid Met. V, 450-563)

There are additional myths where several times assaults on him were tried. So at last he came with his snake biga to Thracia where he was killed by king Lynkos who was punished by transformation into a lynx. (Ovid Met. V, 62-661)

It is said that he has teached the art to built cities. He had an altar on the Raric plane and his own temple in Eleusis. It is said too that he was one of the three judges in the underworld.

3. Background:
His name TRIPTOLEMOS probably means 'three-times-shaker = thorough winnower'. (Note: After threshing the grain it was necessary to separate the chaff from the corn. For this purpose the threshed grain was thrown in the air by forks and then the wind blew the chaff sidewards. This is called 'winning'.) At the end of the 6th century Triptolemos changed from the prototype of a tiller to the propagator of rural ethos. With his dragon cart - the same Demeter has too (Ovid fast. 4, 497) - he travel on Italy, Illyria, the land of the Getes and Africa. That corresponds to Attic cultural propaganda. 

The Orphics made him as son of Okeanos and Gaia a cosmic power and a symbol of the transition from the herdsmen to the peasant culture, the great revolution at the end of the Neolithicum. From these orphic beliefs probably originates his role as judge of the deads (Platon apol. 41a). As propagator of greek culture he remained alive in the hellenistic and Roman culture and often is seen on coins and other depictions. So there is a silver bowl in Aquileia where the campaign of Germanicus in the East is equated to the transmission of Triptolemos.

Additionally here the famous Triptolemos frieze from Eleusis: Demeter, standing l., handing over to Triptolemos the sacred grain, r. behind Demeter. This frieze originally was found in the Telesterion, the mystic great hall of Eleusis. 
 
Lit.:
Ovid, Metamorphosen
Der kleine Pauly
von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Bill S on January 15, 2006, 11:57:49 am
To say the Greeks have recognized the mice already as transmitters of plagues, as I have read too, I would refuse because it is the rat flea, which is transferring plague, and so the bad guy is the rat and not the mouse.
I'd even go a bit further with this.  Although the disease can be found in a wide variety of rodents, and transmitted to humans from fleas that infest any of them, I doubt this was recognized by the ancient Greeks or Romans.  The recognition of microbes or germs was far in the future.  Also, there is a modern tendency to place far too much blame on rodents and fleas for the spread of bubonic plague.  The plague manifests in two forms - blood borne and pneumonic.  The first spreads by flea bite, the latter spreads by cough and sneeze.  The devastating epidemics were largely pneumonic - all the less reason for the ancients to blame mice for the spread of the disease.  Nowadays when the plague is encountered, it's mostly in the blood-borne form and stopped before it becomes pneumonic, hence we modern folk associate it almost completely with fleas.  However, I know of one case a few years ago in which a cat acquired the blood-borne form, presumably from a rodent flea.  The cat's owner didn't recognize the disease - only knew his cat was sick.  While caring for it, the cat sneezed in his face, spreading the disease in its pneumonic form.  The cat owner died from the plague.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 15, 2006, 02:11:02 pm
Thanks, Bill, for your addition! That confirms the thesis that there is no connection between mice and plague in ancient times.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 15, 2006, 02:12:41 pm
Men - the Anatolean Moon God

This is a coin of Julia Domna from Antiochia in Pisidia.

Julia Domna AD 193-211, wife of  Septimius Severus
AE 34, 22.61g
obv. IVLIA A - VGVSTA
bust, draped, r., hair in eight horizontal waves, coiled in a long bunch at the back of the head
rev. COL CAE - S ANTIOCH / S-R
Men, draped, with Phrygean hat, stg. facing, head r., horns of the crescent above shoulders, ties hanging down from shoulders and elbows, holding spear (or sceptre?) r., resting l. arm on cippus and holding with l. globe with Victory, holding trophy and advancing l. His l. foot stepping on Bucranium, beside his r. foot a cock with raised head advancing l.
SNG BD 1161; SNG France 31123; BMC 32

COL CAES ANTIOCH is the Colonia Caesaria Antiochia in Pisidia which was founded in the time of Augustus. It existed to the time of Claudius II Gothicus.
SR stands for SENATVS ROMANVS. This was used for great bronze coins of Antiochia since Septimius Severus.

Men (MHN) was the male Anatolean Moon God. His name is corresponding to the masculine form of MHNH = Selene. In Hellenistic times his cult spread out from Phrygia over Lydia, Pisidia and the whole Asia Minor to Attica and Athens. Here he was under the name TYRANNOC the god of the slaves, and like in Asia Minor ruler of the city and owner of the land, often together with the local MHTHR. Numerous inscriptions with law character show Men with various, not always explicable, epitheta. Men is depicted occasionally riding on a horse, but mostly standing in Phrygian clothing with spear or sceptre, crescent with horns and cock, stepping on the head of a bull, as on this coin. As syncretistic deity he soon was melted with Attis, Sabazios, Zeus Dolichenos   and Mithras. Finally he was the god of heaven (MEGAS MHN OYRANIOC) and ruler of the underworld (MHN KATACHTHONIOC), yes, even the one and only god (EIC THEOC). In Antiochia was a great sanctuary of Men.

Source: Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 15, 2006, 03:51:02 pm
Priapos

I know that this coin is in not so good condition. But I want to tell something about Priapos and for that reason this coin is qualified especially well. It is an AE21 of Trajan Decius from Lampsakos.

Trajan Decius AD 249-251
AE 21, 4.15g
obv. AYT KOI TRAIAN DEK[IOC]
        bust draped, laureate, r.
rev. LANYAKHN / [W]N - EPI APOLL[WN?] - ETOY
       Priapos, stg. l., draped to hips, with Ithyphallos, holding Thyrsos l. and Kantharos r.
ref. cf. SNG Paris 1294
very rare, good F to about VF

This coin shows beside its mythology some numismatic anomalies:
1) LAN in error for LAM
2) KOI in error for
    a. KVI, as abbreviation for QVINTVS. or
    b. KAI, as abbreviation for KAICAR = Caesar (Curtis Cay)
3) For the magistrate Apollonius it is not possible to find a reference

Priapos was the son of Aphrodite and born in Lampsakos in Mysia. Therefore Lampsakos was the most important city of  the Priapos cult. The special feature of this coin is the fact that Priapos here is not depicted as a dumb and horny garden dwarf as usually but with Thyrsos and Kantharos, the attributes of Dionysos!

Mythology:
Priapos was the son of Aphrodite and Dionysos, referring to other sources of Adonis or even of Zeus himself. When Aphrodite saw how ugly her child was looking, with big tongue, thick belly and exorbitant member, she threw it away and denied it. It is said that the reason for his deformity was the envy or jealousy of Hera. It is said that she have touched the pregnant belly of Aphrodite with her evil magic hand. A herdsman has found the child and brought it up because immediatly he has assumed that this being could be important for the fertility of plants and animals. Not until Roman times he changed into a bizarre garden god and a kind of  scarecrow. So it was assigned to him that he tried to rape the sleeping Hesta but was betrayed by the cry of an ass. In Bithynia it is said that he has educated the young War God Ares whom he first has teached dancing and thereafter the war handcraft. So he rather was a warlike god, and one of the Titanes. For this reason he belongs probably to the series of pre-hellenic, semi-animal teachers of gods, like Kedalion, Chiron, Silen or Pallas.

Background:
Priapos is the ithyphallic god of animalic and vegetabilic fertility and generally a bringer of mercy and protector against evil, originated at the coast of the Helespont, especially in Lampsakos. The city of Priapos is named after him. His name is related to Priene, Priamos and the name of the Bithynean war god Prietos. Probably together with Alexander's Crusade his cult spread into the Greek world and absorbed various local deities like Phallos in Attica or Mutunus in Rome, which he replaced. Primarly coarse formed, red coloured wooden statues were sacrified to him, so-called Hermes columns (a bust on a column). Typically was his position in Lordosis (leaning back) with erected phallos.

In his function as fertlitity god he acted positively aiding as well as saving against harm. In Roman times his role was limited as garden god. But he was the protector of wanderers and in Greece patron of sailors and fishermen too. His sanctuaries were artless and imbedded in the landscape. As heir of the sepulcric Phalloi he was grave guardian too. This directs to a deeper meaning. Occasionally he became even an All God. In Lampsakos donkeys are sacrified to him which leads to mythological explanations, f.e. the proverbial horniness of donkeys. From the graffiti on the walls of his sanctuaries a separate poetic genre developed, the Priapea and the Priapean measure.

Naturally the depiction of Priapos stimulated to sarcasm but Priapos would not have been accepted  if not a serious belief would have been behind him. So even in Christian times there were Priests, Priestresses and whole societies which were addicted to him. He had mysteries too and had a strong support by Dionysos who has attracted and influenced him. Furthermore he is related to Aphrodite, Pan, the Nymphs, Silvanus and Herakles. Myths generating he became not until hellenistic times and this only marginal.

Sources:
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 16, 2006, 04:17:58 pm
Ma-Enyo - the archaic War Goddess

I never had heard of Ma-Enyo before. That's the reason for this coin. I wanted to go into that matter. You see the Greek mythology is 'a bottomless pit'. It doesn't run out by the well-known twelve Olympic gods which I could show in this thread as I hope.

Septimius Severus AD 193-211
AE 29, struck in the year 172 of Komana Pontica = AD 205/6
obv AY KL CEP CEOYHROC
       bust , draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. IEROKAICA KOMANE
       tetrastyle temple, with trigonal pediment, in the temple statue of Ma-Enyo on pedestal,  standing facing, head r., holding wreath in raised l. hand
       ET BOP in ex.
BMC 3; Sear GIC 2156
F+

This is a coin of Komana Pontica, as distinct from the Cappadocian Komana, by which it was founded. It was laying at the river Iris and was named Hierocaesarea by the Romans.

1. Mythology:
Enyo was one of the three Graiai, the Gray Sisters, daughters of Phorkys and his wife Keto. They were born already with white-grey hair. They were called Phorcyades like their sisters, the Moires, which were grey, old goddesses too. Hesiod knew only two of them: Pemphredo with the beautiful garment, and Enyo with the saffron garment. He pointed out their lovely faces. Enyo is a warlike name, she was the destroyer of cities. Pemphredo is meaning the wasp. Later Deino, the dreadful, was added. It is said they have had tgether only one eye and only one tooth. Where they lived no sun and no moon was shining. It would be the cave at the entrance to the land of the Gorgones and it closely was guarded by them. But Perseus could outsmart them: He stole them their sole eye and so forced them to give away the way to the Gorgo Medusa which he wants to kill.
 
2. Background:
Ma, originally, was an appelative babble word for the pre-hellenic Earth and Mother Goddess, used already in the Mycenic religion. In Asia Minor Ma namely is known from Phrygia, Lydia and Caria. In the Cappadokian and the Pontic Komana she had an independent cult with criteria of a city goddess and mistress of the hetaires. She has had a temple state with six thousand(!) hierodules (= temple slaves). In spite of superimposing her old-anatolic habitus in many cases, exchanging with figures like Kybele, Hipta and Artemis Anaitis and evolving of exstatic rites Ma saved her genuine martialic features. In the form of Enyo she represented an opposite pole to the double Ares-Enyalios. Since Sulla and Catilina she was warshipped by the Romans due to her victory bringing power and equated with Bellona. Therefore the Amazones from Asia minor were regarded as battlesome death daemons of the Pontic-Anatolic Ma-Artemis-Anaitis.

Ares himself always was the ferocious war god, who was known for killing only for the sake of killing. The Greek in fact despised him which is seen clearly by Homer. But this is another story...

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly 
Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 16, 2006, 06:33:48 pm
Ares - the bloodthirsty killer

In my contribution to Ma-Enyo there already was an advice on Ares. Therefore this new contribution is attached meaningful to the first. I think it is important to remind that Ares nothing have to deal with Mars. Generally the popular identification of Greek gods with Roman gods (f.e. Aphrodite = Venus, and so on) is mythological and cultural-historical not correct at all!

As example I have chosen an AE26 of Macrinus from Nikopolis ad Istrum. Sure there are more beautiful pics of Ares on the reverses of Greek coins. But my collction subject are Roman coins. So I hope for understanding.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Macrinus AD 217-218
AE 26, struck under the legate Statius Longinus
obv. AYT K OPELL - CEY MAKREINOC
        bust, cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. YP CTA LONGINOY NIKOPOLITWN PROC / ICTRON
       Ares, with Korinthian helmet, standing l., resting l. hand on shield set on ground,
       holding inverted spear in r.
Pick 446; SNG München 440; Moushmov 1219

Ares was the Greek war god, the embodiment of bloody slaughter killing and furious battle turmoil. His name has got various different interpretations due to wild-elementary character of his acting: The 'shouter', the 'impetuous'. More convincing Kretschmer puts him to Greek 'are, aros', the 'damager', the 'punisher, the 'avenger'. With that resulted an appelative description of a personally at first indefinite daemonic damaging power. As evidence count the formulas of oath gods in the synoikism treaty between Erchomens and Euaimon, where Ares respectively Areia is used as regular appelative of Zeus, Athena and Enyalios. The etymology of Kretschmer Nilsson takes for his thesis, Ares actually would be only the personification of the murderous fight. Approved is his thesis because Ares by Homer should be synonymic to 'slaughter, killing' and  occurs together with personificated ideas like Eris, Deimos and Phobos.

But it should mentioned that the Homeric Ares absolutely bears characteristics like a living person: Wounded by Diomedes he cries like 10000 men; fallen he covers an area of 7 plethres and while he was rolling in the dust his weapons clanked around him. He is stormy, the fastest of the gods and insatiable in fight. To this sharp picture as a person apply the Knossos plates which know of a god Ares (A-re).

On the other side the antipathy of the Homeric poet against Ares is unmistakable: He calls him frantic, pernicious and double-minded, lawless and perfidious, the man slaughter, who like no other god debased himself to kill the mortals by his own hands. In the burlesque episode with Aphrodite in the net of Hephaistos and as captive of the Aloades in the iron cauldron he doesn't make a good figure, and in the battle scenes of the Iliade he was assigned always to abhorrent and inglorious roles. In these constant defeats of the raging berserk against the always with superior intellect acting Athena the aversion is mirrored which the Greek had against the senseless war fury of barbaric-crude foreign people.

The odium of the daemonic-weird foreign god is adherent on Ares as son of Zeus and Hera and member of the Olympic family too. His origin from the barbaric Thracia is proofed; that even was named after him Areia, and so Detschew has supposed a derivation of his name from the Thracian language. Furthermore the Karic slaughter daemon Enyeus-Enyalios, the companion of the warlike Potnia Ma-Enyo and traceable already for Mycenic times, is melted with him in the Iliade and can be used synonymously. The Ares-Enyalios represents thus well the fusion of a Bronze Age mediterranean lance god with a war daemon of the Thracian influenced Mycenic chariot culture in the 17th/16th century BD. The original connection with a superposed battlesome female deity (Enyo) was transferred in Ares partially into the son relation to the battlesome Hera, partially into the weapon, love and cultural community of the Minor Asian Aphrodite.

referring to 'Der kleine Pauly'

Best regards 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 16, 2006, 07:51:32 pm
Aphrodite Pudica

Here I want to share a coin which I bought because its reverse. It is an AE23 of Gordian III from Deultum in Thracia.

Gordian III AD 238-244
AE 23, 6.42g
obv. IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG
       bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. COL FL PAC / DEVLT
       Cult statue of Aphrodite with vase standing in Porticus of tetrastyle temple, seen
       in perspektive, with two-stepped Pedement, trigonal Pediment decorated with
       globe, and Akroteria decorated with crosses.
Jurukova 261 (4 Spec.: Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas, Berlin); Moushmov 3735
rare, VF, nice blue-green patina

Deultum as founded by veterans of Vespasian's VIII. Legion Augusta before AD 77 under the name COLONIA FLAVIA PACIS DEULTUM.

Cultural history:
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of  beauty and love. She is much older and more original than the Roman Venus. Venus was a more local goddess and came to Rome not before the 4th century BC. Aphrodite in contrast is a goddess of indoeuropean-hellenic, aegean-anatolic and semitic-orientalic elements. The origin of her name is unknown, perhaps related to the semitic *asthart. Her relation to Cypre would well apply to this origin. Some scholars assume, that the name of the month April is coming from the Etruscan *aprodita. That would aprove an Etruscan mediator role. She seems to be a conglomerate of old fertility goddesses. Her attributes dolphin and shell point to a marine, dove, sparrow and swane to a celestial, and apple, rose and pomegranate to a vegetable sexual sphere. Not until Homer Aphrodite was removed from this dark, sinister deity and changed to the bright goddess of charm and grace. She was called 'philommeides', the smiling, and she was the mistress of the Grace.

Art history:
On the reverse we see in the midth of the temple the statue of Aphrodite Pudica in the attitude of the Capitolinean Venus, with a vase right on ground. Her attitude today is hold for shame (therefore 'Pudica'), but in ancient times it was rather meant indicative.
 
Her support (here the vase) varies from depiction to depiction, is changing from r. to l., but the attitude of Aphrodite is always the same. This is the Venus which Giovanni Pisano cites on the pulpit in the Cathedral of Pisa (however for Prudentia) and then naturally the paradigm that was used by Botticelli for his most famous painting 'The birth of Venus' (and not the Venus Medici!). It was the favourite type of the Roman Empire! Sadly we don't know who has created it, and not even when it was created (anytime between the 4th and the 1st century BC). This statue was so wide spread over the Empire that it is impossible to say which copy Pisano or Botticelli have seen.

The same reverse type is known for Julia Domna and Plautilla from Nikopolis too. The Knidean and the Medicean Venus are much rarer on coins. But it should be mentioned that the Aphrodite type called Genetrix and seen on coins of Sabina and charakterized by uncovering herself (perhaps for Ares or Adonis) and offering an apple, existed in many copies too and was an as popular type as that we call Capitolinean.

As an addition a pic of the Capitolinean Venus

Thanks to Pat Lawrence!   

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 19, 2006, 06:12:54 pm
The infant Dionysos

Dionysos is a very complexe mythological figure. Therefore I will split him into more than one contribution. Here the first: Dionysos as infant.

Thracia, Pautalia, Marcus Aurelius AD 161180
AE 18
obv. AYT KAI M AYR ANTWNINOC
        bust, draped (and Cuirassed?), bare-headed, r.
rev. PAYT - ALIW - TWN
       Dionysos as infant sitting in a winnowing fan, r., seen half from behind, stretching
       hands, Thyrsos behind
Ruzicka 60a

Until now I never had heard of a winnowing fan. Here the information I have found: A winnowing fan is a wooden or (in ancient times) plaited bowl used to separate the wheat from the chaff. By using the winnowing fan to toss the grain in the air the chaff was blown away by the wind. In Latin it is called 'vannus', as 'vannus mystica' in the Eleusinic Mysteries, in Greek it is 'liknon', that's why this depiction is called 'Dionysos Liknites' too. In the Demeter cult it was a basket with the first fruits, which played a big role in the Eleusinic Mysteries (Apuleius Met. 11). See the added pic from Pompeji too!

The Thyrsos on the rev. looks more like a Narthex birch from the Ferula communis used to cane scholars by schoolmasters. The inside is pithy and used like tinder to make fire. It is said that Prometheus has used Narthex to bring the fire to men. The Thyrsos is made from a Narthex birch.

Mythology:

The first Dionysos:
Following the Orphic stories Dionysos was the son of Zeus and Persephone. Hera has instigated Titans from the Underworld to kill the young boy. Two of them with white coloured faces hijacked him, cut him into seven pieces and cooked him in a cauldron. When they began to roast the pieces on spits Zeus smelled the flavour of the roast appeared and drove the Titans back into the Underworld where they belong. The cooked members were burnt to ashes, from which the grape-vine arose, except one which Zeus took for himself. It is said that this was the heart. But this is a word-play as I will show. It is said that Zeus has given the 'Dionysos Kradaios' to the goddess Hipte for maintenance. Hipte was a goddess of Asia Minor like Rhea. "Kradaios is ambiguous, it can be derived from kradia 'heart' but from krade 'figtree' too and then meaning an artifact made of figwood.. The basket which the priestresses of Demeter are carrying on their heads was a 'liknonon', a winnowing  fan, in which - being carried in the ceremonial procession - usually a phallos was lying under the fruits; an artifact which Dionysos has made from figwood." (Kerenyi, p.201) The liknites ('who is lying in the winnowing fan') was consistlenty 'revived' by the female attendants of Dionysos. (ibid.)

The second Dionysos:
Beside the son of Persephone there was a second Dionysos, the son of Semele and Kadmos. Actually he was the son f Zeus too, who was fallen in love with Semele. When Semele prayed Zeus to come to her in the same shape as to Hera he came as lightning and Semele was killed instantly. Zeus saved the unborn child from the belly of Semele and included him in his own thigh. At the mountain Nysa Dionysos was born a second time by Zeus and he gave the infant to divine nurses (or Hermes) to care for him.

If you are engaged with Dionysos you can recognize many parallels to Christianity. We find the central motive of death and subsequent resurrection. We see an infant with the mission to save the world as the Orphics belief, and we have the cradle of the child Jesus!

To round it up here a pic from a frieze from the Villa of mysteries in Pompeji AD 50: Scenes from the sanctification during the Dionysian Ceremonies. A wife is lifting the veiling drapery from a plaited basket, a winnowing fan. In the basket as symbol of fertility an erected veiled phallos.A female daemon beside with open wings is striking out with a long whip.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 19, 2006, 07:03:28 pm
Dionysos and the panther

The panther plays an important role in the mythology of Dionysos. Dionysos always also was a god of the wilderness. It is an integrative part of his cult to disrupt bloodily animal or human victims in bits. He too was disrupted (or cut) as Dionseus Zagreus in bits by the Titans too. This wild orgiastic nature was expressed by the wild animals which were his attendants. It is said that Dionysos most af all has loved the panther because the panther was as excitable as he was and would make the same leaps like the Maenads.

All wild animals are connected to Dionysos, but none more so than the lion or panther. The supple, feline elegance of its body, the ferocious and easily provoked temper, the boundless appetite, and uncanny intelligence of the creature make it uniquely and inevitably linked to the Dionysiac sphere - and indeed, the wild cat is frequently depicted in the company of the wild God. Like the Magna Mater, Dionysos' cart was drawn by lions and panthers. The cats freely accompanied him at other times, sitting tamely at his feet like puppies, or dancing enraptured with the rest of creation during the Bacchic revel.

When Dionysos sought to punish someone - for instance Lycurgos - the wild cat was often the agent of the God's awful chastisement.

Source: http://www.winterscapes.com/sannion/dionysos_symbols.htm

AE 28 of Gordian III from Hadrianopolis in Thracia
obv. AYT KM ANT GORDIANOC AV
        bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev.  ADP - IA - NO / POLEITWN
       Dionysos, nude, with Thyrsos, lying backwards on panther, riding r.
Mionnet 778; Lindgren III, A65A; Jurokova 482; Moushmov 2707. No.3071
SS, some spots to recognize on the panther's skin

As addition a pic of the famous mosaic from Pella in Macedonia showing the same scene.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: ecoli on January 19, 2006, 08:28:17 pm
This thread needs to be in the Classical N board...
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 20, 2006, 04:51:22 pm
Dionysos with Kantharos

Here is one of the most common Dionysos depictions: Dionysos standing, holding Thyrsos and Kantharos.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal, AE 28
struck under the legate Novius Rufus
obv. AYT KM AYR ANTWNINOC
bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r..
rev. YPA NOB ROYFOY NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICTRON
Dionysos, stg. l., holding Thyrsos and poring wine from Kantharos
Moushmov 1397. No.2861.
about VF.

About the Thyrsos we have heard that it was made from Narthex. Often it was wrapped with binds or vine-leafs. On top was a knob made of ivy or vine-leafs, sometimes like a pinecone. The Thyrsos was the sign of the participants of the dionysos cult, used as well by the Mainads f.e. to kill Pentheus.

The Kantharos is a jug with high foot and two long handles shaped like loops. This form of jug was developed from preforms of the 2nd Millenium BC and belonged to Dionysos and his cult until the 5th century AD. So it is essential a cult device. Later on it was used with ring-shaped handles as a profane device too. There are other jugs too, f.e. the Oinochoe, a one-handled jug often with a trilobate nozzle as so-called trifoil-jug. But these don't refer to Dionysos!

Ref.: Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 20, 2006, 04:54:35 pm
Mount Argaios - the Sacred Mountain  of Cappadocia

I think you have sometimes seen coins of Caesarea with the reverse called 'Mt. Argaios' or 'Mt.Argaeus'. Here are two of them.

1) A Didrachm of Marcus Aurelius from Caesarea Cappadocia.
Marcus Aurelius AD 161-180 
obv. AYTOKP ANTWNEINOC CEB
        His bare curly head right
rev. YPA - TOC Gamma
        Mount Argaeus with star above
Sear GIC 1661
Scarce

2) An AE28 of Elagabal of Caesarea Cappadocia.
Elagabal AD 218-222
obv. AY KM AYRHLI - ANTWNINOC
         bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev.  MHTROP [KAYCARI]
         ET B in ex.
        Agalma of Mt. Argaios on altar
Sydenham 518 var. (year on altar)
nice naturalistic portrait of the young emperor

The Mount Argaios (or Latin 'Argaeus') is the highest mountain in Asia minor. 3916m high, volcanic and mostly covered with snow on top. Today it's called Erciyes Dagi, and at its foot lays the city of Caesareia, in early days called Mazaka, today Kayseri. The Argaios was a sacred mountain already in the times of the Hattits which have called him 'harara'. It is an very impressive mountain, due to its heighth and its volcanic activities. In 253 BC their should have been a big eruption mentioned on Roman Republican coins, but I couldn't find any example. Mazaka was the capital of the Cappadocian Kings, later the capital of the Roman province Cappadocia.

Iconography:
The pics of the Argaios on coins are rather similar. It is always trigonal and put together by parts which look like rocks. In the midth there is often a circle decorated with dots. The suggestion that this could be a flower seems to be discarded. Most probably it should be a cave perhaps for a cult statue(?). The figure of the Argaios is always rounded by needle-shaped lines or cones. These should be flames as symbols of his volcanic activities as could seen on others types too. The similarity of its pics is an evidence that it probably is the depiction of a real cult picture of the mountain, a so-called Agalma, which could be put in a temple. This theory is approved by the second coin where the cult statue of the Mount Argaios stands on an altar.

On the left frontal rock you can see a jumping deer and on the right rock a tree(?). But wether the Agalma was decorated with small statuettes which were put on the statue is not known.

On some types on the summit of the Argaios is seen a star, a crescent, the radiate Sol, or an eagle. Then there are types where the Argaios is carried by a man in a quadriga (probably Septimius Severus) or a rare type where the Argaios is seen on a chart dragged by two elephants. Then there is known a Tyche turreted with the Argaios and the personification of Cappadocia holding the Argaios.

Interesting is the following fact: Coins with the Argaios were known in the Hellenistic time only in the short periode from 101 BC to AD 17 where an alliance with Rome existed. There are no coins of Greek times even though the cult was known so long before! Not until the 1st century AD coins with references to the Argaios appeared. The explanation could be that the cult was re-introduced by the Romans to lead the Cappadocians to the the Roman Trias Jupiter-Helios-Serapis and to convince them of the Summus-Deus-belief. (P. Weiß). It is known that an Agon took place.
 
History:
Cappadocia was important already at the times of the Hattits (14th century BC) as central part of their empire. The capital was Hattusa near todays Boghazköi. With Kyros II Cappadocia came under Persian influence, but because of its distance to the centre it remained relative independent. This was true also in the time of Alexander and under the reign of the Antigonids since 303  BC. Under the Romans Archelaos was made king by Marcus Antonius. AD 18/19 under Tiberius it became the Roman province Cappadocia

Other mountain gods:
The sacred mountain Argaios is only one in a series of mountain gods. Another important cult was the cult of Zeus Kasios which could be backtracked to the Hattits  too. It was their sacred mountain Hazzi where the gods descended from heaven. Referring to Ugaritic tradition it was the seat of the storm and thunderbolts god Baal. In Greek-Seleucidian time these two deities were melted together and parallel to Baal the early mountain god was made to the god Zeus Kasios of Seleukeia Pierias.

I have added a pic of today's Erciyes Dagi

Sources:
http://people.freenet.de/albionworld/referate/argaios-ref.html
(Here you can find more references!)
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0103-01=
(From this site is the pic of the Erciyes Dagi!)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 21, 2006, 07:10:53 am
Some notes on the Roman god Liber

Because we have spoken about Dionysos in this thread some time before it is necessary to add informations about the Roman Liber too. He is often mixed up with Dionysos/Bacchus but this is not correct!

Liber is an old Roman deity and together with Libera a genuine Italic pair of gods. His name and his meaning are not sure until now.
1. The ancient interpretations tend in its majority to an origin of 'liberare', to free. Either because he admitted the wine pleasure in vast quantities and thus frees from worries, or because he admitted men to release their sperm (or in the case of Libera to deliver a child).
2. Today it is accepted that the origin of his name is probably *leudh, to sprout, to germinate. So these two deities are old fertility gods. Therefore they were worshipped together with Ceres. Already the dictator A. Postumus has dedicated to this trias a combined temple at the Circus Flaminius in 496 BC which was renewed by Augustus.

When Dionysos became familiar in Latium in the 5th century BC Liber was quickly equated with him which unfortunately darkens his origins. One of the oldest ceremonies recorded in the calendars belonged to Liber and Libera: the Liberalia on March 17. At this day old women presented cakes for sacrificing which then they sacrificed on a portable cooker for the buyer (this probably also pseudo-etymologically to 'libum', = cake for sacrificing). This day often was used for applying the toga virilis too, after which the young Roman was accepted as adult. More original as this seem to be phallic processions. Wether Liber was really related to wine in the earliest day is unsure but it would have make it easier to fulfill the equalization with Dionysos. In historic times the equilization was already done. Liber wears all attributes of Dionysos as you can see on the attached coin for Septimius Severus: Thyrsos, panther and ivy wreath.

Cicero however (in De Nat. Deor. II, 24) has differentiated sharply between the Latin Liber and the Greek Dionysos. The Senate f.e. had forbidden in 186 BC the Dionysos cult and the Bacchanalies but not the ceremonies of the Liberalia! It was Caesar who then allowed the cult again.

The coin is from a friend: RIC 99; C.304. Rev. LIBERO PATRI

Best regards 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 21, 2006, 11:48:41 am
The Aegis - the wondershield of  Zeus

The definition of the Aegis is a bit disturbing at least I was a bit confused. Now I'm better informed and I hope I can enlighten you too!

The first coin of Crispus from Trier RIC 347 shows on the obv. Crispus holding a phantastic shield! It shows the head of Medusa whose look will turn into stone everybody who is looking at it. Medusa, first as Gorgo a sole horror-being with snake hairs, in the later mythology was one of the three Gorgons, three terrible sisters. They were immortal except Medusa. Instead her look turned into stone. Perseus succeeded in killing her with the assistance of Athena by looking at her only through a mirror. From the cut head of Medusa sprung the winged horse Pegasos. The head of Medusa Perseus donated to Athena who wears it on her shield, the so-called Aegis. The head of Medusa is called 'Gorgoneion'!

Referring to others Athena herself killed the Gorgo. Anyway the Aegis was a wondershield of Zeus which was created by Hephaistos and decorated with golden tassels and pictures. Sometimes he borrowed it to Apollo and particularly to Athena. He used the shield everytime when he want to do perform same actions on earth which the other Olympic gods especially his wife Hera shouldn't not realize. The he tossed the Aegis high in the air and the Olymp mountain was wrapped in clouds and storm. So the Aegis was a kind of weather-shield.

The confusion began after Homer. Posthomeric the derivation of the word Aegis (greek Aigos) from Aix = goat, goat-skin became common. This was referring to the goat Amalthea which is said having nursed the young Zeus in his cave on Crete. This goat-skin shaped Aegis we see from the time of  Nero on often on coins worn on the left shoulder as the sign of power. I have chosen an antoninian of Probus to show the typical goat-skin Aegis. It is RIC 157 with an interesting bust depiction: the breastplate is decorated with an Aegis which bears in its midth a winged Gorgoneion. We see clearly the two wings r. and l. of the head. Additionally the emperor bears a second Aegis across his left shoulder according to the motto 'The more the better!'.

The third coin is an exceptional AE27 of Gordian III from Nikopolis ad Istrum Varbanov3328. The emperor has a Gorgoneion on the breastplate and then an Aegis with mounted Gorgoneion on his left shoulder. You see the erected snakes!

Mythological background:
The depiction of the killing of Gorgo by Athena is much older than the myth of Perseus. Formerly the scholars tend to the opinion, that Gorgo and Athena were the two sides of the same divinity in which then when Athena was changed to an Olympic goddess (which were regarded as bright and clear - rationalistic and human-like - in contrast to the old divinities), the horrible-daemonic part was removed from her and confronted as an adversary power.

This opinion today has changed. Now it is assumed that Athena has had an Aegean predecessor of chthonic character which she overcome and from which she has won some of the destructive power of the evil eyes.

Source: Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 21, 2006, 11:53:28 am
The Gorgoneion - the head of Medusa

Surprisingly the Gorgoneion is much older than the myth of Gorgo. Nearly all primitive (in the sense of very early!) people know of horror masks which require the belief in evil eyes and in the banning power of the increased expression of rage and sneer. Since when the Greek pass over from the impersonal grimace to the mythological personal is not known. Homer already know the myth of Perseus.
 
At first the Gorgoneion was predominant with broad face, dreadful eyes, bared tongue and snakes in the hair often with four wings. It was magic-apotropaically (= averting)
attached to shields, cuirasses, to doors and gates, to ships and horses and also to tombs.

When time goes by her ugliness was mitigated and around 400 BC in the Medusa Rondanini (in Munich) a exceptional beautiful type was achieved however from a cold, soulless beauty. The Hellenism then granted the Gorgoneion the painful traits of melancholia and does not show longer the tantalizing but the tantalized being.

Attached are the following three pics:
The Gorgona Rondanini from Munich
An tetradrachm of Philipp I from Antiochia Prieux 357 with a Gorgoneion on his breastplate.
The denar of Domitian RIC 65 var.-. Especially Domitian shows very often the Aegis accross his left shoulder. Here it is the Aegis with attached Gorgoneion. You see clearly the profile of  the head of Medusa (nose!) and the snake-hairs!

Resume:
So actually we should differentiate between three different depictions:
1) The Aegis, the mere goat-skin
2) The Gorgoneion, i.e. the head of Medusa
3) The Aegis with attached Gorgoneion, identifiable by its snakes.

Source: Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 23, 2006, 05:42:50 pm
Asklepios - the Healing God

Today I want to tell you something about the Greek Healing God Asklepios, lat. Aesculapius. For this purpose I present two coins both struck for Caracalla (AD 198-217).

1) Thracia, Serdika, Caracalla Ruzicka 245
    AE 30, 16.6g
    obv. AVT KM AVR CEVH - ANTWNEINOC
            bust, draped, laureate, r.
    rev. OVLPIAC - CERDIKAC
           Asklepios, half-nude, standing facing, feeding with r. hand snake, which  
          coiled around his rod, set on ground l. beside him.
    Ruzicka 245 (attribution by Curtis Clay)
    Very rare, EF
    Serdica is todays Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. Ulpia was the surname of the city in
    honour of  Ulpius Trajan who raised the city to a municipium..

2) Caracalla RIC IV, 253 var.
    AR - denar, 3.30g, 20.3mm
    Rome AD 215
    obv. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM
            bust, laureate, r.
    rev. PM TRP XVIII COS IIII PP
           Aesculapius, standing frontal, nude to hips, head facing, holding snake-
           entwined rod in r. hand, l. hand across body with fold of drapery, r. at his feet
           globe; at the l.side a small figure with hooded cloak (Telesphoros)
    RIC IV, 253 var.; C.307; BMC 105
    FDC
    RIC listed this type only with head l., but market observation has shown that this
    variant is not so rare.

1. Mythology:
Asklepios is the famous Greek Healing God. At Homer however he was not yet a god, but a man, the father of Machaos and Podaleirios, two famous surgeons in front of Troy. He is said to be the father of Hygieia too. Referring to Homer the entire medicine originates from Paieon, which was another name for Apollon. Later on there are several myths of his divine ancestry. He was the son of Apollon and the princess Koronis, daughter of Phlegyas, king of the Lapiths. When she was pregnant, Apollon left a raven to guard her. But she betrayed him with Ischys, son of Elatos. When the raven reported the infidelity to Apollon he cursed the raven. From this time on all ravens are black. Artemis avenged her brother Apollo by killing Koronis with her arrows. But Apollon wanted to save his unborn son and Hermis cut him out of the body of the dead. He was called Asklepios and given over to the Centaur Cheiron who educated him and teached him the art of medicine.
Another myth tells that after his birth he was abandonned on the Tithion mountain where the herdsman Aresthanas found him and then nursed him alternately by his dog and his goats. Therefore Asklepios sometimes is depicted with these animals.
Asklepis not only was able to cure invalids but to reawake deads too. For that purpose Athena has given him two glasses with blood of the Gorgo Medusa. With the blood of her left side he could reawake to life, with the blood of the right bring to death. Back into life he brought f.e. Lykurgos, Kapaneos and Tyndareos. Asklepios came to his end when Hades complained at Zeus about Asklepios that he would steel him too much dead souls. Because of the reawakening of Orion he was accused of corruptibility and then killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt together with his patient. A short time later Zeus regretted what he has done and gave them back their lifes. Together with his snake-entwined rod Asklepios was set as a constellation on the sky.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 23, 2006, 05:47:59 pm
(continued)

2. Background:
Asklepios is a pre-hellenic deity from Northern Greece, probably Thessalia, where his name is connected with 'Asgelatas' meaning the snake-footed god. Asklepios was worshipped at many Greek locations especially those with healing fonts. His temples therefore were found often outside of the cities and often on hills. In these temples numerous patients were staying so that they looked like todays hospitals. The main sanctuary stood in Epidauros. From there his cult came to Rome 359 BC during a great pest epidemic.
In Epidauros stood a great statue of Asklepios simulating Zeus. It is described by Pausanias: The demigod is seated on a throne, holding in one hand a rod, the other on a snake, a dog is laying at his feet.
Snakes were a symbol of renewing due to their regular moult. It is said too that they would be able to find healing herbs. Therefore Asklepios not only was depicted together with the Apollinic snakes but as snake himself. In his temples often snakes were kept.
The suggestions for healing the priests received by dreams (so-called thaumaturgy) or during a sleep (so-called temple sleep). To thank them a cock or a goat was hanged in the temple by the cured together with a plate described with the illness and the way and method of healing. These plates are found by archeologists.
The priests of Asklepios were called Asklepiadae. They were a sworn, sect like community of healers. Their profession passed over always from the father to his son. The acception was confirmed by a sacred oath.
This cult spread over the whole Empire. He was hold as Saviour and later on there were heavy theological conflicts with the apologets of Christianity.

Telesphoros

On the denar of Caracalla on the left side of Asklepios (or better Aesculapius for it is a Roman coin!) you see the small figure of Telesphoros. This is a talking name, meaning 'finalizer'. He is always depicted with a hooded cloak where only his feet stick out. The 'der kleine Pauly' calls him 'one of the most problematic figures in the history of religions'. Very late he was added to Asklepios as his 'son'. He was introduced by an oracle in Pergamon at the end of the 1st century AD from where his cult spread very fast. Because of his small shape  and the hooded cloak Telesphoros is identical with the 'genii cucullati', a group of fertility, healing but death gods too (cucullus = hood). Probably they are old celtic deities.

A last coin of Diadumenians from Deultum (Yurukova 88) shows Telesphoros on the reverse.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythlogy
William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online!)
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 23, 2006, 06:37:19 pm
The gods of the Underworld

I think here is the appropriate place for this contribution therefore I moved it from 'Coins of Historical Interest'! The coin is an Antoninianus of Caracalla AD 198-217, one of the first ones:

AR - Antoninianus, 5.3g, 22.2mm,
       Rome AD 215
obv. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM
        Bust cuirassed radiate head r.
rev. PM TRP XVIII COS IIII PP
       Pluto with modius on head, seated on throne l., sceptre in l. hand,
       stretching r. hand to three-headed Cerberus at his feet.
RIC IV/1, 261(d); not in in Cohen
Rare; nice EF

I was going to find more information of the figure of Pluto and now I think it is more likely Serapis! Here is what I have found:

Hades
Together with Zeus and Poseidon the third son of Kronos was Hades. After the struggle against the Titans he got the rule of the Underworld by drawing lots. His name is derived from Greek 'a-ides' = unvisible, like the word 'hell', the nordish goddess Hel, or the hebraic word 'sheol' for hell. As ruler of the Underworld he was weird to the people. His name not often was called, but only circumscribed. There were not much cults for him. But as a ruler of the wealth of the earth too he was related to Plutos.

Plutos
Plutos, not really a god in the strict sense, was the figure of wealth and abundance. In the beginning he was the master of the subterranean grain supplies, later ruler of the deads too (at first probably in Eleusis). In this function he was called Pluton mostly.

Pluton
Pluton, in the beginning the god of wealth, the donator of gifts, therefore depicted with the modius on head, the Roman grain measure.
In his shape very similar to Zeus: A venerable man with full hair and beard, holding sceptre. At his feet the three-headed Cerberus, the guard of the underworld. In opposition to Hades he stands for the moderate side of the chthonic powers and was helpful to human beings.
Therefore he was warshipped on many places, often together with Demeter/Proserpina. When times go by he was melted with Hades and then he replaced him as the ruler of the underworld.

Serapis
Serapis (sometimes Sarapis) was introduced about 300 BC to Alexandria as god of the state by Ptolemaeus I Soter (305-284 BC), known as the founder of the famous Alexandrian library too. He built the big Serapeion in Alexandria and the famous sculptor Bryaxis created the statue of Serapis: Also a venerable man with modius (Greek. kalathos, not polos!) on his head, holding sceptre, the three-headed Zerberos at his feet. Full beard and mighty hair let him look like Zeus, and reminds on Pluton. He was a syncretistic (= mixed up) deity und should unify the Greek and the Egyptian religions, so connecting the people of the East with the people of the West, an important objective of the Hellenism. His name was derived from Apis-Osiris, a god of grain, fertility and wealth too. He was melted with Asklepios, the god of healing, with Dionysos, of whom he got the secret consecrations, with Pluto, as god of the underworld, then with Zeus, and yes, with Christus, as sole god and creator of the world. The last time his cult was promoted by Julian II, who sometimes called himself Deus Serapidis.
AD 389 Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, destroyed the Serapeion, probably by order of Theodosius, and with this event the time of paganism was gone for ever.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 23, 2006, 07:06:55 pm
(continued)

Caracalla (AD 198-217)
Already Severus, father of Caracalla, had identified himself with Serapis! His depiction with the 5 curls on the forehead was called serapian (but now it seems to be more antoninian style). Caracalla continued his father's cult. He built a Serapeion in Rome on the Quirinal hill, which gave his name to the III. Roman region. To this temple he consecrated the sword with which he has killed his brother Geta, referring to Dio Cassius. Caracalla was very interested in religions. His visit of the Alexandrian Serapion was notorious. There he has done all rites and received the consecrations. His dead is characteristic: He was on a trip to the moongod of Carrhae when he was killed.

Depiction on the coin
The depiction on the reverse of the coin is in all details similar to the statue of Bryaxis in the Serapeion of Alexandria! The similarity with Zeus, the three-headed Cerberus, you find all. Therefore I think much stands for Serapis as depicted deity! Whereas RIC speaks of Pluto(n), CNG calls the figurs on the Aureus RIC 242, C.253, and on the Denar RIC 261(a) Serapis too!
Ok, the pictures of Serapis and Pluton are mixed together. So it could well be that the same picture was called Serapis by a Greek and Pluton by a Roman (Patricia Lawrence!). This point of view was characteristic for the syncretism!
 
Coming to the end: One can say that this coin is typically for the syncretism which now is coming to Rome from all sides - especially from the East. The time of the old gods now is fading away. Only short time and by Elagabal the first real monotheistic god will be introduced to Rome.

Added is the pic of a famous copy of the head of Bryaxis' Serapis from the 2nd century AD. The Ptolemaic eagle, which the gems show to have adorned the pediment of Serapis' temple, is here placed on the top of the kalathos.

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on January 24, 2006, 03:39:21 pm
Sheol isn't hell, though Christian tradition tends to conflate the two. Hell has a moral dimension; only the wicked go there. Sheol has none; everyone ends up there. It's a shadowy afterlife which would be closer to Hades, except that it's a lot vaguer. God is assumed to be absend from Sheol, except in one text in Jonah, where he's present; that evidently represents a late development of the concept. Ideas of post-mortem rewards for the righteous, and punishment for the wicked, emerge in the Hellenistic period. They're essentially the reaction of a downtrodden people to the question of why they, the righteous suffer, while the wicked, who oppress them, do so well out of it. The old idea that the righeous will prosper in this life doesn't work any more, and something very like heaven and hell emerges as a response, in books like 1 Enoch. The idea simply crosses over into early Christianity, and develops from there.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 24, 2006, 04:22:05 pm
Thanks, Robert, for making this clear! I hope that my records of the etymological connection of 'sheol' with 'hidden, invisible' is correct?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on January 24, 2006, 05:51:36 pm
I don't have a decent Hebrew lexicon, but there's a good article in the ABD. The derivation is unclear, but the author feels that the most plausible possibility is a derivation from the Hebrew S'L, to ask or enquire. S'L is used of the practice of consulting the spirits of the dead, so there is an obvious link. alternatively, it could be intended in a forensic sense, as 'the place of interrrogation'. I can't think of any passage in the OT where Sheol is linked with anything of the sort, but I'd need to read the articles cited, if I could get hold of them, and see what the authors said. Alternatively, it could be derived from S'H, meaning 'no land' or 'unland', a place of emptiness and remoteness from God, which does seem to sum up what we know of the place.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 24, 2006, 06:24:57 pm
Thanks Robert!

I was only a half year in a Hebrew course at school and left it due to laziness. So my Hebrew knowledge stopped with BERESCHITH BARA ELOHIM.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 31, 2006, 06:08:57 pm
Dea Caelestis - the ancient City Goddess of Carthage

We have seen interesting mythological depiction on Imperial coins too (but not in such wide range of variation as in Provincial coins!). Here I want to present an Imperial coin which holds mysteries until now. It is a denar of Septimius Severus though there is the same motive for Caracalla too.

Septimius Severus AD 193-211
AR - Denar, 2.97g, 18.13mm
       Rome AD 204
obv. SEVERVS - PIVS AVG
      bust, laureate, r., beard plaited, braid across cheek (so-called Serapis type)
rev. INDVLGENTIA AVGG
      Dea Celestis, turreted, head r., riding on lion r., holding sceptre and thunderbolt. Below
      water flowing r., arising from rock on l. side.
     IN CARTH in ex.
RIC IV/1, 266; C.222; BMC 335
about EF

It should be said that this coin has four different types:
a) Goddess holding sceptre and thunderbolt, head facing
b) Goddess holding sceptre and thunderbolt, head r.
c) Goddess holding sceptre and drum
d) Goddess holding drum only
Type a and b are common, type c is rare and type d is very rare.

Already the cause for issueing this coin is not certainly known. Apparently Septimius, who as is generally known was coming from Leptis Magna in Northern Africa, has undertaken a journey to Carthage and Leptis. INDVLGENTIA is translated as 'clemency, mildness, grace'. In connection with the water flowing from the rock it could be an allusion to an aquaeduct which the emperor has built, enhanced or repaired. That would be expressed by 'grace'. Or he has lowered or cancelled any water rates. That would be expressed by 'clemency'. At any case after a first edition without IN CARTH in ex. this was added to the rev. Perhaps the depiction without IN CARTH has made no sense to the Romans. Another possibility worth to be discussed could be that the flowing water was an attribute of Dea Caelestis herself. And so we come to the pictured deity. And there we have much confusion as well. Naturally the religion of the Romans in these times was already syncretistic and many different deities were mixed up to form new deities. But this is not true for Dea Caelestis. Here we are still able to differentiate. 

At first she must be distinguished from the goddess Dea Syria. Dea Syria belongs to the ambit of Kybele-Rhea and has nothing to deal with our goddess. Dea Caelestis is nothing else than the ancient city-goddess of Carthage. Her old name was Tanit or more correctly Tinit. The Carthagean like the Phoenician font does not know vowels. The name of the goddesss was written TNT. The connecting vowels now are known from newly found Greek inscriptions.

Dea Caelestis or Virgo Caelestis as the city goddess of Carthage was called by the Romans,  came to Rome referring to the official version after the fall of Carthage by evocatio. But before Septimius she is not known outside of Africa. So this version can't be true. Her temple stood inside the Pomerium, the sacred district of Rome, on the Northern part of the Palatine. Her cult was on top of all other foreign cults. Here we find orgiastic activities as they were usual for Tinit. Naturally it came to a mixture with similar deities, f.e. with Kybele who was depicted with lions and drums too. (A contribution about Kybele-Rhea is comming soon.) BTW Caelestis should not be confused with the epitheton 'caelestis' which often is added to deities.

Tinit beside Baal Hammon was the main goddess of Carthage. Probably she came from Libya because her name has Berberic reminiscences and in Phoenicia were found no confirmations. By political-religious reforms during the 4th century BC she came on the top of the Carthagean pantheon. Partly uranic, partly chthonic, she was Heavens Goddess, Moon and Fertility Goddess with the symbols crescent, palm, dove, pomegranate etc. She was associated with Hera and Demeter, was called 'Mother', but was Death Goddess too with Hermes Psychopompos. It is said that children were sacrificed to her. With the Punic expansion her cult spread to Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and Spain. To the Roman Imperial cult she was introduced not before Elagabal.

Evocatio: After having defeated an enemy the Romans usually asked the deities of the conquered city to move to the victorious Rome where in a ceremonial procession they were assigned a sacred location. Thereby the power of the adversary deities was believed to be added to the Roman power.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 02, 2006, 07:29:35 pm
Kybele - the great Earth Mother

For a long time I have hesitated to write about Kybele because it  is a so extensive area. But now it is time to start! The cause is a new coin, a denar of Julia Domna, where the Empress probably should be identified with the goddess.

Julia Domna, died AD 217(?), wife of Septimius Severus
AR - Denar, 3.6g, 17.79mm
        struck in Rome, AD 198, under Septimius Severus
obv. IVLIA - AVGVSTA
       bust, draped, bare head, r., hair in five horizontal waves, with broad bun behind
rev. MA - TER - DEVM
      Kybele, richly draped, turreted, sitting l., holding branch in extended r. and sceptre in l.
      hand; left ellbow resting on drum, standing on throne. On each side of the throne a lion,
      sitting l., the rear only half seen.
RIC IV, 564; C.123; BMC 54
scarce, good VF

Kybele, here called Mater Deorum (mother of gods), we see in one of her standard depictions. Her attributes are mural-crown, drum and the indispensable lions. There are other depictions too where we see Kybele riding on a lion or standing in a lin biga.

Mythology:
The mythology of Kybele is very extensive. Therefore I have chosen different attempts to describe Kybele, or as my Greek teacher once has said, "that only argues for her complexity which includes the contrariness as well!"

It is said that Kybele is grown from a stone which Deukalion and Pyrrha have thrown after the Flood. Or her father was Meon, king of Phrygia and Lydia, her mother Dindyma. Meon don't want a daughter and ordered to expose her on the Kybele mountain. There she was nursed by wild beasts. Panthers and other predators gave milk to her until shepherdesses found her and took her with them.
Kybele grow up to a beautiful young woman, stayed decent and rather invented pipes, drums and timbals which became important in the cult of the goddess. Moreover she was engaged in medicine especially for animals and children which she could heal by her words alone. A close friend was Marsyas, and her great love Attis.
When Kybele somewhat later returned to the court of her parents again she was accepted friendly. But soon it was decovered that she was pregnant. Meon in his rage commanded to kill Attis and the shepherdesses and to let the bodies unburied.
Kybele in her mourning began to rave nonsensically through the country, howling and beating her drums in company with the piping Marsyas. They met Apollo who defeated Marsyas in the famous musical competition and killed him. After that he joined Kybele and both went to the Hyperboreans. Meanwhile Phrygia suffered by plague and dearth. Asking an oracle they were said to bury immediatedly the unburied bodies and to worship Kybele. Because they couldn't find the bodies anymore they buried a statue of Attis and at Pessinus a magnificent temple was erected for Kybele. It was Midas who was engaged in that temple too.  
Another myth tells that Attis has betrayed Kybele and desired the nymph Sagaris. Because of that Kybele has punished him terribly, she has castrated him.
Famous too is her anger at Atalante and Hippomeneus. These two have loved in the sanctuary of Kybele for which the goddess transformed them into lions which had to pull her cart forever. (Ovid, Met. 10, 686-704)
Kybele was worshipped in many countries and so she is known under many names. Some of them are Antaia, Asporina, Daucia, Dindymene, Idaea, Maia, Magna mater, Mater Deum, Pessinuntia, Phasiane, Phrygia or Turrita.

Attis:
The bisexual entity Agdistis, another name of Kybele, went through the countries and killed all what she met. The gods deliberated and Dionysos was sent to appease Agdistis. He succeeded by making a source giving wine. Agdistis drank the wine and drunk he/she castrated him/her during the sleep. From the cut member a almond tree arose of which Nana, daughter of the river Sangar, put a fruit into her lap and became pregnant. Her child was Attis with whom Agdistis fall in love. But Attis wanted to marry the daughter of the king of Pessinus. Jealously Agdistis drove him into madness and he castrated himself like his father/mother.
Attis is equal to the eunuchs in the temple ministration of Kybele. These castrated priests were called Galli of which the Archigallus was the highest priest. The autocastration was forbidden for Romans priests. Because of that the cult of the Megale Meter (greek) resp.Magna Mater (lat. great Mother) was managed by non-romans, until the interdiction was cancelled by Claudius. After their emasculation the priests of Kybele were wearing coloured female clothes and decorations.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 02, 2006, 07:30:56 pm
(continued)

On 15.-28. March a spring festival was celebrated in honour of Kybele and Attis. The latter became Sun God. In the late Empire Kybele was seen as cosmic power of the heaven.
Part of the Kybele cult in later times was the Taurobolium. In this purgation ritus the devotee sat down in a dump, a bull or a ram was sacrificed above him and the blood gushed over him. Attributes of the goddess were corn-ears too, key, pomegranate, sceptre or cornucopiae.On her head she wears a crown with houses or towers. The cult symbol of Kybele in Pessinius was a unworked black stone meteorite. This stone later was brought to the Kybele temple on the Palatine in Rome. This black stone by modifications of her name is connected to the stone of the Kaaba in Mecca.

Rhea:
Already in early times Kybele was identified with the Greek goddess Rhea.. Rhea, daughter of Uranos and Gaia, was the wife of Kronos and became mother of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus. A real mother of gods! Kronos gorged all his children after birth because he was afraid of being disempowered by them. Due to the advices of her parents Uranos and Gaia Rhea gave birth to Zeus on Crete, in a cave of the Ida mountains, protected by the Kuretes and the noise made by the Korybants with their drums and flutes, nursed by the nymph or goat Amaltheia and so safe from his father Kronos. Rhea has given him a stone wrapped up in nappies instead of the infant. This stone was laying so heavy in his stomach that he spewed the stone together with the gorged children. This stone was erected by Zeus in Delphi after defeating his father Kronos and the Titans.

Background:
Kybele, mountain goddess from Asia Minor, that means pre-phrygean, with baetylic stone cult in the Phrygean Pessinus and several cave sanctuarities; from the 7th century BC patroness of the Lydian Mermnades in Sardeis with mountain cult on the Timolos mountain. Kybele is the most famous figure of the old anatolic, already prehistorical found chthonic Mother Goddess, which was called by the autochthonous people with the babble name Ma, Amma or Nana. In the area of Crete-Asia Minor-Northern Syria she developed several local figures becoming manifest in nearly unmanageable local hypostases. As 'Mountain Mother' or 'Mother of Gods' incorporated into the greek pantheon Kybele remained equal in character or akin to the Mysian Adrasteia, the Hurritic-Anatolean Hipta, the Dea Syria Atargatis, the Persian-Anatolic Artemis Anaitis, the Kilikian Artemis Parasia of Kastabala, finally the Phrygian MHTER IDAIA of the Troyan Aphrodite, mother of Aineias, and the Cretic-Minoic Rhea (where Ida are mountains of Asia minor, not the mountain on Crete!)

As another variant is added Attis, the priest lover of the goddess, who defeated by her power emasculates himself and so reminds of the phenomenon of Kybele's own androgynia which already was saved in Agdistis, while cultural-historical he is the archetype of the eunuch attendants of Kybele (Galloi) ecstatic agitated by music, dancing and bloody practices. Flutes, drums, rattels and timbals as stimulants of uncontrolled furor denominates symbolic the milieu in which the Kybele-Attis-cult in hellenestic times developed to a mystery religion and with the re-birthing and re-newing rites of the taurobolia spread over the whole world.

In Rome where Kybele was domiciled since the transfer of her cult stone from Pessinus in 204 BC was celebrated the annual festival of the Megalesia. The Romans regarded her as patroness of their Troyan ancestors; the Roman poets Lucretius, Catull and Ovid considered her as important like the greek epic Apollonios Rhodios before. Roman Empresses identified themselfes with Magna Mater - like here on this coin.

Her timeless figure outlasted the impact of Christianity and gave impulses to the early ecclesian worshipping of Maria in the scope of the montanistic heresia.

Sources:
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie
Der kleine Pauly
wikipedia.org
http://bebis.cidsnet.de/weiterbildung/sps/latein/exkursion/kybele.htm
http://www.sungaya.de/schwarz/griechen/kybele.htm

Added is a pic of the copy of a Kybele statue from a museum in Berlin.

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 04, 2006, 11:40:18 am
The Dioscurs - the divine pair of brothers

Moesia inferior, Markianopolis, Gordian III AD 238-244
AE 27, 10.98g
struck under the legate Menophilus
obv. M ANT GOR - DIANOC AVG
       bust, cuirassed, laureate, r., Aegis on l. shoulder
rev. VP MHNOFILOV M - ARKIANOP / OLIT
In front of a horse, standing l., with raised r. foot, one of the Dioscurs is standing facing, head l., wearing Phrygian hat, holding briddle in l. and sceptre in r. hand.
Pick 1091
good VF
Pedigree:
ex coll. Gordian III from George His
ex Lanz Auction 102 from 28. May 2002, lot 582
ex CNG Auction 132 from 1. Feb. 2006, lot 100

Mythology:
The Dioscurs (dios kuroi = sons of the god) Kastor and Polydeukes were sons of Zeus and Leda. Zeus fell in love with Leda and came to her in the shape of a swane. By his singing he beguile her. After this encounter Leda laid an egg, another egg was from her husband Tyndareus. This encounter is said to be on the Taygetos mountain (Kerenyi, p.86). From the eggs emerged Kastor, Polydeukes, Helena and Klytaimnestra, namely Polydeukes and Helena from the egg of Zeus, Kastor and Klytaimnestra from the egg of Tyndareus. That was the reason that Polydeukes was immortal, but Kastor mortal. There is another myth too which says that the egg was laid by Nemesis and given to Leda only to hatch it. Their birth took place on the island of Pephyos and Hermes has brought them to Pellanes to bring them up.  
 
The Dioscurs took part in the Hunt for the Calydonean Boar under Meleager. They were outstanding warriors and won prices at the Olympic Games too, Kastor as horseman, Polydeukes as fist fighter. Then they took part in the Journey of the Argonauts to Kolchis under Jason. During a heavy storm on sea above their heads a star appeared and the journey could be continued happily. Therefore they were suggested as patrons of the sailors (f.e. the voyage of Paulus to Syracuse, Acts of the Apostels, 28, 11: "After three months we left Alexandria by a ship, which had overwintered  near the island and keeps the signs of the twins."). When they were on the Journey of the Argonauts Theseus and Perithos abducted their sister Helena to Aphidna in Attica. But the Dioscurs were superior to them, conquered Aphidna, rescued Helena and captured Aethra, mother of Theseus

The end of the Dioscurs:
The end of the inseparable pair of brothers came by the fight against Idas and Lynkeus. The cause of the conflict were the daughters of Leukippos, Phoibe and Iliria (or it was a conflict about a cattle herd!). In any case Kastor was killed by Lynkeus who then was killed by Polyneikes. Zeus by throwing his thunderbolt avoided further killing of Polyneikes by Idas.
Polyneikes was mourning Kastor deeply and he begged Zeus to give his brother the same honour which he as immortal would get. And so Kastor and Polyneikes alternately (or together) were dead for one day and alive the other day (Homer, Odyssee 11, 298-304) or alternately for half a year. Finely they were put by Zeus on the sky as constellation of the Twins.

The Dioscurs were worshipped especially in Lakedaimon (Sparta) where the Dioskuria were celebrated in honour. They were venerated in many greek cities, but especially in Rome. It is said that Castor and Pollux have helped the Romans in a battle against the Latins and then have brought the news to Rome. Here their festival was on June 28. It is said too that the twins were seen at the battle of Aquae Sextiae against the Cimbers under Marius.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 04, 2006, 11:43:48 am
(continued)

Background:
There are different interpretations of the Diskuroi Castor and Pollux (Greek Kastor and Polyneikes) found in literature. The most famous is they are divine twins, sons of Zeus, worshipped in Greece long time before the invasion of the Dorian tribes to Greece. They are an inseparable pair in emergency cases, in battle or storm for help and rescue. They are not the only twin pair. There are similar twin pairs in Greece, the Apharetides Idas and Lynkeus in Messenia, the Aktoriones Kteatos and Eurytos in Elis, or Amphion and Zhetos in Biootia. Their origin is still unknown. The mythology thinks that the divine origin of the twin pairs is the inexplicable fact of the twin birth, which for the people in that time was a mystery, and therefore as father was declared Zeus or another divine subject. So they are found in India, at the Celts, the Germans and on Swedish rock paintings.

The earliest symbols of the Dioskuroi in Lakonia (Sparta) were two beams bound together or amphoras decorated with two coiling serpents. So some scholars are thinking the Dioskuroi in the beginning could be house spirits accompanying the kings of Sparta into the battle and so finally became chivalrous youths.

A very different opinion has Bethe, who thinks that the relation to Zeus is only secondary. Much older is their name Tyndaridoi, the sons of king Tyndareos. Bethe assumes that the twins in the origin were two different heroes, who later are melted together to a twin pair. Even Homer made distinctions between them: Kastor was horse tamer, whereas Polyneikes was fist fighter. There were differences in worshipping too. In Italy Castor was dominant. At the time of Cicero the temple of the Dioskuroi was called 'aedes Castoris'. The oath of the women 'mecastor' was much older than that of men 'edepol'. The cult of the Dioskuroi came to Rome by the legend that they have helped the Romans in the battle of Lake Regillus 499 BC and have brought the victorious news personally to Rome, where they gave water to their horses  at Lacus Iuturae. At this place on the Forum Romanum the temple of Castor and Pollux was erected. The stars above their hats (piloi) are from the end of the 4th century BC and are symbolizing the saving stars in shipwreck.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
http://www.sungaya.de/schwarz/griechen/dioskuren.htm

Added pictures:
1. Maxentius RIC VI, Ostia  16; C.10. Here you see the characteristic stars above the
    caps.
2. The sculptures of the Dioscurs on the Esquilin in Rome, which is called therefore
    Monte Cavallo (Horse Mountain). There were brought here by Pope Sixtus V in the
    midth of the 16th century and named as sculptures of Phidias and Praxiteteles. But
    that is incorrect. They are late-roman copies.
3. Peter Paul Rubens: The Rape of the Daughters of Leukippos, c.1616

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 06, 2006, 06:06:38 pm
Hermes - the frontier runner

Actually I have seen Hermes always as a boring god because his depiction on coins is mostly monotonous. He stands regularly with Caduceus in one hand and purse in the other. So I was curious because on this coin Hermes could be seen in a different attitude and remarkable with one foot on rocks. Again we meet the strange stone cult we have seen so often.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Gordian III AD 238-244
AE 27, 13.43g
struck under the legate Sabinius Modestus
obv. AVT KM ANTN - GORDIANOC AVG
       bust, laureate, cuirassed, with Gorgoneion on breastplate and Aegis on l. shoulder
      with erected snake heads.
rev. YP CAB MODECTOY NIKOPOLEITWN PROC ICTRON
       Hermes, nude, with Kerykeion in r. and purse in l. hand, standing l., r. foot on
       rock.
Varbanov 3328 (rev. same die); AMNG 2056 (rev. same die)
about EF, very rare bust variant, nice bright-green patina

1. Birth and first doings of Hermes
Referring to Hesiod Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia, daughter of Atlas. Already short time after his birth he crept out of his cradle and stole the herd of noble cows from Apollo.To deceive Apollo he has bound shoes from gras on the hoofs of the cows so that there was no trace to find. Meanwhile he has invented the lyre too. For that he has bend strings over the shell of a tortoise. When he played the lyre a nymph betrayed him to Apollo. Only in front of Zeus he confessed his deed. But Apollo was so enthusiastic because of the lyre that he changed it against the herd of cows. Afterwards Hermes invented the flute from reed. That Apollo changed too from him against his golden crook. This was the origin of the Kerykeion (lat. Caduceus), which later became the herald's staff. The snakes on it primarily were ties. Additionally Apollo taught him prophesy. Hermes is said to have invented the alphabet, astronomy, the scala of notes and the art of boxing and gymnastics. As once is said he was a real jack-of -all-trades!

Zeus appointed him messenger of the gods, gave him winged shoes and the Petasos, the winged hat (originally the winged messenger of gods was Iris!). He had to mediate between fighting parties (therefore he is the patron of the translators!), he was patron of the travelling people and of the traders (and the thieves too!). As Psychopompos he escorted the souls of the deads to the Hades, and as such he played an important role in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydike.  

One of his most infamous deeds was the murder of the giant Argos with hundred eyes. Zeus was fallen in love to Io. Hera detected this but Zeus denied his infidelity. To save Io from Hera he transformed her to a white cow. But Hera gave her to the giant Argos with the hundred eyes to watch over her. When Zeus sent Hermes to free her it was impossible because even sleeping some eyes of Argos were always open. But Hermes playing on a flute conjured all eyes to sleep, decapitated him and freed Io. Hera put the eyes of Argo into the tail feathers of the peacock. Hermes was accused for murder at the Olympics. But the gods voted for not guilty by threwing small stones to his feet so that a heap of stones was growing around him.

The British scholar R.F.Willets calls Hermes "for many reasons the most friendly, the most baffling, the most confusing, the most complex and therefore the most Greek of all gods."

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 06, 2006, 06:11:52 pm
(continued)

2. Hermes Trismegistos
While Hermes is seen as one of the earliest and most original greek gods he enjoyed so great popularity even belatedly that he must be seen as archetypus which was responsible to mediate between contradictions and to unify them. This anticipates his future part as master magician and alchemist as which he was obtained in Egypt and in Europe of the Renaissance. The origin of these important features was the development of a new Hermes worshipping in Egypt. Emerging from the three egyptian main archetypes of divinity we find three great forms of initiation religions which spread over the mediterranean coasts: The cults of the Mother Goddess Isis, the Victim God Osiris and the Wisdom God Hermes which all appears in different shapes. To the supreme and most esoteric of all Hermes developed as Trismegistos which was called also the one and only god. He played an important part at the Gnostics but also at Raimundus Lullus, Paracelsus and the mystics f.e. Meister Eckhard or Jacob Böhme. Because this kind of religion was open only for the adept our word 'hermetic' means 'closed'.

3. Background
The name Hermes today is derived from greek herma, hermaion, meaning heap of stones. These are found on Crete and other regions of Greece. In this sense Hermes would be the personification of a hill mark made of many stones resp. of the monolithic pole which originally was sticking out of the heap as type of the 'pole idol' or the animated phallos in the domain of aniconic stone cult. From this ancient kind of stone depictions originated the so-called 'herms', stone columns with a bust above. The origin and the primal meaning of these objects is controversial. So I don't know wether there is any connection to the menhires in the Bretagne or on Malta. Anyway if you see in Hermes the numen of the frontier, grave or doorway stone the important functions of the guardian of the doors and gates, of the ways and the wanderer, the frontier runner and nightly companion (into the world of the deads too) are addressed. Whereas the obvious secondary aetiology as voice stone in connection with the interpretation of the stoneheap as curse or expiation mark points back to the connection  between the underworld relation of Hermes and his ability to eliminate way and life menacing monsters (f.e. as Argeiphontes the killer of Argos). As god of the shepherds he was the guardian of the heards aginst wild beasts. His care for the herd's animals who as Kriophoros carried back a lost sheep was the paradigm for the Good Shepherd a picture which later was taken for Christ.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Pseudo-Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology

As additional pics I have chosen
1) the famous relief which shows Orpheus and Eurydike together with Hermes as Psychopompos. It is a Roman copy of a Greek original from about 420 BC probably from the Agora of Athens, now in the Villa Albani, Rome.
2) and the famous herm with the bust of Sokrates.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 07, 2006, 10:27:08 am
Melikertes and the Isthmian Games

Corinth, Marcus Aurelius AD 161-180
AE 25, 11.25g
obv. M AVR AN[TONI] - NVS A[VG]
      bust, laureate, r.
rev. CLI - COR
      The young Melikertes laying on a dolphin, swimming r., behind a pine-tree(?)
SNG Copenhagen 329; Lindgren 1619; BCD 700; Edwards 150, pl.IV
rare, good F-about VF, green-brown patina

Corinth at this time was a Roman colony, therefore the Latin inscriptions. The revers legend CLI - COR is solved to COLONIA LAUS IULIA CORINTHUS.

1. Mythology
With this coin we come to the myths around the Thebean king Kadmos and his daughters. Melikertes was the son of Athamas and Ino, one of Kadms' daughters. Kadmos, king of Theben in Boiotia, had four daughters with his wife Harmonia: Agaue, Autonoe, Ino and Semele, mother of Dionysos. Ino was married to Athamas, king of Orchomenos, at first married to Nephele, who vanished one day, but left him two children, Phrixos and Helle. These stepchildren Ino pursued with hate. She convinced the women to roast their seed and to make Phrixos responsible for the following bad harvest. But Nephele appeared and abducted her children by a ram with golden fleece. On the flight with the winged ram Helle fell down into the sea which is named by her Hellespont (the todays Dardanelles). Phrixos came to Kolchis and hung the Golden Fleece on a tree for Ares.

Ino had two childen from Athamas, Learchos and Melikertes. After the death of her sister Semele, Hermes brought to her the child Dionysos to nurse him. She dressed him as a girl to deceive Hera, who from all illegitime sons of her husband most hated Dionysos and Herakles. Hera drove Ino mad, Ino vanished in the wilderness and Hermes gave Dionysos to the nymphs of Nyssa disguised as baby goat. Athamas married a third time, Themisto, who gave birth to many sons. One day Ino returned cured from her madness and unrecognized became nurse at Themisto. Themisto, jealous of Ino's children (like Ino of Nepheles' children), decided to kill them. But Ino deceived Themisto by changing the diapers and she killed her own children and finally herself.

But Hera pursued Ino furthermore with her fury. She commanded Tisiphone, one of the Erinys, to beat Athamas and Ino with madness. After that Athamas killed his son Learchos seeing him as a wild beast, and Ino jumped with Melikertes in her arms from a cliff into the sea. Sisyphos, brother of Athamas, found the body of Melikertes and founded in honour of him the Isthmian Games in Corinth (referring to others Melikertes was landing with a dolphin at the coast of Corinth). Aphrodite, grandma of Ino, begged Poseidon to help her and he transformed Ino into the Sea-goddess Leukothea and Melikertes into the Sea-god Palaimon. Leukothea later played an important role when she helped Odysseus when he was lost in the sea (Ovid Met. IV, 416ff.)
Palaimon became patron of the sailors and was equated in this function with the Roman god Portunus.

2. Background
Melikertes-Palaimon had his cult in Corinth. The missing of archaelogic evidence from Greek times has misled some scholars to assume that this cult was a Roman invention. But there is an ode from Pindar to the Isthmian Games where Melikertes is mentioned. Pausanias could see only the Roman buildings but he reports that the body of Melikertes was concealed in the Palainionion. He was the heroe of the Isthmian Games besides Poseidon. These games were one of the four panhellenic games:
1) the Isthmian Games at Corinth
2) the Pythean Games at Delphi, each year before and after the Olympic Games
3) the Nemean Games at Nemea (northwest of Argos)
4) and the Olympic Games at Olympia.
The Isthmian Games are well-known to Germans by Schiller's ballade 'Die Kraniche des Ibykus'.
Sometimes it is said that because of the etymological similarity of the words there are relations to Melquart, Lord of the Cities. Referring to that the cult of Melikertes was brought to Greece by Phoenicean sailors (look at the allusion of the Melikertes' landing on a dolphin at the coast of Corinth). But this interpretation is denied by 'der kleine Pauly'.

Sources:
- Ovid Met. IV, 426 ff.
- Der kleine Pauly
- Robert Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
- for the Isthmian Games:
  http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/isthmia/publications/hero/hero.html
- for the archaeologic excavations of the University of Chicago near Corinth:
  http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/isthmia/isthmia.html
  Here you could find nice computer generated 3D-pics of the temple area of Melikertes-
  Palaimon near Corinth

I have added a pic of the phase V of this temple from about AD 161/169. It is a nice small round temple left of the great Poseidon temple which you can see right above.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 10, 2006, 09:09:19 pm
Omphale - owner and lover of Herakles

Here I want to present a Provincial coin of Maionia in Lydia. It shows a motive belonging to the myths around Herakles, but more rare than those depicting the 12 famous well-known deeds of Herakles. Sadly the pic is not very nice (and the preservation of the coin too is not the best), therefore I will change it, when I got a better one. Today I got a better one and have changed the pic.

AE19, 4.67g
struck in the time of Faustina jun. when Appa was strategos for the third time
obv. MAIO - NWN
       bearded head of Herakles, l.
rev. CTR TO G - APPA (starting on upper right)
      Omphale, advancing r., holding club over l. shoulder and lion skin.
BMC 20
rare, about VF, brown patina with some earthen highlights


1. Mythology:
This myth leads us into the time after the 12 famous deeds of Herakles. Eurytos, King of Oichalia, had promised his daughter Iole to whom who was able to beat him in a archery conquest. Herakles tried and beat him. But Eurytos refused the delivery of his daughter. Herakles in his rage destroyed Oichalia, raped Iole and killed Iphitos, the son of Eurytos. Then he went to Delphi to ask the oracle and to purify from murder. But Pythia didn't answer, which made Herakles so furious that he seized Apollo's tripod. Apollo had to struggle with Herakles for the sacrified tripod. Because of this crime Herakles was sentenced to do service as a slave. Hermes brought him on a slave market and there he was bought by Omphale, queen of Lydia. For her he performed several heroic deeds, but had to spin wool and to wear female clothes too. Furthermore he became lover of Omphale. He resisted Sileus, who usually forced people passing by to work in his vineyard, killed him and devastated his vineyard. He took the caudate Kerkopes, two funny but predacious dwarfs, which want to steal his weapons. And finally he shot the huge snake Ophiuchos. After three years he was released by Omphale. He left her and continued in fighting giants and other phantastic beings.

2. Background:
Omphale, daughter of Iordanos, as successor of her husband Tmolos was the mythical queen of the Lydians (Maionians). Because of the murder of Iphitos and the fight against Apollo for the Delphic tripod Herakles had to be selled as slave to Omphale and to serve for 3 years and to pay monetary fine to Eurytos. In this time were laid the capture of the Kerkopes, the overcoming of Sileus and Herakles' participation in the journey of the Argonauts up to Kios. It is said that Herakles had 2 sons by Omphale, Lamos and Agelas. These two were considered as ancestors of the Lydian Mermnades (Gyges to Kroisos). These genealogic attempts were arguably the main reason that the myth of Herakles and Omphale was transferred from Malis and Trachis to Lydia. In this myth the idea of a 'employment marriage' in the social order of the matriarchy is expressed. The changing of clothes (Omphale with club and lion-skin, Herakles with female clothes and activities) based upon cult rites. Both motives gave reason to comedy and satyr-drame to show this myth in the sense of erotic dependence. (Ov. fast. 2, 305ff.)
To interpret Omphale as primal Earth- and Death-Goddess is very questionable.
From 'Der kleine Pauly'

Omphale is the female form of Omphalos = umbilicus, navel. Ranke-Graves therefore assumes that Omphale is identical with Pythia, the guardian of the Delphic Omphalos, and that Herakles had to serve her as Hierodule, as temple servant. The transfer of the myth from Delphi to Lydia was much later done by the mythographs. The story is related to an early phase of  the development of the Holy Kingship from matriarchy to patriarchy when the king as husband of the queen was allowed to replace her in ceremonies and sacrificing but only wearing her dresses. Reveillout has shown that this was practice in early Sumeric times in Lagasch. And in numerous Cretic artworks men are seen which wear female clothes for sacrificial rites - not only the spotted trouser skirt as on the sarkophagus of Hagia Triada, but the broad skirt as on the palace fresco of Knossos.   
From 'Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology'

Other sources:
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

I have added the famous painting 'Hercules and Omphale' of Lucas Cranach the Elder from AD 1537. It unfortunately was destroyed 1945 by the impact of war.
 
Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Noah on February 12, 2006, 12:09:36 am
Jochen,
You have invested lots of time in these posts.  I appreciate the information because it has taught me quite alot!
Best, Noah
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 13, 2006, 07:04:25 pm
The snake cult of Alexander of Abounoteichos (called the FALSE PROPHET)

To avoid withdrawal symptoms here a new contribution. It is a coin of Geta from Augusta Trajana.

Geta AD 209-211
AE 30, 16.5g
obv. AVT KP CEPT - IMOC GETAC
        Bust, cuirassed, seen from behind, radiate, r.
rev. AVGOVCTHC - TRAIANHC
      Snake in four elaborate coils erecting, with nimbus and radiated
not in Varbanov

On ancient coins we find many depictions of snakes. I remind of the snake as attribute of Salus, or the famous Cistophori where a snake is climbing out of a Cista mystica, the snake basket, belonging to the cult of Dionysos and playing an important role in the  Eleusinic Mysteries too. But this is not the matter with the snake on this coin.

There is some evidence that the snake erecting here in four elaborated coils and has a radiate head with nimbus is Glykon, the Snake God. This god was invented in the midth of the 2nd century AD by the Greek prophet Alexander of Abounoteichos. This we know from the books of the Greek author Lukian of Samosate (c. 120- c. 190 AD). In one of his scripts he mocks in a cracking mode the charlatan which he calls Alexander the oracle trader. Apart from his affronts we can accept that this cult, at least the snake which was worshipped by Alexander, has its origin in Macedonia, where snake cults are known since the 4th century BC. It is told f.e. that the mother of Alexander the Great became pregnant after sleeping with a snake. The prophet Alexander brought the god, a very great snake, to his home city Abounoteichos in Paphlagonia and built up a temple which became then a famous oracle.

An interesting inscription was found in Caesarea Trocetta in Asia Minor which mentions an Apollo priest which calls himself 'Miletus, son of Glykon and Paphlagonia'. Perhaps the parents of this man couldn't create children and visited the temple of Glykon after which the wife was pregnant. Children being born in this manner by divine intervention often got the name of the god to commemorate his help. So this inscription confirms to a certain extent the claim of Lukian that the charlatan Alexander has helped the women to become pregnant in a much more profane sense.

Numerous votive donations, statues and coins found in the whole area between Danube and Euphrat prove that the cult of the Snake God was still alive at least one century after the death of the prophet. Alexander which finally was seen as son of Podalirus and great-son of Asklepios(!) received after his death religious honours and was considered as prophet of  the god himself. 

His big success in inventing a new religious cult seems to be symptomatic for the change in religious conception off from the traditional belief which escalated in the late 2nd and 3rd century and culminated in the rise of Christianity.

I have added a pic of a sculpture from the museum of Constanzia/Romania (the ancient Tomis) which closely matches the Snake God Glykon. It is from Pat Lawrence. You see that this snake has a more human- or lion-like head. About this snake Lukian writes:
"Then long before they had prepared a snake head from linen and completed which had  a kind of human appearence, which was full painted and which looked very alive. It could open and close the mouth by using horse-hairs, and a cloven tongue also controlled by horse-hairs could be outstretched."

Literature:
Lukian of Samosata, Alexandros or the False Prophet

Online information:
1) http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/lucian_alexander.htm
2) http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/gregorov/hadrian/hadr215.htm
3) How to invent a new cult? (German)
    http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:GhAtty4VaisJ:archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/volltexte/2004/5103/pdf/ChaniotisAlex.pdf+glycon+lukian+heidelberg&hl=de

Thanks to Pat Lawrence for her invaluable help.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 14, 2006, 06:52:53 am
A curious depiction of Asklepios

The next coin has some relations to the last contribution about the Snake God. Therefore I will put it here. The explanation of the reverse is still unclear. It is a coin of Caracalla from Pautalia struck ca. 202-205 due to his youthfull portrait.
 
AE 28
obv. AV KM AVP CEV - ANTWNINOC
        Youthful, beardless bust, laureate, drapery over l. shoulder
rev. OVLPIAC P / AVTALIAC / C in three lines
       Asklepios, bearded, laureate, head r., nude to hips, holding snake-rod in his l. arm,
       sitting l. between the wings of a dragon (or winged snake) with beard and fish-tail,
       which in several coils is flying r. With his raised r. hand he holds the wings
Ruzicka 616 var. (only rev., different obv. legend); Mionnet cf. 1084
very rare, good VF

Mythological background:
This depiction could not be related to the usual snake cults. This depiction has no match in the whole ancient numismatics. Even if the coin 'Melquart galopping on a winged hippocampus r.' due to the similarity of the idea could be consulted for comparing and also the 'Nereid on a winged dragon' on the famous Aktaeon-sarcophagus in the Louvre, it is not thinkable that Pautalia could have taken the paradigm for this coin from that. More likely I (that is Ruzicka!) want to see this winged snake joined with Asklepios in connection with the False Prophet Alexander of Abounoteichos as he is called by Lukian, as incarnation of the Snake God Glykon, for which Alexander by his juggleries and the propaganda throughout the whole Empire could attract so many believers that even in his city Abounoteichos coins were issued with the snake and the legend Glykon.

This Glykon issue occured under Antoninus Pius whereas the coins of Pautalia appeared not before Marcus Aurelius. The oracle of the Asklepios-Glykon was in great veneration yet in the time of Marcus and Verus, so that their strategos Severianus didn't  despised to ask it before he started fighting against the Parthians. It is not impossible that in the Asklepeion of Pautalia an original votive panel or a copy of a votive image of another cult sanctuary has existed which has shown the dragon depiction we can see repeatedly on coins.

From 'Leo Ruzicka, Die Münzen von Pautalia, Sofia 1933'

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 18, 2006, 09:58:43 am
The heritage of Greek mythology in modern literature

The Greek mythology as a vast theatre of human passions, emotions and fates since ancient times has inspired artists of all genres to create their famus works. So in our modern time too a great number of authors has choosen themes and motives for their works. Some important works of world literature are amongst them. I have compiled a list which by no means is complete.

- Jean Anouilh, Eurydice (1942), Antigone (1944), Orest (1945), Medea (1946)
- Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Firebrand (1987)
- Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942)
- Jean Cocteau, Orphee (1926), La machine infernale (1936), Bacchus (1951)
- Joseph d'Arbaud, Pan im Vacares (1926)
- Vitorio do Canto, Orpheu negro (1956)
- Theodor Dreiser, The Titan (1914)
- Andre Gide, Oedipe (1932), Persephone (1934), Thesee (1946)
- Jean Giraudoux, Amphitryon 38 (1929), La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (1935), 
   Pour Lucrece (1953)
- Gerhart Hauptmann, Iphigenie in Aulis (1943), gamemnons Tod (1947), Elektra
   (1947), Iphigenie in Delphi (1941), Der Bogen des Odysseus (1914)
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Ödipus und die Sphinx (1906)
- Hans Henny Jahn, Medea (1926)
- Robinson Jeffers, Medea (1947)
- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
- Nikos Kazantzakis, Odissia (1938)
- Oskar Kokoschka, Orpheus und Eurydike (1915/16)
- Pär Lagerkvist, Sibylle (1956)
- Joan Margall i Gorinna, Nausica (1912)
- Eugene O'Neill, Mourning becomes Elektra (1931)
- Ezra Pound, The Cantos (1948)
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonette an Orpheus (1923)
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mouche (1943)
- George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1913/14)
- Giorgios Theotakas, Argo (1936)
- Kostas Varnalis, Diary of Penelope (1947)
- Frank Wedekind, Die Büchse der Pandora (1902)
- Thornton Wilder, Alkestiade (1955)
- Tennesseee Williams, Orpheus descending (1957)
- Christa Wolf, Kassandra (1983)

May be one or the other who reads this list go for one!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 22, 2006, 04:52:57 pm
The madness of Aias the Great

Here I have one of the few coins which have as subject the Trojan War. I am proud to be able to present it here!

Bithynia, Prusa ad Olympum, Caracalla AD 198-217
AE 25
obv. AVT KM AVR AN - TWNINOC CEB
        bust, laureate, r.
rev. PRO - VCAEW - N
       Aias, nude, helmeted, kneels on r. knee l., l. leg stretched behind,
       holding with r. hand sword against his belly to throw itself in his sword;
       heap of rocks before and round shield below him.
BMC Bithynia, p.197, 22
very rare, nice patina

Mythology:
The revers shows a famous scene of the Trojan War, the suicide of Aias the Great. Aias (Latin Aiax) was the son of king Telamon of Salamis, therefore called 'the Telamonian' too. He was called Aias the Great in contrary to Aias the Lesser, the son of king Oileus of Lokris, therefore called 'the Locrian'. Aias the Great was the bravest heroe behind Achilleus in front of Troy. He wounded Hektor in duel, he could repel the attack of the Trojans against the Greek ships and he helped to save the body of Patroklos. After Achilleus was killed by a poisoned arrow of Paris who hit his only vulnerable point, his heel, Aias wore his body from the slaughter field and then required Achilleus' weapons for himself. But a greek jury awarded them to Odysseus. In his rage Aias wanted to kill all Greeks. But Athena beat him with madness and he killed a whole herd of sheep. When he came to consciousness again and saw what he had done because of shame he throw itself in his sword. From his blood arose a flower, the delphinium, from whose petals one could read AI, the first letters of his name and a greek cry of soreness too.

Background:
The madness which caused Aias to massacre a herd of sheep doesn't occure on Homer. But this subject is broad worked out by Aischylos, in Sophokles' 'Aias' and in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The myth of the origin of the flower from
Aias' blood was introduced by Ovid because the story should match his Metamorphoses by this transformation motiv.
A tomb of Aias stood on the Rhoiteic Cape. At Salamis he was worshipped as divine; here and in Athens the Aianteia, the fest of Aias, was celebrated; the attic phyle Aiantis has a preferred position.
The fact that there were two Aias has baffled me when I read the greek myths for the first time. Now the scholars Robert and v.d.Mühll assumed, that the two Aias originated by doubling or splitting a single being. The separation of these figures would be promoted by the fact that most of the divine saviours appear as pairs.

I have added a pic of the famous 'Torso of Belvedere', a work of the great greek artist Apollonius of Athens in the 1st century BC, now standing in the Musei vaticani in Rome. It could be identified by supplementation as sculpture of Aias who is throwing itself in his sword.

Source:
- Ovid, Metamorphoses Lib.XII 624 - Lib.XIII 398
- Der kleine Pauly
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und
   Heroen in der Kunst
- Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on February 22, 2006, 06:13:54 pm
Generally regarded as the most profound and unforgettable depiction of the compulsive madness of the suicidal Ajax (but not so frequently seen, being in a small museum), here is the Boulogne amphora.  It is nearly a century earlier than Sophokles' tradgedy, and it triumphs stupendously over what frivolous writers regard as a limited technique: black figure, incised silhouette, vase-painting.  Sir John Beazley, in his famous Sather Classical Lectures, said, "Exekias is alone in showing not the dead hero, or the moment of his death, but the slow preparation for the final act...The face--and this is rare in black-figure--is furrowed with grief." The Development of Attic Black-Figure, Ch. VI (page number differs in the two editions).  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 22, 2006, 06:47:38 pm
Thanks, Pat, for sharing this beautiful painting of Exekias! There is another famous painting of Exekias too where he shows Achilleus and Aias in a more peaceful situation playing a board game. It is now in the Musei Vaticani.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 27, 2006, 09:30:48 am
Kronos - father of gods

CILICIA, Flaviopolis, Domitian. AD 81-96
AE 18, dated ZI =17 (AD 89/90)
obv. DOMETIANOC KAICAP
        laureate head right
rev. ETOVC ZI FLAVIOPOLEITWN
       veiled head of Kronos right, harpa at his shoulder
SNG Levante 1531; RPC II 1760; BMC Lycaonia -; SNG Copenhagen 136; SNG von Aulock 5558. rare, about EF

Harpa is the old poetic name for a denticulated sickle. This and the veiled head are his attributes.

There is much confusion about Kronos. The Romans has identified him with Saturn, and already in ancient times he was melted with Chronos, the god of time.

Kronos
Kronos, son of Gaia and Uranos, was the youngest but most violent Titan. He overthrew his father Uranos by mutilating him by a sickle given him by his mother Gaia because Uranos had hidden als their children deep in the earth. Then he married his sister Rhea and became father of Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, the third generation of gods. Because he was said to be overthrown by one of his children he devoured them immediately after the birth. Instead of the last born Zeus Rhea gave him a swaddled stone and hid Zeus in a cave on Crete. Kronos regorged the stone and his swallowed children too. This stone thereafter was set up in Delphi as omphalos of the world. Zeus gave his father Kronos the same fate Kronos had given to Uranos, he mutilated him and send him to Tartaros. Later he was made the master of the Elysean Fields.

Saturn
He was an old deity of agriculture and ruled over the Capitolium once called mons Saturnius. He too was dethroned by Jupiter and had to leave the Capitol. His reign was
a happy time and obtained as the Golden Age. To honour Saturn the Saturnalia were celebrated, a carefree festival beginning on December 17, where the masters had to serve their slaves. Saturn too has a sickle as attribute and adopted the veil from Kronos.

Chronos
Chronos is the personification of time. He is found at Solon and Pindar, Sophokles and others. All these places are philosophical and religious speculations later spread under the influence of the Orphic and the Mysteries.These movements held Chronos for more than a symbol of becoming and changing namely one of the primordial gods of the kosmos. The melting with Kronos was due to the etymological similarity of their names and the fact that like Kronos devouring his children Chronos is devouring the time.

Some background
Kronos is an old, pre-hellenic god. His name probably can be connected with the semitic Baal Qarnaim, master of the two mountain peaks. So the mountain cult of the Elean priest-kings of the Kronos-hill in Olympia and the worshipping of Kronos by the Lycians and Solymers in Asia Minor matches this thesis. The archaic character of Kronos and his  myths, the linking with the mediterranean Earth- and Mother Goddess, confirms the suggestion that an old anatolic Height God was repelled by the indogermanic Zeus. His instrument, the denticulated sickle, a conglomerate of lunate mowing knife and short crooked fighting sword, touches in its complexity the Roman Sickle God Saturn which is enrooted in the etruscean-phrygean culture (see 'Satrapes-Sadrapa'). The Saturnalia whith its fairy character reminds on the paradisiac situations of the Golden Age. So perhaps by these associations Kronos was made the Master of the Elysinean Fields.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology

Attached is
1) The relief from the western pediment of the Artemis temple in Korfu showing Zeus and
     Kronos
2) the famous painting of Francisco de Goya 'Saturn Devouring One of His Sons' from 1819/23
    now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 28, 2006, 05:27:44 pm
Asteria - the Star Goddess

Here I want to present a coin of Philadelphia. Now there are several different cities called Philadelphia. This at first has made me trouble in attributing the coin. Actually it is a coin of the arabic Philadelphia. Today it is Amman the metropole of Jordan. In the time the coin was struck it belonged to the Dekapolis. Arabia was made Roman provincia in AD 106.

Syria, Dekapolis, Philadelphia, Commodus AD 177-192
AE 22, 7.52g
obv. L AVR KOM - MODOC KAIC
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, bare-head, r.
rev. FIL K CV - THEA ACTERIA
      Bust of Asteria, draped and veiled, r.; star above
Spijkerman 32
rare, about VF

FIL K CV should be decoded to FILADELFEWN KOILHC CYRIAC

Mythology:
Asteria as daughter of the Titan Koios and Phoibe was a Titan herself. Her sister was Leto (Apollod. 1, 8 and 21). She was married to Perses and by him she became mother of Hekate (Hesiod. Theog. 409). Jupiter fell in love to her, but Asteria refused him. The revengeful Jupiter transformed her into a quail and threw her in the sea where the island Ortygia emerged from her. Ortygia has its name from 'ortyx', that is greek for quail (Hygin Fab. 53).
Another version tells that Asteria herself has wished to be transformed into a quail, and as bird to escape from Jupiter over the sea, but Jupiter transformed her into a stone and she fell down into the water and was hidden for a long time. But Leto could rescue her by begging the gods for her sister.
For the first time Asteria or Ortygia was a swimming island until Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis. Then the island was fixed and called Delos.(Pind. pae. 65, 4; Kallim. Hymn. 4, 36)
Ovid tells (Metam. VI, 108) that Asteria was raped by Jupiter in the shape of an eagle, and (Metam. XV, 337) that Ortygia was a swimming island. I don't understand why Ovid had not added the motiv of the transformation which would match his subject much better.
Asteria is depicted on the Altar of Pegamon as participant of the Battle of Titans together with Phoibe, Leto and Hekate. She is named by an inscription.

A little background:
The main god of Philadelphia was Herakles-Melqart. In the time of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus additional coins with Asteria reverses occured. Asteria is said to have given birth to the Phoinicean Herakles by Zeus and so became mother of Herakles- Melqart (according to Cicero and Eudoxos of Knidos). Generally Asteria is seen as hellenized form of Astarte and so by the greek name her astral character is emphasized. This is expressed too on the coin by the star above her head.
In contrary Astarte is paredros of the Phoinicean Herakles. It is suggested that Astarte was already the paredros of the Ammonitic State God Milkom who is obtained as ancestor of Melqart in the Iron Time. Unknown is wether the inhabitants of Philadelphia considered Asteria/Astarte to be their City Goddess. If that was true then the depicted Tyche was only another depiction of our goddess.
The higher denominations always show Herakles motives but Asteria is to be found on the third highest denomination even at Elagabal. This could be another advice for her role as City God.

Paredros = A daimon who accompanies the gods and assists the human. He acts as a substitute for his god. So the bulls Apis and Mnevis stood for Osiris in the Underworld. Selene was accompanied by twelve paredroi which were the twelve hours of night. Humans too have these protection spirits. The famous Daimonion of Sokrates was such a spirit. This idea is the base of the Christian belief in angels.

I have added a pic of the Pergamon Altar showing the concerning detail. This pic comes from the site of the Institut für Klassische Archaeologie der Universität Erlangen known as AERIA. This site was recently in a poll at the Forum. It is highly recommended. It contains one of the biggest collection of photos of ancient artworks.

Sources: 
Hederich, gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
Der kleine Pauly
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:nnv6iZ02KvQJ:www.diss.fu-berlin.de/2005/155/Kapitel3Philadelphia.pdf+elagabal+philadelphia+asteria&hl=de&gl=de&ct=clnk&cd=1
http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~p1altar/aeriahome.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 03, 2006, 04:27:17 pm
Perseus and Andromeda

I couldn't resist to add this coin to my collection because of its important mythological theme.

Cilicia, Coropissos, Maximinus I AD 235-238
AE 32, 15.62g
obv. AVT KG IOVH - MAXIMEINOC
      bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, r.
rev. KOROPICCEWN THC KHTWN MHTROPOLEW
      Perseus, nude except chlamys, stg. l., holding harpe and head of Medusa in his l. hand,
      clasping hands with Andromeda, stg. r. in long chiton, holding with her l. hand fold of her
      garment under her chin; below Perseus the sea-monster Ketos.
SNG Levant 590; SNG Levante Supp. 157 (this ex.); SNG France 770; this obv. die was used in Philadelphia too, see SNG Levante 580
rare, about VF, brown-green patina

The myth of Perseus is one of the most beautiful myths of ancient times. From all of his several adventures here only the detail of the freeing of Andromeda should be of interest. This subject was very popular already in ancient times as could be seen on ancient wall paintings and mosaics. Naturally many artists have adopted this theme too since Renaissance until present days. I think it is very attractive to depict a nude defenceless young girl saved by a strong heroe.

Perseus, the heroe of Argolis, was the son of Zeus and Danae. After defeating the Gorgo Medusa helped by Athena and cutting her head he was on the way back to Argos. Besides the head of Medusa which turned everyone into stone who looked at it, he had several other magic things: The harpe, a adamantine sickle from Hermes, golden sandals from the nymphs by which he was able to flight, a helmet of invisibility from Hades and the
kisibis, a bag for Medusa's head.

When he was just above Phoenicia he beheld from his height a nude young girl chained to a rock at the seaside. That was Andromeda, daughter of the Aethopean king Kepheus of Joppe and his wife Kassiopeia. Because Kassiopeia regarded herself for more beautiful than the ocean nymphs, the nereids, and was bragging with that, Poseidon was revenging his daughters by inducing big floods in Phoenicia and sending the terrible sea-monster Ketos. The oracle of Ammon promised rescue from these menaces only if the innocent Andromeda would be sacrificed to Ketos. Kepheus even though reluctant let chain Andromeda at a rock on the beach of the ocean. When Perseus saw her he fell in in love with her and promised to save Andromeda if she was given to him as his wife. When Ketos appeared Perseus went up in the sky so deceiving Ketos by the shadow on the water-surface, then jumped at him and cut his head with his sickle-knife.

When after Andromeda's rescue a great wedding ceremony took place Phineus, brother of Kepheus, her uncle, appeared and declared older rights on Andromeda. Probably he was called by Kassiopeia who didn't wish to see Perseus as her son-in-law. An awfull massacre of the party guests started until finally Perseus transformed all enemies to stones using the head of Medusa.

After that Perseus and Andromeda lived in Argos. By one of their sons, Elektryon, they became ancestors of Herakles. Another of their sons, Perses, became ancestor of the Persian kings, a fact which was used for propaganda when the Persians attacked Greece under Dareios.

Ketos is Greek for whale. So this sea-monster reminds on the whale which swallowed Hiob in the Old Testament. It is reported that the bones of Ketos were found near Joppe (todays Jaffa) by the Romans and Marcus Aemilius Scaurus had brought them to Rome.

The story of Perseus is put together by several different strings of fairy tales. Many motives resemble the stories of Thousand-And-One-Nights. They are full of orientalic narrating pleasure. Already Homer mentioned Perseus in his Ilias (XVI 319f.) and Hesiod reports the death of Medusa in his Theogonia (270-286). There is an amphora from the 7th century BC with the motiv of Perseus and Andromeda too (Eleusis, museum).
 
Andromeda, like Perseus, Kassiopeia and Ketos were set to the sky already by hellenistic poets, Kassiopeia in a basket which in some seasons is shown upside-down as  punishment for her betrayal.

Sources:
Ovid Met. IV, 663-752
Apollod. 2, 4, 3

I have added two pics:

1) The most beautiful picture in my opinion with this motiv, a wall painting from the 1st century BC found in the Casa dei Dioscuri in Pompeji (Naples, Museo Nazionale). It is a copy of an original from the 4th century BC.

2) Then the pic of a mosaic from Zeugma in Anatolia. Zeugma somtimes is called a second Pompeji because of its wonderful mosaics. Perhaps it is new for some Forum's members: Zeugma now is disappearing - despite the massive protest of scientists and the public of the whole world - under the water of a huge storage lake which was built by Turkey at the upper Euphrat. 

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on March 04, 2006, 02:29:11 pm
In case someone had a perfect one, I waited a day.  The Deultum coin, though, is remarkable.
09 08 02 AE24  Thrace, Deultum.  Macrinus, laureate (ribbons), bust in armor and cloak, to r.  The obv. legend should be IMP C M OPEL SEV MACRINUS AVG.  Rev., Perseus, with harpe, holding the head of Medusa in his l., reaches up to Andromeda, still manacled to the rock, to free her left arm; the sea serpent cowers at their feet.  Certainly inspired by the famous composition attributed to Nikias, but Perseus does not raise his r. foot on the rock.  He does seem to wear winged boots.  COL FL PAC  |   DEULT.  Jurukova 1973, no. 61; Varbanov II (Bulg.) no. 1844 = Lanz 92, June 1999, no. 891.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: gordian_guy on March 04, 2006, 05:21:11 pm


I know that mine is another Deultum like Pat's but I would like to show it off anyway!

Mine is a Gordian III  depicting the same scene.

c.rhodes
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Akropolis on March 06, 2006, 09:29:15 am
Wonderful coin, Gordian_guy!!!
PeteB
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 07, 2006, 09:58:24 am
HELIOS
Rhodos, Caria, West Asia Minor, c. 394 - c. 333 B.C.

12264. Silver didrachm, ANS DB 1944.100.48605, SNG Cop -, BMC -, SNG Von Aulock, SNG Helsinki -, VF, 6.649g, 19.2mm, 0o, Rhodos mint, head of Helios three-quarter facing to right; reverse RODION, rose with bud on stem to right, bee on left, magistrate name above, NI lower left; rare.

This variety is missing from the major references and collections, except the American Numismatic Society collection.


This is a coin that I am sure is familiar.  The obverse device is, of course, Helios.  "He was represented as a youth with a halo, standing in a chariot, occasionally with a billowing robe. A metope from the temple of Athena in the Hellenistic Ilium represents him thus. He is also shown on more recent reliefs, concerning the worship of Mithra, such as in the Mithraeum under the St. Prisca at Rome. In early Christian art, Christ is sometimes represented as Helios, such as in a mosaic in Mausoleum M or in the necropolis beneath the St. Peter in Rome " (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/helios.html). "Helios was known by the name Sol in Roman mythology" (http://www.loggia.com/myth/myth.html).  "There are indications that he [Constantine the Great] was already in a state of grave religious uncertainty, and was increasingly tending towards monotheism: after 310 his coins depict one god only--Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun--of whom Constantine also claimed to have had a vision some years before" (Norwich, John Julius. A Short History of Byzantium. London: Viking, 1997. 7).
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 07, 2006, 02:42:15 pm
Thanks, Cleisthenes, for your contribution! Naturally Sol/Helios is one of the most depicted deities especially since the times of Aurelian and then as forerunner of the Christianism. Very interesting is the question wether SOL INVICTVS is identical to Mithras. I think yes! We have had a nice thread about that subject here https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=15637.msg105586#msg105586

The pic shows an altar for Mithras found in England where no differences could be found to Sol. The dedication is: For DEO INVICTO MITRAE.

From the description:
On the front of the shaft is the relief of the torso of Mithras rising from the Living Rock. He wears a cloak and a radiate crown, the rays of which are cut through to a hollow niche at the back of the altar in which an oil lamp would have been placed; when lit the light of the lamp would have shone through the openings into the gloom of the Mithraeum. Mithras's link with the sun is further emphasized by the Sun God's Whip which he holds in his right hand.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 08, 2006, 06:37:48 am
The Ephesian Boar

This is a rather inconsiderable coin, an AE17 of Septimius Severus from Ephesos in Ionia.
AE 17, 2.6g
obv. AV KL [CEP - C]EVHROC
        bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. EFEC - I / WN
      boar running r., transfixed by spear
unpublished
rare, good F
A similar type is known for Caracalla, BMC 280, and for Macrinus, SNG Copenhagen 438
 
But looking closer at the rev. we find an interesting mythology::
This coin shows a motiv of the foundation myth of Ephesos. The Ephesian local myth of the city founder Androklos, son of king Kodros from Athens, seems to originate rather late in the 5th century  under Athenian influence. Our oldest source is Kreophilos. Referring to him the Delphic oracle gave Androklos the order to settle with his colonists where a fish and a boar would give them a sign. After a longer quest the Greek landed their ships in the bay of the river Kaystros and fried fishes. One of them together with some coal fell from the pan and from the thus ignited bush a boar sprung up. Androklos chased the boar over the mountain side and finally killed him with his spear at the Hypelaios well. From Strabon and Pausanias we know that thereafter Androklos expelled the native Karic-Lelegic inhabitants except those who settled at the Artemision and then lost his life while fighting against the autochthons when he helped the city of Priene against them..

Background:
Androklos is characterized by his high parentage (son of a king) and his great courage (killing of the boar), but he served too for the general greek matter against the barbars when he helped to defend Priene. By the way Priene did not so when Ephesos was attacked by the Persians at the beginning of the Persian Wars.

The boar appears in the myth of Androklos in the same way as in the Herakles myth in a territory belonging to Artemis. The killing of the boar allows the colonists on the one hand to reclaim the land, his very existence then again suggests that the future city could be built in a widely uncultivated land without a threat of an older local community to the small group of greek colonists. The fishes symbolize the nearness of the sea and another food base like the mentioned Hypelaios (olive tree well) which indicates the existence of freshwater and olives.

The oracle's clue to the boar gives the colonists one of several basic conditions which allows the foundation of a city but it doesn't mean that the wild game was a source of food. Wild game like today doesn't play a big role in ancient cities as several archaeo-zoological studies has proofed. Another idea could be that beyond the general meaning of the boar as inhabitant of a uncultivated land it is a pointed advice to the 'land of Artemis Ephesia'.

If this is right then the myth could be a very early - that means before the colonisation -
happened identification of the Ephesian goddess (Astarte?) with Artemis, and then again an advice to the knowledge of the Delphic priests of an ancient Mycenic trading post on the mountain today called Ayasoluk. It was planned since the 8th/7th century BC to built the Artemision at the base of this mountain as a monumental temple destrict. This place was at least looked at in Mycenic times as recently summarized findings proof.
 
Source:
Forum Archaeologiae - Zeitschrift für klassische Archäologie 14 / III / 2000
online under http://homepage.univie.ac.at/elisabeth.trinkl/forum/forum0300/14scherr.htm

Added pic:
Androklos killing the boar, relief-frieze from the so-called Hadrian's temple  at the Embolos in Ephesos (Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, Archiv, Photo Th. Römer)

Once again this coin shows to us what plenty of information and knowledge you can get from it if you take time to explore it deeply even if it is such an unimpressive coin! Good luck!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 08, 2006, 11:20:38 am
PEGASUS

Perhaps this thread has been discussed; perhaps I have a penchant for the obvious, but Pegasus captured my imagination long ago. 

"Winged horse of Greek myth, symbol of the sacred king's or hero's journey to heaven; an image of death and apotheosis, like the mythic death-hordes of northern Europe. Pegasus had archaic, matriarchal origins. He sprang from the "wise blood" of the Moon-goddess Medusa, who embodied the principle of medha, the Indo-European root word for female wisdom . . . Pegasus represented divine inspiration as well as god-like apotheosis. A man who rode him could become a great poet" (http://www.pegasusproducts.com/myth.html).

It has always seemed ironic that a creature so beautiful could be the offspring of Medusa.  Although Bellerophon was unsuccesful in trying to ride Pegasus to Mt. Olympus, Pegasus made it (in some myths).

I am sure that many are also acquainted with the Pegasus Constellation.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 09, 2006, 04:59:23 pm
The Calydonean Boar

The boar in ancient times was a huge dangerous animal. So it is not amazing that the boar plays a big role in the Greek mythology - but not only there. Especially there are two boars standing in the centre of myths:

1) The Erymanthic Boar, the boar of Herakles, and
2) The Calydonean Boar, the boar of Meleagros.

Here I want to present the latter. The coin is a silver denar of C. Hosidius C.f. Geta.

AR - Denar (Serratus), 3.79g
        Rome 68 BC
obv. bust of Diana, diademed, bow and quiver over shoulder, GETA behind, III VIR in
       front
rev. The Calydonean boar stg. r., transfixed by arrow and attacked by dog
      C.HOSIDI.C.F. in ex.
Crawford 407/1; Sydenham 904; Hosidia 2
a bit rarer than the type with smooth edge, VF


Mythology:
Oineus, king of Kalydon in Aitolia, once had feasted the gods at an harvest festival but forgotten to butcher an animal for Artemis. The goddess was enraged and sent a big boar who wasted the fertile fields of the king. Oineus called for help and from all parts of Greece the heroes came to help him. There were the Curetes from Pleuron, the brothers of Althaia, the wife of Oineus. There were the Dioscurs Kastor and Polydeikes and their Messenian cousins Idas and Lynkeus. Theseus came from Athens, Iphikles, half-brother of Herakles, came from Thebens, Iason, Admetos, Peirithos, Peleus and Eurytion came from Thessalia, Telamon from Salamis, Amphiaraos from Argos, Ankaios and Atalante from Arcadia and much more. Herakles was prevented by his labours. On top of the heroes stood Meleagros, the son of Oineus and Althaia.
The hunt for the Calydonean boar ended very disastrous. Many heroes lost their lifes. Ankaios was the first killed by the boar. Peleus accidentally hit his father-in-law Eurytion with his spear. A second hunter too was killed by the boar.
The big catastrophe happened at the 6th day of the hunt. On this day Atalanta hit the boar with her arrow and Meleagros gave him the deathblow. Then he awarded head and skin of the boar to Atalante. But his uncles, brother of his mother Althaia, didn't tolerate that. They insisted on the rights of their clan. A dispute occured, they snatched the trophies from Atalante and then a fight began in which Meleagros slew his uncles. Now we have several different sequels of the myth. 
When Meleagros was born the fates predicted that he will live only as long as the log in the oven. Althaia pulled it out of the fire and hid it in a secret place. When she heard of the death of her brothers she enraged, got the log and threw it in the fire. When it was burnt Meleagros break down dead when he was dissecting the boar.
Another version tells about a revenge campaign of the Curetes against Kalydon. Meleager is told not having fighted until the Curetes nearly had conquered Kalydon and then was killed in the battle. In the Underworld he was the only dead Herakles was afraid of his shadow. And when Meleagros told him the story of the Calydonean hunt it was the first and only time Herakles was moved to tears.

Background:
Important for generalizing examinations is the relation between the boar and Artemis which is continuated after the hunt by the revenge campaign of the Curetes. Curetes were called in Ephesos the mythic warriors whose weapon noise drowned the birth cry of the goddess, later as Prytaneion a collegium of priests. The killing of Meleagros is the essential and indispensable expiation for the mortification done to Artemis by killing her boar and at the same time the legitimation of the goddess' sentinels which could do their duty only by campaigning against Kalydon. 
So it is explicable that the Curetes despite of Meleagros' death don't take Kalydon but removed from the city. Only later versions of the chase myth - no more understanding the sakrilegium - need the murder of the uncles and the curse of the mother respectively the old wive's tale of the log which connects the fates to the end of Meleagros. There are many other parallels for the unforgiving position of Artemis and her uncompromising brother Apollon too. We bear in mind the innocent Niobides, the unhappy Hippolytos or poor Aktaion. In this sense we can see Meleagros as the mythic prototype of the loser who run for the 'Holy King'  but failed the examination.

Sources:
Ovid lib.VIII, 385-414; 437-444; 515
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalydonischer_Eber
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen - Die Heroen-Geschichten; dtv
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, Rowohlt

The pic shows the frieze of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 09, 2006, 10:59:55 pm
The Calydonean Boar

The boar in ancient times was a huge dangerous animal. So it is not amazing that the boar plays a big role in the Greek mythology - but not only there. Especially there are two boars standing in the centre of myths:

1) The Erymanthic Boar, the boar of Herakles, and
2) The Calydonean Boar, the boar of Meleagros.



Jochen,

I hate to admit that I knew nothing about the significance of this intiguing creature.  Wow!  The hunting party for the Calydonean Boar is a veritable who's who of ancient heroes.  Your posts whetted my appetite for more boar!  I made a series of internet forrays, and I will only add a very brief digest to what you have generously provided.  It seems there may be a bit of a "feminist" twist to the tale.

Cheers, Jim (Cleisthenes)

p.s. Now, I'd really like a coin with a device of a boar!



"This Calydonian Boar, which some say is the offspring of the Crommyonian Sow, was killed by Atalanta, who shot it first, by Amphiaraus, who next shot it in the eye, and by Meleager, who killed it by a stab in the flank. When Meleager received the skin, he gave it to Atalanta, but the sons of Thestius 1, who took part in the hunt representing the Curetes, did not approve Meleager's gesture, for in their simple minds they were of the opinion that a woman should not get a prize in the face of men. So if Meleager did not choose to take it, they reasoned best as they could, then it belong to them by right of birth. Meleager, disliking the way in which his will was not respected, slew the sons of Thestius 1 and gave the skin to Atalanta. But having heard of her brothers' death, Althaea, mother of Meleager, caused his [sic] own son to die. Some have said, however, that the boar's skin caused a civil war between the Curetes, represented by the sons of Thestius 1, and the Calydonians, represented by Meleager, and that Meleager killed his mother's brothers in battle, and perished himself in the same war.

The Calydonian Hunt took place shortly after the voyage of the ARGONAUTS, and not few among those who hunted the boar also participated in that expedition."
(http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/CALYDONIANHUNTERS.html)

The italicized text above is my doing.--Cleisthenes



The names of the CALYDONIAN HUNTERS according to four authors; Pausanias, Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus; are as follows:

 Acastus (Ovid); Admetus (Ovid, Hyginus); Amphiaraus (Pausanias, Ovid, Apollodorus) Alcon3 & Alcon 4 (Hyginus); Ancaeus (all four authors); Asclepius (Hyginus); Atalanta (all four authors, of course!);  Caeneus (Ovid, Hyginus); Castor (all four authors); Cepheus (Apollodorus); Cometes (Pausanias); Cteatus (Ovid);
Deucalion (Hyginus); Dryas (Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus); Echion(Ovid, Hyginus); Enaesimus (Hyginus); Epochus (Pausanias); Euphemus (Hyginus); Eurypylus (Apollodorus); Eurytion (Apollodorus); Eurytus 1 (Ovid); Eurytus 2 (Hyginus); Evippus (Apollodorus); Hippasus (Ovid, Hyginus); Hippalmus (Ovid);  Hippothous 2 (Ovid, Hyginus); Hippothous 6 (Pausanias); Hyleus (Ovid); Idas (Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus); Iolaus (Pausanias, Ovid, Hyginus);
Iphicles (Apollodorus); Iphiclus (Apollodorus); Ischepolis (Pausanias); Jason (Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus); Laertes (Ovid, Hyginus); Lelex (Ovid); Leucippus (Ovid, Hyginus); Lynceus (Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus); Meleager (all four authors, of course!); Mopsus (Ovid, Hyginus); Nestor (Ovid);  Panopeus (Ovid); Pelagon (Ovid); Peleus (all four authors); Phoenix (Ovid, Hyginus); Phyleus (Ovid);
Pirithous (Pausanias, Ovid, Apollodorus);  Plexippus (Ovid, Hyginus, Apollodorus); Polydeuces (all four authors); Prothous (Pausanias); Telamon (all four authors) Theseus (all four authors); Toxeus (Ovid).
 
 
 

 

 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 10, 2006, 05:42:34 am
Thanks, Jim, for the interesting additions and the nice pics!

The matter with Atalante is a special one. She is very similar to Artemis as hunter and perhaps an ancient pre-indogermanic goddess from the time of the great goddesses. If that is true then Meleagros could have been the 'Holy King' who was married to the Great Goddess for only one day and then was killed in a ritual sacrificing.
(Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 10, 2006, 10:52:24 pm
Bull Mythology

I would, if anyone is interested, like to begin to discuss the mythological significance of the bull.

In ancient Mediterranean cultures, the bull was a symbol of strength and heroism.
Lion and bull coin types were depicted on the world's first silver coins struck for Kroisos. The coin features a lion similar to that on the earlier Lydian electrum coins but without the sunburst or "nose wart," as well as a bull, with the reverse being an incuse square used in the minting process of very early coins.

The lion attacking the bull motif on this coin type has been variously theorized as symbolizing the sun and moon, spring and winter (the fall of the constellation Taurus corresponded to the date of the spring sowing), strength and fertility, Asia Minor and Europe, and Lydia and its neighbor Phyrgia. One possibility,perhaps, is that the lion represents the Lydians' supreme god, or Baal, and the bull represents Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks, though Henri Frankfort in his 1956 book, The Art and Architecture of the Ancient Orient, suggested a "conflict between divine forces." A lion comprised the heraldic emblem of the kings of Lydia. Zeus took the guise of a bull in his seduction of Io (see Titian's beautiful Rape of Europa below). The lion and bull motif was featured on other ancient coins as well, and the bull was used, as well, on figural art.  The bull, obviously, symbolizes many things to many different cultures.(http://rg.ancients.info/lion/kroisos.html).

Among the most important animal cults were the bull cults, which appeared in Egyptian writings as far back as the First Dynasty. The ancients believed that the powerful bull represented the personality of the king; slate palettes dating back as far as 3100 BC even show kings as bulls. This animal was chosen because it symbolized the king’s courageous heart, great strength, virility, and fighting spirit. Bulls’ horns even embellish some of the tombs of courtiers who served the first Saqqara kings.

The Apis Bull was originally considered to be the incarnation of the god Ptah, the creator of the universe and master of destiny, but this was a lesser-known association. Later the Apis became widely known as the incarnation of Osiris, god of embalming and cemeteries, when Ptah himself took on funerary characteristics and became associated with Osiris. Plutarch wrote that the "Apis was a fair and beautiful image of the soul of Osiris".

When Egypt fell under the rule of the Ptolemies, a new god was created by Ptolemy I in an effort to unify Greeks and Egyptians by establishing a deity that would be familiar to both cultures.  The new god was named Serapis, which combined components of the Greek gods Zeus, Asklepios, and Dionysys as well as the Egyptian deity Osiris and the sacred Apis bull cult. Although the god had a Greek appearance, it also had some of the features of an Apis bull as well as an Egyptian name. Serapis was declared a god of fertility and the underworld, but even though Egyptians tolerated this new deity, they never truly accepted it. On the other hand, because Greek leadership supported the new Serapis cult, many Greeks did accept and follow it, but the artificially created cult never achieved its goal of religious unity between Greeks and Egyptians (http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bull.htm).

I know that I have only scratched the surface of this very ubiquitous and intriguing symbol.  Bulls are found struck on coins from the era of archaic kings to Byzntium's, Julian the Philosopher (Apostate).  Taurus graces the night sky.

See www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=28879 for an interesting 2003 art exhibition featuring this mythological creature.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 12, 2006, 03:57:11 pm
Some notes on the river-gods

Moesia inferior, Nikopolos ad Istrum, Septimius Severus AD 193-211
AE 17, 12.21g
struck under the legate Aurelius Gallus
obv. AV.KL CEP - CEVHROS P
bust, laureate, r.
rev. VPA AVR GALLOV NEIKOP / PROC IC
rivergod (Istros?), bearded, laureate, nude to hips, leaning l., head r., resting l. arm on
rocks (or urn) from which water flows, holding with r. hand tree with four
foliate twigs (or whinetree).
AMNG 1310; not in Moushmov
rare, VF, dark-green patina

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Macrinus AD 217-218
AE 25, 11.24g
obv. AV K OPPEL CE - [VH MAKRINOC]
bust, bearded, laureate, r.
rev. VP CTATIOV LONGINOV NIKOPOLITWN / PROC ICT / RW
Youthfull rivergod (Istros?), nude to hips, leaning l., holding in l. arm reeds, in
raised r. hand branch; water flows from vase behind him.
Pick 1763 var.; cf. Lindgren 272 (same rev. for Diadumenian!); Moushmov 1272
rare, F/VF

In Greece and Italy there was a famous cult of river gods. This cult in ancient times was not unknown.Especially at the idogermanic peoples the worshipping of the flowing water was wide spread. It is known from the Indians, the Persians, the Thrakes and the Celts. From the Germans it is not sure. The designation as 'river gods' is not from ancient times. Homer and Hesiod were talking of 'potamoi' (Greek = rivers). Wether they have differentiated between the rivers itself and river gods (who lived at the bottom of vthe rivers or in caves) is not clear!

Referring to Homer all rivers originated from Okeanos. Hesiod calls the rivers children of Okeanos and Thetis. But Skamandros is known as son of Zeus. They are immortal and participate on meetings of the gods. They are seen with many children and as ancestors of aristocratic families.

Characteristic for their cult was the consecration of hair, perhaps the substitute of human sacrifice. Peleus vows the river Spercheios a ringlet of Achill if his son will come home safe. Elsewise they got the usual offerings, bulls and sheep. There were regular sacrificing f.e. in Messenia, one was sacrificing before crossing a river, so Xerxes before before crossing the Strymon or Lucullus at the Euphrat. The river-gods had priests too, temples and altars.

Already Homer knows the river-gods as human-shaped. When in his Ilias (lib. 22, 237) Skamandos yells like a bull then this is a reminiscence of older beliefs. The most early depiction of a rive-god, Acheloos, is the mix of a bull and a human being. The later typus had only small horns. In Graeca Magna and in Sicily they appear as youthful men on coins of the 5th century BC. The well known type as leaning river-god as on these two coins could be from the same century if one suggest Pausanias is right with his description of the figures at the Easter pedement of the Zeus temple of Olympia as Alpheios and Kladeios. But this today is seen as not correct. So this typus seems to be more probably hellenistic. The suggestion that the Centaurs are originally river-gods is shortend to Nessos only.

There are known about one hundred names of river-gods, mostly from Greece, from Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy. But this list is not complete. In the Greek area the most famous are Acheloos and Alpheios. Italian river-gods with supra-regional cult in the Roman-Italian area were Clitumnus and Tiber (as Tiberinus pater too). He also was seen as master and father of all other rivers and called by prayer. He had a sanctuary too. In the old almanac of ceremonies he was substituted by Volturnus.

At last a fundamental addition which should clear the way for a deeper understanding of the ancient conception of river and other gods:
The river-gods depicted on coins are not personifications in our sense. Rivers had not been gods! They had been the expression of something divine behind the things. And that is something very different! In rivers, wells, trees or mountains turned up the divine. In this sense the depicted river-god was the visible expression of this divine behind the things. In different shapes, depending on the kind of the depicted river. It is understandable that they were depicted anthropomorphic, bedded like a tired wanderer (the feet pointing to to the mouth!). Nevertheless it was the matter of a transcendental experience, valid for wells, trees, mountains and other deities too. This has been heavily misunderstood by the Christian monks who fell the sacred trees and claimed the gods to resist it. The reminiscence on Christ at the cross should have disabuse them: He too was called to climb down if he really was God.   

We all have remains of this understanding of nature when we say about a river: He is hopping and jumping, is streaming majestically or is restricted and violated by channels. May be the actual situation of our nature could be more hopeful if we would bethink ourself of this buried view! 

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~aegypt/ow/zeus.htm
Reinhart Falter, Fluß- und Berggötter in der Spätantike, Cadmus 1999

The attached pics show the two figures from the East pediment of the Zeus temple in Olympia which were described already by Pausanias.
http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~p1altar/photo_html/bauplastik/giebel/olympia/ebene4.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 18, 2006, 07:51:16 am
Some notes on the river-gods

In Greece and Italy there was a famous cult of river gods. This cult in ancient times was not unknown.


Jochen,

This is very interesting.  What I have to offer is not a river god, but the illustration of a coin of Syracuse whose obverse device portrays Arethusa, the naiad desired and pursued by the river-god AlpheiosOvid tells the story of how Arethusa, attempting to avoid Alpheios' amorous intentions, appealed to Artemis for help.  Artemis transformed her into an underground stream emerging as a freshwater spring on the Sicilian island of Ortygia, the future site of Syracuse.  Not to be so easily put-off, Alpheios directed his river's flow underground to follow Arethusa, and both of their waters now mingle eternally in the Fountain of Arethusa in Ortygia.  In 1820; the famous British, Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote his well known poem--the topic of which is also the title: "Arethusa."
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on March 18, 2006, 02:44:14 pm
I wonder whether that's also the origin of Coleridge's 'Alph, the sacred river' in 'Kubla Khan'.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on March 18, 2006, 07:54:14 pm
It suddenly occurred to me, reading about Coleridge's Alph in your posting, to ask the names of the four rivers that flowed from Paradise.  Sure they allude to the Four Quarters and the like, but I bet they have names that Coleridge might have known.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on March 19, 2006, 11:17:52 am
Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates, all branching from one un-named source.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 19, 2006, 08:03:02 pm
Mt. Gerizim - the holy mountain of Samaria

Here we have another important holy mountain, the Mons Garizim in Samaria.

Trebonianus Gallus AD 251-253
AE 24, 12.09g
obv. AVT KAI G OVI TREB GALLOC [CEB]
        Bust, draped and cuirassed(?), laureate, r.
rev. FL NEAC - POLEWS
      Eagle, standing frontal, wings spread, supporting cult image of Mons Garizim with
      temple, shrine and gardens.
Rosenberger 113; SNG 6, 1035
F+/abut VF, typical sand-patina found on coins of Palestine

This coins shows on the wings of the eagle an image of the Gerizim: At the base of the mountain we see colonnades which surrounded the holy area, a long steep stair leads to the peak of the mountain to the temple of Zeus Hypsistos, shown in perspective, and on the right side a second smaller mountain with an altar on top.
Excavations have reveiled the fundaments of this temple and parts of the staircase with total 300 (or referring to others even 1500!) steps. Some coins show clearly more sacral buildings at the mountainside. On this coin probably only a model of the Gerizim is depicted which was shown on processions, a so-called agalma, with only the most important things.

Flavia Neapolis was founded by Titus 2km south of Shichem in Samaria. This is a most famous place of religious history of the Old Testament. Here Abraham is said to have sacrificed his son Isaak to obey the order of God, here is said to be the tomb of Joseph, and here is said to be the well where Jesus encountered the merciful Samaritan wife.

The Mt.Gerizim, 870m, is kown already in the Old Testament Dtn. 11, 29, as mountain of blessing in contrary to the adjacent Mt. Ebal, the mountain of curse. Later they were seen as two-peaked World Mountain with cosmic meaning. This all is the resonance of archaic holiness, the so-called mountain cult, which we have seen so often. The Samaritans, whose center Shichem was situated in the plain to which the pass between these two mountains opened, belief that the Garden of Eden once was on the Mt. Gerizim and bult here there own temple after they have separated from the Judaism of Jerusalem. Antiochos IV then consecrated this temple to Zeus Xenios or Hellenios and Johannes Hyrkanos to whom this temple now as Seleucid sanctuary was double odious destroyed it 128 BC. After the Bar Kochba war Hadrian built a new temple for Zeus Hypsistos ("Zeus on the mountain"). Today the mountain again belongs to the Samaritans and here they annually celebrate their Passah.
Neapolis today is Nablus, the biggest city on the Palestine West Bank with more than 100.000 inhabitants kown from the news about the Israelic-Palestinian conflict.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia

The attached photo shows todays Nablus with the Southern peak of the mountain, the actual Gerizim. At the right edge you can see the mountainside of the Ebal.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on March 20, 2006, 02:23:02 pm
It probably wasn't Antiochos himself who was responsible for the reconsecration of the sancturaies to Zeus, though contemporary sources give him the credit. In Jerusalem, they set up an altar to Zeus on the Altar of Burnt Offering in the Temple and sacrificed pigs on it, which is such a calculated insult that only a Jew would have been likely to think of it. There was a massive division at the time between the traditionalists, who wanted to limit contact with the Hellenistic world around them, and the 'Hellenizers' who wanted to integrate; they seem to have been dominated by wealthy merchants and others who saw that removing restrictions on the expression of Hellenism within the city (no pigs within the walls, no pagan altars, ec.) would result in profits for them. Antiochos was a usurper who probably wasn't too secure ont he throne; there had already been one rebellion over increased taxation and Antiochos' choice of High Priest. Judah was on the edge of his empire, and he probably made an alliance with the Hellenisers with the aim of integrating it more firmly within his domain.

I've a strong suspicion (no evidence unfortunately) that the Hellenizers probably saw their altar to Zeus not so much as a rejection of their god as a recognition that , as far as they were concerned, he was actually the same as Zeus Olympios, under another name. That would be consistent with the syncretising tendencies of Hellenism as I understand them. As far as the population of Jerusalem was concerned, they might have got away with it, since they were pretty well Hellenised already. But there was a traditional tension between the city and the countryside, and it was when they tried to extend their reform to the countryside by forcing people to sacrifice on pagan altars that it blew up in their faces. There's not so much known about the situation in Samaria, but it was doubtless part of the same attempted reform.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 20, 2006, 04:31:50 pm
Robert, thank you for the detailed description of the religious and social developments at the times of Antiochos in Jerusalem.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 24, 2006, 12:05:44 pm
Hermes

It may be that Hermes has appeared in another thread, but I have always had some lingering affinity for this shrewd god.  Perhaps it is because, among the many occupations and "things" for which he is a patron, he is both a "minor" patron of poetry and thieves, and I am always reminded of what T.S. Eliot once said, "Good poets borrow; great poets steal."


Lydia, Sala, Faustina II, d. 175 A.D.
AE 18, 4.05g. Draped bust r. Rv. Hermes standing l. holding caduceus and purse. SNG von Aulock 3117(dies).
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 24, 2006, 05:16:45 pm
Hi Cleisthenes!

We have had a longer contribution to Hermes under the title Hermes - the frontier runner
on page two of this thread!

best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 24, 2006, 05:19:25 pm
The mysterious Cabiri

Besides the well-known greek gods and the great Mother Goddesses of the Orient there is a number of smaller deities which regularly appear in plural. Here is a list of them which certainly is not complete:
Cabiri,
Corybantes,
Curetes,
Telchines,
Dactyls,
Dioscurs,
Anactes and
Gerginoi.
Until now their meaning is not completely kown especially because their names often are confused. Some of them we already met in this thread (Curetes, Dioscurs). Here I want to present the Cabiri. The cause was this coin:

Macedonia, Thessalonica, 3rd century, time of Septimius Severus
AE 20, 6g
obv. THECCALO - NIKH
        Tyche, draped and turreted, veiled, r.
rev. KAB - EIROC
       Cabir in working dress and with Phrygian cap, standing frontal, head l., holding in
       raised l. hand hammer, in r. hand rhyton
SNG Copenhagen 387; Touratsoglou Emission VI, Group K (Septimius Severus), 10 (obv. same die), 8 (rev. same die), 2 ex. known
rare, good VF, nice green patina
This type was struck from Domitian to Valerian/Gallienus. The legend and the breaks show, that this coin belongs to the time of Septimius Severus.
Rhyton is a drinking vessel in the shape of a horn.

The Cabiri are seen often on coins of Thessalia. In Thessalia they were hold for guardian gods. Banduri suggests that the reason of the remarkable accumulation of their depiction in Thessalia maybe the fact that a Gothic siege of Thessalonica was repelled by the help of the Cabiri.

The ancient reports of the cult of Samothrace sadly are inconsistent and only difficult to interpret. One reason is the purposeful privacy and restriction of religious subjects and rites to the adepted and initiated to the mysteries, otherwise the mixture of pre-hellenic religious beliefs with those of the greek which during the centuries were interpreted in most various ways. The best-known is the equalization of the Cabiri with the gods of Samothrace. But Cabiri surely was not the cult name of the Samothracian deitis which were called Megaloi Theoi, the Great Gods.

The following description mainly came from the site 'Das schwarze Netz':
The Cabiri (greek Kabeiroi, hebr. kabbirim = the Great) are a group of gods of both gender or godlike people of primitive times. They were hold for guardians of the sailors and navigation which saved the shipwrecked and in this function were called Megaloi Theoi (= the Great Gods). Their cult is assumed to be originated in Asia Minor and then via Samothrace reaching Greece. As place of birth the mountain Kabeiros in Berekynthia is suggested (Kerenyi, 70).
The Kabeiroi should be offsprings of Hephaistos and Kabira, a daughter of Proteus, but sometimes they were seen as much older: They could be confronted to the Olympics like the Titans and so be the ancestors of men (Pausanias 9.25.6, cited by Kerenyi, 65f.). They stood in the centre of the mystery cult of Samothrace where the worshipped Demeter was called Kabiria (as in Boiotia too).
Some names of the Cabiri are Axieros, Axiokersos and Axiokersa. The first part of these names is a cultic invocation, greek axios means 'dignified'. In the secret language of the Cabiri these three names are assumed to be the names of three deities. So Axierios means Demeter, Axiokersa means Persephone and Axiokerses is Hades (Hederich, 496f.). Axiothera (dignified goddess) is the name of a figure which sometimes appears as wife of Prometheus. This puts the Titan Prometheus in the proximity of the Cabiri.
 
Another element which the Cabiri share with the Titans is a primordial sacrilege. Orphic poetry (Onomakritos, 6th century BC) told of the murder of the young Dionysos by the Titans (s. Zagreus) and a similar myth is told of a fratricide of the Cabiri. The elder Cabiri should have killed the youngest and pulled off his head. So a main subject of the mystery cults was the purgation of a primordial sacrilege.
The Kabirion sanctuary near Thebes is said to be founded by an autochthon named Prometheus and his son Aitnaios to whom Demeter has brought her mysteries (Pausanias 9.25.6). This Aitnaios is said to be no other than Hephaistos (from the volcano Etna in Sicily), from which the Cabiri referring to others should be originated. Therefore they often are depicted like Haphaistos himself with hammer and tongs. Their ancestor then the Titan Prometheus as is suggested by their cult in Athens where they have had a joint altar, or in Lemnos where in a similar constellation Kadmilos stood by Prometheus the elder. In Samothrace the Dioscuri Kastor and Polyneikes were worshipped as Cabiri. Kabiros was a guardian god of the Macedonians too, the Kabirides were nymphs which were assumed to be sisters or daughters of the Cabiri. The Cabiri were mixed with many others besides the Titans with the Curetes, the Dactyles or the Penates Dii. The idols of Laban should be the Cabiri too.

The Cabiri appear in Goethe's Faust II too. From Goethe Rudolf Steiner has taken them in his Antroposophy and has inflated them to a symbol of mankind. So today the Cabiri are drifted away into esoteric fields as a quick Google search could proof.
 
Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
Hederich, Gründliche Griechische Mythologie
Kerenyi, Griechische Mythologie
http://alex.eled.duth.gr/Samothrace/Samothracem/Ggods.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabeiroi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabeiri
http://www.sungaya.de/schwarz/index.htm

The attached pic shows the sanctuary of the Cabiri in Samothrace. The famous 'Nike of Samothrace' was found nearby.

Best regards


Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: whitetd49 on March 24, 2006, 06:13:48 pm
Very nice.  The prominence of the Kabeiroi at Thessalonika may be their association with the Pythian games held there.   Thus, Kabir is often depicted with Apollo and Nike/Victory.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: whitetd49 on March 24, 2006, 06:25:42 pm
Samothrace is noted above but the Kabireirion near Thebes and later Thessalonika were major cult centers of Hapheastos and the Kabeiroi.  Here is a potshard from the Kabireion showing Kabeiros and a companion and a cult statue within a temple from Thessalonika.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 24, 2006, 06:33:12 pm
Thanks, whitetd, for your pics and the interesting information! The last coin indeed is a beauty. But I have a question: Often the cult statue standing in the temple is called Hephaistos. I think it is very difficult to decide wether it is Hephaistos or a Cabir?

best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: whitetd49 on March 24, 2006, 06:58:50 pm
Really, I think they are one and the same.  The hammer as an attribute of the kabeiroi recognizes their skill in metal working, a skill they inherited from Hephaistos.  On the other hand, I have never seen Hephaistos depicted with the rhyton.  I believe the rhyton refers to the initiation into the mysteries of the cult in which a fair amount of wine was consumed.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 26, 2006, 03:55:05 pm
Herakliskos Drakonopnigon - The infant Herakles strangling the snakes

Thracia, Serdica, Caracalla AD 198-217
AE 19, 3.52g
struck AD 207-217
obv. AVT KM AV CEV ANTWNINOC
        bust, laureate, r.
rev. CERDWN
       Infant Herakles, chubby, kneeling r., r. hand raised, with l. hand resting on
       ground, strangling two snakes entwining his arms
Varbanov 153 var. (diff. obv. legend)
Rare, about VF, oliv-green patina

Mythology:
This coin shows a scene from the mythology of the young Herakles. Zeus once fell in love with the beautiful Alkmene, the wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes. When he was on a campaign, Zeus took his shape, went to Alkmene and united with her. When Amphitryon was back the betrayal was revealed. But Amphitryon forgave his unknowing wife and created with her Iphikles, the twin brother of Herakles. Alkmene gave birth to two sons, Herakles and Iphikles (the latter as son of two mortals without exceptional powers). Hera however, the wife of Zeus, became the jealous lifelong pursuer of Herakles.
Shortly before the birth of Herakles and Iphikles Zeus declared that the first born child of the house of Perseus would become ruler of Mycene. This was the request of Hera to deceive him. She prolongated the labour pains of Alkmene so that Erystheus, son of Sthenelos, uncle of Amphitron, was born first and only after him Herakles. That was the reason that Herakles was tributary to Erystheus. 

Fearing Hera's revenge Alkmene marooned him on the so-called Herakles fields near Thebes. His half-sister Athena, later playing an important role as his guardian goddess, found him and brought him to Hera. She didn't recognize him and pitiful suckled him. But Herakles sucked so strong that he hurt her and Hera pushed him away. But by her divine milk Herakles became immortal. Athena brought him back to his mother who gladly took him and he grow up with his parents. But there too he was pursued by the hate of Hera. When he was eight month old Hera sent two huge snakes to the sleeping-room of the children. Iphikles cried in fear but his brother Herakles took the two snakes and strangled them. The seer Teiresias, called by the astonished Amphitryon, predicted the child an uncommon future. Numerous monsters he would defeat. 

Background:
Already very early the antinomy between Herakles' name, that is 'the glory of Hera', and Hera's hate by which he pursued him in mythology was recognized. This antinomy could be solved if we see the old misunderstanding: Herakles like all heroes stood unter the protection of Hera and were sent out to adventures to gain glory for himself and Hera. We know similar from the Tableround of the Artus myth. These hard challenges then were misunderstood as pursuit of Herakles by Hera. The original good relation between Herakles and Hera is proofed by their joint battle against a fire spitting Giant in the Gigantomachia and against four Satyrs. Going with that are some different explanation of the snakes. It is reported too that it was actually Amphitryon who has sent the snakes to get out his own child (mater certa, pater incerta!).
Another explanation comes from von Ranke-Graves: An old picture from which the post-homeric story of the strangled snake originated probably has depicted how Herakles has caressed the animals while they have cleaned his ears with their tongues. This is reported for the seers Melampos, Teiresias, Kassandra and the sons of Laokoon. Without cleaning their ears it would have been impossible for them to understand the language of vultures.

This coin obviously resembles a motiv of a series of rare tetradrachms which were struck 405/4 BC to celebrate an alliance (synmachikon) of some cities of Western Asia Minor. They were struck for Byzantion, Ephesos, Iasos, Knidos, Lampsakos, Rhodos and Samos. It was thought that this alliance came about in 394 after the defeat of the Spartan fleet, but Karwiese, NC 1980, has made a good case for it having taken place 10 years earlier, when the cities threw off Athenian domination with the help of the Spartan Lysander. Lysander then was celebrated as Herakliskos Drakonopnigon, 'Herakles the snake-strangler'. In many ways this seems a better choice, but hoard evidence is inconclusive.

Why this motiv was chosen for Caracalla I couldn't find out. Perhaps he saw himself fighting against a world of evil?
 
Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herakles
von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Myhologie

I have attached
a) the pic of a tetradrachm from Samos, 405/4 BC, and
b) a pic of  a column base, found AD 1999 near the Marcellus Theatre in Rome,
    showing Hercules motivs on all sides.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 22, 2006, 04:30:25 pm
Atargatis or Dea Syria, the Great Syrian Goddess

We have already talked in this thread about the Great Goddesses like Kybele or Rhea and mentioned Dea Syria. Here I have a coin with Atargatis.

Syria Cyrrhestica, Hierapolis, Severus Alexander AD 222-235
AE 28, 18.3g
obv. AVT KAI MAR A[VR CE ALEZANDROC]
        radiate, draped and cuirassed bust r.
rev. [QEAC CVRIAC IERAPO]LI / TWN
       Atargatis riding right on lion, holding sceptre, sitting left
BMC 55 var.
rare, about Vf
ex Penina Manfra and Brookes 1968

Background (mainly from 'Der kleine Pauly'):
Hierapolis in Syria Cyrrhestica was the famous cult centre of Atargatis called Dea Syria in the hellenism too (not to be confused with Dea Coelestis from Carthage). She was worshipped mostly together with the West-Semitic weather-god Baal-Hadad in Baalbek, Damascus, Palmyra, Dura-Europos but especially in Hierapolis and in Askalon. Her greek name was Derketo. There were etymological connections to the Phoinicean goddess Aphrodite-Astarte and similarity in the character to Kybele-Rhea from Asia Minor.They all have the syzygie (companionship) with a young male god of the type Adonis-Attis. The parhedros (assisting companion) of Atargatis was Hadad. Lukian of Samosate called them Zeus and Hera and describes detailed the temple of Bambyke with its beautiful fragrance. Lukian talked of a trias of deities, the third formerly seen as misinterpretation of a deifyed vexillum, now seen more as a deus inferior like Kombabos. The novel of Stratonike-Kombabos shows in its castration motiv the influence of the Kybele ministration, and the orientalic hetaera character of Atargatis-Astarte, which is known from Derketo-Semiramis of Askalon too. This must be seen as evidence of her great fertility to which the young parhedros was addicted until his death
.
Her cult affirmation were veil, flowers, omphalos, sea procession, hydrophoria (a libation festival), lavatio (washing), tree burning (pyra), ecstatic dancing, eviration and phallolatria (worshipping of the phallos). Like the Phoinicean Astarte Atargatis was first a local numen, mistress of the city (Baalat), with the corona muralis of the Magna Mater. She is depicted with her lions and the bulls of Hadad. As Potnia Therion (Mistress of the animals) the paradise of Bambyke belonged to her and the lake of the
sacred fishes from Askalon. In this nature she expands to an universal range: The aetiologic legends of Derketo's leap into the lake and her transformation into a fish, her birth from an egg of the Euphrate assisted by fishes and doves and the dove metamorphosis of Semiramis not only serve as explanation of religious facts like the ichthyomorphismus (looking like a fish) or her fish and dove attributes. But the Syrian animal cult emphasizes with fish and dove two first-class exponents of animal fertility and so stresses the blessing power of Dea Syria over air and water. Her challenge to rule over sky and sea comes from her participation in characer elements of the Mesopotamian fish-goddess Nina-Ishtar and the West-Semitic dove mistress Semiramis-Astarte. Parallel to the spreading of her worshipping and syncretistic accommodation she was elevated to an all-creating World and Mother Goddess. She was the heir of the Ugaritic 'Asherat of the sea', on Delos the heir of the mediterranean Earth and Sky goddess Aphrodite-Ariadne. Via Sicily and the Italian harbours she came to Rome. Sueton writes in his 'De Vita Caesarum' about Nero:

He utterly despised all cults, with the sole exception of that of the Syrian Goddess and even acquired such a contempt for her that he made water on her image, after he was enamored of another, superstition, which was the only one to which he constantly clung. For he had received as a gift from some unknown man of the commons, as a protection against plots, a little image of a girl; and since a conspiracy at once came to light, he continued to venerate it as a powerful divinity and to offer three sacrifices to it every day, encouraging the belief that through its communication he had knowledge of the future. A few months before his death he did attend an inspection of victims, but could not get a favorable omen.

She is often mentioned by Apuleius in his Metamorphoses too. With the Roman soldiers her cult reached the frontiers of the Empire. In Edessa, Haran and Nisibis her cult resisted the Christianity for a long time. In Haran the self-castration was known until the 9th century AD.

Today Atargatis has a revival in the esoteric scene. She is used by Heavy Metal groups and in the Gothic scene. I have attached the famous painting 'Astarte Syriaca' of the Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Lukian, De Dea Syria. online under http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/index.htm
http://www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/hausarbeit/gef/8075.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dea_Syra
Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The golden ass)
Sueton, De Vita Caesarum

 Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 29, 2006, 05:13:02 pm
Orpheus taming the wild animals

Here  I want to present a new coin which I am very glad to add to my collection. Ok, its preservation is not the best, but nearly all details could be seen, especially the animals on the rev. Most coins on CoinArchives are not better.

Thracia, Philippopolis, Geta AD 209-212
AE 29
obv. AVT KP CEPTI - MIOC GETAC
        bust, draped and cuirassed,, laureate, r.
rev. Orpheus, in Thracian dress and with Phrygian cap, sitting on rocks r.,
        playing lyre. Around him a number of wild animals, clockwise from upper
        right: bull, lion, ibex, goose and wolf, jackal and stork, boar .
        in ex.: FILIPPOPO / LEITWN
Varbanov 1422; Moushmov 5383
rare, F+/about FV, nice dark-green patina, some roughness in left field of rev.

The Thracian singer Orpheus is said to be the son of the muse Kalliope and the Thracian king Oiagros or the god Apollo whose fame as kitharoedus he soon outflanked. His Thracian origin was questioned until recently. But already the Greeks saw him as Thracian, in the same way like the muses wich came from the region around the mount Olympos too. Orpheus is entwined in so much myths that the mythographs assumed several different Orpheus'. He is know from the 6th and 5th century from fragments of Simonides and from a text in the 'Alkestis' by Euripides which was  first played 438 BC.

His art as singer was praised especially in the Orphic scripts. In the 'Argonautika' of Apollonios Rhodios he was stylized to one of the greatest heroes and thereby exceeding even Jason. During the journey of the Argos he was the keleustes, giving the tact to the oarsmen, and calming the waves of the sea. His song to the lyre was so moving, that stones, rocks, even mountains came to him to listen, that the wild animals gathered tamed around hím, that the trees walked to him (Ovid Lib. X), that the rivers stopped flowing and that the snow on the mountains was melting. In the underworld the furies were moved to tears for the first and last time.

When he failed in his attempt to free his beloved Eurydike from the Hades
he abdicated the love to women, decided to never get married and introduced the pederasty to Thracia. Half a year he was sitting in a cave of the river Strymon, mourning. But the Mainades, the companions of Dionysos, were put into rage about him, and jumped on him. Because they feared the power of his art they first killed his 'living theater', the birds, the snakes, the droves of game, the bulls and then they teared him apart, the Holy, in a bacchanal of violence. His head nailed on his lyre they throw into the Strymon where he is said to have sung furthermore. The waves carried it to the beach of Lesbos which then became the island of poetry. His lyre was put as constellation to the sky. After his death the birds were mourning, the game, the rocks, the wood. The trees discarded their leafs, the rivers swelled from self dropped tears.

But the soul of Orpheus searched the underworld for Eurydike, found her and
finally they promenaded in combined steps like only one shadow. Only in death there is eternal love!

The scene in which Orpheus tamed the wild animals by his music was well known in the Roman imperial time. The idea of civilizing barbaric traits through arts and poetry was a persistent cultural value throughout Roman times. It is a symbol of the victory of the civilization over barbarianism. In this sense it could play an important role in our times as well!

Later on the motiv of Orpheus and Eurydike became more important. May be one of the members of the FORUM has a coin showing this motiv. Then it would be nice to see it here to round up this theme!

I have attached the pic of a famous mosaic from Antiochia (today Antakya/Turkey). It shows the same scene like the rev of the coin. It is a wonderful example of the painting qualities of a mosaic. This motiv later was used by Christianism too. In the Priscilla catacombes in Rome there is a wall painting showing the Good Shepherd in the shape of Orpheus.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/orpheus.htm
http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/image_gallery/4C_christ_as_orpheus.htm
http://www.dm-art.org/Dallas_Museum_of_Art/View/Collections/Ancient_Mediterranean/ID_012647
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/Metamorph10.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 30, 2006, 09:05:21 pm
Telephos, the son of Herakles

First, please don't confuse Telephos with  Telesphoros, the companion of Asklepios. Telephos is a son of Herakles. One of the scenes of this myth is depicted on the presented coin. It is an AE24 of Damascus in Syria struck for Volusian, son of Trebonianus Gallus.

Volusian AD 251-253
AE 24
obv. IMP GALLO VOLOCCIANO AVG
        bust, draped and cuirassed, laaureate, r.
rev. [COL] DAM - [AS] MET[R]
       Hind with antlers standing r., suckling telephos sitting below
rouvier 99
rare, F+/about VF

Following Der kleine Pauly:
Telephos, Arcadic-Mysean heroe, son of Herakles and Auge, priestress of Athena Alea in Tegea, was exposed in the Parthenion mountains, where he was found by a hind, which suckled him, and  he was educated by herdsmen. Korythos became his foster father. Auge was closed in a  chest and thrown into the sea. She landed at the coast of Mysia, where king Teuthras took her as wife (or as foster daughter). When growing up Telephos killed his uncles and therefore was punished by muteness. As expiation he was sent to search for his mother. He came to Teuthras too who as pay for his help in a war gave him Auge as wife and the succesion of the throne. The fizzling of a snake during the sexual intercourse leads under dramatical circumstances to the recognition of mother and son and so prevents the espousal. In a different version Telephos married Teuthras' daughter Argiope. In the Mysian prelude of the Troian war (the Greeks initially have landed on a wrong coast!) Telephos defeated the Achaioi at the lower Kaikos. He killed Thersandros but received by Achilleus an incurable wound (by intervention of Dionysos). To this combat belongs the cup of Sosias: Achilleus bandages Patroclos. The slogan O TRWAS IACETAI ( Troas will heal) forced Telephos after 8 years of torture to accept the Achaioi where he obtained healing by Achilleus in exchange for pointing them to the correct way to Troy. So far the Kypriai. The Troic circle of epics told a more brutal story in which he threatened the young Orestes at an altar by his sword. Euripides says Telephos has disguised as enemy of Telephos and in this role has maintained his point of view. As remedy served rust or chipping of the spear.

Background:
This myth seems to be a reverberation of old battles of the colonists against Barbarians and the own people. Already the Kypriai initiate a connection to Troy. In a younger version Telephos originates from Troy and has married a woman from Troy, Astyoche or Laodike. His son Eurypylos was fighting for Priamos. The Attalids of Pergamon considered Telephos as their ancestor and let built the frieze of Telephos at their great altar. A Telephos roman was written in which the Amazone-like Hiera played a role. She and Telephos should be the ancestors of Tarchon and Tyrsenos who are said to have colonized Etruria. The hellenistic poetry too dealed with Telephos. Ennus and Accius rewrite the drame of Euripides. In Herculaneum was found the famous wall-painting 'Herakles finding Telephos'.

I have attached a pic of this painting. It was found AD 1793 in Herculaneum and armed with a thick layer of cement to protect it. Not earlier as 2005 it was restored. Until now not all of its figures could be identified. But in the lower left corner we see the hind which is suckling Telephos.

Kypriai: Epic cycles in eleven books which told the prehistory of the Iliad from the marriage of Peleus and Thetis to the unfortunate disembarkation in Teuthracia and the military actions in the Troas.
 
Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Heldenmythen
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 02, 2006, 07:00:54 am
Jochen,

Your post is, as usual, very interesting.  I don't have anything "new" to offer; I am really only reiterating what you've provided, with simply a little supporting information and a photo of a portion of the Telephos Frieze from Pergamon.  Thank you for your posts,"il miglio fabbro!"; I always learn something.

Cheers,
Cleisthenes (Jim)




Telephos
 
Telephos represents for Pergamon, what Romulus/Remus represent for Rome. Various ancient authors write about Telephos and there are different and inconsistent versions of the same story (Homer in The Iliad, Euripides, Aristophanes, Hyginus...).
 
Telephos’ parents are Heracles and princess Auge, the daughter of King Aleus of Tegea. King Aleus, who knows an oracle predicting that a son of Auge will cause the death of one of his sons, installs her as priestess in Athena’s temple, a post requiring perpetual virginity. However, during Heracles’ stay at Tegea, he falls in love with princess Auge, and he seduces her.

On discovering that Auge is pregnant, Aleus is angry and sends his daughter to the sea to be drowned; on the way there, according to some texts, she gives birth to Telephos. In Nauplia, King Nauphilus places both mother and son in a chest, and sets it adrift in the sea; they land, according to this version, in Mysia, where Auge raises Telephos. In a different version of the story, Auge gives birth to a son in Athena’s temple and hides him there.  This angers Athena, and the goddess causes all of the surrounding land to be barren.

Auge’s father, King Aleus, seeks the reason for this pestilence, and he discovers that it is his daughter and her newborn son who are responsible.   He, therefore, abandons and exposes the child on Mount Parthenium, and sends Auge overseas to Nauphilus where she will be sold into slavery. Auge is sold to Teuthras, king of Teuthrania on the River Caicus in Mysia. 
According to the traditional version, Telephos is discovered by some shepherds in the care of a doe, (‘elaphos,’ Greek) which was suckling him (‘a teat,’ ‘thele,’ Greek); the shepherds  name the foundling Telephos (‘thele’ + ‘elaphos’).  According to another, more recent heroic version, Herakles discovers Telephos being suckled by a lioness.

In the shepherd version, the shepherds raise Telephos in the company of Parthenopaeus, who also has been abandoned nearby. They become great friends. According to some authors, Auge herself abandons Telephos on Mt. Parthenium to hide her shame, or that she gives birth to him there on the way to Naupila.
 
When Telephos grows up, he wants to know the identity of his parents, in part because he suffers taunting at Aleus’ court because he does not know his lineage. On one momentous occasion, when he is being insulted, Telephos kills the person who so angers him. The oracle proves to be true: the dead man is Aleus’ son. In every version, it is agreed that Telephus subsequently consults the Delphi Oracle; the Oracle sends him to Mysia to find out his origins.

Accompanied by Parthenopaeus, he sails to Teuthrania, where, at the head of an army of Greek invaders, he helps to drive out Teuthras' enemies. Teuthras, who has no son, makes Telephos his heir. In one version, Teuthras has married Auge. In another, (analogous with Oedipus), Teuthras has adopted Auge as his daughter, and now insists on marrying her to Telephos as a part of Telephos’ reward. Auge, though unaware she is Telephos’ mother, is opposed to the match; according to some accounts she feels this way because she wishes to remain faithful to Heracles’ memory.  Therefore, she takes a sword to bed with her, intending to stab Telephos.  Miraculously, an enormous snake appears in the bed between them, and then Auge, terrorized, confesses her intention. Telephos, understandably outraged, prepares to kill her; whereupon Auge calls on Heracles for his help.  This prompts Telephos to ask her why she has appealed to the Hero. Auge, then, tells Telephos her long story that begins with her seduction by Heracles.  In this way, Auge and Telephos come to recognize each other.

In the Hyginus version of the story, Telephos then marries Ardiope, Teuthras’ daughter. Telephos’ wife is alternatively identified as Astyoche (Laodice), a daughter of Priam.

While Telephos is on the throne of Teuthrania, the Trojan War breaks-out; as Priam’s son-in-law, he supports the Trojan side. The Greeks mistakenly land in Mysia, believing it to be Trojan territory. Telephos fights against them, killing Polyncies’ son Thersander, but is wounded by Achilles when his foot is caught in a grapevine. After the Greeks return home, Telephos’ wound still has not healed. He consults an oracle and is told that the wound will eventually heal--but that he must seek out help from the Greeks (Iliad).  Dressed in beggar’s rags, Telephos travels to Mycenae, where the Greek captains are preparing another expedition against Troy.
 
He confides his plight to Clytemnestra, who advises him that the only way to gain his point with the kings is to seize the child Orestes and make supplication to Agamemnon. He does so, urging that Achilles should cure him. The Greek commanders, by this time have received an oracle that informs them that they will reach Troy, only if Telephos guides them there.   They consent to Telephos’ request.  Achilles, however, declares that he has no experience as a doctor.  Odysseus sees a deeper meaning in the oracle, and suggests that it refers to Achilles’ spear rather than to Achilles himself. Each day a little rust from Achilles’ spear is applied to Telephos’ wound; in a few days Telephos’ wound heals.

Telephos guides the Greek fleet to Troy, but refuses to join them in war. After Telephos dies, his son Eurypylus, in the last year of the Trojan war, leads Mysia reinforcements to aid Priam.
 
The myth of Telephos is, in later times, reinforced by the Attalid kings of Pergamon in Mysia.

Telephos is the founder of the cults of Dionysos, Athene and Zeus at Pergamon.

Bibliography:
Bauchenss-Thueirdel, Christa, Der Mythos von Telephos in “der antiken Bildkunst”. Beitraege zur Archaelogie, Wuerzburg: Konrad Trilitsch Verlag;
 
Schrader, Hans. “Die Anordnungund Deutung des pergamenischen Telephosfrieses”, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts 15 (1900);
 
Michael Grant and John Hazel, Who’s Who in Classical Mythology.

http://www.1stmuse.com/Pergamon/frieze.html

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 02, 2006, 07:50:47 am
Thanks for your detailed information! I love it!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 02, 2006, 08:59:20 am
Jochen,

I am very keen on Pergamon, and I have always enjoyed this mythological connection with Telephos!

Cheers,
Cleisthenes (Jim)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on May 02, 2006, 09:21:32 pm
I do have an interesting little coin with Herakles holding the infant Telephos, so here it is:
11 01 02 AE 18  Thrace, Philippopolis.  Septimius Severus, head to r. (whether laureate not preserved).  ----]  |  SEVERO.  Rev., Herakles, unbearded, stg. frontal, head turned to l., r. arm akimbo and also evidently holding his club; on his l. forearm, the infant Telephos who reaches up to his shoulder. [PhI]LIPP  |  OPOL[ITON].  Almost certainly quotes a Pergamene type, why at Philippopolis quite unknowable.
Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 03, 2006, 12:23:48 am
I do have an interesting little coin with Herakles holding the infant Telephos . . .
Pat L.
Pat L.,

You have a very interesting coin; the baby "clinging" to Herakles' shoulder is charming.

Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 05, 2006, 04:10:43 pm
Dionysos and Nikaia - the founder myth of Nicaea

We have spoken about Dionysos several times in this thread. The motiv of this coin is alluding to the founder myth of Nicaea. This myth belongs to the group of myths around Dionysos too. I'm referring here to that lexikon, which already Goethe has used for his tragedy 'Faust II', the 'Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon' from Benjamin Hederich, Leipzig 1770. But first the coin:

Bithynia, Nicaea, Severus Alexander 222-235
AE 25, 9.18g
obv. M AVR CEVH - ALEZANDROC
Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. NI - [K] - AIEW - N
Dionysos, draped, with ivy wreath, holding thyrsos, sitting r., head turned l. to a female figure (probably Nikaia), stg. frontal, head with chignon r., holding wreath in r. hand.
no reference found
about VF

The nymph Nikaia (lat. Nicaea) was the daughter of the Phrygian river-god Sangarios and the goddess Kybele (Memnon ap phot. p.383). She was of exquisite beauty, but at the same time a passionate huntress who like to stay in the woods and between the mountains (Nonni Dionys. XV. 170 sqq.). Here Hymnos, a herdsman of this region, fall in love to her, followed her and watched her closely (Ib. 204). But his prayers were not answered and because he won't stop being after her she finally became angry and shot him with one of her arrows (Ib. 362). This murder Eros swore to avenge and he kept his word truely. When she was heated once by the hunt and was washing herself in a stream, Eros led Dionysos to her so that he could see her nude. At the same time he wounded his heart (Id. XVI. 1 sqq.). But Dionysos found as much approval by her as Hymnos and she threatened him with whose fate (Ib. 156.). But he has turned a river some time before into wine (Id. XIV fin.). She came thursty by her hunt to that river, got drunk and fall asleep. Dionysos, who has followed her all the time, now enjoyed what he couldn't get before (Id. XVI. 282). As soon as she regarded her accident she tried to kill her raper. But because that was impossible she suicided by hanging (Ib. 391). But first she gave birth to a daughter of him who was called Telete and Dionysos built up a city called Nikaia after her (Ib. in fin.). Telete became a devotee of him.

It is told too that he has also a son Satyrios by Nikaia. If that would be true then he stands for the male principle and Telete for the female principle of the Dionysos cult - a so-called 'Koure' in his train. As personification of the initiations rites (telete = initiation) she is closely connected to Orpheus. On Helikon, the 'Mount of Willow', Pausanias saw a statue of Orpheus with Telete at his side. And in Polygnotos' great fresco of the Underworld at Delphoi Orpheus was painted leaning against a willow and touching its branches with his hands, just as Telete in the relief of Loukou seated beside the tree close up against its foliage. Both he and she derived fertility from contact with the sacred tree. the relief from Loukou was probably set up over the grave of an Orphic votary.

From the 2nd century AD coins of Nicaea show Nikaia as city-goddess.

Sources:
Memnos of Herakleia
Nonnus,Dionysiaka
Der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

BTW Nicaea is the city of the famous council AD 325 where the Eastern date was defined and the notorious discussion about 'homoousios' and 'homoiousios' took place.
 
Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 06, 2006, 03:41:41 am
Dionysos and Nikaia - the founder myth of Nicaea

We have spoken about Dionysos several times in this thread . . .I'm referring here to that lexikon, which already Goethe has used for his tragedy 'Faust II'. . .

Jochen,

This is very intriguing.  Because of obvious restrictions, it is not possible to discuss in detail the enormous influence Dionysus has played in the art of Western Civilization.  From the paintings of Diego Velasquez ("The Feast of Bacchus"), to the poetry of John Keats ("Ode to a Nightingale" is just one example), to Modernist prose; Dionysus plays a starring role.  In his novella Death in Venice, Thomas Mann's famous protagonist, Aschenbach, can be seen as making the journey of initiation into the realm of Bacchanalia.  The link between Goethe and Mann is, of course, Nietzsche (who after his breakdown signed letters using the name Dionysus).

There are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of coins that depict Dionysus/Bacchus.  I have chosen one that I find especially interesting: LESBOS: Mytilene. Ca. 356 BC. El hecte (2.57 gm). Head of young Dionysus right, wreathed in ivy / Satyr's head facing within linear square. Bodenstedt 90 (unlisted dies).   It is the remarkable style of the reverse that catches my imagination.  The Satyr (a creature very Dionysian in nature) reminds me of the image of the Spaniard in the middle of the composition of Velasquez's "The Feast of Bacchus".  In the painting by Velasquez, the youthful Bacchus is crowning one of his 'acolytes' while the Spaniard to his left, holding the bowl of wine, seems, at least in my imagination, to be wearing the same leering almost inviting features as the satyr in the ancient coin from Lesbos.  I have included Velasquez's "The Feast of Bacchus" for the sake of comparison.

Thank you, once again, for a very interesting topic!
--Cleisthenes (Jim)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 06, 2006, 08:13:54 pm
Dido - founder of Carthage

The coin:

Phoenicia, Tyrus, Julia Maesa, grandmother of Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 30, 9.05g
obv. IVLIA MAE - SA AVGV
bust, draped, diademed, r.
rev. TVRIORVM
Galley with ten oars going r. Shield on stern post. Ram of prow shaped as dolphin. Aboard Dido, draped, stg. l., holding cornucopiae in l. arm and sceptre(?) in outstretched r. hand. Left beside her a second figure, ducked, holding vessel(?). Right beside her sailor stg. with unidentified object. Below ship to the left Murex shell, to the right prawn l.
Ref. Rouvier 2408

The legend is Latin because Tyrus was a Roman colony. For the second figure, stg. left of Dido, I have no explanation. I would be happy for any information! The Murex snail left below the ship is one of the two snail species from which in ancient times was made the purple. At the first time Phoenicia has the monopoly to do that hence its immense wealth. For 1g purple were needed 10000 snails! Until now you can find at the beach of Sidon's southern harbour shells in the height of some meters. The name Phoenicia is derived from the Greek word 'phoinix' meaning purple. In its own language the country was called Kanaan (in the Bible too!).

The myth of Dido and Aeneas is one of the most famous and most tragic love stories of ancient times. Sadly to say that it is only a Roman fiction! Here we have what is known actually:

First we meet Dido at Timaios: She was called Greek Theiosso (never known from other sources), but Phoenician Elissa; Deido she was called in Libya because of her odyssey (Serv. auct. Aen. 1, 340; but 'Dido id est virago Punica lingua'). Dido was the daughter of Mutto, king of Tyrus (or Methres, ref. to Serv. Aen. 1, 343; or Belus, ref. to Verg. Aen. 1, 621), and the sister of Pygmalion. When she was married to her uncle (Acherbas ref. to Iust., or Sychaeus ref. to Verg.), Pygmalion killed him of greed. Dido fearing her brother took the treasuries of her husband and fled together with several nobelmen to Libya. When she was forced by her own people to marry the Libyan king Hiarbas (Iust.) or Iarbas (Verg.) to avoid a threatening war she entered a pyre and stabbed a digger in her heart. The excerpt of Timaios is considerable shortened, more detailed is Iust. 18, 4-6, and the well known story Verg. Aen. 1, 335-368 and 4, 1 ff.; also Serv. and Ap. Lib. 1 report it: all referring to Jacoby without direct dependency from Timaios, but a source couldn't found yet. Iustinus reports names, which are missed in the fragment of Timaios, and tells details: Dido escaped her brother by fraud, who by appeals of their mother and threat of the gods decided not to pursue her. She landed on Kypros, where 60 virgins - following old rules - were addicted to her companions and then were raped as ancestor mothers of Carthage (the number referring to the number of Carthagian noble families?). In Libya she bought so much land "as could be encircled by the skin of a cow, wheron she cut the skin to small stripes, from where the castle of Carthage was called Byrsa = skin". But more correct that seems to be 'Bosra', meaning Phoenician 'castle'. Carthago means Phoenician 'New Town'. It developed as we all know to the most powerful city in the Western part of the Mediterranean and outlasted even the decline of its mother-town Tyrus. This all occured at the end of the 9th century BC. Josephus put it in the year 860 BC.

Disputed is who has invented the encounter with Aeneas and the lovestory. Formerly it was suggested that it were the first two books of Naevius; recent authors agreed with new arguments. But others voted for an invention of Vergil due to the doubts of Heinze. Sadly we could not obtaine safety; the love and following hostility between Dido and Aeneas belongs rather to the reasons of the Punic-Roman antagonism, despite Vergil's excellent description. Statements like those of Macr. or Anth. Plan. 16, 151, Vergil has talked Dido down, should not be taken in account. Dido was the paradigm of faithfulness and was seen so long after Vergil too! And the art and impact of Vergil was much bigger than that of Naevius.

Pure speculation is the suggestion that Dido represents the Carthagian city-goddess Tanit (Dea caelestis).

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Iustinus, Epitome
Timaios von Tauromenion
Vergil, Aeneis
Ovid, Metamorphosen

Attached I have a pic of the famous painting of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Death of Dido, from the midth of the 18th century. Today it is found in the Pushkin Museum of Arts in Moscow (copyright The Yorck Project).

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 07, 2006, 06:32:14 pm
Now I got additional informations to the coin of Tyrus I want to share with you.

On the right side of Dido was a sailor, damaged by cleaning. The figure on the left of Dido is throwing a sack int the sea. And here is the background (Justinus, lib. XIII):

When Dido's brother Pygmalion has heard that Dido wanted to leave Tyros with all the treasures of her killed husband he sent some of his people to her which should accompany her on the voyage to New-Tyrus. When Dido together with these people entered the ship she forced them to throw sacks filled with sand over the railing into the sea. After done that she told them that these sacks were the sacks with the treasures. Fearing the punishment of their new king Pygmalion these people decided to leave Tyrus too and went with Dido to New-Tyrus.

Referring to this story I think the figure at the helm of the galley is throwing a sack filled with sand into the sea!

Additionally I have attached the pic of a murex shell (correct named Hexaplex trunculus), in the same position as depicted on the reverse. The pic is from the collection of Eric Feldhuis/The Netherlands.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 14, 2006, 10:42:57 am
The Minotaur

Jochen and Learned Colleagues,

I am intrigued by what seems to be a connection between numismatic portrayals of the Minotaur and Pablo Picasso and his art, in a word: ekphrasis.

As Laura Crimaldi notes in her article "Minotaur Central to Picasso’s Work," Boston Herald, 28 April 2006, "For Pablo Picasso, the Minotaur wasn’t just a mythical figure, it was how he often depicted himself in his work: as half man, half monster."

I am including two coins and a Picasso composition for comparison.  The first coin is SICILY: Gela. Ca. 450–440 BC. AR tetradrachm (17.21 gm). Slow quadriga right, Nike flying right above to crown horses, palmette and tendrils in exergue / CELAS, forepart of man-faced bull running right. Jenkins 351 (O67/R137).  The second coin is KNOSSOS (425-330 BC). Obverse device is a Minotaur; Reverse head of Ariadne, surrounded by a meander pattern representing the labyrinth (CNG; SG-3211).  The Picasso is one of a series the artist composed throughout his lifetime.  I saw it as part of a travelling exhibit in Mumbai in the Spring of 2002.  It fascinated me then, and comparing these stunning works of art enhances, for me, their individual power.



Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 14, 2006, 07:22:27 pm
Battos - the untrue herdsman

We have already talked about the birth of Hermes in this thread. Here we have a local myth playing at the first day after Hermes' birth, I came across when I browsed through my new AMNG. But first the coin:

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Gordian III AD 238-244
AE 27, 12.74g
obv. AVT KM ANT G - ORDIANOC AVG (AV ligate)
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. VP CAB MODECTOV NIKOPOLEITWN PROC ICTRON
      Hermes, nude, standing left leaned forwards, r. arm with lowered kerykeion rested on
      knee placed on rock, l. arm enwinded with chlamys and l. hand with purse stemmed in
      his side
AMNG 2057
about VF

In a note Pick writes about this type:
The object on which the god has put his l. foot looks like the head of a bearded man r. on all specimens; I think I can recognize eye and nose and from my point of view it can't be by accident. We can't think of Argos here but the depiction could refer to the not so wide known myth of Battos who was transformed by Hermes to stone due to his betrayal. (Ovid Metam. 2, 680-707)
The type is derived probably from a greater work of art, a statue or a painting, as I have stated already in my introduction.

The myth (ref. to Hederich):
Battos, an Arcadian, has his residence on a high rock, called Battos' look-out. So he soon became aware of Hermes when he has stolen part of Apollon's cattle and has droven them through Arcadia. To avoid that he tells this to someone who perhaps was following him and would ask for the cattle Hermes forced him to swear not to betray him. But he didn't trust him, hid the cattle in the Prionic cave at the Koryphasius mountain, changed his shape und went back to Battos. Then he promised him a chlaena, a dress, if he would tell him wether he has seen some cattle droven by. Because Battos liked to get the dress and told him what he knew of the cattle Hermes hit him with his staff and turned him to stone. Nicander ap. Anson. Liberal. Metam. c.22.
Some are telling that he was a herdsman of Neleus and that he first got a cow as gift; when thereafter the disguised Hermes promised him a beautiful cow and a bull, so he has broken his vow and told him where the cattle was gone. Because of that the stone into which he was transformed was called 'indicis', that means 'stone of proof'. Ovid Metam. 2, 687.
Meanwhile others thought that Hermes has made him only mute so that he had to go to Delphi to ask Apollon for advice and help. Ap. Nat. Com. lib. V. c.5.

Background:
Battos was a Messenian herdsman serving for the Pylian Neleus. He saw Hermes droving by the stolen cattle of Apollon and for the gift of a cow vowed silence toward anyone:"sooner that stone will tell it". To try out his fidelity Hermes came back in another shape and promised him a bull if he show him the cattle. Batts broke his vow and as punishment was turned into a stone. Ant. Lib. 23, Ovid Metam. 2, 676-707.
This seems to be a folk tale which refers by playful etymology (battolegein = to babble) to the Battou skopiai (the look-out of Battos) in Arcadia. This perhaps was a locality distinguished by an echo.
Referring to Hom. h. 3, 87f 185ff. the betrayer was a not named old man from Onchetos.

Sources:
der kleine Pauly
Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Ovid, Metamorphoses

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 24, 2006, 08:14:26 am
As I said in an earlier thread, I cautiously 'like' Hermes, in part because he is a"minor" patron of both poetry and thieves.

Cleisthenes (Jim)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 25, 2006, 04:41:03 pm
Kadmos - Founder of Thebes

The coin:
Phoenicia, Sidon, Trajan, AD 98-117
AE 24, 8.72g
struck year 227 of Sidonian era = AD 116/7
obv. [AVTO NER] TRAIA[NW KAI CE]
bust, laureate, r.
rev. [SIDWNOS NAV] - ARXIDOS
Kadmos, nude to hips, stg. l. on prow, head r., pointing l. with outstretched r. hand; according to his mythology I think he is pointing to Greece while looking back to Sidon.
in l. field LZKS (retrograde for 227)
BMC 218; SNG Copenhagen 252; Lindgren-Kovacs 2329
rare, F+, green-red patina
(missed legend parts completed according to Seasr GIC 1087)

Mythology:
Kadmos was the son of the Phoenician king Agenor, son of Poseidon and Libye, and his wife Telephassa. His sister was Europa and his brothers Phoinix and Kilix. After Zeus has raped Europa in the shape of a bull, he was send out together with his brothers to search for Europa and to bring her home or never come back again. So he and his mother and some people of Sidon entered a ship and started the search. He strayed around the eastern Mediterranean and visited many islands. Drifted to Rhodos by a heavy storm he erected a temple for Poseidon. He came to Thera too, to Crete and Samothrace and everywhere he built temples. Finely he came to Thracia, where Telephassa died. Because he nowhere heard of  Europa he went to Delphi to ask the oracle. Apollo answered he should stop asking for Europa but should follow the cow which would lead him and build a town where the cow would lie down.

Kadmos followed the cow to Boiotia where she laid down and so pointed the place to build the town. But when he wanted to sacrify the cow to Athena and sent his men to get water from the spring of Ares they were killed and devoured by a huge dragon. That happened to others too. Hereupon Kadmos killed the dragon in a fight. Athena advised him to sow the teeth of the dragon on a field. After doing that a mass of armoured warriors rose from the earth and started to struggle against each other. All were killed except five. These - the so-called 'Spartoi' - became the ancestors of the subsequent Thebanians. He for himself had to serve one year as slave for Ares to expiate the murder of the dragon which was a son of Ares. This fight is said to happened at the Castalic spring. Furthermore Boiotia should have its name from this cow because cow in Greek is BOVS. Kadmos built at this place the castle Kadmeia which later became the city of Thebes (Homer called it the 'seven-gated Thebes' in contrary to the 'hundred-gated Thebes' in Egypt). The Ilias therefore called the Thebanians Kadmeioi.

Kadmos is said too to have brought the Phoenician alphabet to Greece. It is the alphabet which the Greek still used today and from which the Latin alphabet is derived too. He should have introduced the cult of Dionysos to Greece and he is said to be the inventor of the art of forging which was first done at the Pangaios mointain in Thracia.

The begin of his reign was very happy. Athena has provided him the castle and the town, and Zeus gave him Harmonia as wife, his daughter with Elektra (regarding to others the daughter of Ares with Aphrodite). This was a splendid marriage. All gods were aboard and make a present. Apoll and the Muses made the music. But then his fate turned into misfortune!

He has one son and four daughters. His son Polydoros was his successor to the throne. His first daughter was Semele who by Zeus gave birth to Dionysos but then was killed by his thunderbolt (see article in this thread). His second daughter was Ino who was forced by her mad husband to jump with her son Melikertes over the cliffs into the sea (see article in this thread). The third daughter was Autonoe who has with Aristaios the son Aktaion who was disrupted by his own dogs. The last one was Agaue, wife of Echion, who in furiousness ruptured her own son Pentheus.

After all that bad luck Kadmos and Harmonia left Thebes and went to Illyria where he helped the Encheleerians(?) in their war against the Illyrians and became king of Illyria thereafter. Shortly after that Kadmos and Harmonia were turned by Zeus into snakes and put to the Elysian Fields.

The reason for all the terrible desaster of his family was Hera who wanted to avange the infidelity of her husband Zeus who had betrayed her with Europa, sister of Kadmos, and then with his daughter Semele.

Some background:
The name Kadmos can be derived from Phoenician 'Cadam', meaning 'the morning'. Then Kadmos would be the man from the morning, man from the East. In Thebes recently are found 36 Babylonian cylinder seals - besides important cretic-mycenian art work -, so that a strong orientalic impact in Kadmeia is proofed.
Essential is the connection with Illyria at the end of his life where a local cult site is incorporated into the myth of Kadmos. At the end of Euripides' Bacchoi Dionysos predicts that Kadmos and Harmonia would go by a bull chariot in the shape of snakes to a strange people; as leader of this people he would campaign against Hellas until Delphi was sacked; then this people would come to an evil end, but Kadmos and Harmonia leaded by Zeus would enter the land of the blessed. The transformation into snakes means heroisation and is identical to translation to Elysium. Therefore Ovid (Met. 4, 562ff.) put it to the end of his life but as punishment for killing the dragon. Why Kadmos left Thebes is told differently. That he has helped the Enchelleerians(?) is told by Apollodor. Referring to him he has a late son, Illyrios. The graves of Kadmos and Harmonia were shown near Epidamnos.
The Greek 'Kadmeia nike' was used in the same way as our Pyrrhic Victory. It is known from Herodot and Plato.
Alltogether Kadmos was seen as important bringer of culture to the Greek. They were well aware that their scripture was from the East and that the workmanship of iron came from the East too. A funny interpretation of the struggle of the teeth-borne warriors is from Alkias: He suggested that the warriors actually were scholars who have originated from the brought letters (the teeth of the dragon!) and since that time were bashing their heads!

The history of Thebes in mythology is a chain of desasters. I remind on the myth of Eteokles and Polydeikes and the myth of the Seven against Thebes and the following myth of the Epigones.

This is true for the real history of Thebes too. By the unfortunate politicy of its rulers here also one misfortune follows the other until the city was totally destroyed by Alexander the Great and the inhabitants were sold as slaves. To see these parallels between mythology and history is very weird!
 
Art history:
In ancient times the fight between Kadmos and the dragon was a favourite subject which was depicted several times on vases. Here we have the red-figured picture of a crater found near  Paestum from the time of 360-340 BC attributed to Python. It is now in the Louvre. We see Kadmos holding a Hydria in front of the dragon of the Ismenic spring near Thebes. He is accompanied by Harmonia on the left side. On the right side Ismene is standing, the Najad of this spring.
 
Sources:
Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
Der kleine Pauly, Kadmos and Thebai
Ovid, Metamorphoses

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 26, 2006, 10:14:42 am
In an interesting variation on the fate of Kadmos (Ovid's Metamorphoses) the story goes:  Kadmos (Cadmus) was so upset by the 'bad luck' that hounded him since his slaying of the serpent, that he declared that if the gods loved serpents so much, why not transform him into one.  Well, we know what happened; he began to grow scales and change in form. Harmonia, his devoted wife, seeing this metamorphosis, pleaded with the gods to transform her as well.

In yet another variation of this story, Cadmus and his wife were changed after their deaths (perhaps they found some respite in Illyria after all).  The serpents watched their tomb until their spirits made their trip to the Elysian fields.

I have two coins, the reverse of which, depict Kadmos.  I've also included a work of art on display in New York.

The coins:  Gallienus, Æ28 of Tyre in Phoenicia. IMP C P LIC GALLIENVS AVG, Radiate draped bust right / COL TYRO MET, Kadmos, right arm raised, battling serpent.

Elagabalus Æ 30mm of Phoenicia, Tyre. Laureate, draped bust right / Kadmos running right; murex below. Lindgren III 1471.

The art: a montage of several photos of a vase.  K28.2 KADMOS & THE DRAKON

Museum Collection: Metropolitan Museum, New York City, USA
Catalogue Number: New York 07.286.66
Beazley Archive Number: 207136
Ware: Attic Red Figure
Shape: Krater, calyx
Painter: Attributed to the Spreckels Painter
Date: ca 450 BC
Period: Classical

SUMMARY

Kadmos arrives at the sacred Ismenian spring with a jug (hydria) to collect water for libations. He casts a stone at the guardian serpent (drakon). Beside the spring sits Ismene, the local Naias Nymphe, or Harmonia, daughter of Ares, the future wife of the hero. Two gods, Athene and Ares, stand on each side, one in support of the hero, the other of the serpent.

See: http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K28.2.html

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 28, 2006, 01:09:11 pm
Darzalas - The Great God of Odessos

Today I want to present one of the most mysterious gods of the Greek mythology, the Great God of Odessos Darzalas. Actually he is more a Thracian god. But very few is known about him. Here is what I could find out. But first three related coins:

1st coin
Thracia, Odessos, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 27, 9.9g
obv. AV KL CEP - CEVHR
        bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. O - DHCCE - ITWN
       The Great God of Odessos, in himation, stg. l., holding cornucopiae and sacrifying
       from phiale over altar l.
AMNG cf. 2260 (here gorgoneion on breastplate); SNG Copenhagen 672 var.
note: The great God still without kalathos!

2nd coin:
Thracia, Odessos, Gordian III & the Great God, AD 238-244
AE 27, 11.31g
obv. AVT KM ANT GORDIANOC / AVG
       Confronted busts of Gordian III, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r., and the Great
       God, in himation and with kalathos, l., with cornucopiae over l. shoulder
rev. OD - HCC - EITWN
       Demeter, veiled, with peplos over long chiton, stg. l., holding corn-ear and puppy
       in r. hand and torch (or sceptre?) in l. hand
       E in r. field (for pentassarion)
AMNG 2337 (only 1 ex. in London)
note: Demeter too is a chthonic deity!

3rd coin:
Thracia, Odessos, Gordian III and the Great God, AD 238-244
AE 27, 11.40g
struck probaly AD 238
obv. AVT M ANT GORDIANOC / AG
       Confronted busts of Gordian III, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r., and the Great
       God, in himation and with kalathos, l., with cornucopiae over l. shoulder
rev. ODHC - C - EITWN     
      Prize-crown, decorated with zigzag-lines, inscribed with 'DARZALEIA'; two
      palm-branches coming out the opening
      E in the field below (for pentassarion)
AMNG 2371 (2 ex.)
note: The DARZALEIA were the games in honour of the Great God (Pick, AMNG,
        p.526 ff.)

The Thracians in ancient times inhabitant the regions from north of Greece to the Lower Danube. They were consisted of numerous particular nations. The most famous  were the Odryses. The most important of the mountain people were the Besses, the last conquered by the Romans. The Moesi were the remainders of the Mysi which emigrated to Asia Minor. On both sides of the Lower Danube settled the Geti. They populated too parts of the Aegaeis and parts of Asia Minor. So f.e. Samothrace was Thracian shown already by its name. Herodot writes (Herodot, Hist. 5,3) that the Thracians after the Indians were the greatest people on earth. But they never succeeded in founding an empire for its own because they were at odds with each other and were at war with one another very often. However they had the same language and their conventions were all the same. They all were ruled by priest kings.

The connections between the Greek and the Thracians were very close in both directions. Orpheus and Museios were Thracians. Dionysos (Thracian dios = Zeus, nysos = son) has his origin probably at the phrygian Thracians, came to the european Thracians and then slowly spread to Greece  in the 8th century BC. Asklepios too was a Thracian (Thracian as = snake, klepi = to entwine a staff). But it was true in the other direction too. The Thracian gods were named referring to Greek gods. The Thracian kings derived their origin from Hermes. The Thracian Mother Goddess Bendis, mentioned by Herodot and Platon was called the Thracian Artemis. In the Thracian pantheon she was regarded as Great Goddess and probably the Thracian kings were hold as her sons. This is supported by the names Teres and Kotys  of several kings and which were actually derived from the epitheta Tereia and Kotyto of Artemis.

Most of the Thracian deities were of chthonic nature. They were earth and fertility deities with strong relations to the underworld. The most important difference between Greek and Thracian religion was their belief in a life after death. This was absolut weird to the Greek. But their belief was so strong that it was told the Thracians had joyfully celebrated the death but had wept at the birth of a child. This faith was the reason too for the dreaded courage of the Thracian horsemen who didn't take care for their lifes in fight. This could be a reason too that the Christian belief was not strange to them and fell on fertile ground, so that their own religion died off in the 4th century AD.

On top of the Thracian pantheon stood the 'Thracian Rider', who is depicted on many coins. He was rather a symbol of god as creator of all earthly than the personification of a particular deity. The horse was regarded as holy to the Thracians and gods like Apollon, Dionysos, Asklepios and Ares were depicted as horsemen too. So Greek deities were melted with Thracians beliefs. This happened especially in Hellenistic and Roman times in the Greek cities of the Pontos (Black Sea), the Aegaeis and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara). The cults of Isis and Serapis exclusively spread at the coast whereas the inland mainly stayed Thracian.

This was true especially for the 'Great of God of Odessos Darzalas'. Darzalas was one of the more important deities of the Thracians and under this name became the main god of Odessos, todays Varna in Bulgaria. So he kept his old Thracian name. He was a underworld and fertility god, was called just 'Great God (= Megas Theos)' as well or only 'God'. Today it is discussed wether there was an impact of the Jewish diaspora too. He was similar to the Greek Serapis in his appearance. So it could be that the same god was warshipped by the Thracians as Darzalas and by the Greek as Serapis or Zeus. The analogy between them was great. Both were depicted as older men full-bearded, with flowing hair and wearing himation. In the Roman Imperial time at least from Septimius Severus on the Great God got the kalathos (lat. modus) too. This similarity of look is the reason that both often are not differentiated in coin descriptions today. But the typical attribute of the Great God is the cornucopiae never found in Serapis! Sometimes it is difficult to recognize it on the coin obverse because it extends to the legend.

The history of development of both gods is very different. Serapis is an artificial deity created by Ptolemy I because of political and religious-political reasons. He mixed together elements of the Egypt death god Osiris-Apis with the Zeus-shaped ruler of the world. The Great God in contrast, the syncretisation of a Thracian god with Greek beliefs, developed in a natural wise over a long time. At first Megas Theos occured on coins of the 3rd century BC in the shape of a rider. Here we find another melting process with the Thracian rider hero. The name Megas Theos we see on a tetradrachm of the 2rd century BC.

Sadly very few is known of its cult. It was a combination of Greek and Thracian ideas. At the height of its importance it was surely connected to the belief in a life after death and healing. It was widely spread over the people of Thracia and Moesia inferior and people of all social levels and all ethnics belong to its devotees. At this time a temple was built in Istrion too and coins were struck with his image at Tomis, Markianopolis and Dionysopolis too. As we know there was never a mystery cult with secret communities and hierarchies.

The priests of the Great God have played an important role in Odessos. His Highpriest was the president of the assemblage of the citizens. In honour of Darzalas games were organized at the time of Gordian III, the so-called DARZALEIA, a name found on a coin of Odessos. These games took place in AD 238 probably in the presence of the emperor (Pick, AMNG, p.528).

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 28, 2006, 01:13:05 pm
(continued)

I have attached the pic of a grave of Asklepios, a priest of Darzalas, now in the Regional Museum of History in Varna. It was found in Odessos and shows him together with his wife Ani and two of their slaves. The inscription says, that he was one of the distinguished citizens: he was a "senior town's doctor" and a priest of the Great God Darzalas, a gymnasiarchos and a bearer of a number of honourable titles. The elements of a full armament are shown below the relief: a round shield with a horse's head and a spear showing behind it, a helmet, a sword with a leather strap, greaves. This too proofs the close connection between Darzalas and the Thracian Rider. So, referring to Pudill,  the Great Gott of Odessos Darzalas is the outstanding example for continuity of cults and syncretism in Thracia.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly, Thrakien
Pick, AMNG I/1
Rainer Pudill, The Great God of Odessos Darzalas, Celator 10/15, Okt. 2001
http://www.kroraina.com/thracia/hb/thrac_hero.html (for the grave)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on May 30, 2006, 08:19:45 am
Jochen,

Once again I have to say that your post in very interesting.  I bet I have said that five or six times recently, but it is the truth.  I had never heard of Darzalas before your post.  The only thing I have to offer derives from research at WILDWINDS.

Odessus was an ancient Thracian town, at the present location of Varna, dating back to 560 B.C., and was an important trade, agricultural, craft and cultural center. The Greeks adopted the deity Darzalas, the ''great god'' of the northern Thracian tribe called the Getai, as their own great god (Theos Megas), and minted coins bearing Darzalas's likeness, similar in design to the Greek god Kronos riding a horse. Coinage of Odessus was issued for some seven centuries.
See: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:V0mcKyQZD80J:www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/commodus/_odessos_AE25_Moushmov_1592.txt+Darzalas+coins&hl=en&gl=th&ct=clnk&cd=5

Here is a description of an interesting coin whose reverse depicts Darzalas (Herous, Kronos):  Thrace, Odessos Æ20. ca 200 BC. Laureate head of Zeus right / Herous, the Rider God of Odessos, riding right on high stepping horse, cloak flying behind him, EL below, ODHSITWN in ex.
See: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/thrace/odessos/i.html

Cheers, Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 03, 2006, 05:12:25 pm
Melqart-Herakles

Here is the new coin:

Phoenicia, Tyre, Trajan AD 98-117
AR - Tetradrachm, 13.96g, 24mm
struck year 17 (IZ) = AD 112/13
obv. AVTOKR KAIC NER TRAIANOC CEB GERM DAK
bust, laureate, r.; club behind, eagle beneath
rev. DHMARC - EX IZ VPAT S
bust of Melqart, laureate, r., lion's skin tied around neck
Prieur 1517

And here the information:

Melqart as *mlk-qrt 'King of the City' originally was the City God of Tyre. So he appears already as 'Mi-il-qa-tu' in the list of vow gods in the treaty of Asarhaddon with Baal of Tyre. But the oldest reference we have is an Aramaic inscription of Barhadad found in Bredsch in Northern Syria. Probably there was a trinity between Melqart, Baal and Astarte, the female synhedros of the two.

The cult of Melqart then spread out to Arados, Kition, Thasos, Sicily and Sardinia, Spain (Gades, today Cadiz, was a centre of his worshipping), probably Etruria and especially Northern Africa. In Carthage Melqart was one of the main gods even though his name was seldom found on inscriptions. But he is named as Herakles in a treaty between Hannibal and Philipp V of Makedonia. So it must be assumed that everywhere where in later times a Herakles-likeness was worshipped originally a Melqart cult was established! Alexander Severus introduced the cult of Melqart from Leptis Magna to Rome.

Yet unexplained is the sphere of action of Melqart. His temples were without idols or statues of deities. Worshipped were stone columns, often in duplicate. I remind of the two ambrosial rocks which played an import role in the founder myth of Tyre. On his altars eternal fires were burning. But because he is depicted on coins as riding on a hippocampus he is hold as a Sea God too, in contrast to Baal who as is generally known was a Mountain God. So Melqart was a Sailor God too and was worshipped on promontories; f.e. as rs-mlqrt 'Cape of Melqart' = Herakleia Minoa on Sicily.

The Phoenicians were masters of architecture. The Melqart temple in Tyre was highly praised by Herodot, at his time already called temple of Herakles. This temple was in its time the most important architectural monument of the Eastern Mediterranean. King Hiram of Tyre sent a trade mission to David; he provided him with cedar logs and with stonemasons and carpenters to build a palace. (1. Chronicles 1:1). King Salomon sent for masters builders of Tyre for building the temple in Jerusalem for him. So the famous temple of Salomon (the so-called 1st temple) probably was a copy of the Melqart temple in Tyre. This temple showed 2 big columns, one made of gold the other made of precious stones, which were called 'Columns of Melqart'. That name later was assigned to the Rock of Gibraltar too and then altered to 'Columns of Herakles'. By the way the name Gibraltar is derived from Tarek ibn Ziyad, conquerer of Spain AD 711, as 'Dschebel al Tarik' = Rock of Tarik.

Today it is assumed tat Melqart originally was a manifestation of the Phoenician god of vegetation. That is affirmed by reports that at first Hiram of Tyre has made a 'raising (greek egersis) of Herakles' (Menander at Ios. ant. Iud. 8, 5, 3) in the month of Peritios (= Febr./March). Variationally Eudoxos of Knodos reports that Herakles was killed by Typhon (= Baal Hammon?) during a journey through Libya, but then resuscitated by Iolaos using the smell of quails.

Like many other Syrian gods Melqart - as Herakles too - later gets features of the Sun God. On coins therefore his symbols are eagle and lion. At the coin shown here the melting with Herakles is finished: He too bears the lion's skin and the club.

Wether Melqart is identical with Moloch the infamous god of the Old Testament to whom children were sacrified is discussed controversial. But it is known that in these times human sacrifices were widely spread, see Abraham who was ready to sacrifice his son Isaak to Jahwe. In contrast Melikertes who was highly venerated in Corinth (look at the contribution in this thread) was probably identical with Melqart. It is known that there were colonies of Phoenicians in Greece, who naturally have taken along their religious cults.

Sources: 
Der kleine Pauly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melqart
http://phoenicia.org/  (Highly recommended to all interested in the Phoenicians!)
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/spqr (Pic of the temple of Tyre)

I have attached a pic of the temple of Melqart as it is seen today.
 
Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 09, 2006, 06:10:34 pm
Tyre and the Ambrosial rocks

The coin:
Phoenicia, Tyre, Elagabal AD 218-222
AE 27, 11.71g
obv. IMP CAES M AN- TONINVS AVG
       bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. TV - RI - O - RVM
      Two baetylic stones (the so-called 'Ambrosial rocks'), standing each on a base, between
      them Holy Oil-tree
      in ex: dog of Herakles, walking r., finding Myrex-shell
SNG Rughetti 2344; BMC Penivcia, pl. XLIV, 7 and p.cxli, para 2, citing a spec. from Berlin
rare, F (sadly!)
From Forum Ancient Coins, thank you!

Mythology:
The rev. of this coin refers to the founding myth of Tyre. It is reported in the 'Dionysiaka' by Nonnos of Panopolis. Here the Tyrian Herakles Astrochiton appears, a Light God and fire master in a star cloak on whose altar the thousand year old Phoenix is burning himself and
then regenerated resurges. This god reports of the 'Ambrosial rocks', which are floating on the sea. Between them entwined by a snake a mighty oil-tree was growing with an eagle which lives on its branches in an eyrie. A gorgeous bowl was there too - a precursor of the Holy Grail. All was enbedded in fire which didn't burn the branches or leafs. It is told of an oracle which commanded the first man on earth to built a ship, go to the floating rocks, and capture the eagle and sacrifice him. So he did. After that the two rocks grew together, stranded at the beach of Poenicia, and Tyre was founded on them.

Background:
Tyre was founded by Sidonian colonists 2000-3000 BC on two rocky islands in front of the coast of Phoenicia.The first historical documents are from around 1250 BC. Jesaja called Tyre correctly 'daughter of Sidon'. Soon it outflanked its mother by power and glory. It was called 'Queen of sea'. Actually king Hiram connected the two islands by heaping up with soil. Because of its wealth it soon attracted conquerors like Nebukadnezar who 13 years besieged it but without success. It was assumed to be impregnable because it was a fortress situated in the sea like St.Malo in Brittany. It was Alexander the Great who succeeded in conquering it. He built a causeway from the land to the island and so he took Tyre. This causeway was maintained so that Tyre (todays Sur in Libane) became a peninsula until now. The word 'Tyros' is derivated from the Pheonician 'tor', meaning rock (cp. Hebrew 'tzur'). The two Tyrian rocks could be two baetylic rocks too which stood in front of the temple of Melqart built by king Hiram and were worshipped in Tyre. Their name later was transferred to the rock of Gibraltar (look at the contribution to Melqart in this thread)

I have an additional question to the dog of Herakles which always appears in the description of this coin. I know Kerberos and then there was a dog of the herdsman in the adventure with Geryon which were killed by Herakles. But a dog as his companion I don't know. Anyone who can enlighten me? He would make me happy!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 10, 2006, 03:13:23 pm
Artemis Tauropolos and Iphigenia

I want to present here a coin whose mythological relations goes to the myths of the Atreids.

Macedonia, Amphipolis, Tiberius, AD 14-37
AE 22, 8.05g
obv. TI KAISAR SE - BASTOS (beginning lower right, to read upwards)
rev. AMFIPOLITWN (lower l. and r.)
      Artemis Tauropolos in long clothes sitting frontal and looking r., abdomen slightly
      turned r., on a bull, leaping r. with head turned frontal, raising with both hands a
      corner of her garment above the head so that it is inflated arched. (Description by
      Gaebler, AMNG III!)
AMNG III, 73 (1 ex. in Berlin); BMC 80; SNG ANS 169; RPC 1632; SGI 259
Very rare, about VF, nice green patina, bold portrait

The epitheton 'Tauropolos' comes from Euripides. Its meaning is not definitely clarified but it is general consensus that Artemis Tauropolos is identical to the Taurian Artemis, called Scythian Diana too. Tauria, land of the Tauri, is the todays Crimean peninsula, the ancient Taurian Chersonessos. How the Taurian Artemis came from the Crimean peninsula to Greece? This is told by Euripides in his famous tragedies 'Iphigenia in Aulis' and 'Iphigenia in Tauris'.

Mythology:

Iphigenia was the daughter of the Mycenian king Agamemnon and his wife Klytaimnestra. When the Greek armada was laying in the harbour of Aulis and was hindered by Artemis to sail, because Agamemnon has killed a hind of Artemis, the Greek ask Kalchas, the great seer, what to do. He gave order to the Greek to sacrify Iphigenia on an altar to mitigate the rage of Artemis. When Agamemnon enforcedly agreed Odysseus and Diomedes took Iphigenia to Aulis by the false pretences to betrouth her to Achilleus. In the very last moment Artemis exchanged her with a hind and abducted her to Tauria making Iphigenia to her priestress. One of her duties was to sacrify all strangers which were stranding at the coasts of the Taurian Chersonessos. Once she recognized between them her brother Orestes accompanied by Pylades who were ordered by the oracle of Delphi to bring the cult-statue of Artemis from Tauria to Greece. Iphigenia enabled them to get the statue and fled with them back to Greece.

Background:
The legends of the Taurian Artemis are mystical, and her worship was orgiastic and connected, at least in early times, with human sacrifices. According to the Greek legend there was in Tauris a goddess, whom the Greeks for some reason identified with their own Artemis. and to whom all strangers that were thrown on the coast of Tauris, were sacrificed (Eurip. Iph. Taur. 36). Iphigeneia and Orestes brought her image from thence, and landed at Brauron in Attica, whence the goddess derived the name of Brauronia (Paus. i. 23.9, 33.1, iii. 16, in fin.). The Brauronian Artemis was worshipped at Athens and Sparta, and in the latter place the boys were scourged at her altar in such a manner that it became sprinkled with their blood. This cruel ceremony was believed to have been introduced by Lycurgus, instead of the human sacrifices which had until then been offered to her (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Brauronia and Diamastigosis). Her name at Sparta was Orthia, with reference to the phallus, or because her statue stood erect. According to another tradition, Orestes and Iphigeneia concealed the image of the Taurian goddess in a bundle of brushwood, and carried it to Aricia in Latium.Iphigeneia, who was at first to have been sacrificed to Artemis, and then became her priestess, was afterwards identified with the goddess (Herod. iv. 103; Paus. i. 43.1), who was worshipped in some parts of Greece, as at Hermione, under the name of Iphigeneia (Paus. ii. 35.1). Some traditions stated, that Artemis made Iphigeneia immortal, in the character of Hecate, the goddess of the moon. A kindred divinity, if not the same as the Taurian Artemis, is Artemis tauropolos, whose worship was connected with bloody sacrifices, and who produced madness in the minds of men, at least the chorus in the Ajax of Sophocles, describes the madness of Ajax as the work of this divinity. In the legends about the Taurian Artemis, it seems that separate local traditions of Greece are mixed up with the legends of some Asiatic divinity, whose symbol in the heaven was the moon, and on the earth the cow.

Temples of the Artemis Tauropolos are found besides Brauron in the Cappadocian Kommana, on the Islands of Ikarion and Samos and in Amphipolis.

I have added a pic of the fresco from Pompeji from the 1st century AD. The most famous picture was a painting of Timanthes. Sadly it was lost. We know its description by Pliny the Elder. It is assumed that this fresco from Pompeji shows a reflex of the lost painting. We see the half-clothed Iphigenia dragged by Odysseus and Diomedes to the altar, at the right side the seer Kalchas is standing, at the left side Agamemnon veiled his head. Standing on the column left we see Artemis with two stags, coming to save Iphigenia.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
William Smith, A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Irene Aghion/Claire Barbillon/Francois Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken
           Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 27, 2006, 07:15:43 pm
To avoid abstinence phenomen symptoms here another contribution:

The Lokrian Aias

We have talked in this thread about the Telamonian Aias some time before. Now here we have the other one, the Lokrian Aias, also called the Lesser Aias. But he is not less interesting than the Greater Aias. He is a famous example of human hybris.

The coin:
Lokris, Lokris Oputia, c.380-338 BC
AR - hemidrachm, 15mm, 2.4g
obv. Head of Demeter/Persephone (or Artemis/Arethusa?), wearing earring, necklace and
       wreath from corn-ears, l., so-called Euainetos type.
rev. [OPON - TIWN]
      Ajas, nude, except crested Corinthian helmet and shield, advancing r. with pulled out
      short sword, below spear laying.
Jenkins (1972) 266-7; Brett 959-961
Note: Euainetos was a famous die cutter from Syracuse c.400 BC. The obv. portrait imitates his style.

Mythology:
Aias was the son of king Oileus of Lokris at the Thessalian coast and his wife Eriopis. Therefore he was called the Lokrian Aias or Aias Oileus too. He was one of the suitors of Helena which then Paris took to Troy. That was the reason that he led the Lokrians in forty ships against Troy, where he distinguished himself as a fast runner and good spear shooter. Often he was fighting together with the great Telamonian. At the funeral games of Patroklos he proved as termagent; in the race with Odysseus Athena caused him to make a false step.
After the fall of Troy he tried to rape Kassandra, daughter of the Troyan king Priamos and priestress of Athena. During this attempt the palladium, the cult statue of Athena, to which Kassandra has fled, was overturned. Referring to others Aias has really dishonoured Kassandra. When the Greek by an advice of Odysseus wanted to stone him he fled to the altar and saved himself by a false oath accusing the witness Agamemnon as liar. But Agamemnon won in this conflict and Aias fled with his ship over the sea. To punish him Athena went to king Nauplios of Euboia and caused him to take revenge on the Greeks because they have stoned to death his son Palamedes on a perfidious machination of Odysseus. Nauplios lightened a beacon on reefs so that the ships of Aias were misdirected and shattered. Homer in contrast describes the ruin of Aias as work of Athena and Poseidon alone. As punishment Athena threw a thunderbolt of Zeus in his ship. When Poseidon saved him by a big wave to a cliff he - still being on the rock - started to vapor that he has escaped the sea against the will of the gods. There Poseidon with his trident split the cliff and Aias was pulled down in the deep. This is said to be happened at the Cephareian cliffs.   

Background:
Already in ancient times the double name was mentioned. Robert and v.d.Mühll assume, that the two Aias' have developed by doubling or forking of an original sole being; the case that divine saviors often appear paired (f.e. the Dioskurs) has stimulated the separation. By the Lokrians Aias was highly worshipped. In a battle they left a place free for him. When once a hostile military leader (Autoleon of Kroton) tried to use this free place to make a break-in into the lines of the Lokrians he got a heavy wound at his hip which would not heal until after an oracle he reconciled with the ghost of Aias. By the way there were hundreds of years special cultic relations between the Lokrians and the city of Ilion.

Art history:
We have about hundred Attic vase paintings which show the intrusiveness of Aias against Kassandra who has fled to the cult statue. On the oldest paintings the statue seems to be alive, she points with the spear  to Aias whereas the undersized Kassandra sought for help at her feet. On the red-figured vase paintings since c.500 BC Kassandra mostly is shown nude so accentuating the erotic aspect of the scene. The same scene is found in the Pompejian paintings, on an Etruscan mirror and several cameos. In the post-ancient painting the 'Lesser Aias' is seldom seen. On a painting of Rubens (c.1616, Vaduz, SL) he is grabbing for Kassandra; a fresco of Rosso Fiorentino (1536) in the gallery Francois I in Fontainebleau shows the wreckage of Aias, undoubtless an allusion to the unfortunate luck of this French king.

I have attached the pic of a red-figured painting of the Lykurgos painter c.370-360 (Wikipedia) which shows Aias when he tried to pull Kassandra from the statue to which she cling.

Sources:
Appolodor, Epitome 5, 22-23, 6, 6
Euripides, Trojan women 48-97; Andromache 293-300
Homer, Ilias 2, 527-535; Odyssee 4, 449-511
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 30, 2006, 06:42:40 pm
The Herakles Farnese

Only some notes to this famous depiction.

The coin:
Caracalla AD 197-217
AE 31, 17.16g
obv. AVT KM AVRH - ANTWNINOC
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, l., holding shield with gorgoneion, top of
       spear behind
rev. OVLPIAC PA - VTALIAC
       Herakles, nude, standing r., crooked forward, r. foot set backward, l. hand behind
       back, holding lion skin over l. arm and resting with l. hand on his club, which
       stands on a heap of 9 stone bowls (Farnese type)
Ruzicka 592; Moushmov 4300
rare, about VF

The statue:
The statue of the Herakles Farnese is a marble copy of a lost Hellenistic bronze statue of Lysipp of Sikyon c.330 BC, who has worked for Alexander the Great. The copy was made by the Roman artist Glykon of Athens c.211-217 AD. It was found 1540 in the Thermes of Caracalla in Rome and then erected in the Farnesian gardens (hence the name). Goethe has seen this statue 1787 AD and regarded it as the most important Roman sculpture. The coin shows a copy which probably was positioned in the gardens or parks of Pautalia which was known as famous bath (Ruzicka).

The depiction of the Herakles Farnese is interesting and curious too because it shows the great heroe not in the usual heroic position but in the state of fatigue. Hence the discrepancy which always has made this statue so appealing. It shows the heroe after he has received the apples of the Hesperides which he - as commonly suggested - holds hidden behind his back. To get these apples he had to take the globe - which otherwise the giant Atlas bore on his shoulders - for himself because only Atlas was able to get these apples. When Atlas came back with the apples he refused to take back the globe but Herakles outwitched him. He offered to him to bear the globe if only he could lay a pillow under the globe because the globe was pressing so much. Atlas was dumb enough to take the globe - only for short as he assumed  - and Herakles removed himself with the apples. The garden of Hesperides is said to be found in Lybia/Northern Africa on a promontory at the gulf of Syrte.
BTW the famous Hercules in Kassel/Germany too is the Farnese type!

Attached is the Herakles Farnese now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 09, 2006, 06:28:16 pm
Europa and the bull

Here we have the story of one of Zeus' many lovestories. But if we look at Europa she seems to estimate the abduction!

The coin:
Elagabal AD 218-222
AE 27, 11.8g
obv. IMP CM AV ANT - ONINVS AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. Europa, nude to hips, head r., sitting on bull, leaping r., holding with one hand
horn of bull and with the other hand veil, blowing in the wind over her head.
BMC 235
rare, F/about VF

Mythology:
Europa was the daughter of the Phoenician king Agenor and his wife Telephassa. Her brothers were Kadmos, Phoinix, Kilix, Thasos and Phineus.
Zeus fell in love with Europa and gave order to Hermes to drove Agenor's cattle to the coast of Tyros where Europa together with her companions used to promenade. Zeus for himself joined the herd in the shape of a snow-white bull with a big neck fold and small gemlike horns. Europa was overwhelmed by his beauty. When she found him gentle like a lamb she overcame her fear and began to play with him. She put flowers in his mouth and hung girlands over his horns. Finely she climbed on his shoulders and trotted down with him to the sea-coast. Suddenly he swam away and she looked full of amazement back to the remaining coast. With one hand she hold his right horn, with the other a basket with flowers. Near of Gortynas on Crete he went on land, transformed himself to an eagle and raped Europa in a willow bush at a well. Other say this happened under a evergreen sycamore tree. There are coins too which show this scene. She gave birth to three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. After that Europa married another husband, Asterion, who raised her children.

Background:
As always the facts behind the myth are more complicated as the myth itself. Beside the heroine Europa who is the protagonist of our story there were a nymph, the Okeanid Europa, according to her the Greek named the continent. The connection between the Okenanid Europa and the continent was already mysterious to Herodot.

In Boiotia Europa was an Earth Goddess, hidden and saved by Zeus in a cave near Teumessos. Here Demeter had the surname Europa. This proved his high age. The Boiotian Europa very early was connected with the other Europa abducted by Zeus and then mother of Minos. Doubtless the myth goes back to Minoic circumstances: sacrifying bulls, bull games with the participation of women, the cult of the heaven's bull, the experience of the sea. The holy sycamore tree with the hieros gamos (the holy marriage) is mentioned by Pliny.

The etymology is unclear until now. Mostly the semitic word for 'evening' (greek erebos) is seen as origin of the name Europa. Nevertheless a Greek origin is not excluded (greek euruopa = 'widely sounding or looking'). The Greek at first recognized Europa as the Greek mainland in contrast to the Peleponnesos and the islands. After the Persian wars the term was expanded to whole Greece. Already from the 7th century BC on this name adhered at the Middle Hellas and then was kept as regional and local name in Macedonia and Thessalia until the end of ancient times. There were some cities in Thessalia and Macedonia and a river in Thessalia with this name. So the word Europa was linked from the beginning of time to the peninsula of the Balkans and Pindos. Behind these facts all other explanations have to retreat, even mythological ones! Herodot has differentiated between 3 continents: Europa, Asia and Libyen. Middle and Norther Europe however were unknown to him. Of the course of the river Istros he had only vague ideas. As border between Europa and Asia from Herodot on the river Tanais (the todays river Don) was seen. Whereas Europa once was seen as the biggest continent at the end of ancient times it was realistic seen as the smallest.
 
Art of history:
Several ancient depictions of a woman on the back of a bull could be connected to the myth of Europa (Metope of temple Y in Selinunt, about 560 BC; Palermo, MA - metope of the house of treasures of the Sikyons, 1st half of the 6th century BC; Delphi, Mus. - Hydria of the Berlin painter, about 500 BC; Oxford, AM). The same type of picture indeed was used for the abduction of a mainad by the bull of Dionysos, but ivy and grape-vine could be used for determination. In the Middle Ages the abduction of Europa was seen in conjunction with the constellation of Taurus but was seen too as allegory of the triumph of love over chastity. Referring to the 'Ovide moralise' from the beginning of the 14th century AD the transformation of Zeus into the bull resembles the incarnation of Christ, and the abduction of Europa the elevation of the human soul to God.

As in ancient times so in the Baroque too, which has often handled this subject, Europa and her companions with the crowned bull were shown at the beach, so by Poussin (drawing, about 1649/50; Stockholm, NM) and before by Veronese (1573; Venice, Palace of the Doges), but most often the bull is shown already in the waves of the sea with Europa who - appaled or calm - hold tight the horns of that bull (Tizian, 1559-62; Boston/Mass., GM). Depictions of Europa are found within the work of Rubens (about 1630, Prado), Rembrandt (1632; Malibu, GM), Claude Lorrain (1647; Amsterdam, RM) and Boucher (1734; London, WC - 1747; Louvre) to name only some of them. Ingres has taken as paradigm fo his picture in the  Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge a greek vase.

Sources:
- Der kleine Pauly
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Ovid, Metamorphosen II, 27
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam

I have attached the following:
1. A pic of the famous wall painting 'The abduction of Europa' from the casa de nave in
    Pompeji, about 1st century BC, now in the National Museum.
2. The pic from a cut-out of the famous floor mosaic of Sparta, now in the Archaeological
    Museum in Sparta
3. The pic of the Greek 2 Euro piece which shows a cut-out of the above mosaic in Sparta.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 12, 2006, 07:12:11 pm
I have moved the index to the end of the thread!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Akropolis on July 12, 2006, 08:06:39 pm
Awesome!
Bravo!
PeteB
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on July 12, 2006, 10:33:54 pm
Let me add my appreciation, for saving us hours in finding the one we're looking for and for doing so much for everybody.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on July 13, 2006, 02:14:04 am
Jochen,

I, too, want to thank you for your interesting and important posts.

Cheers, Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Tiathena on July 13, 2006, 03:00:36 am
 
       &nd I too, Jochen!
 
   Most wonderful and most generous of your time, efforts and the enviable scope of your knowledge and collection.
  This is a feast in the fullest & the finest sense …
 
   Most gratefully -
 
   Best,
   Tia
 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Bacchus on July 13, 2006, 04:03:04 am
I too also  :) - would like to add my thanks to Jochen for all the time and effort he has put into these informative posts. 

I wonder if it would be possible to cut and paste them together into a Numiswiki article?, so they really would be a resource for all.

Thanks again
Malcolm
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 13, 2006, 02:44:18 pm
Thanks for your encouraging comments! I think it would be nice to have the index always at the end of the thread!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 13, 2006, 02:45:31 pm
The auloi

After getting this coin I searched for information about the importance and history of the 'auloi'. I hope others too are interested.

Phrygia, Apameia, c.3rd century AD
AE 19, 3.29g
obv. DH - MOC
       Bust of Demos, bearded, draped, r.
rev. APA - MEW - N (beginning upper r.)
      Marsyas, nude, nebris waving behind him, advancing r., playing the auloi
BMC 50; SNG Copenhagen 200

Aulos means 'playing the aulos' (with and without singing), the so-called auletik, but the corpus, the instrument, too. It is more correct to say auloi in plural because it were double pipes. They could be half looped, total looped, with holes at the side or holes at the underside. They could be tuned: at drinking binges they were used in unison, at marriage ceremonies in octave distance. Sometimes it could be seen that the two pipes have different lengths. It is discussed that one pipe plays the melody the other the accompanist.

And: the aulos is no flute but a reed- (tongue-) instrument, so rather a simple double oboe.

The aulos has a tongue piece, an upper beginning part, the actual pipe and the grip holes. The aulos was called by Pindar and Euripides 'kalamos' or 'Libyan lotos'. The aulos pair had separated tongues (so-called double reeds), there were called yoke. Because of its pettishness they were kept in a small sheath (glottokomeion); the entire instrument was hold in a bag made from untanned skin (synbene). When playing the lips were pressed against the reed; the strong pressure of the inflated cheeks was absorbed by a kind of bridle, the phorbeia: leather bands which were tied from the mouth over the cheeks to the back of the head.

The reeds were made from reed (from the lake Kopais) which was scraped thin. If the tongues eventually broke the auloi could be played with open hole. The pipe (kalamos bombykias) , slightly conical carved, probably could be played by a little over blowing and so allowing some harmonics too. Probably the (oval) holes were played half occluded and so on the auloi all keys are obtainable. A 5th grip hole (for the thumb) possibly could be in use if the phorbeia was tight. Diodoros of Thebes introduced a special mechanism to open and close the holes (turnable rings?) which had hooks to allow turning. As material for the corpus besides reed, boxwood, lotos wood, laurel were used too bones of stag, ass, eagle and vulture; ivory was mediated by the Phoinicians. Boiotia, with its abundance of reed, became the home of the aulos players, mostly Thebians.

The age of the auletik is seen deversely. Athen in its heroic age saw the auloi only at the barbarians. Plutarch regards the auloi for older than the kithara but this remains questionable because many terms used for the auloi were originating from playing the kithara. The peleponnesian myth calls Ardalos from Troizen, son of Hephaistos, the inventor of the auloi. The first historical aulet was Klonos of Tegea. The sole instrumental auletik spread quickly from Phrygia and was favoured as war music especially at the Lakedaimonians. At the Phrygians it served as keen. The elegy always was accompanied by auloi (armen. elega = pipe!). Plutarch assumed that the sound of the auloi contained to theon, the divine, and because of that evokes religious feelings. Aulodik means that the aulet, the aulos player, was accompanied by the aulode, a singer.

Since Pythagoras the high-spirited panegyric sound of the auloi was antagonized. Because of its orgiastic effect the auloi were choosed as accompanist for the dithyrambos. Criticized was the instrument used at the wild satyr chorus because it crushed the melody. Among the aristocratic Athenians Alkibiades regarded the auloi as unseemly because it distorts the face of the player. That matches the myth were Athena threw away the auloi because of the same reason. It seems to be Euripides who invented the myth of the competition between Apollo and Marsyas and the following terrible punishment. Another matter of critizism was the then upcoming luxury clothing of the aulets. Aristoteles too disapproved and then in Socrates and his followers new strong opponents emerged. Aristoteles wanted to prohibit the education of auloi playing because of its uselessness for the cultivation of the mind. So until the late ancient time the playing of the kithara was obtained as more noble. Cicero assumed that the auloi player doesn't need so much dexterity as the kithara player. This devaluating estimation was practically adopted in modern times by Nietzsche who called the kithara playing 'Apollonian', the auloi playing 'Dionysian'.

BTW On the coin the elevated grip holes are clearly seen.

I have attached the pic of an auloi player with phorbeia and dancer with krotala, detail from a kylix found at Vulci, Italy, signed by Epictetus, c. 520–510 BC; in the British Museum, London

Sources:
- Der kleine Pauly
- Anemone Zschätsch, Verwendung und Bedeutung griechischer Musikinstrumente in Mythos   
  und Kult, Marie Leidorf 2002

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 13, 2006, 06:19:00 pm
Harpokrates and Isis

1.
Macrinus AD 217-218
AE 17, 3.14g
obv. AVT KM OPELLI CE - VH MAKRINOC
Bust, laureate, r.
rev. NIKOPOLIT - WN PROC ICT[..]
Harpokrates, nude, stg. l., holding clothes and cornucopiae in r. arm and
raising r. hand to his mouth.
unpublished?
very rare, F+/about VF, green patina

2.
Julia Domna AD 193-217, wife of Septimius Severus
AR - Denar, 3.5g, 18mm
Rome AD 196-211
obv. IVLIA - AVGVSTA
Bust, draped, r., hair waved in five waves and coiled at back
rev. SAECVLI - FELICITAS
Isis, draped, with polos on head, stg. r, foot on prow, holding the infant Horus
at her breast, and sistrum (or rattle) in r. hand, altar at left behind her with rudder
leaning against it.
RIC IV/1, 577; C.174; BMC 76
about EF
The half-circled lock of hair at her cheek should be typically for Rome after AD 196 (?). The sistrum is not mentioned in RIC!
The first ISIS temple in Rome was built by Caracalla some years later in AD 217. The prow may be an allusion to the NAVIGIUM ISIDIS, a big ceremony on March 5. to celebrate the opening of the safe sailing season after the winter.

Harpakhrad, also Heru-Pa-Khret (Greek: Harpokrates) meant "Horus the child" and he was also seen as a baby at the breast or as a naked infant sitting in the lap of his mother Isis. In Mendes, the capital of nome 16 of Lower Egypt, he was the son of the town protector Banebdjedet and the local fish goddess Hat-Mehit. Another depiction shows him as an infant boy with big, innocent eyes, engaged in sucking his finger. He had many names and shapes in the more than forty provinces (nomes) where he was appearing in local forms. He had a shaved head with a big lock of hair hanging from the right side. The Greeks considered him the god of secrecy and discretion, misinterpreting the gesture of his finger as meaning: keep quiet which was an Egyptian gesture, symbolising childhood.

Horus (Greek) was a sky and solar god from Upper Egypt from before the unification and one of the oldest gods in the Egyptian mythology and by some concidered to have come from abroad by en early invasion of the Nile Valley. He was the personal symbol of the pharaohs symbolising protection and courage.
Soon he became the Horus (the Elder: Heru, the Younger: Hor) and originated lots of combined deities like Har-pakhrad, Har-Wer etc, which had wide spread cults all over the Nile Valley. He defeated all evilness in the world (symbolically) by defeating Set who had killed his father Osiris. His twin sister was Bast and he was sometimes seen as a child being breast fed sitting in the lap of his mother Isis. In his aspect Horakhty he was the combined god Re-Horakhte.

Osiris (in Greek) was king of the Underworld and originally a god of agriculture and nature. His origin is disputed and he first appeared during dynasty five. In Heliopolis he was said to be son of Re and he represented the dead king. Minor gods were taken into his vast cult and many legends were told about him. The common Myth of Osiris
is about his death (murdered by his brother Set) and resurrection. He was the chief judge in the court at the threshold to the next life, where all the dead citizens were trying to come through to Paradise. He always wore a mummy-dress and was brother to Isis, Hor (Horus the elder), Set and Nephthys. His parents were Geb and Nut.

The Myth of Osiris
In the very beginning of time Osiris was king over Egypt and his queen (and sister) was the goddess Isis. He was beloved by the people whom he told how to worship the gods and grow their crops for their daily bread. His brother Set became jealous and tried to overthrow him and become king himself. When participating in a feast with Osiris as host, Set began to describe a beautiful coffin he had, in a way that made the other guests curious.
He was asked to fetch it and so he did and this was just in line with his plan.
Everyone agreed that it was a magnificent piece of craftsmanship and Set told them that he would give it away for free to whomever fitted exactly into it. Since he had made the coffin himself it was measured to fit one person only - his brother Osiris. When he placed himself in it everybody could see that he was the one who would get i as a present, but the evil Set had other plans. With his brother Osiris still in it, he and his fellows quickly nailed the lid and threw it into the Nile. Queen Isis was overcome by sorrow and began to search all over the land for it, but in vain. ("Isis first invented sails, for while seeking her son Harpocrates, she sailed on a ship." - Hyginus, Fabulae 277.)
One day she heard that a wonderful tree had sprung on the shores of Byblos in the north on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where the local king had cut it down and built a palace from it.
Isis understood that this was the place where the coffin had come to shore and she went there in disguise. She got a job at the court as a hairdresser for the queen and now when she could walk freely inside the castle she began to look for the coffin, and finally she found it in a remote chamber.
During the night she managed to snach it and embarked a boat heading for Egypt. When she came there she hid in the marshlands in the delta. There she opened the coffin and took a last farewell of her beloved husband Osiris and began searching for a suitable place to bury him. But Set was aware of all this and was hiding nearby. When Isis went to rest for the night he snatched the coffin and cut his brother's body into fourteen pieces and spread them all over Egypt. Isis became furious and asked her sister Nephthys and her son Anubis, to help her to find all the pieces of her husband's body.
They now started a nation wide search that lasted for many years and finally all the part of Osiris' body were found except for the thingy which had been thrown into the Nile where it was devoured by a fish.
Isis made a wooden replacement for it and then put the whole body together. She now asked the sun god Re to make her husband alive just for one day, which he did, and they could have a last night of love together. The next day Osiris died and his body was embalmed by Anubis who thus made him the first mummy. Isis later gave birth to a son who was named Horus and she did all she could to keep it a secret from Set, but he found them and almost killed them in an ambush.
They were saved by the god of wisdom - Thoth, and he told them to hide in the reeds in the marshes once more. But as before Set found their hiding place and had more wicked things on his mind. He transformed himself into a snake and gave the little Horus child a fatal bite.
When Isis came back she found her baby almost lifeless, and took him to the nearest village to get help. A wise old woman examined him and found out that it must have been Set as a snake who had bitten him. Thoth came to their rescue once more and drove out the poison from Horus' body and he recovered. He and his mother stayed hiding in the delta until he was a mature man and sometimes he took the form of a hawk and scouted out Set for the final showdown - the revenge on his murdered father. When that moment came they fought for three days until Thoth stopped the fight. They were both taken to the Court of Law in the Underworld and there they presented their versions of the story leading to the combat. The Court did not believe Set, who was sentenced to pull the boat with the sun across the sky forever. Horus now became the new king of Egypt like his father Osiris before him, and the good had finally conquered evil.
Isis put the body of her dead husband in a coffin and had nineteen identical coffins made in which she put duplicates. Priest from Egypt's twenty biggest towns then were given one each and could all thereafter claim that they had Osiris' tomb in their town. Thus many places in Egypt were (and still are) called Abusir - the place of Osiris.

"Upon her [Isis’] brow stood the crescent moon-horns, garlanded with glittering heads of golden grain, and grace of royal dignity; and at her side the baying dog Anubis, dappled Apis, sacred Bubastis and the god [Harpokrates] who holds his finger to his lips for silence sake." - Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.692

Attached:
"Io, crowned with a pair of cow horns, is carried to Isis and her son Harpokrates (by the River-God Neilos?)", a detail from the Roman Fresco "Isis receives Io at Canopus", Pompeii 1st century BC, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli 9558

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
http://www.nemo.nu/ibisportal/0egyptintro/1egypt/index.htm
http://www.theoi.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 15, 2006, 11:14:56 am
Leda and the swan

Today I want to present a coin with the depiction of one of the most famous myths of ancient times: Leda and the swan. Besides all other erotic adventures of Zeus like Alkmene, Danae, Europa, Io or Ganymed this seems to be the most popular. Thanks to Pete Burbules for the coin!

The coin:
Bithynia, Nicomedia, Severus Alexander AD 222-235
AE 19
obv. M AVR CEV ALEZANDROC AVG
       Bust, draped, radiate, r.
rev. NIKOMHD - EWN DIC NEO / KORWN (MH and WN ligate)
      Leda, with wreath on her head, nude to hips, with raised r. hand, standing frontal,
      head turned r. to a swan, which is standing l. with opened wings and is drawing her
      garment which she hold with her l. hand.
Receuil General I 3, 557, 316, pl.96, 22
extremely rare (only 3 ex. known), VZ (this seems to be the nicest!), nice deep green patina

Mythology:
There are several different versions of Leda and the swan. The most popular has its origin by Euripides: Leda, the daughter of the Aitolian king Thestios and his wife Eurythemis, was the wife of the Lakedaimonian king Tyndareus. Once when she was near the bank of the river Eurotas Zeus approached her in the shape of a swan and united with her. The fruit of this unification was an egg from which Helena, Kastor and Polydeukes arose. Leda after that was received by the gods as Nemesis (Laktanz I, 221; Hyginus, Fabel 77). The marriage with the swan now became complicated because Leda in the same night shared her bed with her husband Tyndareus too. Because of that some saw Tyndareus as father of the twins Kastor and Poldeukes whereas others saw them as sons of Zeus adding - besides Helena - Klytaimnestra too (Homer, Odyss. XI, 299; Ilias III, 426; Euripides, Helena 254, 1497 and 1680). Finely there was another distribution: Kastor and Klytaimnestra as children of Tyndareus, Helena and Polydeukes as children of Zeus (Pindar, Nem.Od. X, 80; Apollodor III, 6-7)

Referring to an older myth Zeus fell in love with Nemesis, daughter of the Night and Okeanos, the goddess of just enragement. To escape the pursuit by Zeus she turned into a fish, then in several four-footed animals and at last into a goose. Zeus chased her and was transforming himself too all the time. Finely he took the shape of a swan and raped Leda. This was said to be happened at Rhamnos in Attica. Because of that a big temple was built for Nemesis in Rhamnos. Thereupon Nemesis retired back to Sparta and gave birth to a hycinth-colored egg which was found by Leda. Leda put it into a chest until Helena came out of it who later was so disastrous for mankind by creating the Troyan War. Referring to another story a herdsman found the egg and brought it to the queen, or Hermes threw it into the bosom of Leda who then put it into a drawer until Helena was born from it.

It is told also that under the peak of the Taygetos mountain Zeus created with Leda the dioscuri Kastor and Polydeukes. Dios kuroi, 'the sons of Zeus', was the name of these Lakedaimonian twins and they became the saviors of many human beings especially in battles and on the sea. In a story depicted on some vase pictures they were already youth when their mother bore the egg. When it should be sacrificed to the gods Helena sprung from it.
It is told too from two twin eggs. From one the dioscuri were born, from the other Helena, and perhaps Klytaimnestra too the killer of her husband Agamemnon who then was killed by her own son Orestes. The House of Atreids to which Tyndareus and Klytaimnestra belonged was cursed because of the deeds of Tantalos and Atreus.
Is is told too about the twins that Polydeukes was immortal but Kastor in contrast mortal. When he had to die the brothers didn't want to part. So both stayed one day together in the underworld the other day with their father Zeus. Klytaimnestra too was mortal in contrast to the Zeus daughter Helena. So it was assumed that she and Kastor were created by Tyndareus who after Zeus joined Leda and by whom she received the second egg. But this story sounds very rationalistic and therefore seems to be younger.

Some background:
The flight of Nemesis from Zeus with its constant transformations is a typical fairy motive, called the 'magic flight', which is known from the Tales of Thousand and One Nights or from the 'Puss in Boots'. The egg is an old religious motive and corresponds to the 'World Egg' which here is sunk to the fairy motive of the wunderkind out of the egg. It is the attempt to find a compromise between the tradition of a divine mother with the earthly mother of Helena. The egg of Leda was a particular object of interest in the sanctuary of the Leukippids in Sparta (Pausan. 3, 16, 1). Whereas in the attic Rhamnos the tradition that Nemesis was the mother of Helena was held on (cult statue of Agrakritos) that tradition was decreasing during the development of the myth in literature and fine arts.

If it is true that Leda is originating from the lykian word 'lada' for 'Wife' - for Kerenyi the 'primal wife' - then the myth could have some pre-hellenic elements. Perhaps Zeus celebrated the Swan Marriage with a goddess who - besides Mother Earth - was the first female being of the world and who therefore was called simply Leda, the 'wife'.     

An inartificial explanation of the story of Leda I found in the 'Hederich' which I don't want to keep back: "As the meeting of Leda and Zeus was said to be happened at the banks of the river Eurotas where plenty of swans seemed to have existed so some wanted that she has a love affair with a local man and then to hide her dishonour has pretended Zeus has turned into a swan and approached her too close". Nice, isn't it? 
   
History of art:
The sculptors preferred at first the meeting of Zeus and Leda in that way, that Leda tries to cover a swan who requests for help from an eagle (Zeus too!) with her left hand by her cloak pressing him against her bosom. Such a statue in the Museo Capitolino in Rome seems to go back to Timotheus 4th century BC. In later times the sculpture has more stressed the erotic aspect. In imperial times the Leda motive is found numerously on intaglios, lamps, sarcophaguses, mosaics and wall paintings. On coins however only this type from Nikomedia is known!

Baroque and Renaissance have treated this theme in many versions. On a drawing of Leonardo da Vinci (passed down in a copy only) the nude standing Leda playfully grasps the swan's neck, like already in ancient depictions (silver bucket of Concesti, c.400 BC, Erimitage in St.Petersburg). More catchy is the situation in Michelangelo's painting also known as copy only, see the after-creations of Rosso Fiorentino (1530, London, NG) and Rubens (1603/4, Dresden, AM); here the swan intrudes directly the outstretched resting Leda. The long flexible neck allows some variants of the depiction (Corregio, 1531, Berlin, GG), which by pointing to the private parts of the woman could get a particular insinuating meaning. In the 20th century Bourdelle (Relief, 1904; Paris) and Brancusi (1920; Chicago, Art Institute) have handled this subject.

Sources:
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, Rowohlt
- Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, dtv 
- Der kleine Pauly (backgrounds)
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam

I have attached
- a pic of the famous mosaic from Paphos on Crete which shows Leda in the same position
  as on the coin, and
- the sculpture from the Museo Capitolino in Rome.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on July 21, 2006, 10:48:47 am
Leda and the swan

Today I want to present a coin with the depiction of one of the most famous myths of ancient times: Leda and the swan.

The theme of one of the most famous sonnets in the English language  (the break--for rhetorical effect-- in the third line of the concluding sestet still represents a single line of this poem!) revolves around this infamous rape.  The author is Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats.

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
                                        Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?


As Barbara Edwards-Aldrich notes, 'Yeats asks three rhetorical questions about this mythical rape, the most important of which is about the significance of the act: "Did she put on his knowledge with his power?". . . The poet's rhetoric persuades readers to consider the consequences of unbridled sexual passion, the coexistence of power and wisdom in human life, and the potential for combining youthful vitality and passion with mature knowledge and wisdom'. (http://mercury.southern.cc.oh.us/Home/bedwards/rhetorical.htm)

I've included two images inspired by this myth, the first:

Leda and the Swan
Bacchiacca (Francesco d'Ubertino) (Italian, Florentine, 1495–1557)
The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982 (1982.60.11)

and the second:

Leda and the Swan
Cy Twombly from the Permanent Collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

Jim (Cleisthenes)
 
 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 28, 2006, 06:38:36 pm
Tomos - the Ktistes

Sometimes the inquiry in the mythological background of coin depictions ends up in disappointment. Here we have an example:

1st coin:
Thracia, Tomis, pseudo-autonomous, c. 166-183 AD
AE 18
obv. KT - ICTHC - TOMOC
       bust of ktistes, draped and with hair-band, r.
rev. TWME - ITWN (beginning upper r.)
      Hermes, stg. l., in lowered r. hand purse, in l. arm kerykeion; chlamys over l. shoulder
AMNG 2554
rare, about VF
The 2nd series of autonomous coinage has 4 groups: the 1st group (n. 2554-2559) matches in the style of the obverse totally the 'Dreier' of the youthful Commodus, so we have a safe clue for the time of this coinage (Pick p.614)

2nd coin:
Thracia, Tomis, pseudo-autonomous, 1st-2nd.century AD
AE 16, 2.66g
obv. TOMOV - HRWC
       bust of Tomos, draped and with hair-band, r.
rev. TOM - ITWN
      Demeter, stg. l., in double chiton and with veil-like cape over back of the head, grain-ears
      in lowered r. hand, l.hand at sceptre
AMNG 2548 var. (HRWOC and T - OMI - TWN)
rare, about VF, green patina

Background:
Tomis, todays Constantza in Romania, was founded by Greeks from Milet at the coast of the Pontos (Black Sea). It is known too as place of Ovid's exile AD 8.

Both coins show Tomos, the alleged Ktistes (founder) and heroe of Tomis. He is however - besides on these coins - mentioned only once by an incription and so he belongs to these city-founders who were invented by ancient mythologists working on the name of the city as we can find on coins of several other cities of Northern Greece too like Anchialos, Byzas and others.

His invention furthermore is contrary to another tradition - worthless as well - where the name of Tomis is derived from temnein (greek 'schneiden'); at this place Medeia fleeing from her father should have slaughtered her brother Apsyrtos (lat. Absyrtus) or her father has buried his pieces (Ovid tr. 3, 9; similar by Apollodoros).

Apsyrtos was the son of king Aietes from Kolchis and his wife Ipsia and so the step-brother of Medeia. When Medeia together with Jason and the Argonauts has fled from Kolchis, where they have stolen the Golden Fleece, Aietes sent Apsyrtos with warriors after her with the order to bring her back or never come back.

About the then following events we have different reports. Hygin. (fab. 23) tells, that Apsyrtos finely recovered them at the court of king Alkinoos of Phaiakia, todays Corfu. But supplicating for shelter Alkinoos gave cover to them and didn't turned them over to him. Apsyrtos offered a compromise: If Medeia was untouched by Jason she should come back to Kolchis, if not then Jason could keep her as his wife. But this plan was brought to Jason by the wife of Alkinoos and in the same night Jason and Medeia shared their bed. So Apsyrtos was outsmarted. But fearing the revenge of his father coming back without Medeia Apsyrtos continued to pursuite them. When Jason was just sacrificing on an island sacred to Artemis he tried to take Medeia by violence. During the following struggle he was killed by Jason. His warriors hadn't the heart to return to Aietes and settled at Apsaros at the coast of the Pontos or on the Apsyrtean islands in the Adria near Pola. 

Apollodoros (rh. 4) tells, that Medeia has trapped Apsyrtos artfully in a temple of Artemis where he was ambushed and killed by Jason. Then Medeia has cut the body in pieces and has scattered the pieces over the land or the sea. Head and hands she has put on a higher rock so that Aietes who followed the Argonauts could see it immediately. Aietes was deeply shocked but at first he had to gather the pieces to bury them. So the Argonauts could escape successful. The place where Apsyrtos' sepulchre was erected later became the city of Tomis.
 
The myth of the death of Apsyrtos is explained by crossing the geographical names with motives of fairy tales. Actually the name Tomos is probably Getic or Thracean and the meaning is unknown!

Sources:
Pick, AMNG I, 2
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 28, 2006, 06:41:19 pm
Hippolytos and Phaidra

I know this coin is very worn, but it is the only one that is referring to the myth of Hippolytos and Phaidra. The legends are nearly illegible. I have completed them according to others from BCD.

Commodus AD 177-192
AE 21mm, 9.61 g
obv. [M AVR KOMMO]DOC AV[G]
Laureate head right
rev. [TROI - ZHNIWN]
Hippolytus standing facing, head left, holding spear and ?; dog at feet(?)
BCD Peloponnesos 1341.2 (this coin); NCP 1887, p.162, 7 (this coin)
extremely rare, VF, black green patina with traces of lighter olive overtones, light roughness
Pedigree:
ex BCD coll.
ex A. Rhousopoulos coll.
ex LHS 96, 8./9. May 2006, lot 1198

Mythology:
Troizen is known as home of Theseus, the most famous Greek heroe and future king of Athens. Besides many deeds and adventures he abducted Antiope (or Hippolyte or Glauke), queen of the Amazones, who gave birth to his son Hippolytos. After her death he married Phaidra (lat. Phaedra), daughter of the Cretian king Minos and his wife Pasiphae. This marriage made her step-mother of Hippolytos. But Hippolytos was brought to Troizen to be educated by Theseus' sister Aethra.

Hippolytos, like the Amazones, was a devotee of Artemis, goddess of hunting and chastity. Aphrodite, angry about that and because Hippolytos was not interested in love, took revenge on him by bewitching Phaidra. As goddess of love she made Phaidra falling in love with Hippolytos, when she once saw him at a festival in Athens. She followed him to Troizen and built a temple for Aphrodite where she could look at the stadion, where Hippolytos was exercising nude. This temple she called Hippolytion, later it was called temple of the 'Aphrodite looking around'. There the myrtle was standing where Phaidra in excitement perforated the leafs with her needle.

By Phaidras' nurse Hippolytos heard about the unnatural affection of his step-mother and was heavily shocked. He refused her wherupon Phaidra committed suicide by hanging. But she leaves a suicide note by which she accused Hippolytes of having besieged her. When Theseus coming home read this letter his mourning changed into blind rage. He banned Hippolytos from Troizen and cursed him by Poseidon. Because Hippolytos has sworn to maintain silence Theseus didn't find out the truth. Poseidon immediately fulfilled the curse of Theseus and let a monster (or a bull) climbing up from the sea so that Hippolytos' horses were frightened and had almost draggled him to death (or he was suspended in a tree). In the meantime Artemis has enlightened Theseus and he was sorry about his overhasty curse. When he and Hippolytos met for the last time Hippolytos forgave his father and then he died.
 
Fortunately - referring to an Roman adaptation of the myth - he was resuscitated by Asklepios. The goddess Diana Aricina (Artemis) having a sanctuary nearby transformed him into an old man who was worshipped under the name Virbius.

Background:
The story of Hippolytos and Phaidra covers the famous motive of Potiphar which we know too from Bellerophontes. In history it could have played a role at Crispus and Fausta.

Hippolytos was worshipped in Troizen as god. Referring to older opinions he was obtained as god of salvation. In his temple just married persons dedicated some of their tresses to him so that Hippolytos - made potent by this - could unify with Artemis. Their fertility then should come back to the young pair. The stadion and the gymnasion in Troizen was called after him. The temple of Artemis Lykeia was hold as his foundation. He was worshipped too in Athens and Sparta. His name should mean 'teared by horses'. The motiv of the resuscitation by Asklepios seems to be very old. Beeing a god Hippolytos was not allowed to die and so he was set to the stars as 'waggoner'.

The identification with Virbius remains mysterious. Virbius in the lat. poetry was held as the new name of the by Asklepios resuscitated Hippolytos. But this seems to be a wrong etymology of Virbius as 'Vir bis = double man'. Virbius was worshipped in Aricia at the lake Nemi as Dianae minister. Horses were not allowed there due to his death. There was a Virbii clivus in Aricia and in Naples a flamen Virbialis is known. He was one of the lower country gods.

Euripides has taken the myth of Hippolytos twice. His older work, 'The veiled Hippolytos', is lost. Probably Euripides didn't succeed with this work because it was too scandalous. With his younger work 'The wreathed Hippolytos' Euripides won the 1. prize at the Festival of Dionysos BC 428. This work is online under
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/staff/LSF/Euripides/hippolytos.htm

Ovid too used the staff of Euripides in his Metamorphoses and his Heroides (letters of mythological men and women). Other adaptations are from Seneca ('Phaedra', c.50 AD) and then from Racine ('Phedre', 1677), one of the most important works of French literature.

History of art:
The myth of Phaidra and Hippolytos is told in particular episodes especially on Roman sarcophagusses. I have attached an exemplar. The so-called 'Aldobrandini Marriage', a Roman painting of the 1st century BC (now in the Vaticane), assembles the protagonists of the myth. In later times the death of Hippolytos - like on Pompejian wall paintings - was the favoured motive because of its dramatic. Rubens shows the overturned carriage and the heavily dreaded harnessed horse team. (1611/12; Cambridge,FM).

Sources:
Apollodor, Epitome 1, 18,-19
Euripides, Hippolytos stephanephoros (The wreathed Hippolytos)
Ovid, Metamorphoses 15, 497-546; Heroides 4; Fasten 6, 737ff
Vergil, Aeneis 7, 761-782
Pausanias, Periegesis hellados (Description of Greece)

I have attached
1) a pic of the sarcophagus, c.290 AD, from the Campana coll., now in the Louvre/Paris.
    There we see - sitting between her handmaids  and some Erotes - the lovesick Phaidra, in
    the midth Hippolytos as hunter in his hand the letter of Phaidra, finally Theseus receiving
    the news of his son's death.
2) A pic of the mosaic with Phaidra ans Hippolytos from the house of Dionysos in Nea
    Paphos in Cypre, late 2nd century AD.

Enjoy!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 31, 2006, 10:38:40 am
An interesting depiction of Zeus-Ammon

This coin was the cause to read about Zeus-Ammon. Until now I have thought that Zeus-Ammon had become popular in Greece not before Alexander the Great has visited the oracle of Ammon in the oasis of Siwa. But that's not right!

The coin:
Macedonia, Kassandreia, Macrinus AD 217-218
AE 19
obv. [...] C M OPEL SEV[.] MACRINVS
       bust, cuirassed, laureate, r.
 rev. CO[...]L A - VG CASS[...]
       Zeus-Ammon, full-bearded and with curly hair, wearing himation, stg. r., holding in
       raised r. hand bunch of wine-grapes over his r. shoulder; [eagle stg. r. at his feet].
AMNG II.2, 16
rare, F+

The full name of Kassandreia was COLONIA IVLIA AVGVSTA CASSANDRENSIS. Today Kassandra ist the most west 'finger' of the Greek Chalkidike. There at the coast near Kallithea, at the ancient Aphytis, a big temple of Zeus-Ammon was standing in ancient times. Today it is the last Zeus-Ammon temple found in Europe. Sadly only the fundaments are seen today. An interesting fact is that Dionysos too was worshipped in this place!

Ammon was a famous oracle god in the oasis of Siwa in Libya. His worshipping in Greece began already in the 5th century BC, probably brought to Greece by colonists from Kyrenaika. The temple in Kallithea was first built in the 2nd half of the 4th century BC and after being destroyed again in the 3rd century BC.

The most famous event was probably the historic visit of Alexander the Great. He came to the Ammoneion of the oasis of Siwa shortly before his campaign against the Persians. The questions to the god had to be told to the priests previously, the answers of the god were movements, moving forward was confirmation, moving backward disapproving. The information which Alexander has got by Ammon has seemed to be satisfying, so was reported. The priests have welcommed Alexander as 'son of Ammon'. This was the usual salutation for great kings. But Alexander from that time on supposed to be the genuine son of the god. That matches the claim of his mother that she has conceived him by a snake, an incarnation of Zeus. Now the horns of Ammon were added to his depiction which could be seen on the coins of Lysimachos. Other famous persons having visited the oracle of Ammon were Hannibal, Alkibiades and Lysander, king of Sparta, to name only few.

Originally Ammon was an Ethiopian god of the herdsmen the guardian of their herds. From there he came to Egypt and became the main god of Thebes in Upper-Egypt. Ammon is the Greek form of the name Amana. This means 'the hidden' because he was thought of as an invisible breeze. He appeared during the 11th dynasty (20th century BC) and because of the important political role of Thebes as residence of the New Empire Ammon became God of the Empire and King of the Gods. His wife was the vulture-shaped godess Mut, his son the moon-god Chonsu. Theological he was composed by three figures: the primary creator Kneth, depicted as snake and buried in Medinet Habu, the king of gods in Karnak and the 'bull of the mother' in Luxor. The annual procession to Luxor was the most important ceremony of the country. In later ancient times Ammon was passed by Osiris. The Ammon of Siwa was of Libyan origin, probably a fount-god. The Greek identified him with Zeus as Zeus-Ammon, the Romans with Jupiter as Jupiter-Ammon. 

Greek mythology:
Because Ammon was known in Greece so long it is not astonishing that there are links to the Greek mythology. Clear that there are crossovers with the myths of Zeus.

According to this Ammon should have been a king of Libya, married with Rhea, sister of Kronos, Titans both. Once he met Amalthea who gave birth to his son Dionysos. Fearing his wife he brought Dionysos underhand to the city of Nysa. Soon Dionysos became famous and Rhea wanted to capture him, but Ammon haven't allowed that. Hence Rhea left Ammon and married again her brother Kronos. Then he forced him to campaign against Ammon and to chase him away from his kingdom. Ammon lost the war and escaped to Crete where he was persecuted by the Titans.

After being beaten by Hera with madness - she wanted to take revenge on Zeus - Dionysos moved through the world accompanied by satyrs, mainads and his teacher Silen. With a loading of wine he sailed to Egypt. Heartily he was welcommed by King Proteus. At that time at the delta of the Nile Amazones were living. Dionysos prompted them to go with him against the Titans and to restore his father Ammon to the throne. He succeeded and his victory over the Ttans and the restoring of Ammon was the first of his numerous military successes.

In fact wine was forbidden in the cult of Ammon. Before visiting the oracle one had to abstain from alcohol one week. Wether this was applied to Alexander too I don't know! The bunch of wine-grapes depicted on the coin is an allusion to Dionysos. The reverse shows a typical pantheistic depiction: Ammon, Zeus (known by the eagle) and Dionysos with the wine-grapes all in one figure!

I have attached:
a) The pic of one of the famous tetradrachms of Lysimachos showing the head of Alexander
    with the horns of Ammon. You can see too that the 'eyes to heaven' are not the invention   
    of Constantine!
b) A pic of todays Kallithea. The remains of the temple of Zeus-Ammon are located at the
    left before the big hotel in the background named significantly 'the Zeus-Ammon-Hotel!.

Sources:
AMNG
Der kleine Pauly
Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 06, 2006, 02:20:58 am
Jochen & Colleagues,

I have made a quick perusal of the index of this thread (thank you once again Jochen!), and while I've noticed Pegasus (and I vaguely remember our discussion), I did not see a specific reference to Bellerophon.  If I've missed it, I apologize. 

I have included a nice summary of the man who rode the amazing horse.  It was written by Erez Lieberman (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/bellerophon.html).

"In Corinth, a child was born to the King, Glaucus. Bellerophon, the son of the most skilled equestrian of the day, was taught by his father from a young age. Bellerophon was a precocious student.

When he turned sixteen, Bellerophon longed for adventure, and set out to find it. Along his journey he met Proteus, who feigned friendship to Bellerophon. In truth, Proteus was insanely jealous of Bellerophon, and sought to cause his death. Proteus was the son-in-law of Iobates, the King of Lycia. Feigning goodwill, Proteus gave Bellerophon a sealed message to carry to the King.
 
Upon his arrival in Lycia, Bellerophon found that a pall had been cast over the once-joyful land. Each night, the Chimera, a monster with the head of a lion and the tail of a dragon, swept down upon the valley and carried off women, children, and livestock. The bones of his many victims lay strewn along the mountainside. The population lived in constant fear.
 
When Iobates read the letter Bellerophon had delivered, he found that Proteus requested Bellerophon be put to death. Though he wanted to please his son-in-law, he knew that an outright execution would risk war against the Corinthians. He slyly sent Bellerophon to slay the Chimera, sure that he would never return alive.
 
Bellerophon, longing for excitement, was not frightened by the concept of facing the Chimera. Rather, he was overcome with happiness at the opportunity to rid the poor people from this gruesome threat.
 
Before he set out on his quest, Bellerophon sought the advice of Polyidus, the wisest man in Lycia. Impressed by the youth's courage, Polyidus told him of the legendary Pegasus. He advised him to spend a night in Athena's temple, and offer her many gifts. In return, the goddess may help him obtain the horse.
 
Bellerophon took his advice, and Athena appeared to him that night in a dream. She gave him a golden bridle and instructions as to where to find the well from which the Pegasus drank. In the morning, Bellerophon awoke to find the golden bridle beside him. He knew that his dream had been real.
 
Bellerophon journeyed into the forest, locating the well of which Athena had spoken. He hid in the bushes by the well. When the Pegasus finally arrived, Bellerophon waited till it kneeled over to drink and then pounced upon it from his hiding place, slipping the bridle onto its head. Pegasus flew into the air, trying desperately to shake Bellerophon off. But Bellerophon was up to the challenge, skilled in the handling of fierce horses. Pegasus understood that he had a new master.
 
After a brief rest, Bellerophon set out to the ledge where the Chimera dwelt. Armed with a long spear, he charged the Chimera. The Chimera exhaled a puff of its horrible fire. Pegasus darted backward to evade the burning breath. Before the Chimera could breathe again, Pegasus renewed its advance and Bellerophon drove the spear through the Chimera's heart.
 
When the Prince returned to the palace upon a winged horse, carrying the head of the frightful Chimera, the Kingdom rejoiced. The people admired his bravery, and the wonderful winged horse which he rode. King Iobates gave his willing daughter to Bellerophon as a bride.
 
For years the couple was happy, and when Iobates died, Bellerophon took his place. But again Bellerophon sought greater and greater adventures. Finally, he decided to ride up to Mount Olympus to visit the gods.
 
Mounting his steed, he urged Pegasus skyward, higher and higher. Zeus, displeased with Bellerophon's arrogant attempt to scale Mount Olympus' heights, sent a gadfly to punish the mortal for daring to ascend to the home of gods. The fly stung Pegasus, and so startled the horse that he suddenly reared, and Bellerophon was hurled off of his back. He plummeted to the ground.
 
Athena spared his life by causing him to land on soft ground. But for the rest of his life, Bellerophon traveled, lonely and crippled, in search of his wonderful steed.
 
But alas, Pegasus never returned."


I have included the only coin I could find with Bellerophon:

L. Cossutius, 74 B.C. 
AR Denarius, 3.82g. 18mm. SABVLA. Head of Medussa l. Rv. L COSSVTI C F. Bellerophon riding Pegasus r. and brandishing spear. CR 395/1.

I have also included an image: Source: Dr. Vollmer's Wörterbuch der Mythologie aller Völker.
Stuttgart: Hoffmann'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1874.
 

Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: gordian_guy on August 06, 2006, 11:26:34 am

I have a rough bronze from Corinth, circa 44 BC, time of Julius Caesar.

AE 24,

Obverse: CORINTHVM Bellerophon, wearing petasos and chlamys, striding r., and seizing Pegasos r., by the bridle, before a porch*.

Reverse: P. TADI . CHILO     Poseidon naked, seated r. on rock, and resting on long trident.
                C . IVLI . NICEP
                   II . VIR .

BMC 483.

* Paus ii, 2, 4 - "... A cypress grove called KRANEON grows in front of the city. Here is Bellerophon's enclosure..."

Penquin Classics, "Pausania, Guide to Greece, Volume 1: Central Greece." Pete Levi translation

c.rhodes 

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 06, 2006, 02:34:08 pm
Thanks for the article about Bellerophon and the nice pics! I want to add here something about the facts behind the myth.

Bellerophon (or Bellerophontes) is one of the examples of human hybris and its punishment by the gods. So Pindar anyway understood this myth. Euripides has written a 'Bellerophontes' where the heroe was described as attacking the heaven for intellectual curiosity. When he died he was reconciled with the gods.

The heroe was worshipped especially in Corinth and in Lycia. Originally he was a divine figure. A Lycian fairy tale telling about a flood which he had caused and depictions with a trident allocate him to the reign of Poseidon, the Pegasos more to celestial gods. His Name should mean 'appearing in the clouds', but usually it is translated as 'killer of Belleros'. Belleros was a pre-hellenic snake monster. Chimaira and Pegasos are transferred to Bellerophontes first in Lycia. Interpreting the myth the scholar Schachermeyr points out the historical circumstances. He regards him as kind of a knight errant of the late Mycenean time because there are links between the Argolis and courts of Asia minor. The scholar Wiesner looks at him as an example of the change from the chariot fighter to the equestrian warrior from the late Mycenean time to the 8th century BC. The Potiphar and Urias motive are later novellistic decorations.

The most favoured theme in art was his struggle with the Chimaira depicted already on proto-corinthian vases. Other depictions occur first in the vase paintings in Lower Italy (Graeca magna) probably under the influence of the Greek tragedies.

I have added the pic of an archaic Laconian black-figured vase painting, 570-565 BC, attributed to the Boread Painter, now in the Paul Getty Museum in Malibu/California, showing the struggle between Bellerophontes, Pegasus and Chimaira.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on August 06, 2006, 05:27:36 pm
Because it is Corinthian and nearly a century earlier than the Laconian one, and indeed one of the earliest representations of Bellerophon actually fighting with the chimaera, and, IMO, a masterpiece of fine drawing besides and of the Greek humanizing of myths, I was going to post this last night and hesitated only because it is vase-painting.  Middle Protocorinthian (verging on Late Protocorinthian), ca. 650 BCE, the Aegina Bellerophon (found there about 80 years ago).  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 08, 2006, 07:45:35 am
Because it is Corinthian and nearly a century earlier than the Laconian one, and indeed one of the earliest representations of Bellerophon actually fighting with the chimaera, and, IMO, a masterpiece of fine drawing besides and of the Greek humanizing of myths, I was going to post this last night and hesitated only because it is vase-painting.  Middle Protocorinthian (verging on Late Protocorinthian), ca. 650 BCE, the Aegina Bellerophon (found there about 80 years ago).  Pat L.

Pat L.,
This vase painting really is a masterpiece!  Thanks!

Jochen,
The Boread Painter piece is beautiful.  Thank you, too!

gordian_guy,
Your coin is very interesting.  Thanks, as well!

Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 13, 2006, 11:52:46 am
Alpheios and the nymph Arethusa

The coin:
Sicily, Syracuse, c.475-450 BC
Silver litra, 12.4mm, 0.653g
obv. SVRA
      Head of Arethusa, with pearl-diadem, r.
rev. Oktopus
SNG ANS 183; SNG München 1003; SNG Copenhagen 641; cf. Boehringer S.196, 450ff.
good F-about VF, slightly toned

Mythology:
Arethusa, daughter of Nereus, the sea-god, and Doris, was a well-nymph on the Peloponnesos, but a passionated huntress and compaignon of Artemis too. Once she came heated from a hunt in the Stymphalic woods to the river Alpheios, took off her clothes and entered the water. At this moment the river-god approached her and shouted she should not flee from him. But she did without her clothes and Alpheios followed her until they came to Elis. Here exhausted she called Artemis for help. Artemis wrapped her in clouds to hide her from Alpheios. But nevertheless he hold her embraced. So she was transformed by Artemis into water and melted between his fingers. But Alpheios changed into water too to unite with her. Then Artemis opened the ground so Arethusa could flow into it and came out not earlier than on the island of Ortygia in front of Syracuse in Sicily as a beautiful fountain. During her flight she discovered btw the raped Persephone and reported that to Demeter. Alpheios followed her to Sicily and here finally he succeded in uniting with her.

Arethusa was worshipped in Aigios in Achaia. The people took offering cakes from the altar of Salus threw them into the sea and shouted she should send them to Arethusa to Sicily.

The famous fountain on Ortygia was very beautiful and full of tasty sweet water. It was large and full of fishes. But it had to be armed with barrages to protect it against the sea. There was a curious case with this fountain: Everytime the Olympic Games occur in Elis the fountain smelled of horse dung. This was true too if horses were drifted into the Alpheios. It was told too that once a silvery bowl thrown into the Alpheios appeared in the fountain. This all was seen as proof for a subterranean connection between Elis and Ortygia deep under the Mediterranean.

Background:
The name Arethusa seems to be Phoinician and should be explained so: When the Phoinicians came to Sicily and found the fountain they called it 'Alphaga', meaning willow spring. Others called it just 'Arith', meaning stream. The Greek coming later to Sicily no longer understood these meanings and put it to the name of the river Alpheios.

The river Alpheios is the biggest river of the Peloponnesos which together with its confluents drains the major part of Arcadia. Until today it is a whitewater with torrential streaming especially at flood. In ancient times there was only one bridge testified at Heraia. The Alpheios already soon played a big role in mythology. So he should have chased Artemis Arethusa in love who had a sanctuary at his estuary mouth. But the most famous is the myth of the nymph Arethusa where several different variants are known. Beside the physical impossible subterranean connection to Sicily there were other such impossible suggestions f.e. that Alpheios and Eurotas have the same well from which they originate.

The island of Ortygia, the 'land of quails', situated directly in front of Syracuse, was the mythic birthplace of Artemis who therefore had the cognomen Ortygia too. The most ancient mentions can not be localised but in the course of time the cult places of Artemis and Leto were identified with Ortygia. Indeed other places too claimed to be the birthplace, so Delos, called formerly Ortygia, Nasos near Syracuse or Ephesos with its sacred grove.

BTW Sometimes Arethusa is listed as one of the Hesperids too.

Already soon Arethusa was depicted on coins of Syracus, often accompanied by dolphins, and later melted together with Artemis of whom she was a passionate devotee.

It's curious, I wasn't able to find an ancient depiction to this myth. So I have attached the pic of a painting of Jean Restout (1720), now in the Museum des Beaux Arts in Rouen/France. It shows the moment where Artemis helped the persecuted Arethusa.
The second pic shows the fountain of Arethus on Ortygia how it could be seen today.

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphoses 5, 571-641
Pausanias, Periegesis 5, 7, 2-4
Benjami Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 18, 2006, 04:45:23 am
The Dioskouori  (alternatively spelled--dioskuri, dioscuri)

Castor and Pollux (Kastor and Polydeukes)

(according to http://www.online-mythology.com/castor_pollux/)

Castor and Pollux were the offspring of Leda and the Swan, under which disguise Jupiter had concealed himself. Leda gave birth to an egg [two eggs], from which sprang the twins [Castor and Pollux in one egg]. Helen, so famous afterwards as the cause of the Trojan war, was their sister [in the second egg, Helen was joined by her sister Clytemnestra (also spelled 'Clytaemnestra')].

When Theseus and his friend Pirithous had carried off Helen from Sparta, the youthful heroes Castor and Pollux, with their followers, hasted to her rescue. Theseus was absent from Attica, and the brothers were successful in recovering their sister.

Castor was famous for taming and managing horses, and Pollux for skill in boxing. They were united by the warmest affection, and inseparable in all their enterprises. They accompanied the Argonautic expedition. During the voyage a storm arose, and Orpheus prayed to the Samothracian gods, and played on his harp, whereupon the storm ceased and stars appeared on the heads of the brothers. From this incident, Castor and Pollux came afterwards to be considered the patron deities of seamen and voyagers (One of the ships in which St. Paul sailed was named the Castor and Pollux. See: Acts xxviii, II.), and the lambent flames, which in certain sates of the atmosphere play round the sails and masts of vessels, were called by their names.

After the Argonautic expedition, we find Castor and Pollux engaged in a war with Idas and Lynceus. Castor was slain, and Pollux, inconsolable for the loss of his brother, besought Jupiter to be permitted to give his own life as a ransom for him. Jupiter so far consented as to allow the two brothers to enjoy the boon of life alternately, passing one day under the earth and the next in the heavenly abodes. According to another form of the story, Jupiter rewarded the attachment of the brothers by placing them among the stars as Gemini, the Twins.

They received divine honors under the name of Dioscuri (sons of Jove). They were believed to have appeared occasionally in later times, taking part with one side or the other, in hard-fought fields, and were said on such occasions to be mounted on magnificent white steeds. Thus, in the early history of Rome, they are said to have assisted the Romans at the battle of Lake Regillus, and after the victory a temple was erected in their honor on the spot where they appeared.


The accompanying coin:

CALABRIA, Taras. Time of Pyrrhus, 281-272 BC. AR Nomos.  Obverse: The Dioskouori riding; Reverse: Taras riding dolphin over waves, holding Nike. Vlasto.777.
 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 18, 2006, 06:56:42 am
Hi Cleisthenes!

A beautiful coin and interesting informations! All interested in this subject may look too at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.25 and search for 'The Dioscurs - the divine pair of brothers'.

Best regards


Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 18, 2006, 07:24:38 pm
The myths of Arne

Thessalia, Kierion, 400-344 BC
AE - Trihemiobol(?)
obv. Head of Poseidon, wearing taenia, r.
rev. KIERI - EIWN (?)
      Nymph Arne, wearing chiton, kneeling r., head l., playing with astragaloi
S. 2069; SNG Copenhagen 35
very rare, good S

Mythology:
The myth of Arne belongs to the group of sagas around Hellen, son of Deukalion, who gave name to the Greek who call themselfs Hellens. Her father was Aiolos, the first son of Hellen. Aiolos seduced Thetis, daughter of Cheiron, who became pregnant. To protect her of her father, Poseidon - friend of Aiolos - changed her in a mare and she gave birth to the foal Melanippe which at once was changed back by Poseidon into a girl. Aiolos adopted her, gave her the name Arne and then gave her to a Desmontes to care for her.

Poseidon observed the growing of Arne and seduced her when she became adult. When Desmontes discovered the pregnancy of the girl she let her blind and threw her into a burial chamber. There in her prison she gave birth to the twins Aiolos and Boiotos. Desmontes took the children and commanded her servants to maroon the twins at the Pelion mountain to be gorged by wild beasts. But a cow gave them milk until they were found by Ikarian herdsmen.

Because Theano, wife of the Ikarian king Metapontos, was not able to bear children, and
Metapontos because of that was willing to part from her she took the twins telling him that they were his children. But when however she later got children for her own - and the twins were more intelligent and more beautiful than her own children - she convinced them to kill the twins when they were hunting together. When it came to the fight Poseidon appeared to help his sons and the sons of Theano were killed. When Theano got the message she suicided by hanging. Aiolos and Boiotos escaped. When they heard by Poseidon of the pitiful fate of her mother they killed Desmonted and rescued their mother. Metapontos hearing of the disloyalty of his wife married Arne and adopted her twins (Hygin.Fab. 186).

Unfortunately the domestic bliss didn't lasted long. Metapontos became bored with Arne and married again. Aiolos and Boiotos took their mother's part and killed Autolyte, the new wife. After that they had to flee. They found reception at the court of their grandfather Aiolos. Aiolos gave Boiotos the southern part of his kingdom. From that time on the inhabitants were called Boiotians. Two Thessalian cities took the name Arne, oneof which later became Chaironeia (Pausan. Boiot. c.40).

His brother Aiolos has sailed to the west and has occupied the Aiolic Islands in the Thyrrenean Sea. He became famous as favourite of the gods and guardian of the winds. His home was Lipara a swimming rocky island. But this is another story.

Background:
The myth of Arne is a local myth from Thessalia. Arne in Boiotia is named only in Homer's Ilias 2, 507 and therefore is explained as old name of Akraiphion or Chaironeia or being devoured by the lake Kopais. A second Arne shuld have been the old name of the Thessalonitis or of its capital Kierion (RE II 1209, 29 ff.). BTW Our Arne should not be confused with that Arne who was change into a daw because of her stinginess.
The case with Aiolos is a bit complicated and had make me trouble in the beginning. There are 3 different persons called Aiolos: Aiolos I, here the father of Arne, and Aiolos III, the son of Arne. Beside them there is a Aiolos II, the grandson of Aiolos I, sometimes called the father of Arne too. So it is not clear too, who is the guardian of the winds, Aiolos I or Aiolos III.

The Astragaloi:
Sadly the astragaloi are no more seen on my coin. Astragaloi are dices made from the ankle joint bones (talus) of sheep and goats (greek astragalos = ankle joint). In one of the games the astragaloi must be thrown upwards and then were been valued referring to the sides which were seen upside. The sides had different values: The most instable side was 6 points, the concave side 3 points, the convex side 2 point and the most simple only 1 point. If all 4 astragaloi showed different sides the throw was called Venus and the player won the game. Showing only 1 point on all sides was called Canis (dog) and that was the worst throw. These terms we know from a letter of Augustus to Sueton. Augustus was said to be a passionate dice player.

Arne, the well-nymph:
Why Arne on this coin is depicted playing with astragaloi I think could have this reason: There is another myth about a well-nymph named Arne passed down by Pausanias f.e (10, 1 ff.). Rhea after giving birth to Poseidon has hidden the child between a herd of sheep near a well caled Arne, the 'sheep-well'. To Kronos  - who was going to gorge all his new-born babes - she gave a foal like the stone she gave later to him instead of the young Zeus. By others the story is told so, that the well-nymph to whom Rhea gave her child has a different name at that time. She got the name Arne not before Kronos demanded his son from the nymph and she denied him, as it would come from the word for 'denying'

And playing with astragaloi matches a well-nymph much better. Probably the figures of Arne, daughter of Aiolos, from whom Kierion has gotten its old name, and Arne, the well-nymph, interfered with each other!

I have added the pic of a Roman statue, 130-50 AD, showing a girl plying with astragaloi. Today it is in the Antiken Museum in Berlin. The depiction reminds strongly of our coin reverse.

Sources:
Pausanias, Voyages in Greece
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Mythologie der Griechen
Karl Kerenyi,
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 18, 2006, 07:26:10 pm
Artemis and Kallisto

Rather by chance I recently came across this Greek coin - and couldn't resist as you could suggest.

Boiotia, Orchomenos, 4th century BC
AE 20, dichalkon, 5.91g
obv. Artemis in short chiton, quiver at back, kneeling r., shooting arrow from her bow, [behind
       her a dog]
 rev. [ERXOMENIWN]
       Kallisto seated on rocks, transfixed by an arrow in her breast, falling backwards, at her
       side Arkos, laying backwards
SNG Copenhagen 266; BMC 1-2 var.; Svoronos 1914, pl. XI, 5, 7; Traite III, 940
rare, about VF, dark green patina

Mythology:
Kallisto, daughter of king Lykaon - or referring to others a nymph, was a devotee of Artemis. She was loving the hunt and has sworn eternal virginity. But Zeus fall in love with the beautiful girl and seduced her. After that he transformed her into a she-bear to hide her from Hera. Hera saw through his trick and caused Artemis to shoot her. But Zeus saved his and her son Arkas by giving him to Maia who should educate him. Kallisto was put as constellation to the sky (Apollod. I, c.). Another version tells that she succeeded in hiding her gravidity from Artemis until they together wanted to take a bath. Artemis saw her pregnant belly and Artemis transformed her into a she-bear as which she delivered Arkas. When soon after that she and Arkas were catched by herdsmen and brought to her father Lykaon she fleed into the temple of Zeus. Because of that sacrilege she should be put to death, but Zeus moved her to the stars (Eratosthenes and Hygin. Lex. Myth.). Others report, that Zeus himself has taken the shape of Artemis when he approached her (Callimach. ad Hymn. in Jovem, v. 41). When Artemis asked her for her state and she answered that Artemis herself was the cause for that she became so angry that she transformed her.

About the fate of Arkas there are some different versions too. Referring to one of them Zeus gave him to Maia because she should educate him. Referring to another his grandfather Lykaon is said to have received him. When once Zeus visited him Lykaon has slaughtered Arkas and has dished up him to Zeus with the intent to try out wether he as a god was able to know what he was eating. Zeus recognized this abhorrent deed, destroyed his house by lightning and transformed Lykaon into a wolfe. Arkas was put together again, he gave him back his life, and gave him to herdsmen for education. When they were sometimes hunting they met a she-bear, his transformed mother. They took their bows but the she-bear fleed in the temple of Zeus Lykaion. This temple was not allowed to enter. Therefore she and Arkas who was following her should be executed. But Zeus saved tem both by putting them to te stars. Nevertheless it is reported that he followed his mother's brother as king. He then teached his people to cultivate grain - what he has learned by Triptolemos, likewise the art of weaving and making clothes, whch he has learned by Adristos. The country which was called Pelasgia got the name Arkadia referring to him. His wife was said to be Erato from who he got three sons, Aza, Aphidas and Elatus, between he later distributed his realm. The city of Trapezus in Arkadia is said to be founded by Arkas.

Some background:
Mostly named as daughter of the Arcadian king Lykaon she was a hunting compagnion of Artemis. Zeus approached her in the shape of Artemis (or Apollo). Artemis discovers her pregnancy, outcasts her and transforms her into a she-bear. She delivees Arkas (referring to others Arkas and Pan) and so becomes the the sovereign of Arcadia. The transformation sometimes occurs by Zeus or Hera. It is reported too that Artemis shot her. Kallimachos connected both versions: Hera transforms her into a she-bear and commands Artemis to shoot her. Zeus saves her by puttnig her to the stars. The adolescent Arkas follows a she-bear not knowing that she is her mother; to avoid a desaster Zeus puts both to the stars: she-bear and Arkturos (Arktophylax, the bear-keeper). Angry again Hera caused the sea-gods Okeanos and Tethys to not allow the she-bear at the sky to take a bath in the ocean. The Great Bear so belongs to the circumpolar stars which never go under (Ovid met. II, 409-531).
At Trikolonoi near Megapolis her grave was shown in the temple of Artemis Kallisto of which she is a hypostasis*, Paus. VIII, 35, 8; Statues of Kallisto are proofed literalily; of the statue from Delphi (Paus. X, 9, 5f.) is found the devoting inscription of the Arcadians. A wall painting of Pompeji is now in Naples.

Arkas, Eponymos* of the Arcadians, listed at the 4th place in the list of the kings, was the son of Zeus and Kallisto, an Artemis figure. He brings forward his country's culture and distributes it to his 3 sons of Erato. His tomb is found in Mantineia, Paus. III, 8, 9. His myths in the version we know (Ovid met. II, 490ff.; fast II, 155ff.) are of hellenistic origin.

*Eponymos: Someone who gave name to a city or country
*Hypostasis, here: Personification of a divine attribute or a religious idea to an
                             independent divine being (meaning: Kallisto is in a sense Artemis
                             herself!)

History of art:
The transformation into a she-bear is shown in a Apulian Vase painting (Oinochoe, c.370 BC; Malibu,GM). The seduction by Zeus in the shape of Artemis at the side of Kallisto was painted by Rubens (1613; Kassel, SM), F. Boucher (1769; London, WC) and J.-H. Fragonard (c. 1753; Angers, MBA); only an eagle or a thunderbolt as attribute let us recognize that it is Zeus. His transformation into a female goddess gave the painters especially of the 18th century the sujet or the pretense to depict a tender tete-a-tete between two women not without a Sapphic undertone. Artemis detecting Kallisto's pregnancy when bathing and pointing at her with her finger under the condemning looks of the other nymphs, that was depicted by Tizian (c.1568; Vienna, KM) and Annibale Caracci (c.1603; Rome, Palazzo Farnese). Palma Vecchio ( c.1526; Vienna, KM) used the scene to present female act figures in various positions.

I have attached a pic of Tizian's painting.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Karl Kerenyi, Mythologie der Griechen
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Pausanias, Journeys through Greece
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 26, 2006, 03:20:37 am
Artemis and Kallisto

As usual, I only have something very brief to add to Jochen's always interesting information:

Kallisto (ka-lis'tõ) or Callisto was the daughter of Lycaon, a king of Acadia who has been transformed into a wolf because of his wickedness. Zeus fell in love with Kallisto and she bore him a son, Arcas.

According to some accounts, Artemis was angry with Kallisto, who has been one of her chaste companions, and transformed her into a bear. Others say it was Zeus who transformed her to save her from the wrath of Hera. Whatever the reason, Kallisto was turned into a bear.

When Arcas reached young manhood, he was hunting wild animals in the forest, and seeing a bear, would have killed it, unaware that it was his mother. Zeus rescued Kallisto by carrying her off in a whirlwind and translating her to the heavens, where she became the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Hera was jealous of the honor that had come to Kallisto of being placed in the skies, and persuaded Poseidon to forbid her ever to bathe in the sea. For this reason the Great Bear never sinks below the horizon [northern hemisphere, of course] - just as the GPS constellation is always visible to Kallisto!
(see: http://ion.le.ac.uk/kallisto/myth.html)

I have included the following coin:

AR Hemidrachm, 2.86g, 470s B.C., with a reverse die by the ‘Copenhagen Master’. Obverse: Zeus Lykaios seated left on low throne, holding long scepter with his left hand and with eagle flying off his right; Reverse:  Head of Kallisto to left, wearing taenia and necklace and with her hair in a queue; all within incuse square. BMFA 1239 (this coin). Williams I, 1, 6a (this coin). Very rare.
 
From the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and of Catherine Page Perkins, Numismatic Fine Arts VIII, 6 June 1980, 182.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 26, 2006, 05:47:46 pm
The Lares

Most of my contributions deal with Greek mythology. Now here I have a typical Roman theme: the Lares! Everytime if you talk about the Lares this coin must be shown at any case:

Lucius Caesius, gens Caesia
AR - denar, 3.87g, 21mm
        Rome, 112/111 BC
obv. Heroic bust of the youthful Apollo Vesovius l., diademed and with drapery on l.
       shoulder, seen from behind, hurling thunderbolt
 rev. The Lares Praestites seated 3/4 r., nude to hips, then covered with dog's skin, wearing
       hats and boots, between them a dog, stg. r.; both holding staff in l. hand, the right one
       has r. hand on the dog's head.
       in upper field head of Vulcanus l. and his tongs
       in left field LA ligate, in r. field RE ligate (LA-RE!)
       in ex. L.CAESI
Crawford 298/1; Sydenham 564; RSC Caesia 1
nice VF, broad flan

The Lares together with the Penates and Manes belong to the Roman guardian spirits. As goddess eventually Ceres is counting to this group too.The name Lares is said to originate from the Etruscean 'larth', meaning ruler or king. But that is not sure. Referring to the myth their parents were the nymph Acca Larentina and the god Mercurius. There are various Lares depending on the place they were protecting:
Lares compitales were protecting crossroads,
Lares permarini are the guardians of ships and sailors,
Lares praestites were protecting a city and
Lares Hostili, Volusani and so on were protecting the named owner of a place.

The Lares familiares (before the Augustean reform only in Singularis!) originally were all deities which were worshipped at the hearth, so beside the Lares the Penates too and Ceres. The hearth was regarded by the Romans as centre of the family and it was the place of veneration. Their cult included the slaves and the unfree people too; the vilicus* was allowed to sacrifice independently at the compitum* or the hearth. At the Kalendes, Ides, Nones or other festivals the vilica* garlanded the hearth and prayed to the Lares. The Lar familiaris was saluted everytime if one get home or leave it, he was given presents daily.

The major festival were the Compitalia on December 22 after the end of the field work and the Laralia on May 1st. They were introduced by Servius Tullius, renewed by Tarquinius Superbus and Iunius Brutus. At the crossroads stood chapels which as much openings as estates came together. The Lares Praestites had a temple on the Campus Martius and a sanctuary at top of the Via Sacra. The statues therein look like the depiction on the coin (Ovid fast. V, 129ff.). Another was said to be on the Palatine.

At the end of the Republic the celebration of the Compitalia became discredited. When Augustus was rearranging the city each vicus* got a compitum Larum as sacral centre. But now they changed into the centre of the Imperial Cult: Between two Lares now always stood the Genius of the Emperor. The Lar familiaris was substituted by two Lares familiares with the Genius of the Pater familias between them.

Background:
A yet unsolved problem is the origin of the Lares. There are two suggestions: 1) The originate from the Roman Ancestry Cult or 2) they were Guardian Spirits of localities (Wissowa). In ancient times it was assumed that the Lares were identical with the Manes. That demonstrates that even in ancient times there were no reliable knowledge. The suggestion that the Lar familiaris like the Greek 'heros archegetes' is the deified ancestor of the family and therefore has his place at the hearth has the problem that the way of the Lares from the hearth to the compitum is difficult to explain whereas the other direction from the compitum to the hearth is thinkable if they were interpreted as guardians who confined the
whole fundus*. The idea that the Lares are connected to the Underworld - so Mania should have been the mater larum, who has been a grimace figure and cognate with the Manes (the accompanying dogs are related to the Underworld too, see Hekate!) - can not be followed because the Lares never had any weird, they were worshipped at daylight and stayed at the fundus even if the family moved to the city. So today Wissowa's point of view is valid. The dogs then should be seen as concept of vigilance friendly to friends but hostile against strangers.

The Penates
The Penates (lat. dii penates) were worshipped in the house too especially at the hearth. Their name is not derived directly from 'penus' = inventory for the usage of the pater familias, but can't be separated in respect of content. So they were responsible for supply, food and drinks. The Penates were old Roman deities, they belong to the cives Romani and to the pater familias. When Aeneas was escaping from Troy he took the Penates (not the Lares!) from Troy to Lavinium from where they couldn't be moved to Alba Longa or Rome. Already Timaios knows Penates in Lavinium (as herold's staffs made from iron and ore as well Trojan pottery). The Roman magistrates with imperium were sacrifying from ancient times on in Lavinium at the assumption of their office. Later the Penates got their own sanctuary consecrated on December 14 in the regio of Velia (look at Monumentum Ancyranum) with the pictures of two youthful men, wearing military clothes and holding spears as they were found in regia (participation of the Saliers) or in front of the harbour of Samothrace. Beside Jupiter they were oath gods by which f.e. contracts were sworn.

The Manes
The Manes were the spirits of the deceased ancestors. Their name is still unexplained. It is popular today to derive it from 'manare', to vanish, or from 'manus', good. But this surely is wrong. Originally it was used adjectivical f.e. like 'ab dis manibus'. Referring to conceptions
of the late ancient times the deceased at first became 'lemures', then as good spirits 'lares' or
as bad spirits 'larvae'. The uncertain spirits became Manes. But often they are equated with Lemures or Larvae. The term Manes as 'the small, the thin' matches well the Larvae which etymological are related to Greek chloros and mean 'the pale'. So they name the indeterminated spirits different from the di parentes. From Numa Pompilius on the pontifex took care for their worship at the festivals of Lemuriae and Feralia where they got feralia*; being diregarded they sent bad dreams. They were invoked at the sacrifacing death of Curtius, together with Tellus at the devotion* of the Decii and Carthage. The funeral place was dedicated to Dis Manibus later abbreviated as DM. Later on the term Manes was used for the death spirit of a single dead person, for the corpse and finally for the afterlife and its punishment as it is seen in Carminum Liber I, IV of Horaz:

Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
       regumque turris. O beate Sesti,
vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam.
        Iam te premet nox fabulaeque Manes.

[The pale death with equal pace is knocking at the huts of the poor
       and the castles of the rich. O blessful Sestius,
the short sum of live forbids us to entertain long hope.
        Yet night will press you and the Manes of the tale.

Some explanations:
*compitum:   crossroad
*devotion:      sacrificing themself to obligate the gods
*feralia:         festival for the dead on February 21; donations for the dead too
*fundus:        estate
*vicus:          quarter
*vilica:           caretaker, fem.
*vilicus:         caretaker, male (often slaves or freed slaves)

Pics:
Depicted is the Lararium of the Casa dei Vettii in Pompeji. We see the genius of the family in the shape of a youth in the midth who - between two Lares - is offering a libation. Beneath,
the same genius in the shape of a snake. The depicted Lares are Lares familiares. They regularly are very youthful - sometimes still with bulla - and are depicted often dancing.

The second pic shows one of the Penates as I have known it before I came to school!

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliche griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
NumisWiki https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 29, 2006, 10:34:24 am
Janus

I have always been intrigued by Janus.  I apologize if this topic has been covered in our thread; I looked (fairly carefully) in your index, Jochen, but I didn't see a reference.

Janus is the Roman god of gates and doors (ianua), beginnings and endings, and hence represented with a double-faced head, each looking in opposite directions. He was worshipped at the beginning of the harvest time, planting, marriage, birth, and other types of beginnings, especially the beginnings of important events in a person's life. Janus also represents the transition between primitive life and civilization, between the countryside and the city, peace and war, and the growing-up of young people.
One tradition states that he came from Thessaly and that he was welcomed by Camese in Latium, where they shared a kingdom. They married and had several children, among which the river god Tiberinus (after whom the river Tiber is named). When his wife died, Janus became the sole ruler of Latium. He sheltered Saturn when he was fleeing from Jupiter. Janus, as the first king of Latium, brought the people a time of peace and welfare; the Golden Age. He introduced money, cultivation of the fields, and the laws. After his death he was deified and became the protector of Rome. When Romulus and his associates stole the Sabine Virgins, the Sabines attacked the city. The daughter of one of the guards on the Capitolian Hill betrayed her fellow countrymen and guided the enemy into the city. They attempted to climb the hill but Janus made a hot spring erupt from the ground, and the would-be attackers fled from the city. Ever since, the gates of his temple were kept open in times of war so the god would be ready to intervene when necessary. In times of peace the gates were closed.
His most famous sanctuary was a portal on the Forum Romanum through which the Roman legionaries went to war. He also had a temple on the Forum Olitorium, and in the first century another temple was built on the Forum of Nerva. This one had four portals, called Janus Quadrifons. When Rome became a republic, only one of the royal functions survived, namely that of rex sacrorum or rex sacrificulus. His priests regularly sacrificed to him. The month of January (the eleventh Roman month) is named after him.
Janus was represented with two faces, originally one face was bearded while the other was not (probably a symbol of the sun and the moon). Later both faces were bearded. In his right hand he holds a key. The double-faced head appears on many Roman coins, and around the 2nd century BCE even with four faces.
(By Micha F. Lindemans; see: http://www.pantheon.org/areas/gallery/mythology/europe/roman/janus.html)

Coin: ROMAN REPUBLIC, Anon., 225-214 BC. AR Quadrigatus (6.54 gm). Laureate head of Janus / Jupiter in Quadriga, ROMA incuse on solid tablet. RSC.23. Cr.30/1.

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 29, 2006, 04:48:28 pm
Very interesting, especially the history of the open and closed door of the Janus temple!

May I add something to your nice article about IANUS?

1. There is a blant inadequacy between the importance of this god and our knowledge about
    him (and the knowledge of the Roman mythologists too!). So only one inscription with his
    name is found in whole Italy (in Assisi).
2. So it is actually not known why the name of the 11th month was Ianuarius and wether
    there are relations to IANUS at all (Pauly).
3. He was the god of public doorways, not of the pivate. That was the god Portunus.
4. He is one of the rare gods where we couldn't find any counterpart in the world of Greek
    gods.
5. The conventions to shut the door of the Janus temple in peace was virtually introduced by
    Augustus who did it three times. Before Augustus the door was closed only once (after the
   1st Punian War, regarding to Varro) or twice (by Numa too, regarding to Augustus'
   Monumentum Ancyranum). Even if this practice was very old it was not used before
   Augustus who has rediscovered it for political purposes.
6. Because the knowledge about IANUS was so low, already in ancient times, we heard from
    speculations which are totally unsustainable. So he should have been come as a Syrian-
    Hettite god from the east or he should have been a god of Heaven.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 30, 2006, 12:55:47 pm
The white sow of Lavinium

Here I have a new republican coin I want to present together with its mythological background. It is one of my most beautiful Republican coins and I'm a bit proud to have it in my collection.

It is a denar of the mintmaster C. Sulpicius C. f. Galba from the gens Sulpicia.
AR - denarius serratus, 20mm, 3.67g
        Rome, 106 BC
obv. Conjugate heads of the Di Penates, laureate, l.
        D.P.P. before (abbreviation of Di Penates Publici)
rev. Two male figures standing vis-a-vis, both holding spears, the right one points with
       r. hand to a sow, laying between them l.
       above N (control mark)
       in ex. C.SVLPICI.C.F
Crawford 312/1; Sydenham 572; Sulpicia 1
rare, EF, struck slightly excentric

The scene of the rev. is often called an oath scene. But the depiction of a Fetial sacrifice at an oath scene is not much likely because the victim animal was always killed with a silex sacrum (a sacrificing key made of stone), and this is not seen here.

Mythologie:
With the rev. scene we are in the group of myths around Aeneas. These are not Greek but Roman myths. The Di Penates Publici already belongs to Aeneas. He has taken them together with the Palladium from Troy to Italy. The rev. is referring to this.

When Aeneas fled from Troy Helenus, a son of Priamos, has predicted Aeneas, that he would built a new city where a white sow would cast 30 piglets. Another forecast was, that they would find a new home where they eat their tables.

When Aeneas and his Troyans came to the coast of Latium after a long odyssee from Carthage, they hungry set down at the beach and began to eat. In this moment Ascanius, the joung son of Aeneas, mentioned that they eat their tables, for they have put their food on leafs of wild parsley or hard bread. So the first prophecy was fulfilled: here was the place to settle down. Aeneas prepared to sacrifice a pregnant white sow he has brought in his ship for this purpose, but the sow escaped and fled 24 stadiums in the inland, layed down under an oak-tree (or ilex-tree) and casted 30 white piglets. Because of that Aeneas knew that this prophecy too became true and he should built a city here. He sacrificed the 30 piglets and erected a shrine at this place. The new city he called Lavinium referring to Lavinia, daughter of king Latinus. The 30 piglets represented 30 years only after which his successors became the real owners of the new land.

But sadly the story was not so straightforward: King Latinus gave his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas not before he was defeated by the Troyans in a war. But Lavinia already was affianced to Thurnius the king of the Rutuli. He began a war against the Latini and the Troyans but was defeated. In this war he and Latinus were killed. So Aeneas became king in Latium. The wars between the Rutuli and the Latini went on and Aeneas was killed, his body taken away by a river and so he disappeared. Ascanius became king thereafter. And he succeeded in defeating the inimical nations and the Latini now became stronger and more powerful so that they built a new city, called Alba Longa.

Alba Longa was founded just 30 years after Lavinium and so the prophecy was fulfilled here too. The name Alba Longa is said to be derived from the white sow (meaning the long white). So Lavinium was the mothertown of Alba Longa and finely of Rome itself.

On the Forum of Lavinium stood a bronze statue of the sow, its body was conserved by the priests in pickle. The Penate of the destroyed Troy Aeneas gave a new home in Lavinum, which was the home of the Sulpicii too, the family of the mintmaster. During republican times is was usual that the dictators and the Roman magistrates having an imperium came to Lavinium at the assumption of their office to take the oath of office in the temple of the Di Penates.

I have attached a pic of the relief from the westside of the Ara Pacis on the Campus Martius in Rome. It shows Aeneas preparing for sacrificing the sow of Lavinium as it was prophesized in book III and VIII of Vergil's Aneide. The attendants are laureate, hold the sow and a bowl with fruits. Aeneas with veiled head is pouring a libation. He holds a spear as symbol of his power. The young Ascanius is wearing Troyan clothes and holds a herdsmen staff (Paul Zanker).

But I don't want to conceal that there is a different interpretation of the relief too. It could be Numa and a unknown king who are sacrificing above an early peace altar to confirm the made peace. The two other figures then could be Jupiter and Dis as witnesses of the agreement.
http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfreeprint.asp?docid=1G1:84192627&ctrlInfo=Round19%3AMode19b%3ADocFree%3APrint&print=yes

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Vergil, Aeneis
Cassius Dio, Rom, Vol.VI, Frg.3
Origo Gentis Romanae

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 30, 2006, 06:12:37 pm
The Catanian Brothers

Here I have again a typical Roman myth: The saga of the pious brothers from Catania.

AR - denarius, 3.91g
         Rome, c.108-107 BC
obv. Head of Pietas, diademed and with necklace, r.
        under chin .X (control mark)
        behind PIETAS (AT ligate)
rev.: One of the Catanian brothers (Anapias or Amphinomus), nude, running r.,
        carrying his father on his shoulders; he, wearing himation, has raised his r. hand
        and is looking back.
        in ex. M.HEENNI (HE ligate)
Crawford 308/1a; Sydenham 567; herennia 1; RCTV 185
About EF

This coin shows the iconography of the famous saga of the Sicilian brothers (in later sources referred to as Anphinomus and Anapias). In the most ancient version of this legend written by the Greek orator Lycurgus (In Leocr. 95 s.) there is actually no mention of names, and moreover there is but one pius hero, a fact which does not correlate with the classification eusebon choron (alms-place), as the spot where this event took place came to be known. The same event was also the inspiration for the final excursus of the pseudo-Virgilian poem "Aetna". Lycurgus retells the story thus: "It is said that in Sicily a river of fire erupted forth from Etna flowing throughout the area and towards one nearby city in particular; everyone tried to flee in an attempt to save themselves, but one young man, on seeing that his elderly father was unable to run from the torrent of lava, which had almost reached him, lifted the old man up onto his shoulders and carried him away. Weighed down by his burden, I think, the lava flow caught up with him too. Here, one can observe the benevolence of the gods towards virtuous men: the story says that the fire encircled the area and that they alone were saved. As a result, the place was dubbed 'seat of the pious', a name it still retains. The others who, in their haste to flee, abandoned their parents, all met a painful death".

Pausan. X, 28, 4:
The ancients charished their parents highly as you can see in Katane by the so-called "pious", who when the fire from the Mt. Aitna was flowing onto Katane gold and silver regarded for nothing but escaped one carrying his mother, the other his father. Because they advanced only badly the fire reached them with its flames, and because even then they didn't set down their parents, the fire-stream is said to have split in two parts and the fire flowed around the youth and their parents without causing harm to them. Therefore they were worshipped until now by the Katanaians.
This story of the two brothers is reported in the ancient literature several times, wher their names changed. The place near Katane where the statues stood was called 'Place of the Pious' and a later inscription still named Katana 'the famous city of the pious'. Their statues apeared on intaglios and Roman coins as a symbol of pietas. The first report gave the Attic orator Lycurgus in 4th century BC.
 
Pietas
Pietas is the behaviour against god and men in order to its duty. As iustitia adversos deos it could be replaced by the nearly synonymous religio, and so pietas indicates especially the human field: the mindset of doing ones duty against relatives, dead or living, especially the parents, but the fatherland too. In its familial-social sense which is nearly inseparable from the religious sense, pietas was personified, and like Fides, Virtus and other divine values which are needed to maintain the order of the society cultic increased. So in the temple in foro holitorio which was consecrated 180 BC there where once a daughter has saved his incarcerated father by the milk of her breasts. The close relation between family and the state made pietas to one of the most important Roman virtues and thus political significant: Pius as cognomen and pietas-coins - with the stork as symbol which feed its aged parents - still in the time of the Republic, but especially the use of all sides of the old-roman pietas (represented in the 'pius Aeneas' of Vergil) as evoking programm by Augustus and derived from that the 'Pietas Augusta' as imperial virtue.

Attached I have the pic of the fresko of Rosso Fiorentino (um 1495-1540), The Catanean Twins, Anapias and Amphinomos, at the Sacrificial Altar, 1535, now in Fontainebleau.

Sources:
Pausanias, Voyages in Greece, book X
Der kleine Pauly
CNG
Numiswiki

I hope these contributions are still interesting!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on September 06, 2006, 05:17:18 am


. . .There is a blant inadequacy between the importance of this god and our knowledge about him (and the knowledge of the Roman mythologists too!). So only one inscription with his name is found in whole Italy (in Assisi). . .

Best regards,
Jochen


Jochen,

Sorry for this tardy response.  I find this point you are making fascinating.  Especially because of the ubiquitous (maybe a little hyperbole here) nature of the many references to Janus in literature and the visual arts.  Here is a brief, but important example:

          "By Janus, I think no."  Othello: I, ii, 37

Shakespeare associates one of his most famous villains with the god Janus; Iago swears by Janus.

Here are some Janus images.  The first is an Eshu dance staff from Africa; the second is an alchemical image--The Rebis, and the last is "Janus"--one of the moons of Saturn.

Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 17, 2006, 08:26:35 am
Hermanubis

Egypt, Alexandria, Claudius II Gothicus, AD 268-270
Potin tetradrachm, 20.5mm, 10.97g
struck year 2 (AD 269/70)
obv. AVT K KLA - VDIOC CEB
       Bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. Youthful bust of Hermanubis r., drapery over l. shoulder, wearing kalathos, lotos
       blossom above forehead;
       before combination of kerykeion and palmbranch
       behind LB (year 2)
Milne 4239; Curtis 1701; Köln 3037
VF+, matt darkbrown patina

About 5000 BC several tribes settled down in the valley of the river Nile: Libyans, Semites from Asia and Nubians. This mixture of people settled in two different seperated areas, the valley south of Assiat, later known as Upper-Egypt, and in the area of Fayum in Lower-Egypt. Different to the Sumerians the Egypts built no big cities in the first time. Around 3400 BC Menes unified both reigns and then began to built cities. This was Egypt's heyday, but ended at the end of the 12th century BC.
 
The origin of the god Anubis is an unsolved riddle until yet. He is connected to the ritual of embalming and depicted as jackal or greyhound.

Anubis was the patron of mummification. Referring to later ideas he was the brother of Osiris, or created secretly by Osiris and Nephthys, then marooned by his parents and raised by Isis. Anubis showed the deads their way to the afterlife. Therefore he was equated by the Greeks with Hermes and named Hermanubis.

Anubis and especially Hermanubis were seen in the late times as gods of mysteries, that means only a small circle of adepts (the so-called mysts) were informed. Even today you find Hermanubis on large quantities of esoteric websites. Our knowledge is based mainly on Plutarch and Apuleius.

Anubis (Greek), Anpu (Egyptian), the Egyptian jackal-headed deity, was the lord of the Silent Land of the West (the underworld). To him together with Thoth was entrusted the psychopompic leading of the dead. In the judgement after death, Anubis tests the balance in the scene of weighing the hearts. His offices were likewise those of the embalmer, mystically speaking.
Originally the god of the underworld, he was later replaced by Osiris. In Heliopolis during the later dynasties he was identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis - more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neth). Plutarch writes: "By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisuble part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubus is meant Time . . . " (On Isis and Osiris, sec. 44).
The mysteries of Osiris and Isis were revived in Rome, and Apuleius (2nd century) in 'The Golden Ass' tells of the Procession of Isis, in which the dual aspect of Anubis was portrayed: "that messenger between heaven and helll displaying alternately a face black as night, and golden as the day; in his left the caduceus, in his right waving aloft the green palm branch" (Gods of the Egyptians, Budge 2:264-5). In most of his attributes, Anubis is a lunar power, Plutarch is connecting him with the Grecian Hecate, one of the names for the moon; and this is further emphasized by his being a guide of the dead. So he was identified by the Greeks with Hermes as psychopompos.

Look at the article 'Hermes - the frontier runner' in this thread.

I have added the pic of a statue of Anubis and the pic of Hermanubis from Vollmer.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 17, 2006, 08:45:50 am
The rape of the Sabine women

L. Titurius L.f. Sabinus, gens Tituria
AR - denar, 20 mm, 3.95 g
Rome 89 BC
obv. bearded head of king Tatius r.
behind SABIN, before T / A as monogram
rev. Two Roman soldiers each carrying away a Sabinian woman
in ex. L.TITVRI
Crawford 344/1a: Sydenham 698; Tituria 1
VF, lightly toned, rev. slightly excentric
ex Lakeview coll.

The rev. shows the famous rape of the Sabine women. With it we are at the time shortly after the foundation of Rome.

Livius, Ab urbe condita I, 9:
The Roman State had now become so strong that it was a match for any of its neighbours in war, but its greatness threatened to last for only one generation, since through the absence of women there was no hope of offspring, and there was no right of intermarriage with their neighbours. Acting on the advice of the senate, Romulus sent envoys amongst the surrounding nations to ask for alliance and the right of intermarriage on behalf of his new community. It was represented that cities, like everything else, sprung from the humblest beginnings, and those who were helped on by their own courage and the favour of heaven won for themselves great power and great renown. As to the origin of Rome, it was well known that whilst it had received divine assistance, courage and self-reliance were not wanting. There should, therefore, be no reluctance for men to mingle their blood with their fellow-men.
Nowhere did the envoys meet with a favourable reception. Whilst their proposals were treated with contumely, there was at the same time a general feeling of alarm at the power so rapidly growing in their midst. Usually they were dismissed with the question, `whether they had opened an asylum for women, for nothing short of that would secure for them inter-marriage on equal terms.' The Roman youth could ill brook such insults, and matters began to look like an appeal to force.
To secure a favourable place and time for such an attempt, Romulus, disguising his resentment, made elaborate preparations for the celebration of games in honour of `Equestrian Neptune,' which he called `the Consualia.' He ordered public notice of the spectacle to be given amongst the adjoining cities, and his people supported him in making the celebration as magnificent as their knowledge and resources allowed, so that expectations were raised to the highest pitch. There was a great gathering; people were eager to see the new City, all their nearest neighbours-the people of Caenina, Antemnae and Crustumerium-were there, and the whole Sabine population came, with their wives and families. They were invited to accept hospitality at the different houses, and after examining the situation of the City, its walls and the large number of dwelling-houses it included, they were astonished at the rapidity with which the Roman State had grown.
When the hour for the games had come, and their eyes and minds were alike riveted on the spectacle before them, the preconcerted signal was given and the Roman youth dashed in all directions to carry off the maidens who were present. The larger part were carried off indiscriminately, but some particularly beautiful girls who had been marked out for the leading patricians were carried to their houses by plebeians told off for the task. One, conspicuous amongst them all for grace and beauty, is reported to have been carried off by a group led by a certain Talassius, and to the many inquiries as to whom she was intended for, the invariable answer was given, `For Talassius.' Hence the use of this word in the marriage rites.1 Alarm and consternation broke up the games, and the parents of the maidens fled, distracted with grief, uttering bitter reproaches on the violators of the laws of hospitality and appealing to the god to whose solemn games they had come, only to be the victims of impious perfidy.
The abducted maidens were quite as despondent and indignant. Romulus, however, went round in person, and pointed out to them that it was all owing to the pride of their parents in denying right of intermarriage to their neighbours. They would live in honourable wedlock, and share all their property and civil rights, and--dearest of all to human nature-would be the mothers of freemen. He begged them to lay aside their feelings of resentment and give their affections to those whom fortune had made masters of their persons. An injury had often led to reconciliation and love; they would find their husbands all the more affectionate because each would do his utmost, so far as in him lay to make up for the loss of parents and country. These arguments were reinforced by the endearments of their husbands who excused their conduct by pleading the irresistible force of their passion--a plea effective beyond all others in appealing to a woman's nature.

Background:
The Sabines were ancient people of central Italy, centered principally in the Sabine Hills, NE of Rome. Not much dependable information on them can be gathered. They were probably Oscan-speaking and therefore may be classed among the Sabelli. From the earliest days there was a Sabine element in Rome. After foundation of the double kingdom of Romulus and Titus Tatius the Romans were called Quirites too (populus Romanus Quiritium), referring to Cures, the capital of the Sabinians, where Numa Pompilius was originated too. The story of the rape of the Sabine women to supply wives for the womanless followers of Romulus is a legend explaining this fact. Many Roman religious practices are said to have Sabine origins. Rome was involved in numerous wars with the inland Sabines; Horatius is supposed to have defeated them in the 5th cent. BC, and Marcus Curius Dentatus conquered them in 290 BC. The Sabines became Roman citizens 268 BC. The Samnites were possibly a branch of the Sabines. Anyway often the Samnites were confused by the Romans with the Sabinians.

I have added a pic of the statue 'The rape of the Sabine women' of Giovanni Bologna standing in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence and a pic of the homonymous painting of Nicolas Poussin from AD 1637.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 19, 2006, 08:06:25 am
Veiovis and Amaltheia

Mn. Fonteius, gens Fonteia
AR - denar, 4.05g
         Rome 85 BC
obv. laureate head of Apollo Veiovis, r.
        MN FONTEI behind (MN ligate)
        CF under chin, [thunderbolt below]
rev. Infant winged Genius riding goat r., caps of the Dioscuri, surmounted by stars,
       to right and left, thyrsus below, all in laurel wreath
Crawford 353/1d; Sydenham 724b; Fonteia 11
 
The reverse of this coin imitates a statue in the temple of Veiovis in Rome, with Genius riding the goat Amalthea. Jupiter was suckled by Amalthea on Mount Ida, and her horns gave rise to the cornucopiae.

We have had a thread about this coin some time before https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=19919.msg132589#msg132589
Here I will add informations which throw even more light on this mysterious issue (Georg Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, München 1912):

Just in the midth between the Lemuria and the Canaria the old table of ceremonies notes on May 21 an agonium which - following the added script of the Fasti Venusini (CIL I, 2 p.318) - was referring to the god Vediovis; even though this witness stands isolated it deserves belief because the affiliation of the god to the oldest cults is unquestionable and the date of this ceremony fits the little knowledge which we can find about the meaning of this god. The name which occurs in the forms Vediovis, Vedius, Veiovis characterized him explicitly as the counterpart of Diovis, Dius, Iovis, the god of heaven, and when he is invoked in the devotion's formula at Macr. S.III 9, 10 together with the di manes so this certainly points to a God of the Underworld; because of that the god named by Dion. Hal. II 10, 3 as Zeus katachthonios - to whom everybody was forfeited who has offenced the articles about the relationship of clients, a law that already Romulus has added to the Twelf Tables - probably was nobody else as Veiovis.

The devotion's formula - which evidently existed already in an older version - names before Vejovis and the Manes Dis pater the greek god of the Underworld, who here still stands next to Vejovis but soon has replaced him so that the Augustean time was absolutely without knowledge about the nature and meaning of this old deity and dwelled on various suggestions. Whereas outside of Latium no trace is found of his worship and the only extra-roman monument was the altar found near Bovillae consecrated by the genteiles Iuliei to Vediovis (CIL I 807 = XIV 2387), the god obtained nearly simultaneously two temples at the beginning of the 2nd century: one - vowed by L. Furius Purpureo during his Praetura in 554 = 200 BC and begun during his Consulate 558 = 196 BC - was situated on the Insula Tiberina and was consecrated on Januar 1 560 = 194 BC, the other - situated in the saddle between Capitole and Arx inter duos lucos - was donated 562 = 192 BC and celebrated its foundation on March 7. In this last temple stood a statue of the god made from cypress wood depicting him youthful, with arrows in his hands and a goat at his side:

Commemorating the greek tale of the nutrition of the infant Zeus by the goat Amaltheia and explaining the name Ve-iovis in analogy to vegrandis, vescus the God was interpreted as 'little Jupiter' whereas the depiction indeed showed an Apollo and in fact as Death-God with his perishing arrows, but with the goat added from the world of the Roman imagination; that the goat was seen by the Romans as an animal of the subterraneans arises from the ritual instructions where the Flamen Dialis were not allowed to touch a goat or name it, just as a dead body or beans(!).

The same equalization of the Death-God with Apollo occurs too on the god who was worshipped on the mountain Soracte near Falerii who - originally without a proper name - plainly was named Soranus pater but then not only in literature but during worshipping too was named as Apollo whereas others explained him by the name Dis pater: The expiation rite which was typical for its cult where the priests of the god - descending from certain families of the region and named hirpi i.e. wolfes - were stepping bare-footed over glowing coals was existing yet in Roman Imperial times.

Beg your pardon for the bumpy translation.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 22, 2006, 08:28:13 am
Herakles with kantharos

There are rare depictions of Herakles showing him besides his usual attributes holding a kantharos, the typical attribute of Dionysos. This depiction we find in Imperial times at Smyrna for Domitian, Julia Mamaea, Julia Domna and Gordian III (I don't know wether this list is complete!). Here is my coin:

Ionia, Smyrna, Gordian III AD 238-244
AE 21, 5.69g
(without name of magistrate)
obv. A KM ANT - GORDIANOC
Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. CMVRNAIWN.G - NEWKORWN
Herakles, nude, stg. frontal, head l., holding club and lion-skin in l. arm, pouring from kantharos with r. hand
SNG von Aulock 2230; SNG München 3244; SNG Copenhagen 1397 (rev.); BMC Ionia, 445
rare, about VF/VF, oliv-green patina, usual light roughness

Mythology:
The story behind the depiction of this reverse plays in the time after the twelve labours, which Herakles had to do for Eurystheus (the so-called Dodekathlos). After having completed these labours he moved around the world performing heroic deeds everywhere. He rescued Prometheus, fighted against the Centaurs, defeated the Amazones, accompagnied the Argonauts and killed the Giant Antaios in Africa, to name only few of them.

At his journey he finally came to Spain after having digged (referring to some authors) the narrow passage between Africa and Europe and so connecting the Ocean with the Mediterrean (Diodor. Sic. I.c.c.17.18.p.157). During his journey the sun in Africa burnt so hard that due to his impatience he shot arrows to the sun. For this bold deed Apollo gave him a golden cup as a present which he used as ship and not only to go to Spain but to return back to Africa together with the raped cattle of the Sun-god. After that he gave the cup back to Apollo (Apollodor I.II.c.4.§10). This cup he is holding on some coins from Smyrna (Froel. sensam.p.355). The cup is seen on other monuments too but perhaps this may have different reasons.

Herakles and Dionysos:
Actually the kantharos beside the thyrsos  is the typical attribute of Dionysos. Now Herakles and Dionysos have a lot in common. Both are Half-Gods, who at last were incorporated in the circle of the Olympic gods. Both died and then rose from the dead. Therefore both were identified with Christ in later times. But here I will restrict on their relation to wine. Dionysos is known as cultivator of wine and for bringing the wine to the human beings all over the world.  But Herakles too was not an anti-alkoholist! So we know a coin where he is shown staggered drunk by wine and hold by two satyrs.

And then there is the famous drinking contest between Herakles and Dionysos. It doesn't belong to the classic deeds of Herakles but especially in the time of Hellenism this theme was very popular. There was found a famous mosaic in the house of atrium in Antioch from the 2nd century AD. God Dionysos is resting on a kline (a kind of couch), holding a drinking cup and the thyrsos. Beside him stands the dark-skinned Herakles with a wine-glass, his club leaning at his knees. Dionysos is accompagnied by a fluteplaying Mainad, the young satyr Komos and the old god Silen. The victorious Dionysos holds his cup upside-down to show that he has empted it first.

Background:
There is no known proof in mythology that Herakles had participated in the Dionysean thiasos; probably it is a hellenistic invention very popular in Imperial times, which was originated because of the well-known preference of the heroe for wine, his even proverbial dipsomania. In addition Dionysos and Herakles were children from mortal mothers and relative 'new' Olympics. This too is promoting a connection between both. The depiction of Herakles in a Dionysean context was popular during the entire Imperial time; a special meaning - f.e. for creating a new myth or an allusion to cult practices - can't deduced from these pictures. They expresse rather a common symbolic of happiness in the sense of an idea of paradisiacal conditions and of welfare where the presence of the drunk Herakles adds a humouristic note to all. The dipsomania and the unbridled appetite of Herakles were popular topoi of the comedy writers too, f.e. Aristophanes. 

The mosaic today is in the Worcester Museum in Worcester/Massachusetts, USA.

Sources:
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/2002/16/kap12.pdf

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: moonmoth on September 29, 2006, 08:25:45 am
Referring to Jochen's post on Vejovis and Amalthea -

The figure on the obverse is wearing a wreath which seems to include berries.  I wonder what that is?  If it's an underworld figure it might not be the normal laurel.  Could it be mistletoe?

This coin is a slight variation of the one you showed, which has the caps of the dioscuri above instead of to each side.  Like Jochen's coin, the wreath on the obverse also has berry-like objects, though they are differently placed.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on September 29, 2006, 01:47:49 pm
The Mediterranean laurel, laurus nobilis, produces berries in the fall.  On some red-figured vases, where a band of laurel is used as a border pattern, the berries are included, usually placed decoratively rather than botanically.  See the Pronomos vase in Naples, which, so far from funerary, is theatrical in subject matter.  I don't know whether the berries, if in the noonday sun they fell onto one's toga or onto the street, are among those that make a mess and stain.  This is also the laurel that can be used in cooking and medicine.  The look-alikes (as in California, where I come from) are some of them poisonous, but it was the true laurel that was used in Greco-Roman antiquity.  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 29, 2006, 08:17:01 pm
Once more we learn that each closer look on the coins leads to new discoveries! Nice!

Now I want to contribute
Some notes on Pan

After getting the following coins with depictions of Pan I thought it should be time to read about Pan. Here are the results. I hope there is something new for the Forum members.

1. Coins:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal AD 218-222
AE 27, 13.03g
struck under legate Novius Rufus
obv. [AVT KM AVR] - ANTWNINOC (NO ligate)
bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. VP NOB[IOV ROVF]OV NIKOPOLITWN PRO / C ICTRW
Pan, bearded, with horns and legs of goat, standing frontal, head r., treading
with l. foot on panther, laying on back to right; holding with r. hand lagobalon
over r. shoulder and nebris (pipe) in l. hand
AMNG 1933; Moushmov 1436
very rare, good F, bluegreen patina

This type seems to imitate the coins of Hadrianopolis where it occurs for Caracalla (Pick).

BTW
Lagobalon (lat. pedum) was a kind of boomerang for chasing small game (lagos, gr. hare).
The word 'panther' reminds of Pan but has a very different origin. It probably is of Persian origin like Pardalis (lat. panther). Here the panther seems to be a symbol for Pan as hunter of wild beasts.

Mythology:
Referring to some writers Pan was the son of Zeus and Hybris or Kallisto, or son of Hermes and Penelope or the Nymph Dryope. Some writers allude to two Pans (probably because he sometimes appears several herdsmen at the same time at different places!). He was raised by Nymphs in Arcadia especially by Sinoe. Short after his birth he ran away but was catched by Hermes who showed him to the Gods on he mountain Olympos who burst out laughing when they saw him and his buffoonery.

Arcadia was a rural, uncivilized region in Greece and so Pan was the God of mountains, sheep and herdsmen, of hunters too, and he liked to hunt. He was the leader of Nymphs who liked to dance around him. He loved to stay in caves. Siesta was hold sacred to him. Whom who happened to awake him he scared by shouting loudly so that he terrified ran away (therefore called 'panic'!).

He is depicted with horns, goat-feet, a tail and ram's-skin. So he reminds strong of the image we have of the Devil. But he should not be seen as theriomorphic god, as Animal-Human-God. Together with Zeus he defeated the Titans. For this battle he invented the Triton's horns as instruments for acoustic noise, gave these to his people and so put the Titans to flight. He was a companion of Dionysos and teached him to arrange his army in regiments and wings.

He was famouse because of his horniness. So he was after the herdsmen and mated with goats too. Especially he was after the Nymphs. Once he followed Syrinx who coming to the river Ladon could save herself only by transforming herself into reed. Because Pan couldn't see the right Syrinx reed he cut off several of them and bound them to a flute, the so-called Pan's-flute. With it he challenged Apollo with his lyre for a competition. But like Marsyas he was underlying by the arbitrage of the mountain god Tmolos. Apollo took away his flute and donated it later to Hermes. Another Nymph he was after was Echo known for her loquacity. She was said to be even his wife who bore Iynx to him, but later came to a bad end because of her love for Narkissos. Once he tried to rape the caste Pitys who could escape only by transforming herself into a pine. From that time on Pan wears a pine wreath on his head. His greatest success was the seduction of Selene, the Moon Goddess. He has seduced her by turning himself into a snow-white ram.

Pan is the only god who died in historic times. The news of his death came to Thamos a sailor whose ship was on a travel to Italy. A divine voice shouted across the sea: "Thamos, are you here´? If you come to Palodes announce there that the Grest God Pan is dead!". Thamos did so an at all coast rose crying and moaning. This occurs in the time of the emperor Tiberus. Plutarch - from whom we know this story - found the following explanation: The Egyptian Thamos has probably misunderstood the ceremonial moaning 'Thamos Pan-megas tethneke (= the infinite-great Tammuz is dead!)' as 'Thamos, the great Pan is dead!'. It was suggested that this story was invented only to frighten the superstitious Tiberius who has called Thamus at his court. In any case Pan was worshipped one century later all over Greece as Pausanias reports.

2. coin:
Makedonia, Antigonos II Gonatas ca. 319-239 BC.
AE 17, 5.65g
srruck 277-239 v.Chr.
obv. (anepigraphic)
        Head of Athena with crested Corinthian helmet, r.
rev. Pan, nude, stg. r., erecting tropaion, holding wreath in l. hand
       M in l. field, ANT between feet
cf. SNG Copenhagen 1208-1209 (different letters in l. field)
about VF, brown patina
Pedigree: ex Freeman & Sear

The revers reminds of the victory of Antigonos Gonatas over the Celts 277 BC.

This coin is not rare, but historical interesting. About the time of Antigonos Gonatas (277/6-240/39 BC) we don't know much. This time belongs to the the times which are the worst documented of the Greek history at all. But we know, that the reverse of this coins where Pan erects a tropaion is referring to the victory of Antigonos over the Celts at Lysimacheia 277 BC. In this battle it is said that Pan has appeared - as at Marathon or at Salamis - and has the Celts put in panic fear by his loud shouting. By this victory Antigonos could overwhelm Pyrrhos, Lysimachos and Ptolemaios Keraunos in Macedonia. Thus Macedonia after a time of disturbances got a time of calm and order again.

3. coin:
Thracia, Pantikapaion, struck under Perisad II 275-265 BC
AE 17, 3.71g
obv. (anepigraphic)
        Head of bearded Pan or Satyr, laureate, l.
rev.  P-A-N
       Head and neck of a bull with big eye, l.
SNG Cop. 32; SNG BM Black Sea 890-893; Anokhin Bosporous 132
about EF/EF

 A note from the consignor, a prolific writer on ancient history: "In Greek mythology, satyrs were half-man half-goat creatures who roamed the woods and fields, drinking wine, playing panpipes, and in constant search of nymphs. Attic painted vases depict them with snub noses, pointed goat ears, and long wavy hair, with mature satyrs often shown with goat's horns and full beards. Satyrs closely resembled Pan, the Greek god of shepherds and fields, and were his devout companions. Because of the physical similarity between the satyr and Pan, there has been a long numismatic debate on whether the emblematic head appearing on Pantikapaion coins represents Pan or a satyr. The more traditional interpretation is to view the character as Pan, a view bolstered by the usual presence of the word PAN on the coins. However Bosporous specialist David McDonald, expressing the opposing point of view, notes that the Russian numismatist A.N. Zograph, in his massive work Ancient Coins (published in Russian in 1951, but written prior to 1941), considered the image to be the head a satyr. Zograph (and later Anokhin in 1986) noted that the first coins with a satyr appeared in the region around 390 BC, during the rule of Satyros I (433-389?). Satyros the First was a local leader who conquered neighboring cities and introduced a centralized Bosporian state. The Russian numismatists speculate that the coins show a satyr which may commemorate Satyros. Jerzy Gorecki nicely sums up this point of view: 'Perhaps we should change the traditional interpretation of Pantikapaion->Pan into satyr->Satyros I.'"

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 29, 2006, 08:21:59 pm
Miletos - founder of Milet

Mysia, Miletopolis, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 23, 6.40g
obv. A[V] M ANT GORDIANOC [AVG]
       bust, draped (and cuirassed?), laureate, r.
rev. KTIC[TH] - C MEILHTOC
      The heroe Miletos, in short military cloak, stg. frontal on prora(?), head r., raising r. hand
      and holding in l. hand spear and round shield
Franke, Griechische Münzen von Kleinasien, p.48, no.153 (only rev., but with different break)
extremely rare, about VF
Thanks to Pat Lawrence and Curtis Clay for the attribution and the legends!

Mythology:
When Europa was left by Zeus - on Crete he has created with her the sons  Minos, Rhadamanthy and Sarpedon - she married king Asterios of Crete. This marriage was childless. So Asterios adopted Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon and made them his heirs. When the brothers grow up they came into conflict about the love to a young beautiful boy named Miletos. This boy was created by Apollon with the nymph Aireia, who is called by others Deione or Theia. Miletos has elected Sarpedon who he loved most. Because of that he was expelled by Minos from Crete. With an important armada he sailed to Karia in Asia Minor and there he founded the city and the reign of Miletos.This region - called Anaktoria - was ruled since two generations by the giant Anax, son of Uranos and Gaia, and his son Asterios, a giant too. Miletos killed Asterios and buried the body on a small island near Lade, where his bones recently were excavated; he must be have a length at least of ten ells. But some writers say Minos have suspected Miletos of having planned to dethrone him and to seize the reign. Only his fear of Apollon has kept Minos from doing more bad to Miletos than only warning him. After that Miletos has fled to Karia unsolicited. Others claim that not Miletos but Atymnios, son of Zeus and Kassiopeia or Phoinix, has been the reason for the conflict.

In Miletos he married the king's daughter Eidothea who bore him twins, Byblis and Kaunos. Cp. Parthen. 11. The adolescent Byblis fell in passionate love to her brother Kaunos. Even though she knew of the unnatural aspect of her love she wrote a letter to him declaring her love. Kaunos was enraged and highly disgusted and to avoid further meetings with her he fled to the borders of Karia and Lykia and there he founded the city of Kaunos.

Background:
Miletos, who came frome Crete, is said to be the founder (or re-founder) of Miletos. Referring to Apollon. 3, 5 ff. he was the son of Apollon and Areia, daughter of king Kleochos (whose tomb was found in the sanctuary of Didyma near Miletos), he choosed Sarpedon as lover against Minos and had to flee. Referring to Nikandros (Anton. Lib. 30) Apollon has created him with the Minos daughter Akakallis and she marooned him, wolfes fed him and herdsmen raised him up (whe know such stories!). Minos was after him when he was adolescent, he fled to Karia and founded Miletos. According to others he first had to slain te giant Asterios, son of Anax, and therefore the region formerly was called Anaktoria. Referring to Ovid met. 9, 443 ff. Miletos is the son of Apollon and an otherwise unknown Deione and married Kyanee, daughter of Maiandros. Referring to Cramer Anecd. Gr. 2, 123, 30 Miletos himself is autochthon in Karia. According to Ephor. FGr.H 70 F 127 (Strab.) miletos was founded by Sarpedon together with people from the Cretean city Milatos.

Ranke-Graves: Because Miletos is a male forename the well-kown myth where two brothers
fight for the love of a woman here is given a homosexual twist. Actually - during a period of anarchy following the destruction of Knossos by the Achaiae about 1400 BC - numerous Greek talking Cretean aristocrats of Aiolic-Pelasgean or Ionic origin seem to have emigrated together with their native domestics to Asia minor, especially to Karia, Lykia and Lydia. Herodot doesn't mention the passed down reports about the dynasty of Sarpedon and claimed, that at his time the Lykians (Heroot I, 173; Strabon XII, 8, 5) and the Karians (s. 75, 5) have accepted the matrilinear origin. Miletos originally could be a Cretean word or a transliteration of milteios, meaning 'the colour of red ocker or red plumb' and therefore a synonym of Erythros or Phoinix, because both meaning 'red'. The colour of the Cretean faces was more red then the colour of the Hellenic faces;  Lykians and Karians were partially of Cretean origin.

Miletos was one of the most famous cities of Asia minor. After Sardes here were struck the oldest Elektron coins. The city's famoust sons were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Hekataios, to name only few.
Miletopolis, the city where the coin above was struck, is a city situated in the northern Mysia southwest of the Milesian colony Kyzikos near the Miletopolitis limne (todays Manias Göl). The localisation at todays Melde is not sure. Miletopolis belongs to a large number of cities which were founded by Miletos especially at the coasts of the Black Sea.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Robert Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 07, 2006, 10:52:55 am
Herakles and the Nemean lion

1. The coin:
Maximian AD 286-305, AD 308
AE - Antoninian, 23mm, 3.88g
       Lyon AD 289 (pre-reform)
obv. IMP C MAXIMIANVS P AVG
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, helmeted, r.
rev. VIRTV - TI AVGG
      Hercules, nude, stg. r., strangling the Nemean lion; behind him Victory flying and
      crowning him with a wreath, his club behind him on the ground.
RIC V/2, 462; C.654
scarce, VF, nice green patina

2. Mythology:
At the northern edge of the plain of Argos, in a short distance to Tiryns and Mykenai, mountains are rising over which the street goes to Corinth. The highest is the Apesas mountain where Perseus has sacrificed to Zeus the first time. Below the Apesas mountain the valley of Nemea is situated with several caves nearby. In this region a lion resided and made the whole landscape unsafe. The skin of this lion was immune against iron, bronze and stone. A god had sent him against the inhabitants as punishment. According to one of the tales the snake goddess Echidna was the mother of the lion from her own son, the dog Orthos. Thus he was the brother of the Thebean Sphinx. Hera is said to have him brought to her own land. Some say Selene has born him and has let him fallen on the Tretos mountain, or she has created him from the foam of the ocean and Iris has brought him to the Nemean mountains.

Certainly this lion was a very particular animal. He was well connected to death and the underworld in a special manner. The lions which were set on tombs by ancient artists remind on this ideas. As an hunter Herakles not has exterminated the usual animals of the earth like f.e. Orion and he never has played the role of a master of the underworld as hunting god but he seemed to have chased the death. He conquered and captured weird animals which belonged to gods sometimes to the gods of underworld too. When after his victory over the Nemean lion he took his head and skin over his shoulder he turned something evil which
previously has threatened the mortals with perdition into the promise of their rescue.

When Herakles moved out against the lion he came to the little town of Kleonai on the edge of the Nemean forests. According to a later tale his host was a poor farmer and peon named Molorchos originally probably an aborigine and founder of the city of Molorchia. His son was killed by the lion und now he wanted to sacrifice a ram for his guest. But Herakles gave order to wait for thirty days. If after this time he would not return then the lion has killed him too and he should sacrifice the ram to him as heroe. But if he would return then the ram would belong to Zeus Soter, the saver. Molorchos told him how he had to fight against the lion. It had to be a wrestling match because sword and spear would have no effect against him. To do that Herakles must enter in the lion's cave which had two entrances. One of them Herakles stopped up. After sword and spear proofed to be useless he gave the lion a bash with his club that it break apart. The lion tumbled and refused in his cave. In the following fight Herakles pressed the lion's neck so that the beast sufficated. In this fight the lion bit one of Herakles' fingers. Thirty days he needed for all. Not to go from Kleonai to Nemea. But probably to get the depth where the beast was living. Or was it the sleep in which he felt after struggling the lion? It is told about this sleep (Diod. Sic. 45. 4) and one should not forget it, the brother of death. The pictures of Herakles' works on the metopes of the Zeus-temple in Olympia shows the heroe almost half-sleeping, reminding of this dangerous slumber. When he awoke on the thirtieth day he crowned himself with celery like those who came out of a tomb; because the tombs were decorated with celery. The same wreath thereafter was borne by the winners in the Nemean games and later of Isthmos too.

Molorchos already wanted to sacrifice the ram to the heroe when he appeared alive. On his back he bore the lion. So the ram was sacrificed to Zeus Soter. On the next morning he went over the pass to Argos. From there he sent back a mulus to his host - as promised - and adored him highly. With the lion he came to Mykenai, the residence of Eyrstheus. The king frightened deeply about this uncanny deed and forbade Herakles to enter the castle with his prey now and in the future. Furthermore he let build an iron barrel under the ground and each time when Herakles approached he hid in this barrel. And from that time on he communicated with Herakles only by his herald Kopreus.

The invulnerable skin of the lion Herakles removed after he has cut it with the claws of the beast. Zeus put the beast as constellation to the sky to honor his son.

3. Background:
Hera was Herakles' great enemy because he was the son of Zeus who has betrayed her with Alkmene. When Kreon, king of Thebens, gave - after the death of Amphytrite - his daughter Megara as wife to Herakles Hera beat him with madness and Herakles killed his and two other children. Being conscious again he banned himself from Thebens to purify himself from his guilt. But the Pythia of Delphi added another punishment: He had to go as servant to his cousin Eurystheus and Hera challenged him with always new tasks. Various tasks are passed down. The order of the twelf workes today (the so-called Dekathlos) was invented by Apollodor and occurs first on the metopes of the Zeus-temple in Olympia 456 BC. The strangling of the Nemean lion is the first labor in this order and is at the same time the most often depicted. The rarest are the Stymphalic birds and the rape of Diomedes' mares.

4. Character and relevance of Herakles:
The figure of Herakles is disputed until today. On one side there is the noble-brave Herakles of the epos and the tragedy, on the other side the comical-bawdy Herakles of the comedy or the human-altruistic of the philosophers. Because of his human greatness he was the paradigm of the philosophers who made him a moral sufferer. He was a human being and then god again. Point of cristallyzation for the countless features which he got in the course of time seems to be the heros. The heros - originally anthropological conceived - was already in Mykenian times passed down in a more developed form as ti-ri-se-ro-e = tris(h)eros. The struggle with Kerberos and Hades, the tales of the apples of the Hesperids too, let gleam a myth of afterlife. His name means 'glory of Hera'. How does this match the hate by which he was pursuited by Hera? This antinomy could be understand better if it is suggested that it was originally Hera who sent out Herakles for his adventures to achieve fame and glory (kleos) for himself but for Hera too. The originally good relationship between both is confirmed by their joint fight against the Gigants and the Satyrs. The takeover of the Herakles figure by the Romans represents the completion of a long developement.

5. Herakles and Hercules:
Without any doubts the Roman Hercules came from Greece, perhaps about Graeca Magna, but that is not sure. In Middle Italy his cult can be verified since the 6th/5th century BC. It was widespread at the Osci (from where probably the name Hercules), the Latins and the Etruscans. He had a place already in Rome's first lectisternium 399 BC. In Rome he was a god of profit and the traders too and in this role he was a rival of Mercurius. Many inscriptions are evidence for his great worship. Often he is a interpretatio Romana for a local god. So he is Melqart in Africa, or Donar in Germania and Gallia or is called Hercules Magusanus, Saxanus or Deusoniensis.

In the Middle Ages Herakles was understood as antecipation of Christ because of his deeds (descent to the underworld resp. limbo, subdoing of Kerberos = Satan and so on) and because of its personal union of divine and human nature. Like Samson he too appears as one of the pre-Christian heroes.

It is well known that Commodus presented himself as Hercules, but it is known of Trajan too. And during the tetrarchy Diocletianus gave his Co-Emperor Maximianus the name Herculius and so keeping a distance to Iovius under which name he adopted himself into the family of Zeus. This Roman bildtradition (tradition of depiction) was later renewed during the Renaissance and kings like Henry IV and Louis XIV from France presented themself with club and lion-skin again.

6. History of art:
I have added a pic of the western metope from the Zeus-temple in Olympia, now in the Louvre/Paris like all other metopes.

The other pic shows a black-figure neck-amphora. The heroe is depicted nude except for baldric and scabbard. He holds the lion around the neck and strangles it to death. On the left, Ioalos, Herakles' companion, moves away looking back: on the right Athena, in peplos and helmet, holds a shield. This subject was especially popular during the middle and third quarter of the 6th century BC. The picture is origínated from the circle of Exekias, ca. 550-530 BC.
Photograph by Maria Daniels, courtesy of Harvard University Art Museums, 1990

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen - Die Heroengeschichten
Robert Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 15, 2006, 08:29:25 am
Venus Verticordia

The coin:
Mn. Cordius Rufus, gens Cordia
AR - denarius, 19.5mm, 3.82g
         mint of Rome 46 BC
obv. conjoined heads of the Dioscuri r., wearing laureate pilei surmounted by stars.
        RVFVS III.VIR behind
rev. Venus Verticordia standing l., holding scales and scepter, Cupid on her shoulder.
       MN.CORDIVS on r. (MN ligate)
Crawford 463/1a; Sydenham 976; Cordia 2s
About VF
ex Harlan.J.Berk
from Forum Ancient Coins

Notes:
The Cordia family home, Tusculum, was a center of worship for the Dioscuri twelve miles from Rome. The reverse is a clever play on the moneyer's name and may also compliment Julius Caesar who claimed direct descent from Venus. The particular design of Venus may derive from a statue placed in the temple of Venus Genetrix in the year of issue (FAC).

This issue was struck on a scale commensurate with Rome s requirements at the time of Caesar s quadruple triumph when 5,000 denarii were paid to each legionary and 10,000 to each centurion. The Venus reverse is probably intended as a tribute to Caesar whose gens claimed descent from that goddess (Sear, The History and Coinage of the Roman Imperators, p.45. The scales I think are a tribute to the just contribution of the denarii. Usually these are an attribute of Annona and not of Venus.

Mythology:
Verticordia is a cognomen of Venus (Serv. auct. Aen. 1, 720), who has a fanum in the myrtle grove of the vallis Murcia (ibid. 8, 636). During the Hannibalian war (216 BC?) Sulpicia due to the dictum of the Sibyll from Cumae was determined by an heavy examination as pudicissima (Plin. nat. 7, 120. Solin. 1, 126) and a simulacrum was erected by her, quo facilius virginum mulierumque mens a libidine ad pudicitiam converteretur (turned from libido to shamefaceness!) (Val. max. 8, 15, 12). This has happened: At this time three Vestals have broken the laws of virginity and were buried alive. To reconcile the gods the senate due to the instructions of the sibyllinic books picked out hundred matrones and from these ten by fortune, and from these Sulpicia, daughter of Servius Paterculus and wife of Q. Fulvius Flaccus, was found as the most chaste and therefore had to put the picture of the goddess to the simulacrum. AD 114 because of a lightning prodigium an aedes was built (Plut. mor. 284 ab. Oros. 5. 15, 20). Ovid fast. 4, 133ff. connects Sibyllinum and temple with the celebration on April 1st, which were applied to Verticordia and Fortuna virilis and were practized in the baths by matronae as well humiliores (= from low origin) decorated with myrtle wreaths with the purpose of forma, mores, bona fama[//i] resp. harmony and pudicity. The name Verticordia is derived from vertere only by popular etymology (Ov. a.o. 161 u.a.).Ovid, Fasti, book 4, 157-161: In the time of our ancestors, Rome had lost its sense of shame, so they consulted the venerable Cumaean Sibyl. She ordered a temple to Venus to be built; and, this done, the goddess took the name Verticordia.

Source:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on October 22, 2006, 03:59:18 pm
It took me some time to find the images, because I didn't use this statue in course lectures, but it interested me, precisely because of the motif: Eros on Aphrodite's shoulder.  That means, simply, that this motif was available for Rome to adopt for V. Verticordia, just as the Old Silen dandling the infant Dionysos in his big hands was available for Baroque sculpture to adopt for St. Joseph dandling the baby Jesus.
It seemed worthwhile to hunt down the images, because this motif is not so common.
Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 22, 2006, 04:50:30 pm
Your pics are phantastic! Thanks!

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on October 24, 2006, 03:59:06 am
It took me some time to find the images, because I didn't use this statue in course lectures, but it interested me, precisely because of the motif: Eros on Aphrodite's shoulder.  That means, simply, that this motif was available for Rome to adopt for V. Verticordia, just as the Old Silen dandling the infant Dionysos in his big hands was available for Baroque sculpture to adopt for St. Joseph dandling the baby Jesus.
It seemed worthwhile to hunt down the images, because this motif is not so common.
Pat L.

Pat L.

These images are very interesting.  Thank you for taking the time!

Cheers, Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Arminius on October 25, 2006, 04:48:12 pm
The Love of Ares and Aphrodite

Amasea in Pontus,  Marcus Aurelius,
Æ32 (31-32 mm / 19.02 g), 163–164 AD.,
Obv.: [ΑΥΤ] ΚΑΙΣ Μ ΑΥΡ ΑΝ - [ΤΩΝΙΝΟΣ ΣΕΒ] , laureate-headed bust of Marcus Aurelius wearing cuirass and paludamentum, r.
Rev.: [ΑΔΡ] ΑΜΑΣ ΝΕ-ΩΚ Κ ΜΗΤ Κ] ΠΡΩ ΠΟΝ / [Ε]Τ [ΡΞΕ] (year 165 of the era of Amasea = 163-4 AD.) , to l., Ares standing, facing, head, r., wearing military dress, holding spear, resting hand on shield; to r., nude Aphrodite standing, l., covering her breasts with r. hand and pudenda with l. hand.
RPC online temporary № 5288 (10 specimens listed) ; Waddington, Rec. Gen p. 36, 18 ; BMC 1929-10-13-394 .

Ares embodied the very essence of war, earning him a reputation as a violent God, an immortal of action and determination. He was the son of Zeus and Hera, the King and Queen of the Olympic Gods, who weren't too keen on their (legimite for a change) son. Ares was accompanied into battle by his uncle Hades (the Lord of the Underworld), his sister Eris (Goddess of Discord), her son Strife and his two sons Phobus and Deimos (panic and fear). Ares rode into battle on the side of the Trojans with his horses, Flame and Terror, pulling his war chariot. He swooped down to help Aphrodite defend her son Aineias and saved him from sure death at the hands of the Achaians. While Ares protected Aineias with his shield, Aphrodite made her escape to Mount Olympus to tend her wounds.
Love Life: Ares never married but had an ongoing affair with Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. They had three children - Phobus, Deimos and Eros (Cupid).

Ares and Aphrodite

But the minstrel struck the chords in prelude to his sweet lay and sang of the love of Ares and Aphrodite of the fair crown, how first they lay together in the house of Hephaestus secretly; and Ares gave her many gifts, and shamed the bed of the lord Hephaestus. But straightway one came to him with tidings, even Helius, who had marked them as they lay together in love. And when Hephaestus heard the grievous tale, he went his way to his smithy, pondering evil in the deep of his heart, and set on the anvil block the great anvil and forged bonds which might not be broken or loosed, that the lovers might bide fast where they were. But when he had fashioned the snare in his wrath against Ares, he went to his chamber where lay his bed, and everywhere round about the bed-posts he spread the bonds, and many too were hung from above, from the roof-beams, fine as spiders' webs, so that no one even of the blessed gods could see them, so exceeding craftily were they fashioned. But when he had spread all his snare about the couch, he made as though he would go to Lemnos, that well-built citadel, which is in his eyes far the dearest of all lands. And no blind watch did Ares of the golden rein keep, when he saw Hephaestus, famed for his handicraft, departing, but he went his way to the house of famous Hephaestus, eager for the love of Cytherea of the fair crown. Now she had but newly come from the presence of her father, the mighty son of Cronos, and had sat her down. And Ares came into the house and clasped her hand and spoke and addressed her:

Come, love, let us to bed and take our joy, couched together. For Hephaestus is no longer here in the land, but has now gone, I ween, to Lemnos, to visit the Sintians of savage speech.

So he spoke, and a welcome thing it seemed to her to lie with him. So they two went to the couch, and lay them down to sleep, and about them clung the cunning bonds of the wise Hephaestus, nor could they in any wise stir their limbs or raise them up. Then at length they learned that there was no more escaping. And near to them came the famous god of the two strong arms, having turned back before he reached the land of Lemnos; for Helius had kept watch for him and had brought him word. So he went to his house with a heavy heart, and stood at the gateway, and fierce anger seized him. And terribly he cried out and called to all the gods:

Father Zeus, and ye other blessed gods that are forever, come hither that ye may see a laughable matter and a monstrous, even how Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, scorns me for that I am lame and loves destructive Ares because he is comely and strong of limb, whereas I was born misshapen. Yet for this is none other to blame but my two parents--would they had never begotten me! But ye shall see where these two have gone up into my bed and sleep together in love; and I am troubled at the sight. Yet, methinks, they will not wish to lie longer thus, no, not for a moment, how loving soever they are. Soon shall both lose their desire to sleep; but the snare and the bonds shall hold them until her father pays back to me all the gifts of wooing that I gave him for the sake of his shameless girl; for his daughter is fair but bridles not her passion.

So he spoke and the gods gathered to the house of the brazen floor. Poseidon came, the earth-enfolder, and the helper Hermes came, and the lord Apollo, the archer god. Now the goddesses abode for shame each in her own house, but the gods, the givers of good things, stood in the gateway; and unquenchable laughter arose among the blessed gods as they saw the craft of wise Hephaestus. And thus would one speak, with a glance at his neighbor:

Ill deeds thrive not. The slow catches the swift; even as now Hephaestus, slow though he is, has out-stripped Ares for all that he is the swiftest of the gods who hold Olympus. Lame though he is, he has caught him by craft, wherefore Ares owes the fine of the adulterer.

Thus they spoke to one another. But to Hermes the lord Apollo, son of Zeus, said:

Hermes, son of Zeus, messenger, giver of good things, wouldst thou in sooth be willing, even though ensnared with strong bonds, to lie on a couch by the side of golden Aphrodite?

Then the messenger, Argeiphontes, answered him:�Would that this might befall, lord Apollo, thou archer god-- that thrice as many bonds inextricable might clasp me about and ye gods, aye, and all the goddesses too might be looking on, but that I might sleep by the side of golden Aphrodite.�

So he spoke and laughter arose among the immortal gods. Yet Poseidon laughed not, but ever besought Hephaestus, the famous craftsman, to set Ares free; and he spoke, and addressed him with winged words:

Loose him, and I promise, as thou biddest me, that he shall himself pay thee all that is right in the presence of the immortal gods.

Then the famous god of the two strong arms answered him: �Ask not this of me, Poseidon, thou earth-enfolder. A sorry thing to be sure of is the surety for a sorry knave. How could I put thee in bonds among the immortal gods, if Ares should avoid both the debt and the bonds and depart?

Then again Poseidon, the earth-shaker, answered him: �Hephaestus, even if Ares shall avoid the debt and flee away, I will myself pay thee this.�

Then the famous god of the two strong arms answered him: It may not be that I should say thee nay, nor were it seemly.

So saying the mighty Hephaestus loosed the bonds and the two, when they were freed from that bond so strong, sprang up straightway. And Ares departed to Thrace, but she, the laughter-loving Aphrodite, went to Cyprus, to Paphos, where is her demesne and fragrant altar. There the Graces bathed her and anointed her with immortal oil, such as gleams upon the gods that are forever. And they clothed her in lovely raiment, a wonder to behold.

~Homer's Odysessy~

And in plain english:

Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, the God of the Forge. Hephaestus was lame and ugly, and Aphrodite was not very happy with the marriage. She had many lovers, but her favourite was Ares.

Ares and Aphrodite were dallying together when their interlude was rudely interrupted. You see, the god of the sun, Helios, from whom little, if anything, could be kept secret, spied the pair in enjoying each other one day. Helios promptly reported the incident to Hephaestus, who was understandably angry. Hephaestus contrived to catch the couple "in the act", and so he fashioned a net to snare the illicit lovers. At the appropriate time, this net was sprung, and trapped Ares and Aphrodite locked in very private embrace.

But Hephaestus was not yet satisfied with his revenge - he invited the olympian gods and goddesses to view the unfortunate pair. For the sake of modesty, the goddesses demurred, but the male gods went and witnessed the sight. Some commented on the beauty of Aphrodite, others remarked that they would eagerly trade places with Ares, and they all laughed.

Well, except for Ares, who was out of sorts, and Aphrodite, who, if goddesses can blush like maidens, surely did so.

- information from Mythography

"not even the God of War withstands him; for we hear, not of Love caught by Ares, but of Ares caught by Love--of Aphrodite. The captor is stronger than the caught; and as he controls what is braver than any other, he must be bravest of all."

from: http://www.geocities.com/the_temple_of_ares/areslove.html
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 26, 2006, 05:50:05 pm
Hi Arminius!

A nice and interesting article! I have seen the coin too and I'm happy that you got it!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Arminius on October 28, 2006, 04:07:37 pm
The fourth labor of Heracles, the Erymanthian Boar

For the fourth labor, Eurystheus ordered Heracles / Hercules to bring him the Erymanthian boar alive. Now, a boar is a huge, wild pig with a bad temper, and tusks growing out of its mouth. This one was called the Erymanthian boar, because it lived on a mountain called Erymanthus. Every day the boar would come crashing down from his lair on the mountain, attacking men and animals all over the countryside, gouging them with its tusks, and destroying everything in its path.
On his way to hunt the boar, Hercules stopped to visit his friend Pholus, who was a centaur and lived in a cave near Mount Erymanthus. Everyone knows that centaur is a human from his head to his waist, and a horse for the rest of his body and his legs. Hercules was hungry and thirsty, so the kindly centaur cooked Hercules some meat in the fireplace, while he himself ate his meat raw.
When Hercules asked for wine, Pholus said that he was afraid to open the wine jar, because it belonged to all the centaurs in common. But Hercules said not to worry, and opened it himself. Soon afterwards, the rest of the centaurs smelled the wine and came to Pholus's cave. They were angry that someone was drinking all of their wine. The first two who dared to enter were armed with rocks and fir trees. Hercules grabbed burning sticks from the fireplace and threw them at the centaurs, then went after them with his club. He shot arrows at the rest of them and chased after them for about twenty miles. The rest of the centaurs fled in different directions. One of the centaurs, Chiron, received a wound that no amount of medicine would heal...but what happened to Chiron is another story.
While Hercules was gone, Pholus pulled an arrow from the body of one of the dead centaurs. He wondered that so little a thing could kill such a big creature. Suddenly, the arrow slipped from his hand. It fell onto his foot and killed him on the spot. So when Hercules returned, he found Pholus dead. He buried his centaur friend, and proceeded to hunt the boar.
It wasn't too hard for Hercules to find the boar. He could hear the beast snorting and stomping as it rooted around for something to eat. Hercules chased the boar round and round the mountain, shouting as loud as he could. The boar, frightened and out of breath, hid in a thicket. Hercules poked his spear into the thicket and drove the exhausted animal into a deep patch of snow.
Then he trapped the boar in a net, and carried it all the way to Mycenae. Eurystheus, again amazed and frightened by the hero's powers, hid in his partly buried bronze jar.
( from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/boar.html )

Sebastopolis-Heracleopolis in Pontus, Julia Domna,
Æ29 (27-29 mm / 10.47 g), 205-206 AD.,
Obv.: IOYΛIA - ΔOMNA [AV] , draped bust right.
Rev.: CЄBACTOΠ {HP}AK-ΛЄOΠO ЄT / HC (year 208 of the ity era = 205-206 AD.), Herakles standing right, nude but for lion's skin billowing out behind from his shoulders, holding Erymanthian Boar in his arms, about to cast it down on Eurystheus who is cowering in a bronze jar partly buried.
BMC 13.38, 1 ; Sear GIC 2343 .

About a similar coin from Nicaea:  (http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=75702&AucID=80&Lot=1062) The canonical representation of the fourth labor of Heracles, the capture of the Erymanthean Boar, in sculpture, painting, and coins shows the hero carrying his prize "piggy-back" over his shoulder, sometimes in the act of surprising Eurystheos with it, who hides in a pithos in fright. The present, apparently unpublished piece, (BITHYNIA, Nicaea. Marcus Aurelius) has the hero, labeled "The Founder of the Nicaeans," carrying the beast in front of him. There seems to be only one numismatic parallel for this depiction: a medallion of Commodus (Gnecchi 34; Stoll 103), where Heracles is seen in a similar stance, but with the boar on a rock in front of him and the Nemean Lion behind. On this medallion the scene could be interpreted to show Heracles carrying the boar to the rock. The striking similarity of these two unrelated numismatic specimens implies that this particular scene was taken from a sculptural group or painting showing this version of the legend.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 12, 2006, 06:37:50 pm
Zeus Kasios

Syria, Seleukia and Pieria, Trajan AD 98-117
AE 23, 12.65g
obv. AVTOKR KAI NER TRAIANOC ARICT CEB GERM DAK
        Head, laureate, r.
rev. CELEVKEWN - PEIERIAC
       Perspective view of the tetrastyle temple of Zeus Kasios with canopy-like roof; on
       the roof eagle, within cult-stone.
       in the r. field D (= year 4)
       in ex. ZEVC / KACIOC (Z mirrored)
BMC 274, 39; SNG München vgl. 990ff. (dort ohne D); Price - Trell 212, fig. 445; Sear GIC 1081

Seleukeia was founded together with Antiocheia ad Orontes as its harbour 300 BC by Seleukos I. The history of Seleukeia was connected closely to that of Antiocheia, the capital of Syria. Due to the boom years in Roman times Seleukeia was a wealthy city demonstrated not least by its large coinage. Main deity was Zeus worshipped as Zeus Keraunos and Zeus Kasios. The depiction on this coin shows that Kasios was worshipped as Sacred Stone similar to that of Elagabal in Emesa. The canopy-like roof seems to be an advice that here we have a shrine for a procession. Zeus Kasios was worshipped too in Pelusium.

Mythology:
Some authors say that Kasios has been a particular man to whom Zeus once came as guest and whom he could convince to erect a temple and to pay divine honour to him. In turn Zeus got his name as cognomen (Lactans. Instit. divin. lib. I. c.22 §23).
Other authors however derived this name from Kasio, one of the Cycladic islands, or from Kasos, son of Klitomachos, so that there is nothing for sure. His usual shape was a rock or a steep mountain as we can see on several coins. On one of them we see a tetrastyle temple with a rock in the midth, an eagle on the roof and the inscription ZEVS KASIOS (Hederich).

Background:
There is no other Olympic god than Zeus where the idg. ethymology and its meaning - and so already the pre-mediterranean, from idg. religions derived origin and character attributes - is so doubtless. The basic meaning is something like 'who flashs up bright', 'who shines' or 'sheet lightning'. In Mycaenian time we have two phases in the development of the Zeus idea:
1) the 'conflict of two religious concepts' by assimilation of the idg.-greek Zeus, i.e. the patriarchal Zeus Pater and Zeus Athanatos with the quite heterogenous because to the matriarchal context belonging 'Cretic' Zeus Kretagenes and Megistos Kouros, i.e. the mediterranean type of the 'divine child'.
2) the genealogic adaptation of the Zeus mythos by its incorporation in succession and 'Kingdom in Heaven' mythologems of Asia Minor in the 2nd millenium BC. Through this Zeus became the 'son' of the ungreek pair of the gods Kronos-Rhea and so the first of the Kronids. The conflict between Zeus and Kronos, the battle of Zeus against the Titans, Typhos and others are crisises on the way to the Olympic Megistos Theos, reflectance of the religious conflict with mediterranean High-god, heaven, weather and mountain deities. So even Olympios - the famous name of  Zeus - is ungreek, and so the mythologem of the mountains as domicile of the families of gods. The famous Homeric epikleisis of Zeus nephelegereta (= 'Gatherer of Clouds') is Ugaritic and originally an epitheton of Baal! The religious displacements sometimes could be located exactly geographically, so f.e. in the case of the Northern Syrian Zaphon-Kasion mountain, the arena of the Typhon myth of the 2nd. millenium BC.

Kasion is the repitition of probably an Aramaeic quasju(n) ('peak of a mountain, end of a mountain, promontory'), which in turn has replaced at end of the 2nd. millenium BC a Canaanitic-Phoinician sapon: It is the name of the highest mountain (1770m) in Northern Syria (today gebel el-aqrac), seat of Baal Zaphon and his cult. It was the holy mountain of the Canaanits and is mentioned in the Bible (f.e. Jesaja 14 or psalm 48). It is discussed too wether this mountain is identical with Zion, the holy mountain of the Israelits. Seafaring devotees of this god have settled his cult probably before this mountain was renamed as Kasion on a 13m high sand-hill at the west-end of the Sirbonic sea (today sabhat el-bardawil) 15km east of Pelusion (today tell el-farama). This hill was named Zaphon too and because of its connections to the Syrian mountain then named Kasion when this mountain changed its name. Both places got in Hellenestic times - parallel to the displacement of Baal Zaphon by Zeus Kasion - the name Kasios mountain and in Roman times mons Casius. On it stood the temple of Zeus Kasios and here Pompejus Magnus was buried (Plin. H. N. lib. V. c. 12 & Strabo lib. XVI p. 760). This mountain until today is hold sacred by the Nusairians (Alawites).

The myth of Typhon:
This mountain plays a role in the myth of Typhon too. Typhon was a phantastic mixed creature with hundred dragon heads of old-greek mythology - influenced by the Orient - all with a terrible voice and snake-legs, child of Tartaros with Gaia, who wanted to have him as ruler of the world against Zeus after the fall of the Titans. In a terrific world burning caused by the thunderbolts of Zeus the heads of the rebel burned up, he was overthrown into the Tartaros. In the clamour of storms (Typhon was father of the bad winds) and in the eruptions of vulcanos the god became manifest. With Echidna he has created other monsters: Orthos, Kerberos, Hydra, Chimaira and others. The description of the Battle of Titans by Hesiod is topped by a 'cyclic' theogonia which is reported by Apollodor: Here the gods turned to animals in fear of Typhon and fled to Egypt, and Typhon in an infight at the mountain Kasion snatched from Zeus his sickle, cut his hand and foot tendons and dragged him to the Kerykaion cave in Cilicia; Hermes and Aigipan outsmarted his female guard, the dragon Delphyne, and so Zeus after a bloody struggle was winner and buried Typhon under the Aetna volcano.

For the connection with the stone cult I refer to the contribution 'Baetyl - the sacred stone' in this thread http://www.numismatikforum.de/ftopic11926-15.html

Sources:
Benjamin Hedrich
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 12, 2006, 06:43:50 pm
Zeus Kataibates

And because we are at Zeus here another epikleisis:

Syria, Cyrrhestica, Cyrrhus, Marcus Aurelius SNG UK 660
Marcus Aurelius AD 161-180
AE 23, 12.9g
obv. AVTO KM A[VRH] - ANTWNINOC CEB
Bust, laureate, r.
rev. [DIOC] KATEBATOV - KVRRHCTWN
Zeus Kataibates, in himation, std l. on rocks, resting r. arm on knee, holding
thunderbolt in r. hand and leaning with l. hand on sceptre; l. in front of him eagle r.
SNG UK 1301, 660
extremely rare, with attractive red earthen patina

Kataibates (= descending) was an epikleisis of Zeus as the god of lightning (cf. Aischyl. Prom. 358), to whom places hit by lightning (called elusia, enelausia, lat. putealia, bidentalia) were consecrated. These places were surrounded by fences ore other enclosures and hold as sacred. Cults for Zeus Kataibates, the 'Descender', were found in Athens, Olympia (Paus. 5, 14, 9), on several Aegean islands, in Tarentos and in Kyrrhos in Syria.

Kataibates was a name for some other deities too:
1) for Acheron, the Underworld river, because the shadows on their way to the
    Underworld had to descend to him.
2) for Apollo, who was invoked under this name if he should assure a happy return.
3) and for Hermes in Athens and Rhodos as companion of the shadows on their way to
    the Underworld.

BTW Demetrios Poliorketes too was called Kataibates in Athens (where he climbed down from his charriot).

Epikleisis = a name under which a god was invoked.

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 12, 2006, 06:45:40 pm
Venus Cloacina

Roman Republic, L. Mussidius Longus, gens Mussidia
AR - denarius, 3.73g, 17.5mm
         Rome, 42 BC
obv. Bust of Concordia, veiled and diademed, r.
        behind CONCORDIA
rev. Round platform with balustrade and inscription CLOACIN, on which two femle
       figures are standing (probably Cloacina and Venus), resting with l. hand on
       cippus. Left figure holding branch (probably myrtle) in raised r. hand; a small
       stairway on the left side with porticus.
       above L.MVSSIDIVS.LONGVS
Ref.: Crawford 494/42a; Sydenham 1093; Mussidia 6b; BMCR 4242
nice VF, bankers mark on obv.

For a long time I have wondered how Venus, goddess of love and beauty, could have this cognomen, which have a special smell. Here I will try an explanation:

The rev. shows the shrine of Venus Cloacina whose fundaments could be seen today on the Forum Romanum in Rome at the South side of the basilica Aemilia. This sanctuary is one of the oldest on the Forum. It is so old that even the Romans didn't understand its real meaning and invented myths to explain it. Cloacina probably is derived from the ancient Latin word 'cluere', meaning 'to purify'.

Mythology:
After the rape of the Sabin women - look at the article in this thread - a war broke out between the Romans and the Sabins. The raped women bravely went between their fathers and their new husbands ans so stopped the slaughter. A reconciliation should have been occured at this very place with an expiation and purification (cluere!) ritual, as Plinius reports in his Roman history (NH X, 119-120). There Myrtles had played an important role. It is said that they were found here and they were used for purification because they should have great purification power. Furthermore they were sacred to Venus, the ancestor of the Romans.

Then at this place Vergina or Virginia, the beautiful daughter of Lucius Virgineus, a plebeian centurio, was killed by him to avoid the shame to become the slave of the tyrannic decemvir Appius Claudius Crassus. Appius Claudius was fallen in love to her and claimed that she was the daughter of a slave who had escaped from him. Due to the rigorous Laws of the Twelve Tables then she too was his property. This murder led to the abolishment of the decemviri (449 BC) and Lucius Virgineus became the first elected tribune. This story probably based on the myth of Lucretia who was raped by the son of king Tarquinius Superbus and because of that commited suicided. This event was the end of the Etruscian kings in Rome and the begin of the Roman Republic. 

Background:
The sanctuary of Venus Cloacina marks the place where the Cloaca Maxima reaches the Forum and takes the river Velabro. This river was the frontier between the region of the Romans and the Sabins where now the adversary parties have made peace. The sanctuary - known by its depiction on these coins - was not roofed but made by a round embracing wall and two cult statues. Originally it was probably the shrine of Cloacina (Liv. III. 48). The origin of her cult and the erection of her sanctuary probably belongs to the the first period of the history of the Cloaca Maxima, either of the time of its construction or of the time of an important renovation even though the tradition ascribed it to Titus Tatius (Lact. Inst. I. 20.11). In the course of time Cloacina was identified with Venus and called Venus Cloacina. In doing so the fact could have played a role that the myrtles were sacred to Venus. So this myth, the reconciliation of the Romans and the Sabins, could be the attempt to explain these unknown connection.

Before the Forum Roman became the center of the Roman Empire it was an unsane marsh, full of Malaria mosquitos, only crossed by cattle trails. It could not be populated before it was drained and dewatered by the Cloaca Maxima. The Lacus Curtius reminds on its watery past. The originally open sewer was built by Etruscians the great taskmaster of the Romans. Because of that Cloacina probably was an Etruscian goddess and the Romans - as so often - have absorbed her. So it is explicable that she too is responsible for the wedding bed. The Cloaca Maxima was a great revolutionary invention. It first made Rome habitably. It is not overstated to say 'Rome, that is the Cloaca Maxima'! And to have a goddess for it is well understandable!

The relicts of the shrine were found AD 1899-1901 in front of the Basilica Aemilia. It consists of a round marble base with a diameter of 2.40m, resting on a slab of Travertine and eight courses of various kinds of stone. The character of these courses shows that the foundation was gradually raised as the basilica encroached upon it. The shrine shows two female deities. The left one seems to raise a myrtle branch. This then would be a symbol of purification and of the wedding ritual of passage. The right one seems to be armored and then would be the guardian of the enclosure.

I have added two pictures: The first shows a model of the shrine of Cloacina, the other shows the fundament of the shrine how you can see it today on the Forum Romanum. I want to recommend warmly the following link to all interested in Roman history
http://home.surewest.net/fifi/index50.html Here you can find a nice 3D view of the Forum and naturally the shrine of Cloacina!

Sources:
Wikipedia
William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online)
http://www.vroma.org/~jruebel/cloacina.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 18, 2006, 08:45:52 pm
The struggle between Xanthos and Achilleus

Aeolis/Asia Minor, Kyme, pseudo-autonomous, time of Gallienus
AE 21, 4.2g
struck under magistrate Ermeias, AD 253-268
obv. IERA.CVN. - .KLHTOC
        Youthful bust of Senate, draped, r.
rev. AIL.ER - M[E]
       River-god Xanthos, bearded, wreathed, nude to hips, leaning l., resting l. arm on
       vase from which water flows, holding in r. hand long waterplant.
       KVMA / I in l. field
       in ex. [Y]ANTQO[C] (Y meaning Greek XI)
SNG von Aulock 1648; Franke KZR 204; SLG Prowe III, 724; BMC 13, 114

Looking closer at your coins everytime you can detect very interesting stories. This happened to me looking at this coin. First I was interested in it only because of the named river-god. This it rather rare. But researching more I found the following:

First: It is the Xanthos from Troas not from Lycia! Today it is called Kucukmenderes. The river Xanthos originates from the Ida mountains, runs through the plains of Troy and flows after 97km north of Troy into the Hellespont, today called Dardanelles. Several of its tributaries are river-gods too.

Mythology:
Homer says that only the gods called him Xanthos, yellow (because of the colour of his water), but men called him Skamandros. In Greek mythology he was an Oceanid, a son of Oceanos and Tethys. By Idaea he had a son Teukros.

This river played an important role in the Troyan War. During the siege of Troy the Achaeans had set up their camp near his mouth and most of the battles happened on the great plain of Skamandros. But at the end of the Troyan War Skamandros, the river-god himself, encroached upon the war!

In book XXI of his Iliad - near the end of the war, Achilleus again was engaged - Homer writes
how the Trojan troops flee in panic from Achilles. One portion of the army heads for the city while another group seeks refuge near the River Xanthos. Achilles cuts off the second group and kills many of them as they try to cross the stream. Achilles is pushing the Trojans back killing everyone in his way. He spares no one mercy. All these Trojans fall into the river Xanthos and Achilles follows to kill them. The river-god asks Achilles to stop killing people in his river because the water is getting all bloody. Achilles agrees but then Xanthos turns around and asks Apollo to help the Trojans. This enraged Achilleus so much that he began to fight against the river-god.

The god of the river is antagonized by all this bloodshed in his waters, and so he attacks Achilles with great waves and currents. Achilles begins to falter under this onslaught, but Poseidon and Athena reassure him, while Hera and Hephaistos attack the river with fire. Seeing his water boil away in great, mysterious heat, Xanthos relents.

After this began what is called 'theomachia': The gods also engage in combat, so excited are they by human warfare. Athena defeats Ares and Aphrodite, while Hera drives Artemis from the field. Poseidon challenges Apollo, but the younger god does not accept his uncle’s dare because of deference to his age. Achilles continues to chase the Trojans, and Agenor, a half-brother of Hektor, attempts to fight him in single combat; but Agenor is far inferior to Achilles, and Apollo finally rescues him. This diversion allows most of the retreating troops enough time to take refuge in the city.

A slightly ironic commentary on Achilles eventual death occurs in his battle with the river. The river, rising in flood against Achilles because of all the dead bodies thrown in it, sweeps Achilles away. Achilles, who is often an overpowering natural force against the Trojans, is here thwarted and almost killed by the natural force of the river. Achilles is so alarmed by the river that he becomes fearful of ignominious death by drowning rather than the glorious death in battle that has been prophesied. Only the intervention of Hera through Hephaistos, as God of Fire, saves Achilles. Symbolically, the two great elemental forces of fire and water are in conflict, with Achilles in the middle.

I have attached a map of Troas where you can see Troy and the Skamandros.

Sources:
http://www.theoi.com/Potamos/PotamosSkamandros.html
(here you find the original text of Homer!)
http://education.yahoo.com/homework_help/cliffsnotes/the_iliad/70.html
http://www.gottwein.de/graeca/maps/graeca_2mm.php#Skamandros_fl
(the map)
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on December 01, 2006, 04:56:47 am
The Erymanthian Boar

Herakles fourth labor was to capture the Erymanthian Boar alive.

". . . now that animal ravaged Psophis, sallying from a mountain which they call Erymanthus. So passing through Pholoe he was entertained by the centaur Pholus, a son of Silenus by a Melian nymph. He set roast meat before Herakles , while he himself ate his meat raw. When Herakles called for wine, he said he feared to open the jar which belonged to the centaurs in common. But Herakles , bidding him be of good courage, opened it, and not long afterwards, scenting the smell, the centaurs arrived at the cave of Pholus, armed with rocks and firs. The first who dared to enter, Anchius and Agrius, were repelled by Herakles with a shower of brands, and the rest of them he shot and pursued as far as Malea, Thence they took refuge with Chiron, who, driven by the Lapiths from Mount Pelion, took up his abode at Malea. As the centaurs cowered about Chiron, Herakles shot an arrow at them, which passing through the arm of Elatus, stuck in the knee of Chiron. Distressed at this, Herakles ran up to him, drew out the shaft, and applied a medicine which Chiron gave him. But the hurt proved incurable, Chiron retired to the cave and there he wished to die, but he could not, for he was immortal. However, Prometheus offered himself to Zeus to be immortal in his stead, and so Chiron died. The rest of the centaurs fled in different directions, and some came to Mount Malea, and Eurytion to Pholoe, and Nessus to the river Evenus. The rest of them Poseidon recieved at Eleusis and hid them in a mountain. But Pholus, drawing the arrow from a corpse, wondered that so little a thing could kill such big fellows; howbeit, it slipped from his hand and ligting on his foot killed him on the spot. So when Herakles returned to Pholoe, he beheld Pholus dead; and he buried him and proceded to the boar-hunt. And when he had chased the boar with shouts from a certain thicket, he drove the exhausted animal into deep snow, trapped it, and brought it to Mycenae."
 
SOURCE: Loeb Apollodorus, translated by Sir James G. Frazer, 1921.
See: http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_apollodorus_herc4.htm

The following coin:
ROMAN REPUBLIC: M. Volteius M.f. Ca. 78 BC. AR denarius (3.68 gm). Rome mint. Head of young Hercules right, wearing lion´s skin /Erymanthian boar running right, [M.] VOLTEI M.F. in exergue. Crawford 385/2. Sydenham 775. RSC Volteia 2.

The sculpture:
Berlin-Tiergarten, Lützowplatz – "Herkules und der erymantische Eber", Bronzeplastik, 1904 von Louis Tuaillon / "Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar" 1904, by Louis Tuaillon.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 03, 2006, 04:25:29 pm
Herakles and the giant Antaios

Cilicia, Tarsos, Philip I, AD 244-249
AE 37, 19.96g
obv. AVT KAI IOV FILIPPON [EVT] EVC CE
        bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
        P-P l. and r. in field
rev. TARCOV THC MHTR[OP]OLEWC
       Herakles stg. facing, head l., leaning l., wrestling Antaios; he lifts Antaios up
       into the air by the waist while Antaios tries to break his grip;
       B to left, A/M/K/G to right
SNG Levante 1153 (same dies); Hunter S.556, 59, pl. LX, 18 (rev. same die); Voegtli 17h
good F, usual roughness

Mythology:
Antaios, lat. Antaeus, son of Poseidon and Gaia, was a huge giant, who is said to have a length of 60 Greek cubits. He was king and ruler of Libya and forced all strangers who entered his empire to wrestle with him. Beause of his immense force it was easy for him to strangle all combattants. Their skulls he used to built a temple for his father Poseidon. He for himself lived in a gruesome cave under a big rock in which he slept on the bare ground because he got stronger and stronger by the power he gained from his mother Earth. His usual food were lions wich he catched alive. In doing so his land was stripped by people because he didn't save the life of his people more than the life
of the strangers. Otherwise he should be the founder of the city of Tingis.

When Herakles was on the way to capture the cattle of Geryon for Euristheus he came to Libya and came into conflict with Antaios. Both dropped their lion's skins which they wore, Herakles applied oil to his skin as the Greek did, Antaios threw sand over his body to double his strength. Then the fight began. Both were astonished about the strength of his combattant. But Antaios tired first and Herakles could threw him to the ground. But touching the earth Antaios recovered again and the fight moved on. Exhausted again Antaios dropped to the earth himself to get new power. There Herakles recognized the earth as source of his strength. He embraced him and lifted him up into the air and struggled him to death.

It is said that he was borrowed in Tingis. It is told that Sertorius has opened his grave and has found bones 60 cubits long. Horrified he sarificed and then closed the grave again. It had the shape of a laying man and it is told that everytime someone took earth from it raining starts and didn't stop earlier before this earth is put to the grave again.

Background:
Originally Antaios, referring to his name ('encounter'), was a spook, a ghost, compare 'Antaia', a spook from the circle around Hekate, finally Hekate herself. Naturally the spook wants to return to its habitation, the earth; not earlier than in hellenistic time it
was changed into the symbolical streams of power of the earth.

The oldest trace of the myth points to Irasa near Kyrene; there Antaios forced the suitors of his daughter Barke on a footrace, a motive known from other myths too. During the continuing discovery of North-Africa the Greek colonists pushed this legendary figure always farther to the West until it got a definite place in Tingis (Mauetania). At the same time in connection with the growing antagonism between Greeks and Libyans it got a pronounced evil character. As shown on vase paintings of the 5th century BC (f.e. the crater of Euphronios in the Louvre) the fight between Herakles and Antaios was interpreted as triumph of the scholastic Greek athletics over the barbarian power of nature.

In hellenistic time Antaios was identified with an Upper-Egyptian god and the city of Antaiupolis was named according to him. His tomb was worshipped in Tingis. The future ruler of Mauretania led back their origin to Sophax, son of Herakles with the widow of Antaios.

I have added two pics.
1) The pic of the famous crater of Euphronios showing the fight bewteen Herakles and
    Antaios; Attica, c.510 BC, toda in the Louvre/Paris.
2) The pic of the oil painting 'Hercules and Antaeus' of Antonio Pollaiuolo, AD 1460,
     today in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. During the Renaissance this theme
     was very popular.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 03, 2006, 04:30:18 pm
Anna Perenna

Roman Republic, Annius T. f. T. n., gens Annia, and L. Fabius L. f. Hispaniensis
AR - denarius, 3.76g
         mint in Spain or North-Italy, 82-81 BC
obv. C.ANNI.T.F.T.N.PRO COS EX S
        Bust of Anna Perenna, diademed and draped, r., caduceus behind, scales before,
        T beneath bust
rev. Victoria in biga r., Q above
       in ex L.FABI.L.F.HISP.
Crawford 366/1a; BMC Spain 1-12; Sydenham 748; Annia 2a
nice EF

This type belongs to an imperatorial coinage struck for the war against Sertorius in Spain. Sertorius became a supporter of Marius and fought against Sulla. 83 BC he was sent as Praetor to Spain and here for some years he erected a government in exile. 72 BC he was murdered in a complot. The Quaestor Fabius, named on this denarius, switched to Sertorius some time later and perished together with him.
The Ides of March, March 15., not only are the well-known day of death of Caesar but the Festival of Anna Perenna too! But who is Anna Perenna?

Mythology:
An older myth tells that Anna Perenna was an old woman from the city of Bollivae in Latium. In 494 BC the Plebeians moved out to the Mons sacer, c.3km north-east of Rome, because they denied to pay tax and to be conscripted to the army without having a vote in the Roman Senate. They even planned to separate frome Rome. As is generally known they were convinced to come back because they got the institution of the Tribunus plebis who should represent the vital interests of the Plebeians and defend their freedom against the Patricians. The myth tells that Anna Perenna brought bread and cakes to the Plebeians and so she saved them from starving. This is why she was popular on the common people and considered as goddes after her death.

A later tradition from the time of the myth of Aeneas made Anna the sister of Dido, queen of Carthage. After Dido has committed suicide Carthage was conquered by indigenes under Iarbas and Anna had to fly. First she found shelter by the king of Melite, a small island in front of the African coast. But when Pygmalion, the king of Syria, demanded her to hand over to him, she fled from the island. A heavy storm throw her to the coast of Latium. At this time Aeneas was the ruler of Laurentum, exactly where she was landed. Aeneas and his companion Achates went to the beach and he recognized her. Aeneas began crying when he welcomed her remembering the sad fate of Dido, and took her to his palace. But Lavinia the wife of Aeneas was not amused about that. In a dream Anna was warned to be alarmed at the traps that Lavinia would set for her and at the dead of night she fled from the palace.       
 
While she was wandering she met Numicius, the god of a nearby stream who carried her off to his bed. The servants of Aeneas searched for Anna and followed her tracks to the river bank, and, while they wondered where to go next a shape rose from the water and revealed to them that Anna, once an exile, had become a water nymph, whose new name, Perenna, signified eternity. Aeneas' servants in their joy scattered among the fields and passed the day in feasting and festivities, which became established as an annual celebration of the festival of Anna Perenna.
There is another opinion too that she committed suicide by drowning in the river Numicius because of her desperation.
 
In another myth she was an old woman again. Mars, god of war, was fallen in love to Minerva, goddess of war and art and a sworn virgin. Mars asked Anna Perenna for interceding on his behalf. But instead of this - knowing about the impossibility of his wishes - she dressed herself like Minerva and came to Mars veiled. When he tried to kiss her she lifted her veil, break out in laughter and mocked Mars. Minerva's main festival, the Quinquatrus, was celebrated 4 days after the festival of Anna Perenna so this could be reason of this story.

Background:
You see that the exact identity of Anna Perenna is unexplained. Even the ancients didn't know it! Possible is the derivation from 'anus = old woman'. The etymology from  annus (lat. year) and the interpretation as goddess of the ring of years is too even to be correct! Also her festival in March, the 1st month of the Roman calendar, is not sufficient because Mars, after whom the March is named, nevertheless was a god of the year! According to Aulus Gellius (in Noctes Atticae) Varro wrote 'Anna et Perenna', as if there were two persons! Ovid knows of together six variations but all are objected. For sure she is connected to earth and fertility but she is no  indigitation of Ceres!

The river Numicius was regarded as sacred to Anna Perenna. At his origin a temple was built for Aeneas as Jupiter Indiges, a title, which usually was given to deified mortals. At his mouth the city of Lavinium was situated, a name which is said to originate from Lavinia, wife of Aeneas, who was an old local deity too. So Anna Perenna and Lavinia could well be two aspects of one and the same deity. Lavinia is said to have prophetic abilities too, an attribute which usually was connected to water-nymphs. Her father was a certain Anius, the eponym (giver of the name) of the river Anio whose name sounds like Anna too. Furthermore you have to cross the river Anio to go from Rome to the Mons sacer!

But every etymology would be invalid if Anna Perenna has not a Latin, but an Etruscian or pre-indoeuropean origin! Then Anna could be a 'Lallname' (babble name), which later became a proper name.

What we know for safe is the following: The Festival of Anna Perenna was celebrated on the 15th of March and was beloved by the common people, though it was also an officially recognized holiday. We know from Ovid (Fasti, III. 523 foll.) how it was celebrated. On the evening of the 15th, people would gather at the 1st milestone on the Via Flaminia in her sacred grove of fruit trees (in bloom at that time of year) by the banks of the Tiber, and camp out, some bringing tents, others making little shelters from leafy tree branches. There they picnicked merrily into the night, feasting, dancing, singing, and celebrating with much wine, toasting to health and long life. It was believed that one would live as many years as the cups of wine one could drink, and so it was of course traditional therefore to get very, very drunk. The songs were full of obscenities. This festival connected the old and the new; it is interesting to note that the Via Flaminia was famous for its tombs and cemeteries. We know by Macrobius (Sat. I. 12.6) that sarifices were done in her name 'ut annare perannareque commode liceat', i.e. that the ring of years may should close happily.

In AD 1999 a fountain was unearthed in Rome which was devoted to Anna Perenna. He was found at the corner of the Piazza Euclide with the Via G.Dal Monte in the northern part of Rome. The fountain is originated from the 1st century BC and was used until the 6th century AD. A great number of magic objects were found in it: plates with formulas of conjuration, lead-boxes with anthropomorphic figures, innumerous coins and a copper-kettle. They all now could be seen in the National Museum and the Diokletian Museum. 

I have attached a photo of the archaeological place of the fountain, 10-13m under the street level.

Sources:
Ovid, Fasti 3, 517ff.
Macrob. Sat. 1, 12, 6
Der kleine Pauly
http://www.pierreci.it/do/show/content/0000010935

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 09, 2006, 06:44:57 pm
Juppiter Optimus Maximus

This will be my last contribution to this thread for this year. I hope it is interesting for lovers of the Roman mythology!

The coin:
Roman Republic, Petillius Capitolinus, gens Petillia
AR - denarius, 18.1mm, 3.82g
         Rome, 43 BC
obv. Eagle with spread wings stg. half-right on thunderbolt
        above PETILLIVS, beneath CAPITOLINVS
rev.  Hexastyle frontside of the temple of Iupiter Capitolinus with three-stepped base;
        garlandes hanging down in the three middle intercolumnaries, on the pediment
        frontal seated figur(?), on acroteries horse-protomes, above figures stg. with
        sceptres, on top biga r.  with charioteer.
        S - F at sides
Crawford 487/2b; Sydenham 1151; Petillia 3
about VF

SF stands for Sacris Faciundis. Petillius Capitolinus doubtless was member of the XV viri sacris faciundis responsible for the religious ceremonies. His family seems to have one of the hereditary offices which were referring to the temple of Iupiter on the Capitolium (Iupiter Capitolinus).

Juppiter Optimus Maximus:
The name Iuppiter originates from the Vocativus *dieu-pater. The stem *dieu- means something like 'shining, divine heaven and lighting day'. Writing Iuppiter with two p's is correct. The reason is the gemination of consonantes. From obliques casus is generated another Nominativus: Iovis. So Iuppiter is the god of the heavenly light. His old cognomen Lucetius (the shining) point to that too.

Iuppiter isn't Zeus! In fact both have the same indoeuropean origin, but the Greek Zeus was mixed up very early with orientalic ideas and has been anthropomorphized. His numerous erotic adventures from which several children descended and his perpetual struggling with Hera are typical for Zeus. Nothing of that we find on Iuppiter! He was not the father of divine or half-divine beings.  He was not the husband of Iuno, and Minerva was not his daughter! But he was rather the divine principle of the highest being. The places struck by lightnings were sacred to him (puteals). However the assimilation between Zeus and Iuppiter happened already in the time of the Roman Republic.

In historical times Iuppiter Optimus Maximus was the main and state god of Rome. Optimus doesn't mean 'the best', but because it is originated from 'ops' (= power) it means the 'most powerful'. Increasing in honor Iuppiter became the protector of all of the Roman people. With the development of urbanization and the increasing importance of the city, it was only natural that this tutelary deity should have risen to greater pre-eminence, while his associate Mars shed agricultural associations for more bellicose dispositions. Under the name of Iuppiter Capitolinus, he presided over the Roman games, always an important feature of ancient city life. With the introduction of Emperor worship, a means of testing the loyalty of the subject as much as an official religion, Iuppiter's political function was somewhat decreased, though traitors were still thrown from Tarpeian rock on Capitoline Hill. Iuppiter was no longer the embodiment of the greatness and prosperity of the Roman Empire, but rather, he served as a divine guide of the world. Cicero, who in 43 BC had his head and hands cut off for advocating a return to republican principles, equated Jove with numen praestantissimae mentis, "the presence of a supreme mind." This was a conception not unlike monotheism of Christianity, to which the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 312 AD meant the beginning of the end of the European pagan era.

The temple on the Capitoline Hill:
The temple of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus was situated at the southern slope of the Capitoline Hill. Together with Iuno and Minerva they represent the so-called Capitoline Trias. His temple was the most magnificent in Rome.

It was vowed by king Tarquinius Priscus while battling the Sabines, completed by his successor Tarquinius Superbus and consecrated under the consul M. Horatius Pulvillus in 509 BC. Construction and consecration so fell in the time of the Etruscian kings a fact which later was obscured by the Romans. In the temple Iuppiter took the middle cella, Iuno Regina the left one and Minerva the right one. Especially Etruscian master builder have participated in the design and the construction of the temple. Erecting a statue - known already from the cities around Rome - constitutes a break in the history of the Roman religon: "It was the first step on the way which later led to the result that the old shapeless powers could be thought of only anthropomorphized and if this was impossible were forgotten." (Clavus)

The temple of Iuppiter was the centre of the national life. Here the consules took the oath of office and here always the first meeting of the senate took place. Here the military commanders sacrificed before the go to war and here always the elebration of triumphs ended. Thereby the triumphator colored his face with red lead to look like the clay of the statues.

Several times the temple burned down mostly by the stroke of lightning, but during the Civil War 69 AD too when the adherents of Vitellius assault the Capitoline Hill. At last it was in AD 86 when Domitian rebuilt the temple and founded too the agon Capitolinus which consisted in chariot races, sportive and musical competitions.

The temple was built on substructions. There were three cellae side by side. That in the middle was dedicated to Iuppiter and contained a terra cotta statue of the god, with a thunderbolt in his right hand, said to have been the work of Vulca of Veii, the face of which was painted red on festival days. The statue was clothed with a tunic adorned with palm branches and Victories (tunica palmata), and a purple toga embroidered with gold (toga picta), the costume afterwards worn by Roman generals when celebrating a triumph. The entablature was of wood, and on the apex of the pediment was a terra cotta group, Jupiter in a quadriga, by the same Etruscan artist as the statue in the cella. This was replaced in 296 BC by another, probably of bronze. There is no doubt that pediment and roof were decorated with terra cotta figures, among them a statue of Summanus 'in fastigio' (perhaps therefore an acroterion). In 193 BC the aediles M. Aemilius Lepidus and L. Aemilius Paullus placed gilt shields on the pediment. In 142 the ceiling was gilded. This temple became a repository of works of art of many sorts, the gifts of Roman generals and foreigners, as well as of dedicatory offerings and trophies of victory, of which the earliest recorded was a golden crown presented by the Latins in 459. The number of these became so great that in 179 BC it was necessary to remove some of the statues and many of the shields affixed to the columns. Sadly nothing remained of ths temple because of the chaos in the middle ages. So we are dependent on the description of Plinius and others and the depiction on coins.

The mintmaster:
It's interesting that the mintmaster - named as Petillius Capitolinus on the coin - occurs in the satires of Horatius (Sat. lib. IV)! Note 14 of the link below: Petillius charged with the controllership of the Capitolium once was accused of having stolen the golden crown of Iuppiter Capitolinus. Only because he was friend of Augustus the judges have found him not guilty. Another one added that this was the reason that he was named Capitolinus! But that seems to be unsubstantiated as Terentius already has noted. But that Capitolinus as friend of Augustus was absolved to honor the Emperor has added a negative touch, is a bit doubtful, because amicus here seems to be only a parvus amicus meaning a client, and in this case Augustus was not only legitimated but obligated to save his client as well he could. Indeed there was another reason too to do so; for it was his adoptive father, the great Iulius Caesar - as mentioned by Sueton - who has stolen three thousand pounds of gold from the Capitolium during his first consulate. And therefore Petillius could have said not without some right - like that of Terentius -: ego homuncio non facerem (Me as such a mediocre being would never have done that)!     

I have added two pics:
1) A diagram of the Capitoline Hill where you can see the ancient buildings in relation
     to Michelangelo's famous piazza.
2) A model showing the temple how it could have been looked. Clearly you can see
     the decoration of the roof.

Sources:
- Der kleine Pauly
- Rainer Pudill, Die Götter Roms, in 'Das Fenster', Oct. 2006
- http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/horaz/satiren/saho1043.htm (The theft of Petillius)
- http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/
  Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Aedes_Jovis_Capitolini.html (History and description of the
  temple of Iuppiter!)
- http://www.museicapitolini.org/ (Model of the Capitoline Hill)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 15, 2006, 04:11:34 pm
Ganymedes - the beautiful

Troas, Dardanos, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE 21, 4.53g
obv. AVT KAI CEBA[...] TRAIANOC ADRIANOC
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. DARDAN - WN
      Eagle facing, head l., carrying Ganymedes, wearing chlamys and Phrgian bonnet,
      holding pedum in raised r. hand
unpublished?
very rare, about VF

Note: This is the companion piece to Bellinger T136 from Troas-Ilium and Bellinger describes the reverse as "Remarkable in the presentation of a scene of Trojan mythology anterior to the Homeric story".

Mythology:
Ganymedes was the son of Tros, founder and king of Troy, and his wife Kallirrhoe, daughter of Skamandros, according to others son of Laomedon. He was of unbelievable beauty. Once when he was hunting at the mount Ida, others say near the Dardanic promontory, Zeus sent an eagle to abduct him. In heaven he replaced Hebe and became the cupbearer of the gods. He handed the gods nectar and ambrosia. Hera was very angry with Zeus because Hebe was her daughter. According to other authors Zeus needed Ganymedes for his amorous plays. To Tros he gave later a golden grape-vine and  two immortal horses which later got Herakles who in return freed his daughter Hesione of the monster Ketos. Finally Zeus put Ganymedes as constellation to the sky.

But there is this story too: Eos the goddess of dawn has fallen in love with Ganymedes and has abducted him. Zeus then has stolen him from Eos.

This should be behind the myth: When Tros has erected the city and the castle of Troy and has all arranged well he sent his son Ganymedes with fifty men to Lydia to bring Zeus a thank offering. Tantalos, king of Lydia, regarded them as scouts or agents and put them to prison. But when he realized their peaceful purpose he set them free again. Meanwhile Ganymedes has fallen ill and died. Thereupon all returned home exept Ganymedes. Tantalos let him entomb in the temple of Zeus. Because of that the poets have invented the story of the abduction by Zeus.

According to other authors Tantalos was king in Phrygia and Paphlagonia. When he raped Ganymedes because of his great beauty he denied to give him back to Tros. So between both kings a great war originated, and Ilos, the other son of Tros, went on with the war against Pelops, son of Tantalos, so that he was forced to flee to Greece.

Others suggest that it was not Tantalos but Minos from Crete who was the robber of Ganymedes. Under the appearence of friendship he was guest of Tros and then has abducted Ganymedes when they were hunting and took him to Crete where he has committed suicide because of home sickness and mourning. When Minos entombed him in the temple of Zeus it was invented that Zeus has took him to heaven.

Some authors refer his beauty not to the beauty of his body but of his psyche, his intelligence and virtue.

Others claim that the whole story was invented only to euphemize unnatural desires.
 
Background:
Ganymedes, meaning such as 'the lustrous-happy' (actually the joyfull excited by erotic passion) was the son of the Dardanic king Tros (and Kallirrhoe), brother of Ilos and Assarakos. According to Homer Il. 20, 231ff. he was hold for the most beautiful of all mortals. He was raped by the gods to the Olympos to serve as cup-bearer for Zeus and to enjoy eternal youth. As compensation Tros got immortal horses. According to Homer h. 4, 2002 Zeus abducted him for the gods by a blast of wind. The Little Iliad (and Euripides) made Ganymedes the son of Laomedon, and he was given a golden rape-vine by Zeus. Since Ibykos and Pindar the motiv for the abduction was seen in pederasty which by this myth got a kind of heavenly apology. Platon (in his Phaidros) used the myth for his theory of love, but in his nom. 1, 8 he criticized the Cretans for their vice and their appointment to Zeus. In 4th century BC Ganymedes was a popular figure of comedies. At this time was introduced the motiv of the abduction by the eagle as messenger of Zeus, firstly in fine arts, much later literarily. Not until the Hellenism Zeus himself became the robber in the shape of an eagle. The motiv of Hera's jealousy was Hellenistic too. In the kind of Euhemeros Phanokles, Mnaseas and others replaced the divine robber by heroes: Tantalos or Minos. To put him as a constellation to the sky (aquarius) is from the late Hellenism, so it is too with the eagle (aquila). In imperial times the myth of Ganymedes has been mentioned by philosophers and church-fathers often very polemically. It is created literarily in Lukian's dialogues and in the Dionysiaka of Nonnos.

Only a short note here to the pantheistic hymne 'Ganymed' of the young Goethe belonging to his 'Sturm- und Drangzeit' (Wie im Morgenglanze du rings mich anglühst, Frühling, Geliebter!)

History of art:
Much more numerous are depictions in the fine art. Ganymedes was a popular theme in ancient times. The Attic vase painting depicts particularly the pursuit and seizure of Ganymedes by Zeus, f.e. the kantharos of the Brygos painter, c.450 BC, and the bell krater of the Berlin painter, c.490 BC, where Zeus is forced by Eros. Famous too is the terracotta group in Olympia, .470 BC, showing the seizing of Ganymedes. Not until post-classic times the abduction by the eagle, who takes him to heaven or to whom Ganymedes gave water, became the subject of depiction. 340/330 Leochares created a sulpture of the abduction. On tombs and sarkophaguses of early deads these doubtless have symbolic meaning.

The Renaissance has interpreted Ganymedes carried to heaven as an allegory of the elevation of the human soul to god (Scene of the bronze door of Filaretes, St.Peter, Rome, 1435-45). On the other hand by the variation of the eagles's posture the homosexual connotation of the motiv has been expressed (drawing of Michelangelo, c.1533). Rembrandt has satirized the theme by creating a Ganymedes who in fear is passing water (1635, Dresden). Corregio's depiction is the counterpart to the unification of Io with the cloud of Zeus (c.1530-32; Vienna). Thorvaldsen has depicted Ganymedes the cup-bearer several times (1804, 1816, 1817; Copenhagen). The elevation of Ganymedes as aquarius to the sky (and of the eagle as aquila) is found in Peruzzi's frescoes in the Villa Farnesina in Rome (1509-1511)
 
Notes:
(1) Nectar, which according to the later mythgraphs was a supranatural red wine which gave immortality, actually was a primitive brown met from fermented honey.
(2) Ambrosia, the delicious food of the gods, seems to have been a porridge of barley, oil and fruits. With that the kings were indulged whereas their subjects (before introducing grain)
had to feed on asphodel's roots, mallows and acorns (Robert von Ranke-Graves)

I have added the following pics:
1) A pic of the red-figured Attic vase of the so-called Berlin painter. Ganymedes here is depicted with a hoop, symbol of youth, and a cock, which was a symbol of homosexuality. It is now found in the Louvre.
2) The pic of the mosaic from the House of Dionysos in Nea Paphos/Cypros. This is the classic depiction which is found on my coin too.
3)The pic of Rembrandt's painting from the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. Here Ganymedes is shown full of fear! I couldn't resist because of the charming details!

Sources:
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Der kleine Pauly
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst
http://www.schwulencity.de/LukianGoettergespraeche.html

Best regards and a happy and healthy new year!

I have added a 2nd coin with the Ganymedes theme which I got after contributing this article. But  I want to share it here:

Thracia, Hadrianopolis, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 25
obv. AV KAI [...]
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate r.
rev. ADR - IANO - [POLEITWN]
Ganymedes, with Phrygian bonnet, stg. l. with crossed legs, holding lagobolon
in l. hand and resting with r. hand on eagle, stg. frontal with head r., on rocks;
r. on ground Pan flute.
Jurokova 920 (1 ex. in Istanbul); Varbanov (engl.) 3348 (citing Jurokova)
extremely rare, F/about VF, black-brown patina

This coin shows a scene right before the abduction. Wether the eagle is Zeus himself or only the messenger of Zeus can't be said for sure.

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2006, 01:23:06 pm
Protesilaos

Until today I have presented only coins from my collection. Today I must show another coin from CoinArchives because my coin is too worn to give a good scan. Beg your pardon in advance!

Thessaly, Thebens, 302-186 BC
AE 23, 7.63g
obv. head of Demeter, veiled and crowned with grain-wreath, l.
rev. QHBAIWN
      Protesilaos, in military cloak and helmeted, armed with sword and shield, jumping from
      a ship's prow to l. on the beach.
Rogers 550; BMC 50; Moustaka 92; SNG Copenhagen 261
extremely rare, VF

Mythology:
The depiction on the reverse is playing at the beginning of the Troyan War. It shows the heroe Protesilaos jumping as the first Greek on the Troyan beach where he was killed as the first of the Greeks. Protesilaos, who is said to have been a suitor of Helena, led the men of Phylake (which later was incorporated in Thebens) on forty ships to Troy, even though he was just married (Homer Il. 2, 695ff.). When the Greeks with their ships came into the range of sight of Troy they hesitated to go on land because Thetis has prophesized Achilleus that the first going on land would be the first being killed. Thereupon Odysseus is said to have thrown his shield on land and then haved jump on it so that his feet haven't touched the ground. So Protesilaos was the first one. After having killed several Troyans he was slain by Hektor or by a friend of Aineas.

Protesilaos, an uncle of Philoktetes and son of Iphiklos originally was named Iolaos, but due to the matter of his death he was renamed (Protesilaos = the first of the people). He was buried on the Thracian  Chersonnesos near the city of Elaios where he was whorshipped as god. High elm trees planted by nymphs stood inside the sacred area and shadowed his tomb. It was said that the twigs looking over the sea to Troy were early green but soon bare too whereas the twigs turned away from Troy stayed green still in winter. When the elm trees were grown so high that it was possible to see Troy from the tops they withered and new trees grew up.

In his temple were oracles especially for warriors. Severel deseases were hailed there too. His spirit once took revenge at the Persian Artyaktes. Artyaktes has disgraced his temple by whoring with broad and then from Xerxes requested the temple treasures. Soon after that Artayktes was besieged in Elaios and when he tried to flee captured. He promised the Greek to pay hundred talents for the stolen treasures and twohundred talents for himself and his son. But Xanthippos, leader of the Greek, refused his offer, and so his son was stoned to death and heself hung.
 
Protesilaos and Laodameia
Laodameia, wife of Protesilos, daughter of Akastos (according to others it was Polydora, daughter of Meleager), missed her husband so awesome that she - when he was on his joutney to Troy - made a statue of him from wax or bronze and took it with her in her bed. But that was only a poor consolation, and when she got the news of his death she asked the gods to have mercy and to allow Protesilaos to come back to her even for only three hours. Zeus allowed that and Hermes brought the spirit of Protesilaos from the Tartaros back to animate the statue. Protesilaos spoke through its mouth and conjured his wife to hesitate no longer and to follow him. As soon as the three hours were over she stabbed herself to death being in his arms. That's the reason that the depiction of Protesilaos and Laodameia was a popular motiv on  sarcophaguses.

Another myth tells that she was forced by her father Akastos to marry again. But she has
spent her nights rather with the statue of Protesilaos until once a servant looked through the gap of the door of her bed-room. He saw her embracing someone and hold it for her lover. He told that to Akastos and he broke into her bed-room and realized the truth. Akastos didn't want her tantalized by a fruitless desire and commansed to burn the statue. But Laodameia jumped into the fire and perished together with the statue.

There is another story too where Protesilaos survived the Troyan War and sailed home. He took Aithylla, sister of king Priamos, as captive on his ship. On the journey home he landed on the Macedonian peninsula of Pellene. While he went on land for seaking water Aithylla conceived the other captured women to burn the ships. So Protesilaos was forced to stay on Pellene where he founded the city of Skione. But that seems to be wrong: Instead of this Aithylla together with Astyoche and the other captives set the ships on fire at the bank of the Italian river Navaithos; this name means 'burning of ships'. And Protesilaos were not among those they kept imprisoned.

History of art:
I have added the depiction of a marble statue of a wounded warrior. This is the Roman copy of a Greek original from the times of the Antonines, c.138-181, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Here the statue is supported by a tree stump. It was surely not seen at the Greek original. But it is remarkable, that it is a sword of Greek type. The headdress, the simplicity of the body, the quasi-parallel folds of the drapery and the complicated pose in momentary action, all point to a date around or a little before the mid-fifth century B.C. for the Greek original.
A second statue in the British Museum has a planklike form surrounded by waves, suggesting the statue might represent Protesilaos descending from his ship, ready to meet his fate. However, the Museum's statue was reinterpreted as a dying warrior falling backward, following the discovery of a wound carved in the right armpit. The Roman writer Pliny mentioned a so-called vulneratus deficiens ("falling warrior") as being among the works of the Greek sculptor Kresilas.

An additional note:
Ovid (Heroides 13) has invented a letter from Laodameia to her far lover. Within the vers Bella gerant alii, Protesilaus amet = Wars should be made by others, Protesilaos should love. This vers is said to be used by the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (AD 1440-21490) for the famous word Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! = Wars should be made by others, you, lucky Austria, marry!

Sources:
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Heroengeschichten
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 05, 2007, 05:25:05 pm
The three Graces

Thracia, Pautalia, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 28, 15.33g
struck under magistrate Caecina Largus (AD 198-201)
obv. [AVT M] AVRHLIOC - ANTWNEINOC
       Bust,draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. HGE KAIKINA LARGOV OVLPIAC
       in ex. PAVTALI / AC
       The three Graces, nude, embracing each other; the first one seen from the l. side,
       holding jar in the r. hand, from which water flows, the second one seen from
       behind, head r., with garment around the hips (crescent?), holding both arms on
       the shoulders of the other two; the third one seen from the r. side, holding jar in
       the lowered l. hand, from which water flows.
Ruzicka 503, pl.III, 13 (1 ex. in Sarajewo)
very rare, about VF

Pautalia is known as a famous bath, full of parks with tempels and statues. It is known that especially the die-cutters from Pautalia have taken statues for the reverses of their coins. So probably the depiction of these three Graces too is the copy of an original statue.

Mythology:
The Graces or Charites were daughters of Zeus and Erynome. They were quasi a trifold Aphrodite. In later times they were depicted nude. In their temple in Orchomenos in Boiotia they were worshipped in the form of three stones, which were fallen down from heaven to king Eteokles so it was suggested. It was said: The Charites were trifold, should they be a flower, the goddesses or maidens. Eteokles had three daughters, named Trittai, the Trifolds. While performing a dance for the Charites they fall into a fountain which they hadn't mentioned. But the earth had pity with them and let sprout a flower which was called Trittai too and which was trifold too. The myth of the three stones fallen from heaven shows the heavenly aspect of the Graces, the story from the disappesaring in the fountain the connection to the depth of water and the Underworld. This has been said by the mythographs too: the Charites were daughters of the Night and Erebos, or the daughters of Lethe, the River of Forgetting in the Underworld. Probably the daughters of Hekate and Hermes were the trifolds too.

Hesiod and Pindar in Boiotia sung about three of them. The three 'Queens' of Orchomenos were named Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia. Pindar celebrated the 'pure light of the Charites'. In Laconia they were named Kleta, the Called, and Phaenna, the Shining. These were typical names of the moon. The Atheneans too know two Charites: Auxo, the Growing, and Hegemone, the Advancing. They were called daughters of Uranos too.

Background:
The Graces, greek. Charites, meaning the 'lovely, friendly', were a trias of blessing issueing deities, originally probably without individual names and not determind in their function or number. This made easy the contact with female nature spirits of similar character  like Nymphs, Muses or Hores. The Attic cult titles Auxo (the growing), Thallo (the flourishing), Karpo (the fruit-bearing) show an early fusion with the Hores. The ambiguity in naming and numbering is affirmed by the replacement of Karpo by Hegemone in the oath of the ephebes on the stele of Acharnai. Their basic function was to donate vegetative fertility shown by their herbal attributs. A lunar relation should be denied, and as well a etymology of light. Rather the assignment of the Charites to the chthonic Charon alternatively of the Charis Hegemone to the Psychopompus Hermes Chthonios should be considered. Their ancient cult in Orchomenos, city of the Minyeans, which was connected to three aniconic meteorites (Pausan. 9, 38, 1) too has traces of agrarian-chthonic orientation. Its character of mysteries and the affinity of the Charites to the circle of Eleusis strengthens the suggestion that there is a relationship with the Eleusinian Potniai, particularly because Pindar gives them the epitheta basileiai, semnai, potniai, the Queens, the Venerables and the Mistresses..

Because obviously the Trias of Orchomenos was sanctioned not until the cult institution of Eteokles which was orientated to the baetyls priority should be addmitted perhaps to the dualism which is known from many other sources. Then the equalization with Damia and Auxesia, hypostases of Demeter-Kore, could get support. By the way here and in Elis somewhat points to a connection to Dionysos, whom the prayer of the Elisian women let approach in the shape of a bull together with the Charites. - The junction with powerful fertility deities has later relegate them to the second rank of elementary numina. So it was possible in Athens that Aphrodite together with her Charites epiklesis could adopt the leadership of the trias during the Kurotrophon-duty on the Attic ephebs. This is understandable because of the telluric side of the nature of the great goddess as we have seen so often. From Homer on the Charites - as companions of Aphrodite and together with their mistress - have made the transformation to the embodiment of grace and charm. This was initiated mainly by poetry and myths. The aesthetic and poetic valuation of charis coming from this transformation is expressed by the newer names of Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia. In this function the Homeric Charites fulfill the role of serving, decorating, music making and dancing companions of the Goddess of Love. Their genealogic incorporation into the series of Zeus daughters seems to be too schematic. To put the Homeric Charis at the side of the lame artist Hephaistos - where she later was replaced by Aphrodite, the first of the Charites - was a play with the contrast which was loved by the epos.
 
History of Art
In Fine Art the Charites appear as companions of the gods, who took part in the wedding ceremonies of Thetis and Peleus ('Francois-Vase', c. 570 BC; Florence, MA). On a late-archaic relief from Thasos (c. 480 BC; Louvre) they appear clothed in front of Hermes. Beginning in the 4th century BC the type of the three nude Charites, embracing each other, became very popular. The one in the midth is shown from back, the other two in varying profiles. According to Seneca their positions refer to the trifold aspect of a gift: donating, accepting, thanking. As most famous example of this type is considered a group of sulptures in the Museo dell'Opera Metropolitana of the cathedral of Siena (Roman copy of an Hellenistc original) and a fresko from the 1st century BC from Pompeji (Neapel, MN). The humanists of the Renaissance have taken up this motiv and have expanded it: They have added a trifold meaning of love - beauty, desire, fulfillment - or a trifold allegory - chastity, beauty, love. In Boticelli's 'Primavera' (1477/78; Uffizi, Florence) the three Graces - here clothed - are dancing as voluptuousness, chastity and beauty a round dance beside Venus. An obvious analogy to the three Graces could be seen in some depictions of the three goddesses at the Judgment of Paris. Because this motiv gave the artists the chance to depict three nude women at once it was so successful. There are four versions from Rubens and five from Boucher. 

I have added the following pics.:
1) A pic of the fresco from Pompeji
2) A cut-out from Botticelli's 'Primavera', showing the three dancing Graces

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Die Götter- und Menschheitsgeschichten
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2007, 07:17:04 pm
Hi jarhead!

I think there are better threads for your question on this Forum! F.e. this one https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?board=24.0

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2007, 07:19:06 pm
Diomedes

Phoenicia, Tyros, Valerian I, AD 253-260
AE 30, 17.29g
obv. IMP C LIC VALERIANVS AVG
       Bust, draped, radiate, r.
rev. COL TYRO MET
      Diomedes, nude except chlamys, stg. l., r. foot on rock, holding in r. hand the palladium
      and in l. hand sceptre; behind murex snail
SNG Copenhagen 391; BMC 467
rare, about VF

Mythology:
Diomedes was the son of king Tydeus of Aeolia and his wife Deipyle. Because his father was killed during the campaign of the Seven against Thebens, he fought together with the so-called Epigones against Thebens and succeeded in avenging his father by defeating Thebens. After that he was known as one of the suitors of Helena. But as we know he couldn't get her and married Aigialea, daughter of Adrastos, who was his aunt. He was the leader of the Argives and joined the Troyan War with the big armada of eighty ships. Soon he became famous for his bravery and was hold - together with Achilles and Ajas  - one of the greatest heroes. Almost he had slain Aineas if not Aphrodite had intervened in the last moment. During this struggle she herself was wounded at her hand by Diomedes and put to flight. Finally Apollo could save Aineas from the rage of Diomedes.

Together with Odysseus he was sent to the island of Lemnos to take back Philoktetes and the arrows of Herakles. Only with these arrows the Greek could resist the deadly arrows of Apollo who stood on the side of the Troyans as we know. At a night-time investigation trip together with Odysseus they could capture the Trojan spy Dolon. He told them details about the Thracian camp. Diodemed killed him and entered the camp of the sleeping Thracians. There he killed many warriors, among them their king Rhesos, and abducted his horses. It was suggested that the fate of Troy would depend on these horses. Athena had to invent to stop them, and they returned to the Greek camp.

From Hellenos, one of the sons of Priamos, Diomedes has come to know where the Palladion was located. The Palladion was a wooden statue (xoanon) of Athena - or her companion Pallas - wearing helmet, shield, spear and distaff. By prayers of Ilos, founder of Troy, it has been fallen from the sky and was regarded as guarantor of the invincibility of the city. To make a theft more difficult several identical copies were made. Together with Odysseus they surmounted the walls of Troy and stole the statue. When Odysseus tried to outsmart Diomedes - he claimed that Diomedes had catched the wrong statue - the statue made a move and so Odysseus' fraud was blocked. A dispute started, and Odysseus pulled his sword underhand. But by the shadow at the wall Diomedes was worned of Odysseus' deceitfulness. He could overcome Odysseus, bound his hands and drove him back to the Greek camp by beating him with the flat side of his sword. That was the end of their friendship.   

The courage of Diomedes was so great that he fought against Ares, the War God, himself, so that Athena was needed to save Ares. Hektor too he has almost slain. But he got a wound at his foot by an arrow of Paris. His dark sides were the rape of the executed queen of Amazones Penthesilea whose dead body he threw in the river Skamandros, and then together with Odysseus the infamous complot against Palamedes which was so tricky that the innocent Diomedes was stoned to death. Finally by help of the traitor Antenor Troy was conquered. Together with othere heroes he entered the wooden horse. As prize he got the Palladion which previously Odysseus had taken from Ajas. But after that Diomedes must leave Troy thievishly with his ships because Odysseus had incited the Greek to stone him.

Afer leaving Troy he had an unhappy fate like most of the Greek heroes. In a dark night he lost his way and landed at the Phalerian harbour of Athens. His men held it for an hostile land and began to sack it. It came to a fight with Demophoon and his Greeks, some men were killed and Demophoon could get the Palladion. So it came to Athens. Aphrodite too hadn't forgotten the dishonor Diomedes had done to her. She seduced his wife to begin a love affair with Kometes, son of Sthenelaos. Additionally Oeax, brother of Palamedes (we remember), convinced her, that Diomedes had brought a new wife from Troy. So when Diomedes returned home he was nearly killed if not Hera saved him at her altar where he had fled.   

Together with his followers he first fled to Corinthe, from there to Aetolia, where he succeeded in avanging his uncle Oinaios who was pressed hard by the sons of Agrios. After that he settled there. 

But there are other myths too which suggest that the story with Oinaios was before the Troyan War. Today it is suggested for sure that Diomedes is a pre-homeric heroe. He should have gone from Argos directly to Italy where he has given support to the pressed king Daunos against the Messapias. As prize Diomedes was allowed to chose between the whole booties and the conquered land for himself and his men. But as arbitrator Althainos, the step-brother of Diomedes, fallen in love with Eyippe, daughter of Daunos, awarded the land to Daunos. In anger Diomedes cursed the land. The gods answered his prayers and made the land infertile. Thereupon Daunos persued Diomedes, catched and killed him.
   
Another myth tells that Diomedes indeed got the land and Daunos' daughter too. He had created Diomedes and Amphinomos with her and has been died in old-age. In any case he should have been strong enough to fight on order of Venus together with Turnus and Latinus against Aineas when he had landed in Italy. He is said to have founded the Pythian Games and the city Argos Hippium, the later Arpi in Southern Italy. He is said to have first worshipped Hippolytos and built a temple for him.

After his death Diomedes too was worshipped as god. It is told, that when his men were sacrificing to ihim after his death, they were ambushed by  enemies and killed. But after that they were transformed by Zeus into birds which were tame at Greeks but never tolerated Romans or Barbarians. Diomedes had a great temple at the mouth of the river Timavus. The Venetians sacrificed a white horse to him. In Umbria he was worshipped as native god. Because he was a great and avid devotee of Athena it is said she herself has adopted him to the gods.

Note:
Our Diomedes, the Thydeides, is not the Diomedes, son of Ares, with the man-eating horses which then were defeated by Herakles!

Attached.
Vase-painting of Diomedes advancing r., holding Palladion, Diomedes painter (c.380 BC), Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Source:
Karl Kerenyi, Die Heroengeschichten
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2007, 07:23:05 pm
Juno Sospita

1st coin:
Roman Republic, L. Procilius, gens Procilia
Ar - denarius
        Rome, 80 BC
obv. Head of Juppiter r.
        behind S.C
rev. Statue of Juno Sospita, advancing r., holding shield and spear, snake before
       behind L.PROCILI / F
Crawford 379/1; Sydenham 771; Procilia 1
VF
Clearly you can see the beak-shoe-like bending of her shoes!

2nd coin:
Roman Republic, L. Roscius Fabatus, gens Roscia
AR - denarius serratus, 18.10mm, 3.8g
        Rome, 59 BC*
obv. bust of Juno Sospita wearing goat-skin cap, r., behind modius
        beneath L.ROSCI
        bankers mark in r. field
rev. Virgin in long clothes stg. r., feeding snake, which erects before her in several
       coils, behind cista
       in ex. FABATI
Crawford 412/1 (symbols 23); Sydenham 915; Roscia 3; Albert 1329
scarce, toned VF, appealing silver
Pedigree:
ex Harlan J. Berk
* Dated 64 B.C. by Crawford and hence also by Roman Silver Coins , Volume I. The revised date is based on the outstanding analysis of the Messagne Horad by Alan Walker and Charles Hersh, ANS Museum Notes No. 29, New York, 1984, pp. 103-134

Some notes on Iuno:
The name of Iuno has no connections to the name of Juppiter, because the initial sound is always i (and not 'di' as on Juppiter, 'diou-pater'), and particularly because the following u is not created by the diphthong ou. Then there is the name of the gens Iunia which never is written with a diphthong. Probably Paul Wissowa is right who puts Iuno to iuvenis, iuvenca and such words and interprets it as 'young woman', 'nubile wife'. That shows that Iuno originally had no close connection to Juppiter like Hera to Zeus. Today it is suggested that each woman from ancient time on has had her own Iuno like the men who have had their own genius. In literature it is found not until Tibull, but the fratres Arvales sacrificed to Iuno Deae Diae, the Juno of the goddesss Dia, at the Picularia.

Iuno Sospita:
To understand the meaning of the figure in historic times the Italic influence is essential, especially the Etruscan conception which goes back basically to the Greek Hera. The cult of Iuno was wide spread over Italy. Lanuvium was the city of Iuno Seispes Mater Regina; by the people this was etymological turned from Seispes - whose meaning is unclear until today - to Sospes or Sospita, meaning helper or savior.
Propertius reports as cult rite for the Iuno of Lanuvium in which a virgin had to feed a snake (perhaps a temple snake, then the cave which is mentioned is only a 'novellistic painting of our literally sources'). This was suggested as chastity proof and as omen for the fertility of the land in the next year, two very heterogenous elements (the chastity proof perhaps secondary?). In 338 BC the cult was adopted as official cult of the state but was left in Lanuvium. The Sacerdos Lanuvini, a priesthood formed by knights, were known from imperial times. The consules too were sacrificing to the goddess. In 194 BC she got a temple in Rome too by C. Cornelius Cethegus at the forum holitorium, without ceasing the cult in Lanuvium. This temple was renewed by Julius Caesar after Juno Sospita has appeared in a dream to Metella Caecilia with the message she wants to leave Rome if her temple was neglected furthermore. Denarii of Julius Caesar are known where the reverse shows Sospita driving a biga.

The sanctuary of Sospita in Lanuvium has been highly praised in the war against the Insubrians (Livius). Her offiial holiday was February 1st. The depictions show the goddess armed with spear  and a violin-shaped shield looking like the shield of the Salii priests, wearing (Etruscan) beak-shoes which were bended upwards at the toe-cap and a goat-skin which was helmeted-like pulled over her head. The scholar Latte suggests the snake and the cult statue to be signs of an etruscificated type of the Athena Polias. It was not allowed to sacrifice goats to Juno. Ovid assumes because they were hated by Juno. But it could be that Juno had a special relation to goats because as pasture goddess Juno Caprotina she was responsible for goats too. But basically I couldn't find any convincing theory.

Notes:
Shield of the Salii: Holy shield which is said to be fallen from the sky in the time of Numa Pompilius. The nymph Egeria betrayed the secret of the shield, the ancile, to Numa: It was the pledge of the Roman dominance. Hereupon Numa Pompilius charged the best artists to make eleven copies of the shield, so that it was impossible to find out the original. The priesthood of the Salii, priests of Mars, was authorized to keep the twelve shields. Now the violin-shaped shield of Sospita doesn't seem to be identical with the ancile of the Salii. As we can see on coins of Augustus (RIC 136, 137) and of Antoninus Pius (RIC 736) the ancilia were made from two round shields with a small oval shield laying above them connected alltogether with numerous bolts. Because of that a connection between Sospita and the Salii could be denied.

Athena Polias: The life-size statue of Athena Polias made from olive-tree wood stood in the Erychtheion on the Akropolis in Athens. This originally was the temple of Athena Polias, the city-goddess of Athens. It was said that this statue was fallen from the sky. Her cult was the oldest and the most important in Athens.
 
I have attached a pic from the temple of Juno Sospita at the Foro Olitorio in Rome, which today is the church of San Nicola, and a pic of the statue of Juno Sospita from the Musei Vaticani, probably a marble cult statue from the 2nd century AD.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 14, 2007, 12:11:55 pm
Hi!

If my records are correct this is a little jubilee. It's my hundredth contribution to this thread! I hope you enjoy it! Some themes I have still in petto.

Best regards
 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: whitetd49 on January 14, 2007, 01:43:27 pm
Hi!

If my records are correct this is a little jubilee. It's my hundredth contribution to this thread! I hope you enjoy it! Some themes I have still in petto.

Best regards
 

Jochen, that is indeed a significant accomplishment and contribution to the Boards, Congrats.  Further discussion of Juno Sospita on Roman coins at:
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=12309.0
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on January 15, 2007, 07:53:06 am
Hi!

If my records are correct this is a little jubilee. It's my hundredth contribution to this thread! I hope you enjoy it! Some themes I have still in petto.

Best regards
 

Jochen,

Bravo!  I really enjoy this thread and your contributions--I have learned so much!

Regards, Jim (Cleisthenes)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 20, 2007, 04:38:05 pm
Skylla

The coin:
Bithynia, Nicomedia, Plautilla, wife of Caracallus, died AD 212
AE 21
obv. [NIB] FOV PLAV - TILLA CEB
        bust draped, r.
rev. NEIKOMHDEW - N / DIC NEWKO / RWN
       Skylla riding over waves, l., holding rudder(?) over shoulder and dolphin in
       outstretched r. hand
Rec.Gen. 253
very rare, F/F+, green patina

Homer:
Most of us know Skylla from Homer's Odyssee.  Kirke has warned Odysseus that if he sailed too close to Skylla she would attack and eat his crew. If he sailed too close to Kharybdis he would surely be caught when she sucked down the sea in her regular routine. Odysseus could sail by Skylla and take his losses or he could linger and fight Skylla, thus loosing the entire crew to Kharybdis. It was a cruel choice for Odysseus but it got worse.
Odysseus wanted to fight Skylla and then try to flee before Kharybdis rose to action. Kirke scolded him and said he must yield to the Immortals. Odysseus did yield. He did not warn his crew of the danger because Kirke said it would do no good. Skylla was bloodthirsty and she would have her way.
When Odysseus and his brave crew came to the Rovers, Odysseus put on his finest armor and stood with two spears scanning the rockface for any sign of Skylla. Regardless, he was still taken by surprise. They gave Kharybdis a wide berth and sailed near Skylla’s rock. While Kharybdis kept their attention with her gushing and sputtering, Skylla swooped down unseen and snatched up six of the crew. Their legs and torsos were dangling from Skylla’s mouths as she lifted them to her cave to eat them. They screamed for Odysseus and begged for help but he stood helpless on the deck with the rest of the terrified crew. Odysseus said it was the most pitiful scene his long suffering eyes had ever seen.

Mythology:
Skylla (lat. Scylla) and Kharybdis (lat. Charybdis) are the names of two rocks between Italy and Sicily, and only a short distance from one another. In the midst of the one of these rocks which was nearest to Italy, there dwelt, according to Homer, Skylla, a daughter of Krataiis (lat. Crataeis), a fearful monster, barking like a dog, with twelve feet, six long necks and mouths, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. The opposite rock, which was much lower, contained an immense fig-tree, under which there dwelt Kharybdis, who thrice every day swallowed down the waters of the sea, and thrice threw them up again: both were formidable to the ships which had to pass between them. Later traditions represent Skylla as a daughter of Phorcys or Phorbas, by Hekate Krataiis or by Lamia; while others make her a daughter of Triton, or Poseidon and Krataiis, or of Typhon and Echidna.

Skylla and Glaukos:
Skylla, the myth tells, had originally been a beautiful maiden sought by many suitors, but she scorned them all and lived with the Nereids, the sea-nymphs, who loved her.
Also Glaukos fell in love with her. He is said to have been a mortal fisherman who, after chewing a plant, became a sea deity, but he is also called son of Nereus and Doris, being then the brother of the Nereids. It is said that he changed his shape near Anthedon in the island of Euboea, acquiring a new appearance with amazing colours. And so he got a beard of dark green hue, and hair covering both shoulders and back, and his groins merged into a twisted fish form. Not wishing any more to remain on earth, he plunged into the sea, and being received by the divinities of the sea, he was purged of his mortal nature by Okeanos and Tethys, who did this wonder with the help of magic songs, and by bathing his body repeatedly in many streams.

But when Glaukos declared his love to Skylla, she, not being able to decide whether he was a monster or a god, fled from him, and he, wounded by her refusal, sought Kirke, hoping that this witch, with the help of her magic herbs, would make Skylla to love him. But Kirke fell herself in love with her visitor, and while advising him to scorn her who scorns, prayed instead to be herself united with Glaukos. But Glaukos had no intentions of renouncing his love for Skylla. So he told the witch:
Sooner shall foliage grow on the sea, and sooner shall sea weeds spring up on the mountain tops, than shall my love change while Scylla lives. Ovid, Metamorphoses 14. 38
And since a woman would seldom listen to love poems addressed to another woman, Kirke, on hearing these words, was herself enraged. But she would not harm Glaukos, whom she loved, and instead turned her wrath upon the girl whom he loved. And so Kirke, leaving her palace, went to Rhegion in the 'toe' of Italy, and poisoned with drugs the water in which Skylla used to bathe, and when she went down into it she was transformed into a monster who was woman above, but fish from the hips down, with six dogs joined to her body.
Since that time Skylla, from her cliff, became a pest to all sailors, and those who escaped Kharybdis, who was on the cliff on the other side of the strait, became her victims, as occurred to several of Odysseus' companions, whom she devoured. But some have said that at the time when Aeneas came with his fleet after the sack of Troy, Skylla had already been changed into the dangerous rock, which still stands to this day.

Another tradition related that Skylla was beloved by Poseidon himself, and that Amphitrite, from jealousy, metamorphosed her into a mon­ster. Herakles is said to have killed her, because she had stolen some of the oxen of Geryon, but Phorcys is said to have restored her to life. Virgil speaks of several Scyllae, and places them in the lower world.

Then there is the myth of another Skylla, daughter of King Nisos of Megara, who, in consequence of her love of Minos, cut off the golden hair from her father's head, and thereby caused his death. She has sometimes been confounded with the monster Skylla.

Background:
The myths around Skylla are typical fairy tales told by sailors all around the world. In hellenistic times they were decorated phantastically. These are f.e. the myth of the love of Glaukos or the theft of Geryon's oxen. Platon, Eratosthenes, Cicero and Ovid declared these tales for pure phantasy whereas others located them in the Strait of Messina. Near was situated the Cape and the City of Scyllaeum. Even modern topographists are seeking Scylla and Charybdis in these region, but in the Bosporos too. The originally mere animal shape on Homer later was changed in literature and arts into a variable mixed figure (biformis, triplex and multiplex).

Like other mythical creatures Skylla was already in ancient times interpreted realistical (as giant-octopus), rationalistical and allegorical-ethical. The latter was the case in the Middle Ages too: Frescoe in Corvey, 9th century AD  Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdim (= He who want to avoid Charybdis is catched by Scylla) first in the Alexandreis of Walter de Chatillon, 12.Jh.

I have added a pic from the Paestan Red Figure Calyx krater, signed by Asteas, from c. 340 BC, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California, USA
It shows a detail of the monster Skylla, from a scene depicting Zeus, in the shape of a bull, carrying Europa across the seas. The sea-goddess is depicted as a beautiful mermaid-like nymphe with serpentine fish tail in place of legs, a cluster of dog-fores circling her waist, and a trident in her hand.

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphosen
William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Bography and Mythology (online)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scylla
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on January 22, 2007, 07:24:46 am
Skylla

Homer:
Most of us know Skylla from Homer's Odyssee. 

Mythology:
Skylla (lat. Scylla) and Kharybdis (lat. Charybdis) are the names of two rocks between Italy and Sicily, and only a short distance from one another. In the midst of the one of these rocks which was nearest to Italy, there dwelt, according to Homer, Skylla, a daughter of Krataiis (lat. Crataeis), a fearful monster, barking like a dog, with twelve feet, six long necks and mouths, each of which contained three rows of sharp teeth. The opposite rock, which was much lower, contained an immense fig-tree, under which there dwelt Kharybdis, who thrice every day swallowed down the waters of the sea, and thrice threw them up again: both were formidable to the ships which had to pass between them.

Jochen,

Once more, thank you for such an interesting and informative post.  I only have a couple of things to offer.  The first is an allusion made to this dangerous duo by the contemporary singer/song writer Sting (when he was performing with the band "Police"):

           You consider me the young apprentice
           Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis . . .
                                        (from "Wrapped Around Your Finger")

Your post helps the modern bard's lyrics assume a more appropriate amount of awe.

The second "thing" I have to offer is the photo of one of my coins, the reverse of which depicts the world's most famous poet:

Ionia, Smyrna. Circa 125-115 B.C. AE 23mm/ Homereum (7.95 gm). Eymelos and Ippyroy, Magistrate. Obv: Laureate head of Apollo right Rev: ÓÌÕÑÍÁÉÙÍ – EYMHËÏÓ I/ ÉÐÐYÑOY, the poet Homer seated left, holding staff and scroll. Milne 221.

Strabo mentions this issue of bronze coinage from Smyrna specifically when, discussing the city, he says ". . . there is also a library; and the 'Homereum', a quadrangular portico containing a shrine and wooden statue of Homer; for the Smyrnaeans also lay especial claim to the poet and indeed a bronze coin of theirs is called a Homereum" (Strabo, Geographica XIV, I.37, transl. by H.C. Jones, The Geography of Strabo, VI [Loeb, 1960], pp. 245-247).
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 02, 2007, 08:05:21 pm
Apollo with double-axe

The coin:
Phrygia, Eumeneia (Fulvia), Nero, AD 54-69
AE 20, 4.60g
struck under Nero as Caesar AD 50-54
obv. SEBASTOS - NERWN
       Bust, draped, bare-headed, r.
rev. (from r. to l., each from top to bottom)
      EVMENEWN / IOVLIOS / KL - EWN / ARXIEREVS ASIAS
      Apollo, nude, chlamys over l. arm, stg. l., holding raven in outstretched r. hand and
      double-axe in l. arm
RPC 3149 (28 ex. listed); SNG Copenhagen 394; SNG von Aulck 3591; SNG München 207; BMC 41
rare, VF, nice for the type
Eumeneia was named Fulvia BC 41/40 to honour the eastern activities of Marcus Antonius whose wife was Fulvia.

Julius Kleon, mentioned on the rev., had the title ARXIEREVC THC ACIAC, meaning 'Highpriest of Asia'. His wife, Bassa Kleonos, was Highpriest, Archiera, too. She too was mentioned on coins, struck for Agrippina jun., mother of Nero. This feature is known only for Archierontes: Both spouses were Archierontes und for both were struck coins. The function of the Archiereus was closely related to the Imperial Cult. Each district had an Archiereus who had to supervise the Imperial Cult who first was established by the sucessors of Alexander the Great, the Diadochs, and then adopted by Augustus. He had to open up the festivals and to entertain the imperial temple with his money. He had the chairmanship in the koinon. Probably his role was only religious, not political. Disputed is wether his function was identical with the role of the Asiarch.

Meaning of the double-axe:
Double-axe (lat. bipennis) is greek Labrys. This word probably is of pre-greek origin possibly from an Aegean language. It is an axe with two blades which are arranged symmetrially on both sides of the shank. The Labrys was used for handcraft purposes and as weapon, on Homer only used by the enemies of the Achaeans especially by the Amazons. Originally coming from the Middle East then in Asia Minor, particulary in Caria, until latest times attribute of numerous local deities the Labrys became in the 2nd millenium BC one of the most important religious symbols in the Minoic Crete. Here only goddesses were depicted with a Labrys. This is seen as proof for an old matriarchy or as hint to the male mate of the Great Goddess and as insignia of the priestking. Double-axes were erected as cult symbols and consecrating gifts, sometimes made of precious material, and as devine protection carved in the bearing stones of the base of the Cretean palaces. In Asia Minor besides Demeter and Kybele many male deities were wearing a Labrys too, f.e. Zeus as Labraundos, Men or Apollo Tyrimnaios. Sometimes this is suggested as symbol of the weather and storm god but without adequate matter.

On the Greek mainland the Labrys passed over completely to male figures. Since geometric times the Labrys appears as sign of holiness, f.e. on Herakles, Theseus, Hephaistos and others. In Italy the Labrys doesn't play a big role except in eastern cults. The axe in the
fasces has no connection to it. The Kleine Pauly says that the actual character and the cultic use of the Labrys needs a clarification again. Sadly here too the esotericism has adopted this tool. In the net you find strange explanations, especially by the so-called feminists.

The Labyrinth of Knossos
If you talk about the double-axe you had to talk about the labyrinth too.The most famous labyrinth naturally is the Labyrinth of Knossos. Referring to the myth it was built by Daidalos for the Cretean king Minos to hide the Minotauros. This was a monster with the shape of a man with the head of a bull. It was born by Pasiphae who had fallen in love to a beautiful white bull. The Atheneans had to sacrifice ten virgins each year to Minotauros until Theseus came to Knossos, killed the Minotauros and released the Atheneans from this awful bloody toll. He suceeded in getting out of the labyrinth by the famous ball of twine which he was given by the princess Ariadne so he could mark his way out. But there is another myth too where Minos had put Daidolos himself into the labyrinth and that he and his son Ikaros could flee from it by using wings. Diodor suggests that Daidolos has had Egyptean models for the building. Depictions of the labyrinth are found frequently on Cretean coins. On Roman mosaics often the struggle between Theseus and Minotauros is depicted.

The opinion that labyrinth originally means a subterranean prison or a mine is still represented by Kerenyi. This interpretation is strengthened by the fact that the stone pits of Gortyn on Crete with its channels which lead deep in the mountain were called labyrinth (however by later writers) and that the double-axe was used as tool. 

But the common opinion is that the meaning of labyrinth is 'House of the Double-axe'. So it was seen by Evans who has digged out Knossos. He found numerous depictions of double-axes engraved in the walls. But what he has found were actually the palaces of the kings of Knossos with numerous rooms, corridors, staircases and pantries which with its unclearness resembles a labyrinth. But please don't confuse a labyrinth with a maze. This has many furcations, the labyrinth only one but complicated way!

The term labyrinth in fact is tied up to the Cretean building but describes an immemorial human idea too, an archetype in the sense of C.G.Jung or Kerenyi. It is not characteristic that the way-out is impossible but that it however exists. Underworld, death and life, eternity are represented in the labyrinth of the myth, the dance and fine arts. So it is understandable that labyrinths could be found in all human cultures all over the world.

The labyrinth in Christianism
Long forgotten the labyrinth was rediscovered in the Gothic. In great number it appears in gothic cathedrals. Famous are the labyrinths of Chartres, Amiens, Reims but Siena too and other cities. I'm regulary in Amiens at the Comic Festival. Sitting at the Quai Belu in the Quartier St.Leu at the Somme Channel and seeing how on the other side this middle age marvel arises over the small houses of the Old Town one becomes catched by a feeling of awe and a religious shudder. It is overwhelming. Therefore I have choosed this labyrinth as an example. It was first built AD 1288 and after its destruction renewed 1827-1897.

When the Christianism arose naturally the greek mythology was present and the Christians have always incorporated the myths of other people as the prearrangement of the Salvation Story. And so the myth of Theseus and the labyrinth was interpreted as the symbolic story of the saving of mankind. And Theseus became Christ who save us from the intricate labyrinth of our life and lead us by the twine of love to new life. The way of the labyrinth was seen as image of the path of life. To walk the lines promised redemption and replaced for the poor as way of expiation the pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Source:
The Kleine Pauly

I have added
a) the picture of a double-axe
b) the picture of a Cretean woman with two double-axes
c) the picture of the labyrinth in the cathedrale of Amiens

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on February 07, 2007, 09:56:33 am
Apollo with double-axe

Meaning of the double-axe:
Double-axe (lat. bipennis) is greek Labrys. This word probably is of pre-greek origin possibly from an Aegean language. It is an axe with two blades which are arranged symmetrially on both sides of the shank. The Labrys was used for handcraft purposes and as weapon, on Homer only used by the enemies of the Achaeans especially by the Amazons. Originally coming from the Middle East then in Asia Minor, particulary in Caria, until latest times attribute of numerous local deities the Labrys became in the 2nd millenium BC one of the most important religious symbols in the Minoic Crete. Here only goddesses were depicted with a Labrys. This is seen as proof for an old matriarchy or as hint to the male mate of the Great Goddess and as insignia of the priestking. Double-axes were erected as cult symbols and consecrating gifts, sometimes made of precious material, and as devine protection carved in the bearing stones of the base of the Cretean palaces. In Asia Minor besides Demeter and Kybele many male deities were wearing a Labrys too, f.e. Zeus as Labraundos, Men or Apollo Tyrimnaios. Sometimes this is suggested as symbol of the weather and storm god but without adequate matter.

On the Greek mainland the Labrys passed over completely to male figures. Since geometric times the Labrys appears as sign of holiness, f.e. on Herakles, Theseus, Hephaistos and others. In Italy the Labrys doesn't play a big role except in eastern cults. The axe in the
fasces has no connection to it. The Kleine Pauly says that the actual character and the cultic use of the Labrys needs a clarification again. Sadly here too the esotericism has adopted this tool. In the net you find strange explanations, especially by the so-called feminists.



Best regards


Jochen,

Congratulations on another very interesting post.  Ever since I read this a few days ago, it seems like I am seeing double-headed axes all the time.  Here is an example found on a coin currently being offered by Joe, here at FORVM.  The coin is doubly (sorry for the pun) interesting because the Janiform obverse device incorporates both female and male portraits.

19456. Silver drachm, BMC Troas p. 93, 14 (same dies), gVF, Tenedos mint, 3.376g, 15.9mm, 180o, c. 450 - 387 B.C.; obverse male and female janiform head (Zeus and Hera?); reverse TENE-D-I-ON, large double-axe, kantharos right, grapes left, all in incuse square; toned; rare.

Cheers, Jim

p.s.  I have copied only a short excerpt from Jochen's original post.  If you missed it, it is worth a read.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 10, 2007, 04:13:50 pm
The Amazons

Galatia, Ancyra, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 28, 13.15g
obv. [AVT KAI] ADRI ANTW - NEINOC CEB PIW
      bare head, r.
rev. H METROPOLIC THC - GALATIAC ANKVRA
     Amazon in short chiton, wearing boots, advancing r. with waving chlamys, holding shield
     and double-axe in l. hand and rudder in r. hand
BMC 7
about VF, spotted patina
(This coin was presented some time before by Cleisthenes!)

The shield of the Amazon is a so-called pelte, a light leaf-shaped shield (with indentation) made from basketry or wood, covered with leather and used by Thracian lightly armed.

The origin of the Amazons
The Amazons were a community of warlike women, called by the Scyths 'men-killing', who drew the bow, threw the spear, went hunting, but didn't like housework. They were children of Ares and the nymph Harmonia (or Aphrodite) born in the valleys of the Acmonean Phrygia. First they lived at the Amazon river, which now is called Tanais (todays Don) according to Tanais, son of Amazon Lysippe. He offended Aphrodite because he spurned marriage and addicted himself to war. To satisfy her thirst for revenge she managed that Tanais fell in love with her mother. To avoid the incestuous desire he jumped into the river and was drowned. Thereupon Lysippe led her daughters along the coasts of the Black Sea to a plain of the river Thermodon. There they bore three tribes each of them founding a city. From these times on the Amazons counted their parentage by their mothers. Before Lysippe died in war she founded the big city of Themiskyra and defeated all tribes up to the river Tanais. From the booties they built great temples for Ares and Artemis Tauropolis. They conquered major parts of Asia Minor and Syria and founded the cities Ephesos, Smyrna, Kyrene and Myrine. After being defeated by the Greeks at the river Thermodon in Asia Minor they retreated into the land of the Skyths and merged with young natives who could gain their confidence and joined them so generating the people of the Sauromates (Herodot, Hist. IV, 110-117). The Greeks often met the Amazons. Here are the most famous myths:
 
Herakles and Hippolyte:
This was the ninth labour of Herakles. Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, whom Herakles was damned to serve, wished to get the girdle of Hippolyte, queen of Amazons. So Herakles was sent to Pontos at the Black Sea, where the Amazons lived near the river Thermodon. The bravest among them was her queen Hippolyte. As insignia she had gotten the girdle from her father Ares. Herakles and his companions landed at Themiskyra near the mouth of the Thermodon. It is said that Theseus and Telamon were with Herakles too. The Amazons weren't averse to the heroes and Hippolyte was inclined to donate the girdle to Herakles. But then Hera appears in the shape of an Amazon and aroused the suspicion against Herakles and his companions that their intention was to rape Hippolyte. So a slaughter occured between the Greek heroes and the Amazons. Herakles killed the queen and took the girdle. This is depicted on the relief of the metopes in Olympia. The girdle was kept in the temple of Hera in Mykenai.
It is told  too that it was Theseus who captured the girdle and donated it to Herakles, or that Herakles has taken Hippolyte to Greece where she has born his son Hippolytos.

Theseus and Antiope:
It is told too, that Herakles succeeded in conquering Themiskyra not until the Amazon Antiope fell in love with Theseus and betrayed her sisters. But it is told too that Theseus together with his friend Perithoos moved out to rape Antiope, an analogy to the rape of Helena. In Athens she is said to have given birth to Hippolytos, or Demophon. Here the myths of Herakles and Theseus were mixed up.To free their queen or to revenge the dishonor Theseus has done to her by marrying a second wife, the army of the Amazons appears at Athens. It came from the North making long detours from the coasts of the Black Sea because the Amazons were no seafaring nation but a people on horses. The left wing of the army leaned against the Areopag (the name refers to Ares because the Amazons here 
sacrificed to Ares) at the place where later the Amazoneion was built, the sanctuary of the heroes to honor the Amazons. The right wing stood at the Pynx. From there they advanced against the Akropolis. But an Athenian army attacked them from behind coming from the Hill of the Muses. So in the 4th month of siege they have been forced to close a peace agreement. This was the first time that the Athenias had to fight against foreign invaders on their own homeland. The wounded Amazons were sent to Chalkis to heal them. This all was real history for the Athenians. They showed to visitors strange tombs and attributed them to the Amazons: In Athens the tomb of Antiope, in Megara the tomb of Hippolyte. This was strengthened by the halfmoon shaped shields of the Amazons which could be recognized. Great wall paintings show the battle. One was found in the Stoa poikile, the 'Painted Colonnade[/i].
It is told too, that Herakles came to help his friend Theseus, and that Penthesilea already took part in this war. Accidentally she should haved killed her queen Hippolyte. 

Achilleus und Penthesilea:
After the death of Hektor Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, came with her army to Troy to attend the ceremonies of his funeral. It was said that accidentally she has killed Hippolyte, mother of Hippolytos. King Priamos of Troy should sanctify the murder. By the way Priamos is said to have fight against the Amazons already in his youth. This battle occured at the river Sangarios (Homer Ilias III, 189). It is said that the Amazons had to distinguish themselfs by fighting against men bevor they were allowed to choose a lover. So the virgin Penthesilea appears at Troy. Eleven days Achilleus has given for the ceremonies. On the twelfth day the beautiful Penthesilea attacked the Greeks. But how beautiful and lovely she was, and how well she could have replaced the daughter of Briseus (we remember?) Achilleus recognized not before he hit her deadly with his spear. In the moment he looked in her dying eyes he fell in immortal love with her. It is even said that he has raped her dead body. Thersites, the ugliest Greek at Troy, mocked Achilleus due to his unnatural lust, until Achilleus slew him. This deed outraged the Greek and Diomedes threw Penthesilea's body into the river Skamandros. But it is said that she was saved and Achilleus has given her body to the Troyans to bury her.
 
Background:
The Amazons are a fabulous nation of war-like women. In Homer's Ilias only indistinct reminscences are found: Bellerphontes defeated them in Lykia; Priamos has fighted them in Phrygia; a hill in the Troyan plain is regarded as tomb of the Amazon Myrine; the Amazons altogether are called antianeirai, later interpreted as 'anti-male' or 'equal to men'. Directly after the end of the Ilias the Aithiopsis is attached: The Amazon Penthesilea comes to help Priamos against the Greeks, is killed by Achilleus and bemoaned by him. The main features of the later Amazon myth are the following: Coming from the East they founded a women state in the North-East of Asia Minor, between Sinope and Trapezus, with the capital Themiskyra. They worshipped Ares (as their ancestor) and Artemis (Tauropolis). For reproduction they lived together with a neighbour people for two month in the springtime. The boys then were killed (or made disabled for war by breaking their legs or sent back to their fathers). The girls stayed virgins until they have killed three enemies. Their arms are arrows and bow and a sword hanging on a band running across their chest; mostly they are mounted. Men don't count for their family tree.. Main sources: Diodor and Strabon. Herodot connects the Amazons with the Skyths and says the Sauromates (Sarmates) descend from the Amazons. Obviously they were located more to the East when no Amazons were found at the river Thermodon. Pompeius says he has fighted Amazons north of the Kaukasos! Already early Amazons too were known in Libya which undertook many conquering
campaigns. Many Aiolian and Ionian cities claimed to be founded by Amazons of Asia Minor, so Smyrna and Ephesos.

Interpretation: The etymological deduction from Greek mazos with alpha privativum (meaning: without breast) is obviously wrong! In fine arts they are always depicted with two breasts. Obsolete too is the interpretation as an army of warlike priestesses of Artemis. Today the general opinion is that the myths are an echo of historical battles against matriarchalic tribes of Asia Minor (not Hettites!) mixed with magical and fabulous motives (f.e. women rape), tied up to tombs which were worshipped at several places in Greece. In Athens the Amazoneion was situated at the declivity of the Areopag, nearby the tombs with the Amazonis stele alluded to Antiope and Hippolyte.
 
Note:
When the Spanish conquistadores conquered South-America they met Indian tribes where the women fighted together with the men. So they were thinking they have found the enigmatic people of the Amazons and called the greatest river on earth acording to them Amazonas. 

History of art:
In ancient art the Amazons were depicted usually mounted. Their arms are very different from the arms of the hoplits: Bow, double-axe and light half-moon shaped shields emphasize the strangeness.There are many pictures of Amazons, mostly in the Attic vase-painting, where the episode with Herakles and Theseus occurs too; then in the sculpture of buildings as vast sequence of battle scenes on metopes and friezes, f.e. the Temple of Zeus in Olympia (c. 470-460 BC), the Parthenon (447-438 BC) and the Temple of Apollo in Bassae-Rhigalia (about 420 BC; London). According to the Athenians the battle against the Amazons which have invaded Attica was a mythic prefiguration of the struggle of the Athenians against the Barbars. The Roman sarcophages were dominated by the events at Troy. Achilleus raising the dead Penthesilea or, not so often, the arrival of the Amazons after the death of Hektor. In many Roman copies (f.e. in Berlin, PM; in  Copenhagen, CG; in New York, MM; in the Louvre and in Rome, MC) have passed down the statues of the wounded Amazons which according to a report of Pliny the Elder were created by the famous sculptors Phidias, Polyklet, Kresilas, Kydon and Phradmon during a contest for the Temple of the Ephesian Artemis (the award went to Polyklet). The Amazons were a theme too in the Renaissance (Carpaccio). Rubens has painted a great battle painting in the Baroque and at last the German expressionist Beckmann (1911; Beverly Hills, R. Gore Rifkind Coll.)

I have added two pics:
1) Attic black-figured neck-amphora, now in the British Museum, London
   The pic shows the famous fight between Achilleus and Penthesilea at Troy.
2) Marble statue of a Amazon (so-called typeI9, now i the Museo Vaticano, Rome
   C. 440/430 BC. This is one of the statues created during a contest for the Temple of the
   Ephesian Artemis in Ephesos. The original probably was made of bronze.

More pics you find under http://www.net4you.com/poellauerg/Amazons/Gallery/gal_fra.html

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Heroengeschichten
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 10, 2007, 04:16:10 pm
Cheiron, the wise kentaur

Kingdom of Bithynia, Prusias I., 183-149 BC
AE 20, 6.38g
obv. (anepigraphic)
       Head of Dionysos, with ivy-wreath, r.
rev. Kentaur Cheiron, stg. r., holding Lyra with both hands, waving chlamys behind him
      Monogram in lower r. field
SNG Copenhagen 639; BMC 9; SG 7266

Mythology
Cheiron, or Chiron, was the son of Kronos  and Philyra. When Kronos approached Philyra he was taken by surprise by his wife Rhea. In fear of her he turned into an horse. When Philyra after the birth of Cheiron saw his shape as horse he she was so ashamed that she was transformed into a lime tree. It is told too that Cheiron like all other Kentaurs has Ixion as father.
So Cheiron was a kentaur, a creature mixed of horse and man. But he is said to have been such a good physician, musician and astronomer, that he was the educator of Achilleus, Asklepios, Jason and Achilleus. He was the teacher in sience of many princes of his time too:  Nestor, Amphiareus, Peleus, Meleager, Theseus, Hippolytos, Palamedes, Menestheus, Odysseus, Diomedes and Kastor and Polyneikes, to name only few. Aineas is said to be one of his students too. He was the first great teacher of mankind, who teached them justice, holding the oath sacred and bringing the gods thanks offerings. He has teached the humans to interpret the constellations on the sky and is said to have made a calendar for the Argonauts. But he teached his students the art of warfare and hunting too. He teached Dionysos the art of eating and to sacrifice. His best friend was Peleus and he made available that he could marry Thetis. The date of the marriage he calculated astrologically and succeeded in that it was raining at this day and so the gods could descend from the heaven to participate in the festivities.

Despite all of his good attributes he died a very painful death. Once when Herakles was visiting him, an arrow from his quiver fell down and hurt Cheiron's foot. Because this arrow was dipped into the poison of the Lernaeic Snake it caused the most terrific pain to him and couldn't be hailed. As son of Kronos he was immortal so that there was no end of his torture. There he prayed Zeus imploringly that he should let him die until Zeus answered his prayers. It is told that Prometheus was forged to the Kaukasus because of his sacrileges and that he could be unbanned only if an immortal took the death for him.So Cheiron went into the Hades and Prometheus has been freed and became immortal by the death of Cheiron.

His wife was Chariklo, a nymph, who bore him the daughter Okyroe. She too was turned before his appalled eyes into a horse. It is said too that his daughter was Endeis who later became the wife of Aiakos and by him mother of Peleus.

He is said to have lived in a big cave at the mount Pelion in Thessalia. Here he received sick persons to heal them.

Because of his piety, justice and his other virtues and because he had to die such an awful death without any own debt, Zeus finally put him as constellation to the sky. The Magnetes in Thessalia worshipped him as god and sacrificed to him the firstling of the fruits.

In a note from Hederich I found this: It seems to be paradox that the most famous physician of his time must die from a uncurable wound. But always when the science has come to the highest level began a time of descent and the science slowly dies off. This was Cheiron's fate.

Background:
Chiron, literally mostly Cheiron (hypokoristikon* of Cheirisophos) was originally a healer god with chthonic features, who lived at the mount Pelion. The Thessalic Magnetes brought offers to him as physician; even human sacrifices are attested. A dynasty of physicians in this region ascribed themself to Cheiron. He was seen as son of Kronos who attended the nymph Philyra in the shape of a horse. He belongs to the kentaurs, but he differs from them not only by his origin, but particularly by his justice, clemency and piety. He is immortal and is called a god by Aischylos. He is educator and teacher of many famous heroes and teaches them medicine, hunting and playing the kithara. The Attic poets of the comedy used him against the so-called modern music. Against the tradition that Cheiron after the separation of Thetis from Peleus became educator of Achilleus Homer introduced Phoinix as educator and left to him only the medical care.

*hypokoristikon = term of endearment, pet name

History of art:
In the ancient art of Greece, first of all in the Attic vase painting, Cheiron has until Classic times an entire human body with an attached back part of a horse (amphora of Oltos, about 510 BC; Louvre). Often he is clothed as a human; such he received Peleus who brings the little Achilleus on his arms to him (white-ground oinochoe from Vulci, about 510 BC; London, BM). On two wall-paintings from Pompej and Herculaneum Cheiron teaches Achilleus to play kithara, now in the shape of a horse with the upperpart of a human body (both about AD 70; Naples, MN). As educator particularly of Achilleus Cheiron appears in the paintings of the Renaissance. The corresponding wall-paintings of Rosso Fiorentino in Fontainebleau (1535-1540) however indicate mainly the preferences of king Franz I: fencing, swimming, hunting and tournaments. The Achilleus cycle of Rubens (about 1631; Prado) shows the young Achilleus riding on Cheiron, on a painting of G.M.Crespi (about 1700; Vienna, KM) he is teached archery. The dying Cheiron was depicted by Filippino Lippi (about 1500; Oxford, Christ Church College).

I have attached the pic of the amphora of Oltos.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards

Additionally I want to show a pic provided by Pat Lawrence. She writes: In the Basilica of Herculaneum there is a group of unusually careful Late Republican or Early Imperial copies of Classical paintings. Each of them seems to refer to its own Hellenistic city or kingdom.
* The Cheiron instructing Achilles (a) has Macedonian architecture in the background, (b) may flatter Alexander who was tutored by Aristotle by comparing him with Achilles who was tutored by Cheiron. (c) And also it may be a copy as good as could be done freehand in fresco at Herculaneum of the painting by the most famous name in Greek painting, Apelles, who did work for Alexander.
In addition, and this is what delights me most, the great painter in a great period has contrived to show a centaur SEATED, as if having two upper torsos weren't a great impediment to doing so! In fact, equine hindquarters in seated position, in marble, have been found, too (in Greece, not Italy), as if the wonderful tour de force inspired imitation.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 17, 2007, 02:28:05 pm
The Kentaurs

Because we have talked about Cheiron I think this is the appropriate place to present the tribe of Kentaurs as a whole.

The coin:
Gallienus, AD 253-268, sole reign AD 260-268
Rome, after AD 260
obv. GALLIENVS AVG
       Head, radiate, r.
rev. APO - LL - INI CONS AVG
      Kentaur, advancing l., r. fore-foot raised, holding globe in extended r. hand and rudder
      over l. shoulder; above back of horse wave-lines
      in ex. H
Göbll 378b; RIC V/2, 164; C.73
VF, nice portrait, flan damage
Pedigree:
ex Fowler coll.
ex Stacks auction 27.6.1969, lot 659
ex Gerald Gartspein coll.
There are some difficulties to attribute the object above the l. shoulder. Cohen writes 'des fleches' = thunderbolt, RIC interprets it as trophy, but it is obviously a rudder. That would match the wave-lines too!

Mythology:
When Ixion once at a binge with the Olympic gods was drunken too much he tried to approach Hera herself. According to an advice of Zeus Hera gave a cloud her own shape and Ixion created with this cloud (Nephele) the Kentauros. He became the ancestor of all Kentaurs. Other tell that the Kentaurs were sons of Ixion's or Apollo's son Kentauros with mares of Magnesia in Thessalia. They then had been educated by nymphs from the mount Pelion. With horses they created the hippokentaurs.

The Kentauromachia:
Peirithoos, son of Ixion too, his mother was Dia, was king of the Lapiths. To his marriage with Hippodameia he invited all Olympic gods except Ares and Eris, because he rembered the disaster which Eris has caused at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. More guests than expected came and so he was obliged to place the Kentaurs, his cousins, in a big cave. The Kentaurs were not accustomed to vine. When they were confronted with it they dispised their own curdled milk and got drunk by the unmixed vine. When the bride came to welcome them their leader Eurytos lunged at her and dragged her away to rape her. Thereupon all Kentaurs lunged at the women and young boys to do the same. Peirithoos and Theseus heard the cries and came to help Hippodameia. They mutilated Eurytos and threw him out of the cave. A great fight began between Kentaurs and Lapiths lasting til night. Many were killed on both sides. This was the beginning of a long lasting war. Caused it was by Ares and Eris who wanted to revenge the insult which was done to them.
The Kentaurs suffered a big defeat. Theseus expelled them from their seats at the mount Pelion. But they resisted desperately. After having gathered themselfs again they invaded the land of the Lapiths, surprised their army and massacred the greatest part. The survivors fled to Elis. But they were driven away by the Kentaurs again until they found a new home in Malea. 

The ferocious character of the Kentaurs and the bad influence of vine is seen too when Herakles on search of the Erymantian boar was visiting them. He was admitted hospitably by their king Pholos. He treated him with fried meat, eating only uncooked meat himself. To give him vine too he didn't risk because the amphora with vine was the collective property of all Kentaurs. But Herakles reminded him that this amphora with vine Dionysos had donated to them for exactly this occasion. When Pholos gave him this vine the other Kentaurs smelled its aroma, got angry and attacked them with rocks, rooted out trees,  fire and axes. Pholos hid in his cave, but Herakles could kill the first aggressors. To protect her grandchildren Nephele caused a strong rain, so that the chords of Herakles' bow softened and he slipped on the ground. Nevertheless he succeeded in killing them or chasing them away. The surviving Kentaurs sought for shelter at their king Cheiron, others came to Pholoe, some to Sicily where they were killed by the Sirens. In the meantime Pholos who buried his dead relatives has extracted one of Herakles' arrows and said: "How it is possible that such a strong being could be killed by such a small scratch?" There the arrow slipped down, hit his foot and killed him immediately. Herakles buried him with great honors at the mountain which bears now his name.
 
Background:
The Kentaurs were four-legged beings mixed by human and horse which inhabited exclusively the Greek mainland, i.e. the mountain woods of Thessaly, the western part of Arcadia and its neighbourhood and the region around Cape Malea. Roscher (Myth. Lex.) suggested that they are the personification of the ravaging nature of wild creeks, Mannhardt (Wald- und Feldkulte) wind spirits, like the wild men of the Germanic popular belief, but more correct seems to be Nilssen: " The Kentaurs are a species of those nature demons with whom the primitive phantasy fills he whole nature, and especially they are demons of the pathless mountains and the dense woods - inhabited by savage animals - which inspired men with fear and fright. Behind them is something elementary which is found in the common rural population of all times." These ideas then were transferred to the cloddish half-barbaric inhabitants of the wood-mountains. The former equalization with the Indian Gandharvas now is obsolet, orientalic influences unlikely. In older depictions, already in 8th century, the Kentaurs were depicted as complete men with torso and hind-legs from horses growing out from the back, in later times as horses with torsos of men instead of horse-neck and head, so having four horse-legs. Winged and horned Kentaurs are rare.The type of a female Kentaur was invented by Zeuxis end of 5th century; the desription in Lukian's Zeuxis is worth to be read. The myth confronts the Kentaurs with the Lapiths, beginning with Homer Iias I, 267ff. The so-called Kentauromachia (fight of the Kentaurs) first occurs in nature but was later located to the house of Peirithoos, king of the Lapiths. Occasion was the marriage between Peirithoos and Hippodameia where the Kentaurs were guests, but drunken have tried to rape the women. They were defeated by the Lapiths and chased away. Besides the Lapiths the myth confronts the Kentaurs too with individual heroes, so Herakles, Peleus and Atalante. In the meantime because of their horniness and greed for vine they were connected to Dionysos and Eros. Some Kentaurs emerged as individuals, f.e. Eurytion and Nessos (the Kentaur with the poisoned skirt!). Representatives of a more mild, hospitable type were Cheiron and Pholos.

The Lapiths:
The Lapiths were an early lost tribe in the northern part of Thessaly, in the myth a species of huge but generally knightly noble heroes of the antiquity. Several Thessalian nobilities claimed the Lapiths as their ancestors. Also more southern even on the Peloponnesos Lapiths are said to have been resident. The Attic demos Pirithoidai attributed themself to the ancestor Peirithoos. Polypoites, the son of Peirithoos, and Leonteus, the son of Koronos,
have participated in the Troyan War, others in the Chase for the Kalydonian Boar or the Voyage of the Argonauts. The shield of Herakles was decorated wit the depiction of several Lapiths as rivals of the Kentaurs. The Kentauromachia was one of the favourite subjects in fine arts. It was interpreted as echo of fights between neighboring Thessalian districts, or of fights between the Thessalian nobility of the midlands against the coast cities, or of fights between the masterrace of the Thessalian lowlands against the popular religion of the wood-lands. Some of its pre-hellenic traces are said to be found in the Albanian language.

History of art:
The double nature of the Kentaurs was depicted always in the same kind. In Greek antiquity the good, civilized Kentaurs have human legs and feet and are sometimes clothed like men. The savage Kentaurs in contrast have four horse-legs. The Kentauromachia, their fight against the Lapiths, was a symbol of the fight with the barbaric Non-Greeks, first of all the Persians; it appears since archaic times in sculptures of pediments, metopes and friezes of the temples. The most famous example are the figures from the western pediment of the Zeus-temple in Olympia (457 BC). Other ancient works show the Kentaurs demanding their part of the vine from Pholos, or the Kentaur Nessos attempting to rape Deianeira. Sometimes they are seen as companions of Dionysos.
The double nature of the Kentaurs moved them in Christian interpretation into a region between the beatified and the underworld, or forced them into the deepest level of the hell to the damned. Thus they appear on portals and capitals in the Middle Age together with demonic mythical creatures, often as symbols of the devil or paganism. In early Renaissance the subject of the female Kentaur was picked up again (Boticelli, 'The Calumny of Apelles', 1495; Uffizi), but the Kentauromachia too (Michelangelo, marble relief, about 1492?; Florence, MB - Piero di Cosimo, painting, about 1505-15007; London, NG), which occurs too in the work of Rubens, L. Giordano and others till F. v. Struck. The Kentaurs remain an
effective theme up to Picasso!

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliche Mythologie
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

I have added the pic of the Kentauromachia on the Attic red-figured column krater in the Louvre, about 450-440 BC, and
the pic of the southern metope 31 from the Parthenon, showing the fight between a Kentaur and a Lapith (c. 447-433 BC), today in the Louvre too.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on February 23, 2007, 09:03:42 pm
The Kentaurs

Because we have talked about Cheiron I think this is the appropriate place to present the tribe of Kentaurs as a whole. . . (see thread Reply#187, 17 Feb.)


Jochen,

Thank you, once again, for your always interesting and informative posts!

Cheers, Jim
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 02, 2007, 08:32:09 pm
Here is a coin, the reverse of which depicts Aeneas.  I made a quick check of your index, Jochen, and I didn't find a reference to Aeneas.  If I am repeating a post, I apologize!

JULIUS CAESAR, Dictator, died 44 BC; SILVER DENARIUS, 3.81 grams, 18.91 mm., VF+, minted in Africa.  Obverse: Diademed head of Venus right;  Reverse: CAESAR behind Aeneas advancing left, holding Palladium and his father Anchises on his left shoulder; Reference: Sear 355, New Sear 1402, Syd 1013.

Aeneas, was, in mythology the son of Anchises, a Trojan prince, and of Venus, goddess of love. After the capture of Troy by the Greeks, Aeneas was able, with the help of his mother, to escape from the fallen city. Carrying his aged father on his back and leading his little son by the hand, he made his way to the seacoast. In the confusion of flight, his wife was left behind.
A long, perilous, and adventure-filled voyage took him to Thrace, Delos, Crete, and Sicily, where his father died. The goddess Juno, who had always hated Aeneas and wanted to keep him from founding Rome, which she knew was his destiny, tried to drown him in a violent storm. He and his crew were cast up on the African coast, where they were welcomed by Dido, the beautiful queen of Carthage. Dido fell in love with Aeneas and begged him to remain. When he refused and set sail, she took her own life in despair.
 
After several years of wandering, Aeneas reached Italy and the mouth of the Tiber. There he was hospitably received by Latinus, king of Latium. He became betrothed to Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, but before he could marry her, Juno caused Turnus, king of the Rutuli and a rejected suitor of Lavinia, to make war against Aeneas and Latinus. The war was resolved by hand-to-hand combat, in which Turnus was defeated and slain by Aeneas. Aeneas then ruled for several years in Latium and, marrying Lavinia, founded the Roman people called Latins.
His descendants Romulus ans Remus founded the city of Rome.
 
The great Roman epic, The Aeneid, by Virgil, tells the story of Aeneas' perilous wanderings  in detail and ends with the death of Turnus.
By WCNC

Jim
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 10, 2007, 05:49:04 pm
Apollo Patroos

This coin is in a bad shape. But it is interesting mythological and historical because of its depiction. Please look at the thread 'Mythological interesting coins'. There I have shown a similar coin with two dogs, SNG Levante 1099. So this is a kind of continuation of the article above.

Trajan Decius, AD 240-251
AE 35, 27.29g
obv. AV KAI G MEC KVIN.DEKIOC TRAIANO
in l. and r. field P- P
rev. TARCO - V MHTROPOLEWC GB
in l. and r. field A/M - K
Perseus, nude except chlamys over l. shoulder, stg. l., holding harpa in l. arm, head of Medusa in l. hand
and in extended r. hand cult-statue of Apollo stdg. frontal on omphalos and holding in each hand a dog
with head up.
ref. SNG Paris 1757; not in SNG Levante
rare, F+/about VF, oliv-green patina, usual roughness

Notes:
Perseus was the suggested founder of Tarsos.
A = PRWTH = the first
M = MEGISTH = the most important
K = KALLISTH = the most beautiful
G = 3, capital of three provinces
B = 2, holder of two neocories
 
We have heard already that especially the cities in Asia Minor have had a strong economical competition with each other. One of their most effective weapons in this war were oracles, neokories and adorning titles. The most important rivals of Tarsos were the cities of Mallos, Aigeai, Adana, Mopsuestia and Anazarbos. As result of this rivalry Tarsos got the titles AMK (see notes above) and METROPOLIS. But some time later Anazarbos got the same titles and attempted to top them by adding ENDOXOC (= the most famous). Aigeai, the third biggest citiy of Cilicia, had a very important temple of Asklepios, which was a great privilege. Mallos issued coins on which it proudly pronounced that the prophet Amphilochos was the founder of the city and furthermore it had the temple of Athena Magarsis. To emphasize the relevance of its oracle Mopsuestia issued coins showing a tripod and a burning altar meaning that Mopsiestia was the oracle of the prophet Mopsos.

Innumerable voyagers, merchants and pilgrims, but armies too visited these cities which were situated on the main route from Syria or Mesopotamia to the western Asia Minor. Gifts to the tempels and statues, but the sale of wreaths, crown and votive animals could deliver vast income. It was possible to earn money by ministration in the temples or service in the cities, but in the same way by the treatment and healing of diseases or by making forecasts in the temples. Because of that it is understandable that their coins - going from hand to hand like advertorials today - depicted the most important attractions of the cities. So the cities in this way made propaganda for their temples, gods and goddesses or oracles.

Finally Amphilochos and Mopsos were the most famous seer of the ancient world and because in Mallos and in Mopsuestia stood their temples, they stood far over all other cities. Aigeai too was visited by numerous guests because of its temple of Asklepios.

When the oracle of Apollo was brought to Tarsos (in a special kind raising two dogs on the fore-legs), the city finally had a temple too by which it could compete with the other cities or even outrival them. As the first god who teached medicine to mankind, he especially was the the rival of Asklepios of Aigeai. But Asklepios compared with Apollo was only a second-rank god and could not stand the power of Apollo. So the forecasts of Apollo were seen as superior to the others. This is one of the reasons to suggest that the dogs raised by their fore-legs should represent the two other seers.
 
There is nothing known of a cult of Apollo Lykeios in Tarsos. The Ionian Apollo must be brought to Taros by Geek immigrants. Sureley he was identified with a local god of Tarsos with similar healing power. In this case the name Apollo Lykeios is a moderne ascription. Because on other coins the legend PATROOC is found here too it is probably the matter of the cult of Apollo Patroos. Apollo as founder and guardian of the human civilization was regarded by the Greeks as founder of their cities and laws. So Apollo Patroos in Athens was seen as guardian of all Ionians. His temple in Athens was built 350-300 BC and stood in the area between Metroon and the Stoa of Zeus Eleutheros. Apollo, whose temples are often found in or near the agoras of ancient Greek cities, was here called Patroos (= 'Fatherly' or 'ancestral') because he was believed to have been the father of Ion, the progenitor of all the Ionic Greek people (including the Athenians).

Mythology:
Apollo had secretly slept with Kreusa, the daughter of king Erechtheus of Athens and the wife of Xouthos. When she gave birth to a son nine months later Apollo immediately took the boy to his famous sanctuary at Delphi, so her husband would not find out. The priests there gave him the name 'Ion'. As the marriage between Xouthos and Kreusa had remained childless, Xouthos went to Delphi to ask the oracle for advice. He was told that the first person he was to meet on his way out of the sanctuary would be his son. This was Ion, who was acknowledged by Xouthos because he vaguely remembered an affair with a Maenad during an orgy for Dionysos in his younger years. Back in Athens, Kreusa at first did not recognize her son and tried to poison him. The priests of Apollo eventually explained the situation to Kreusa and Ion and Ion later became king of Athens.

A 2.5 meter tall statue of a draped Apollo, who probably played the kithara (now in the colonnade of the Agora Museum), was found near the temple and may be the cult statue by the sculptor Euphranor that was seen by Pausanias.

Sadly all temples in Tarsos are destroyed or Christian churches were built upon them. This may be the reason because no statue of Apollo holding the dogs was found.

Source:
Bekircan Tahberer, Apollo Lykeios in Ancient Tarsus Numismatics (Thanks to Pat Lawrence)
http://www.greeceathensaegeaninfo.com/h-ath/agora-apollo-patroos.htm (Euphranor called Eupranor in error)

I have added a pic of the Apollo Patroos now in the Agora Museum in Athens.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on March 16, 2007, 12:49:20 pm
Jochen,

Thank you, once again, for such an interesting and informative post.

Jim
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 24, 2007, 03:11:27 pm
Hekate Triformis

Phrygia, Apameia, quasi-autonomous, 2nd century BC
AE 15, 2.80g
obv. APAM - EIA
       Bust of the City-Tyche, draped and wearing mural crown, r.
rev. APA - MEIWN
      Hekate Triformis, three-figured, with 3 heads and 6 arms, each with double-chiton and
      wearing kalathos, holding torches
Ref.: cf. SNG von Aulock 3475 (but different legends); BMC -
Very rare, VF

Mythology:

Like on many other mythological figures there are many different opinions about Hekate's parents. Regarding to some mythographs she was the daughter of Perses and Asteria (therefore called Perseis too), a Titan, regarding to others daughter of the Nyx (night), or of Zeus and Asteria or even Hera. After born by Hera she was given the name Angelos and was brought by her father Zeus to the Nymphs who should educate her. When she was grown up she stole her mother Hera the box with make-up which she used to paint her face glossy. This box she gave to Europa, daughter of Phoinix. When Hera wanted to punish her she first fled in the bed of a woman in childbed, then between men wearing a dead. After Hera has
stopped the pursuit Zeus sent the Kabirs who should purify Hekate. This happened in the lake of Acheros, and because of that she was made to a goddess of the underworld, especially of the deads.

Others, who regard her to be the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, suggest that she was of great strength, so that Zeus sent her to the underworld to search for the lost Persephone (look at the article 'The rape of Persephone' in this thread). So Hekate remained an Underworld goddess.

Those who regard her to be the daughter of Perses and Asteria, suggest that Zeus - because she as a Titan has helped him against the Titans - has given her the power over heaven, earth and sea, so that she gave wealth, glory and victory to those who were worshipping her in proper style.

Usually dogs were sacrificed to her. The wealthy Athenians put at the end of each month food on the crossroads, called Hekate's meal, which thereafter was eaten by the poor people.

Regarding to another story (Diodor. Sic. I. IV.) she was the daughter of king Perses of Tauria, a bold and cruel princess who loved to go hunting, who, if she couldn't find any wild game, shot humans. She understood well to use poisonous herbs. Especially she used wolfsbane to kill strangers by mixing it under the meal. Finally she killed her father too in te same way usurping his reign. She built a big temple for Artemis and sacrificed to her all strangers she could get. Later she married Aietes and got by him Kirke, Medea and Aigialos. Her two daughters became famous sorceresses too. She is said to be the mother of Skylla too by Phorkys.

Background:
According to the distribution of her cult and the individual names formed by her name (Hekateios, Hekatomnos,and so on) she is a goddess domiciled in the southern Asia Minor (Caria). Sadly her definite origin is not determined closely until today. The earliest evidence of her cult, a round-temple with bustrophedon* inscriptions and the cult law of the Molpoi - written down about 100 BC - originated from Miletos, and one of her main sanctuaries stood in Lagina in Caria. Hesiod praised Hekate as All-Goddess, who as Helpfully sit in judgement, has gotten from Zeus a part of earth, sea and heaven and assisted hunters, herdsmen and fishermen; even Kourotrophos she is called, like Artemis, helper in many situations. So
she was especially regarded as guardian of the gateways and the three-ways (Trivia). This
was connected, like the Kourotrophos too, with purgation sacrifices, the typical dog sacrifices. The dog as demonic animal belongs to the accentuation of the weird, spooky, and sometimes chthonic (of the underworld). But Hekate is not a typical figure of Asia Monor, and cult rites are known only from inscriptions: the function of the eunuchs and the office of the Kleidouchos, the keeper of the key.

History of art:
For Athens the statement of Pausanias 2, 30.2 - on the occasion of the mention of the cult statue made by Myron in Aigina which he called Xoanon - is true that Alkamenes was the first who has made a three-figured picture of Hekate with his Hekate Epipyrgidia (= standing on the tower) at the entrance to the Akropolis in Athens. This is confirmed by the missing of the three-figured type before the last quarter of the 5th century BC. One-figured Hekates, assured by inscriptions too, are found on classic red-figured vases, Artemis like, with torches. Not before Alkamenes began the abundance of three-figured statues, at first archaicizing, then archaistic Hekateia, in each case varying; the three-shape wiith three heads, the herm being danced around; the dance around the threefold full-figure often with torches as attributs. In hellenistic friezes and reliefs they were sometimes performed to masterly made phantasia shapes: solo figured but with three heads and six arms.

Sadly the figure of Hekate is adopted by the so-called feminists, so that the informations from the internet often are useless. Recently a book from Nina Werth about Hekate is released (Hekate, Antiquates - Archologische Forschungswergebnisse, Bd.7, 2006) where she tried to prove that Hekate is not originated from Asia Minor. But this book (a dissertation?) is very expensive and so I hadn't read it. The interpretation of the Triformis as the depiction of the young girl, the mature wife and the old woman surely is wrong. Hekate was depicted always as a young girl! The equalization with the moon and its three phases is from later times. It should not be forgotten that in early times Hekate was only one-figured!

*bustrophedon = a kind of ancient writing where the lines in turn were written from l. to r. and then from r. to l., as it was done when plugging with oxen.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.theoi.com/Khthonios/Hekate.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate

I have added the following:
a) the pic of a Roman copy of the famous Hekateion of Alkamenes (c.430 BC), today in
    Reijksmuseum in Leiden/Netherlands, and
b) the cut-out of a pic from an Apulean red-figured krater, which shows a scene from Orpheus'
    voyage to the underworld. Depicted is Hekate holding a torch and Kerberos. C.330-310 BC,
    today in the Antikensammlung, Munich/Germany

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 24, 2007, 03:14:40 pm
Poseidon and the nymph Beroe

Phoenicia, Berytos, Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 26, 12.47g
obv. [AV KM AVR AN - TONINOC AVG]
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. COL IVL A - VG FEL / BER
Poseidon, in himation, advancing r. with a sidestep, head l., holding his trident in l. arm, raising
the nymph Beroe, kneeling l. before him, looking up to him; the nymph, in
transparent chiton, scooping water with a jar, the l. hand raised in defense.
SNG Copenhagen 118; BMC 183; Lindgren II, 120, 2268
Very rare, about EF, chocolate-brown patina

The myth of Beroe is found detailed in Nonnus' Dionysiaka. In ancient times Berytos was suggested as a center of laws and legislation. Therefore especially in the first part we find several hints on laws and justice. The text rests on Nonnus' text, but I have shorten it heavily. Nevertheless I hope the excessive style of Nonnus could be recognized!

Birth and Youth of Beroe
There is a younger legend, that her mother was Aphrodite, who bore her to the Assyrian Adonis. When the hour of birth approached Hermes came to help the labour of Beroe and Themis (the Goddess of Law) was her Eileithyia (Birth Goddess). And like the Lakonian women bring forth their sons pressing their feet upon a round leather shield Themis hold Solon's laws against her to lighten her birth. The newborn girl was bathed by the four Aetai (winds) who after that proclaimed the laws of Beroe to the whole world. Okeanos, the first herald of these laws, poured his floods around the earth. Aion, the time, wrapped up the child with the robe of Dike, the Justice. The four Horai, the four seasons, sang the birth of Aphrodite's daughter. Aphrodite gave her daughter to Astraia, mistress of Justice, to educate her and she fed her with the milk of of justice and streams of Attic laws. If the girl thirsting asked for a drink she gave her speaking Pythian water kept for Apollon, or the stream of Ilissos which is inspired by the Attic Mousa. The dancing maidens of Orchomenos, the Charites, drew from the Hippokrene, fountain of imagination, dear to te nine Mousai, delicate water to wash her. Beroe grew up and got the very likeness of her mother and her shining feet. Her white robes falling down to the girl’s feet showed the blush of her rosy limbs.

Beroe - Goddess of Berytos
Then Aphrodite recognized the prophetic intelligence of her daughter and she studied the foundation of the brilliant cities of ancient days. She saw how Mykene girt about with a garland of walls by the Kyklopian masons took the name of twinkle-eye Mykene; how Thebes beside the southern Nile took the name of primeval Thebe; and she decided to design a city named after Beroe, being possessed with a passion to make her city as good as theirs. She observed there the long column of Solon’s Laws, that safeguard against wrong, and turned aside her eye to the broad streets of Athens, and envied her sister the just Judge. She hurried to the hall of Allmother Harmonia and asked: " Tell me, which of the cities has the organ of sovereign voice? I joined Zeus in wedlock with Hera his sister, after he had felt the pangs of longlasting desire and desired her for three hundred years. In gratitude he promised a worthy reward for the marriage that he would commit the precepts of Justice (Dike) to one of the cities allotted to me. I wish to learn whether the gift is reserved for land of Kypros or Paphos or Korinthos or Sparta, or the noble country of my own daughter Beroe". Harmonia answered: "I have oracles of history on seven tablets. But since you ask me about the directing laws, this prerogative I keep for the eldest of cities. Whether then Arkadia is first or Argos, Hera’s city, whether Sardis be the oldest, or even Tarsos celebrated in song be the first city, or some other, I have not been told. The tablet of Kronos will teach you all this, which first arose, which was coeval with Dawn." And then they went to the glorious oracles of the wall, until she saw the place where Ophion’s art had engraved in ruddy vermilion on the tablet of Kronos the oracle to be fulfilled in time about Beroe’s country. And Aphrodite could read: "Beroe came the first, coeval with the universe her agemate, bearing the name of the Nymphe later born, which the colonizing sons of the Ausonians, the consular lights of Rome, shall call Berytos". And then: "When Augustus shall hold the sceptre of the world, Ausonian Zeus will give to divine Rome the lordship, and to Beroe he will grant the reins of law, when armed in her fleet of shielded ships she shall pacify the strife of battlestirring Kleopatra." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 41.263

The marriage of Beroe
Flying high up in the sky Eros with his flaming bow put two arrows on the chord to inflame simultaneously two wooers in desire for Beroe's love, the vinegod Dionysos and Poseidon, the ruler of the sea. He beat Dionysos with madness so that he offered his treasures to the bride, life's merry heart and the ruddy vintage of the grape. And he goaded to love the lord of the sea, that he might bring the maid a double lovegift, seafaring battle on the water and varied dishes for the table. But Dionysos he set more in a flame, since wine excites the mind for desire, and wine finds unbridled youth much more obedient to the rein when it is charmed with the prick of unreason. Then he raised up like a false bird and cried taunting: "If Dionysos confounds men with wine, I excite Dionysos with fire!'
And Dionysos looked at the tender shape of the longhaired girl full of admiration and he couldn't tear his gaze from her. He appealed Helios to remind of his love to Klymene and to pause his car to extend the light of the day. He crept around Beroe and kissed each place which was hit by her shoes of roses. He gazed at her lovely face which need no meretricious rouge and no deceiving ringlets which she could threw back coquettishly. But the natural and innocent beauty confuses the desperate lover even more!

Thirtsty by the heat of the Dog of heaven (Sirius) Beroe sought out a near spring and bent down with parched lips and scooped the cool water. When she was gone, Dionysos would bend his knee to the lovely spring, and hollow his palms in mimicry of the beloved girl: then he drank water sweeter than selfpoured nectar. Then he cried: "‘Maiden,accept the nectar - leave this water that maidens love! Avoid the water of the spring, lest Seabluehair steal your maidenhood in the water! O that I also might become a flood, like Earthshaker, and murmuring might embrace you!" Then he changed his shape to a hunter and said to Beroe; "Artemis, where are your arrows? Who has stolen your quiver?" And so he flattered her comparing her with several deities. And Beroe smiled and was pleased because in her childlike simplicity she couldn't see through his tricks and her heart didn't know yet the desire of love. He asked for her father Adonis, as one of his hunting friends, and approached always nearer. Then he discarded his human shape and stood before her as a god. He said: "Maiden, for your love I have even renounced my home in heaven. The caves of your fathers are better than Olympos. I desire not the sceptre of my father Zeus as much as Beroe for my wife. Maiden, when I hear that your mother is Kypris, my only wonder is that her cestus has left you uncharmed. How is it you alone have Eros for a brother, and yet know not the sting of love. Girl, you have the blood of Aphrodite - then why do you flee from the secrets of Aphrodite? Do not shame your mother’s race. Harsh are the Erotes when there’s need, when they extract from women the penalty for love unfulfilled. Beware of the god’s horrid anger. What gifts will Poseidon bring? Salt water as a bridegift? Or sealskins breathing the filthy stink of the deep? I will provide you with Satyrs as chamberlains. My bridegift will be my grape-vintage too. I will bring you the gold from India and amber from the Eridanos, from the border of the earth! Away with the trident! Flee Poseidon!" But Beroe pressed the fingers into her ears to keep the words away. So she made trouble for lovestricken Lyaios.

Then out from the sea came Poseidon, moving his wet footsteps in search of the girl over the thirsty hills, and sprinkling the unwatered earth with watery foot. He espied Beroe, and from head to foot he scanned her divine young freshness while she stood. Clear through the filmy robe he noted the shape of the girl with steady eyes, and cursed the jealous bodice wrapt about in many folds which hid the bosom, he ran his lovemaddened eye round and round her face, he gazed never satisfied on her whole body. With flattering words he tried to make friends with the maiden: "One woman outshines all the lovely women of Hellas! Beroe has appeared a fourth Charis, younger than the three! Maiden, leave the land. That is just, for your mother grew not from the land, she is Aphrodite, daughter of the brine. Here is my infinite sea for your bridegift, larger than earth. I will make Proteus chamberlain of your marriage-consummating bed, and Glaukos shall be your underling - take Nereus too, and Melikertes if you like; and I will call murmuring Okeanos your servant, broad Okeanos girdling the rim of the eternal world. I give you as bridal gift all the Rivers together for your attendants. If you are pleased to have waitingmaids also, I will bring you the daughters of Nereus; and let Ino the nurse of Dionysos be your chambermaid,!"
Thus he pleaded, but the maiden was angry and would not listen; so he left her, pouring out his last words into the air: "Happy son of Myrrha, you have got a fine daughter, and now a double honour is yours alone; you alone are named father of Beroe and bridegroom of the Foamborn." Then he offered many gifts to Adonis and Aphrodite, bridegifts for the love of their daughter. Dionysos burning with the same shaft brought his treasures, all the shining gold that the mines near the Ganges had brought forth in their throes of labour; earnestly but in vain he made his petition to Aphrodite of the sea.

Now Aphrodite was anxious, for she feared both wooers of her muchwooed girl. When she saw equal desire and ardour of love in both, she announced that the rivals must fight for the bride, a war for a wedding, a battle of love. Kypris arrayed her daughter in woman’s finery, and placed her upon the fortress of her country, a maiden to be fought for as the dainty prize of contest. Then she addressed both gods in the same words: "I could wish had I two daughters, to wed one as is justly due to Earthshaker, and one to Lyaios; but since the undefiled laws of marriage do not allow us to join one girl to a pair of husbands together, let battle be chamberlain for one single bride, for without hard labour there is no marriage with Beroe. Then if you would wed the maid, first fight it out together; let the winner lead away Beroe without brideprice. Both must agree to an oath, since I fear for the girl’s neighbouring city. Make treaty before the marriage, that seagod Earthshaker if he lose the victory shall not in his grief lay waste the land with his trident’s tooth; and that Dionysos shall not be angry about Amymone’s wedding and destroy the vineyards of the city. And you must be friends after the battle". The wooers agreed to this proposal. Both took a binding oath. From heaven came all the dwellers on Olympos, with Zeus, and stayed to watch the combat upon the rocks of Lebanon. Poseidon armed himself with his Assyrian trident, shaking his maritime pike and pouring a hideous din from a mad throat. Dionysos threastening the sea danced into the battle with vineleafs and thyrsos. Dionysos and his sylvan gods battle Poseidon and his sea gods in a contest for Beroe's hand in marriage.

Then Zeus breaking up the contest granted the hand of Beroe to Poseidon, and pacified the rivals’ quarrel. For from heaven to check the bridebattle yet undecided came threatening thunderbolts round about Dionysos. The vinegod wounded by the arrow of love still craved the maiden; but Zeus the Father on high stayed him by playing a tune of thunder, and the sound from his father held back the desire for strife. With lingering feet he departed, with heavy pace, turning back for a last gloomy look at the girl; jealous, with shamed ears, he heard the bridal songs of Amymone in the sea. The syrinx sounding from the brine proclaimed that the rites were already half done. Nereus as Amymone’s chamberlain showed the bridal bed, shaking the wedding torches, the fire which no water can quench. Phorkys sang a song; with equal spirit Glaukos danced and Melikertes romped about. And Galateia twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 42.1

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 26, 2007, 07:36:23 pm
(continued)

Beroe - the oldest of the Cities
(Rather litterally:)
Here in the city of Beroe which emerged at the very creation of the universe dwelt a people agemates with the dawn, whom Phyusis (Nature) by her own breeding, in some unwedded way, begat without bridal, without wedding, fatherless, motherless, unborn: when the atoms were mingled in fourfold combination, and the seedless ooze shaped a clever offspring by comingling water with fiery heat and air, and quickened the teeming mud with the breath of life. To these Phyis gave perfect shape the golden crop of men, brought forth in the image of the gods, with the roots of their stock in the earth. And these dwelt in the city of Beroe, that primordial seat which Kronos himself builded ...
O Beroe, root of life, nurse of cities, the boast of princes, the first city seen, twin sister of Aion (Time), coeval with the universe, sea of Hermes, land of Dike (Justice), bower of Euphrosyne (Merryheart), house of Paphia, hall of the Erotes, delectable ground of Dionysos, home of the Archeress, jewel of the Nereides, house of Zeus, court of Ares, Orchomenos of the Charites, star of the Lebanon country, yearsmate of Tethys, running side by side with Okeanos, who begat thee in his bed of many fountains when joined in watery union with Tethys - Beroe the same they named Amymone when her mother brought her forth on her bed in the deep waters!" - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 41.51

Background:
Beroe is the eponym of Berytos, todays Beirut, this poor and opressed capital of Libanon. It is a typical founder myth. The group of statues decorates the pediment of the main temple of Berytos, which in ancient times was called Beroe/Beroia too. For the love of Beroe, daughter of Aphrodite and Adonis, struggled Dionysos and Poseidon, until Zeus stopped the undecided battle and gave Beroe to Poseidon. The Lord of the Sea donated to the city the grace to win each naval battle (Nonnos 41.10-43). Probably Beroe is symbolizing the water supply of the city or an important spring. In ancient times these were essential for the city. That she was called the daughter of Aphrodite and Adonis may originate in a local myth where she was made the daughter of the Phoenicean gods Ashtarte and Adon.

Interestingly in his last part Nonnus changed from Beroe to Amymone. Whose myth is related to the myth of Beroe insofar as she was a nymph too who was raped by Poseidon:
Amymone was one of the fifty daughters of Danaos. When once she was sent for water she fell asleep. She was found by a satyr who wants to rape her. She called Poseidon for help who threw his trident to the satyr which stuck in a rock. Then she was raped by Poseidon himself who created Nauplios with her. By his order he drew the trident out of the rock and three springs came out of the holes. These were called the Amymonean and later the Lernean fountains. Aischylos is said to have written a tragedy about this which was lost.

Sources:
Nonnos, Dionysiaka
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NympheBeroe.html

I have added a detail of an Attic red-figured vase, showing Poseidon seducing Amomyne. C.475-425 BC, today in the Hermitage in St.Petersburg

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 26, 2007, 07:47:17 pm
Ino-Leukothea

Phrygia, Kibyra, quasi-autonomous, 1st century AD
AE 17, 2.4g
struck under archiereus Klaud. Biantos in the time of Domitian, 81-96
obv. KIBYRA - TWN
Bust of Ino, draped and veiled, r.
rev. EPI ARXI - E KLAV BI / ANTOC
Humbled bull, butting r.
Ref.: BMC 21; Imhoof-Blumer, Kleinasiatische Münzen, 18; Imhoof-Blumer, Griechische Münzen, 657a corr. (wrong obv. legend IAL and wrong interpretation as Dionysos)
rare, about VF

This coin shows the rare portrait of Ino. We know that it is really Ino because on some coins she is named in the legend. For that look at Ed Snibles wounderful online version of Barclay Head's Historia Numorum https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=phrygia

Look at the article about Melikertes too in this thread!

Mythology:
This myth is found in several different versions because it was wide spread over Greece and because ancient dramatists have worked on this theme.
Ino was the daughter of Kadmos, king of Thebens in Boiotia, and his wife Harmonia, so a sister of Semele, Agaue and Atonoe, and the second wife of Athamas. To him she bore two sons, Learchos and Melikertes. Because she hated her stepchildren Phrixos and Helle from Nephele, the first wife of her husband, she tried to put them away. She convinced the women of Boiotia to torrefy their seed and caused a great famine thereby. When Athamas sent messengers to the oracle of Delphi to beg for help she corrupted the returning men to say that Phrixos should be sacrificed to end the disaster. But Phrixos and Helle succeeded in escaping by flying on a winged golden ram, which was sent by Zeus, to Kolchis. Here is the beginning of the myth of the Argonauts (Apoll. Bibl. I, 79-81).
Because Ino - asked by Zeus - has nursed the little Dionysos, son of her sister Semele, when Hermes brought him after her death to the nymphs of the mountain Nysa, she was hated by Hera. She sent the Erinye Tisiphone who beat them with madness and Athamas shot his son Learchos with an arrow thinkig he was a stag. Seeing this Ino took her other son Melikertes and jumped from a rock into the sea. Both drowned. According to others she has put him in a kettle with boiling water before. But Zeus recalled her kindness against his son Dionysos and didn't want sent them to the Tartaros (Sometimes this is assigned to Poseidon who saved them, asked by Aphrodite, Ovid Met. IV, 416-543). Therefore he made her the seegoddess Leukothea, the 'White Goddess', a protective goddess of the seamen, and Melikertes the god Palaimon. He was sent on the back of a dolphin to the Corinthian Isthmus where Sisyphos, brother of Athamas, founded the famous Isthmian Games to honour Melikertes.

It was Ino-Leukothea who took pity on Odysseus who drifted as castaway on a raft in heavy storm. She gave him her veil and pointed him the way to his rescue. So Odysseus could save his skin by swimming to the far coast (Homer Od. V, 333-364, 353). Euripides, who has written the lost tragedy 'Ino', seems to have transferred the old fairy tale motive of the evil stepmother to Themisto, the third wife of Athamas: Trying to kill Ino's children she killed her own children because Ino has arranged a clothing change underhand. (Hygin. Fabulae 4)

The myth of Ino, Athamas and Melikertes is relevant also in the context of two larger themes. Ino had an end just as tragic as her siblings: Semele died while pregnant with Dionysos, Zeus' child, killed by her own pride and lack of trust in her lover; Agae killed her own son, King Pentheus while struck with Dionysian madness, and Aktaion, son of Autonoe, the third sibling, was torn apart by his own hunting dogs. Also, the insanity of Ino and Athamas, who hunted his own son Learchos as a stag and slew him, can be explained as a result of their contact with Dionysos, whose presence can cause insanity. None can escape the powers of Dionysos, the god of wine. Euripides took up the tale in 'The Bacchae', explaining their madness in Dionysiac terms, as having initially resisted belief in the god's divinity.

Background:
According to Kereny Ino primary was a Dionysian woman, a Mainad. Mainads were known that in their furiousness they never spare even their own children and lacerated them. To these terrible women naturally belongs Medea too, who together with Jason later plays the leading part in the myth of the Argonauts. Leukothea, actually leuko thea, the White Goddess, was a sea goddess of the popular belief, who was equated with Ino, daughter of Kadmos, by Homer (Od. V, 353f.); the context must be seen in a historic dimension. The motive of jumping into the sea recures in close analogy at Britomartis-Diktynna, but Glaukos too, and should show an existentiell transformation. The story of the veil (Homer Od. V, 346ff.) is a known fairy tale motive and matches well the old sailors tale of the homecoming of the castaway. After the identification of Leukothea with Ino the religious content is arranged widely by the features of Ino. Ino had cults in Boiotia, on the Corinthian Isthmos, on Crete and other places. In Boiotia her cult varied noticably between a divine and a heroic cult. Leukothea is attested in other regions too. Comparable to Leukothea in Rome is Mater Matuta, she has had a temple in Rome. Palaimon is called Portumus, the Harbour God.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie
http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Leukothea.html

I have added the pic of a mosaic from the Villa Romana del Casale on Sicily, c.320 BC. It shows Leukothea swimming on the back of the sea-god Triton across the sea. She is accompagnied by her son Palaimon riding on a par of dolphins.

Sorry, I have difficulties to load the pic. So here is the link http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/Z33.8.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 07, 2007, 05:05:54 pm
Some notes on Mithras

Often a coin is only the begin of an extensive search for information. This happens to me here too! It starts with a tiny coin from Kios, but it gave reason to deal finely with Mithras. This was my will already for a long time especially because of its close relation to Christianism and because here in Germany are found several ancient Mithraea, f.e. at Saalburg.   

1st coin
Bithynia, Kios, 325-300 BC
AE 13, 1.57g
obv. Head of Mithras, wearing tiara orthe, r.
rev. K - I
      Kantharos, with two vine-grapes hanging down from it, all in wreath of grain-ears
ref.: SNG Copenhagen 382
Very rare, about VF

2nd coin
Pontos, Trapezos, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 27, 11.05g
struck year 153 = c. AD 205-208(?)
obv. AV(?) KA M AV - ANTWNIN[OC]
      Head, laureate, r
rev. TRAP - ZOVNTIWN / E RNG (ligate)
       Mithras, wearing Phrygean bonnet, riding on horse r., burning altar before
ref.: cf. Rec. Gen. 29, pp. 111-112 (but tree behind!)
F/good F, dark green-brown patina
Pedigree:
ex Stephen M. Huston FPL 102, august 1990, lot 12
ex Garth R. Drewry coll.
ex CNG electronic auction 160, 14. Feb. 2007, lot 136

History and development of Mithraism:
The mithraism existed over a period of nearly two thousand years. It is understandable that it has changed in these long times and has made a development from its primary role in the Indo-Iranian domain, over the religion of the Parthian kings to the Roman mystery religion. Yes, looking at it closely, there are traces of Mithraism in Christianism today, as we will see!

Primary Mithras is an Indo-Iranian god. His name litterally means something like 'contract', or as person 'mediator of the contract'. In the Iranian religion of Zoroaster (c. 7th century BC) he was regarded metaphysically as mediator between Ahuramazda and Ahriman, between the principle og Good and Evil. He was guardian of the contractual law and the Iranians were known to have sworn by Mithras. In this role he appears in a contract of king Mattiwaza from Mittani with Suppililiuma from Hattusa, king of the Hetits.

Cosmological seen he was the aspect of the early, bright day. He is called too 'far looking, always waking and thousand-eyed'. The connection between his light-nature and law-keeping is supplemented by the cosmologic-solar relation to the pasture land rich in water and cattle (see oxen of Helios). Even though Mithras primary was the mediator between brightness and darkness, heaven and earth, good an evil, which was expressed in the mysteries by the cock, announciating the early morning, and the snake, symbolizing earth, water and underworld, he later was equated with the Baylonian Samas and the Greek Helios-Apollo, and so getting solar aspects. According to some scientists the mythological killing of the moon bull by 'the sun' Mithras should be seen in this connnection too. Thus this symbolic nucleus was already disposed in the primal Iranian phase.

As 'strong armed' leader of the warlike male companionships of ancient Iran, Mithras, the 'Avenger of Injustice', adopted features of the martial rulers. The riding and bow-shooting Mithras from Dura Europas was the representative of the military side of the Mithras rites and its risidues of royal and male companionships. This is pointing back to the god of royal dynasties, to whom at the autumnal season-festival Mithrakana horses, symbolizing solar power of the ruler and heavenly primordial order, were sanctified. Though Mithras was named not until Artaxerxes II in the inscriptions of Achaemenids together with Ahura Mazda and Anahita (Anaitis), the above mentioned features have connected him very early with the crown. Mithras has connected the king with the men who were fighting for him. Artaxerxes II (405-359 BC) and Artaxerxes III (359-338 bC) both have worshipped him officially. Dareios III the luckless Great-King and adversary of Alexander the Great has prayed before the battle of Gaugamela 331 BC to the sun, to Mithras and the holy fire, asking for divine support. His bitter defeat didn't interfere with the proximity to the guardian god Mithras. Mithradates IV  of Pontos (120-63 BC), the famous adversary of Rome, traced back his name to Mithras as did his ancestors. Also the royal cult of Antiochos of Commagene (c. 70-35 BC) stood completely in the sign of Mithraism.

He was a celestial god of fate and the donator of solar brightness of happiness. The occurence of the term mitra- in Pontic and Indo-Greek ruler names, as well as the royal investiture scenes on the relief of Nemrud Dagh from Antiochos of Commagene, where the god wears the (i)tiara orthe[/i], and on the Sassanidian rock paintings of Taq-i-Bostan and Teng-i-Saoulek, where Mithras is depicted with a radiated nimbus, show that these conceptions are effective in the course of a syncretistic fusion with the sun-god Helios.

Sometime the god starts his way to the West and he came in contact with the Greek philosophy, he was molded greek. When this occured we don't know for sure. The Hellenistic mysteries emphasized besides the demiurgic, life and fertility donating deed of the tauroktonos (the bull-slayer) the soteriologic function of the guardian god Mithras. Mithras was seen as Redeemer and Saviour. This function was already preformed in ancient Iran as it could be seen in the west Iranian names Mithrbocht (= redeemed by Mithras) or Mithrobouzantes (= owning salvation by Mithras). Therefore a non-Iranian origin of the Mithras mysteries must be denied. On the other side the ancient relation of Mithras to the purifying fire is the premise for the eschatologic acting of the world destroyer Mithras (=
Helios-Phaethon), where the primary dualism of Mithras (Phaeton) and Sol occurs, which could increase to the battle between both as it could be seen on the reliefs of Osterburken or Virunum. The mystic paradoxon of the soteriologic and the eschatologic role of Mithras is integrated in the Zervantic-Babylonian Aion-speculation of the late ancient times.. The light-god Mithras (genitor luminis), as Sol invictus successful victor over the powers of darkness becomes the cosmic renewer being mixed with the indigenous Phanes-Protogonos. The ancient myth of the celestial rock birth, which is close to the Agdistis circle of Asia Minor, leads from the general suggestion of a mountain god, who comes down from his height, to the Epiphany of the Awestic Light-Mithras of the mountain. Sol Mithras Invictus then gave opportunity to worship simultanously several gods which are related to the sun. To these important elements appears as essential ritual act the slaying of the bull, the tauroctony. This could be interpreted as collective sacrificing meal which is known from ancient hunting communities. The ancient Iranian mythology knows the tauroctony too as act of creation from which then the world with all its diversity originates.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 13, 2007, 01:54:33 pm
(continued)

3rd coin:
Cilicia, Tarsos, Gordian III,  AD 238-244
AE 33, 21.52g
obv. AVT KM ANT GORDIANOC CEB , P/P in l. und r. field´
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. TARCOV M - HTROPOL, in l. field M/K, in r. field A/B/G
       Mithras, in short military cloak and waving chlamys, as sun-god with radiate crown,
       kneeling with l. knee on back of a bull, pulling with l. hand its head backwards and
       holding in raised r. hand the sacrificing knife (so-called tauroctony)
ref.: BMC 258
very rare, F/F+
Because of its bad shape I have added a sketch of the rev.!

The mystery cult of the late Roman Empire:
There is a report  of the first appearence of Mithraism in the Roman Empire by Plutarch. He states that the Mithraism was common at the Cilician pirates and when Pompeius defeated the pirates 67 BC it became known to the Roman soldiers. This matches the opinion of Ulansey that at this time Tarsos was the origin of the Roman Mithraism (http://www.well.com/~davidu/sciam.html). It was a religion of traders, slaves and especially of the soldiers. There was no social discrimination in Mithraism, but that is known in other mysteries cults too. However it was not allowed for women! Its most important characteristica were
(1)  The virginal birth in a rock cave.
       That's the reason that all Mithraea (the Mithras sanctuaries) are always subterranean.
(2) The initiation, a kind of baptism, by the taurobolos
     Here the nephyte stood in a deep cavity and a bull was slaughted above him so that he
     was lavished with its blood. This was seen as the transition to a new life.
(3) The 7 steps to highest consecration (7 sacraments!)
     There were 7 grades starting from Raven up to Pater. They were symbolized by planets,
      elements and different depictions on the tauroctonies.The neophyte could ascend by
      rigorous examinations and a question and answer ritual. A kind of catechism was known
      for that. As highest rank of Pater he was the representative of Mithras himself.
(4) The Holy Communion
     This occurs to mention the last meal of the Master with his disciples. Bread and a mixture
     of wine and water was handed. The consecrated wafers were wearing a cross!
(5)  The resurrection and the life after death
      It consisted in the participation in the ascension which was done by Mithras and Sol, and
      the following unification with the divine.
(5) The court in afterlife, reward and punishment
     The Mithraism was a ethical religion which demanded from its believers purity,
     chasteness and self-control.
Diocletian, Galerius and Licinius have consecrated temples to Mithras. The Mithraism was wide spread as far as Spain and Britain. The largest document regarding the Mithraism was written by Julian II, the last pagane emperor, for the birthday of Mithras, December 25. He has done the taurobolium for himself and as Pater he was member of the highest rank. But for Julian all the different deities only were names for the highest divine idea. So Mithras and his cult only were parts of this plurality.

As we have seen the Mithraism has many parallels to Christianism, not only the date of 25. of December, which was adopted by Christianism for its Christmas. The great theologian Carl Schneider once has said: "What was beautiful and superior in the sun cult was adopted by Christianism; Helios became Christ." Apostle Paul was born in Tarsos and he will have known the Mithraism. But wether and how far this has an impact on his religion is disputed.

Why Christianism succeeded and Mithraism perished? To answer this whe have to look at the differences:
In Mithraism there was no self-sacrificing of the god.
It was not allowed for women to join the mystery, a great drawback, especially when we look at the important role of women in the early Christianism.
The cult was strictly hierarchical arranged contrary to the early Christianism (This later was changed!)
And the most important fact: Mithraism was a mystery cult. There was no mission whereas in Christianism mission really was commanded!
Furthermore especially the Mithraism was heavy chased by Christianism. Its mithraea were destroyed, there priests often killed (so the bones of the slain priest were found in the mithraeum of the Saalburg) and churches were built over the mithraea (f.e. San Clemente in Rome). AD 378 Mithraism was definitely forbidden in the Roman Empire but could be found in isolated regions until 7th century.

I have added
a) the pic of a tauroctony from the Louvre
b) the pic of a altar of Mithras from London, where the identification of Mithras with Sol
    Invictus could be seen (But this is disputed!).

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Karlheinz Deschner, Dreimal krähte der Hahn
Hans Kloft, Mysterienkulte der Antike
http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/178604 nice!
http://www.farvardyn.com/mithras.php nice! Scetch of the rev.!
http://www.geocities.com/atheistdivine/mithras.html
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Scriptures/www.innvista.com/scriptures/compare/mithra.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 13, 2007, 02:04:39 pm
Hector - Heroe of Troy

Ilion (Lat. Ilium), the famous Troy, is known for a series of coins showing motives referring to the Troyan War. Normally it is difficult to get one of these coins because they are heavy searched after. So I'm glad to represent here a coin showing the most famous Troyan heroe on its reverse.

Troas, Ilion, Julia Domna, AD 194-217
AE 27, 8.80g
obv. IOV DOMN - A CEBACTH
       Bust, draped, r.
       c/m in l. field, oval incus with bust of Athena, r.
rev. EK[TOR - ILEWN]
       Hector, in military cloak, hurrying r., holding shield and hurling spear with raised
       r. hand
BMC 83 var.
rare, good F
From Forum Ancient Coins

Mythology:
Hector, in Homer's Ilias the greatest heroe of the Troyans, was son of king Priamos and his wife Hekuba. He was killed by Achilleus and with his funeral the Ilias ends, which describes of the ten years siege of Troy only 51 days, in detail only 4 days. Of his numerous deeds, told by Homer in his Ilias, I have selected some of the most importants.

(1) The Duel with Ajax
Hector was the bravest of the 50 sons of Priamos. By his own hand more than thirty noble Greek were killed, among them Protesilaos and Antilochos. Famous is his struggle against Ajax, the Telamonian. In this duel both fought so bravely that no one could beat the other. After hurling their spears against another they grabbed stones and finely they took their swords. But their heralds kept them off.  They came apart after Ajax has donated his baldric to Hector and Hector gave him his sword. By this baldric Hector later was dragged around the city-walls and it was the same sword by which Ajax later slayed himself. 

(2) The Death of Patroklos
When Achilleus in his anger retired from the battle, the Greek were in very bad way. Hector could repel the Greek to their camp, then he attacked their barricades and with an immense stone throw he forced open the camp gate. After that he set the Greek ships on fire. Because of his strength he was called 'the support of the fatherland', on which Troy rested and by whose fall Troy would fall too. For it was destined by the fate that Troy couldn't be conquered as long as Hector was alive. It was Patroklos, the friend of Achilleus, wearing his cuirass, who succeded finally in repelling the Troyans back to the city. Alone he almost has assaulted Troy if not Apollo has intervened and has thrice repulsed Patroklos off the walls. The battle lastened to the beginning of the night when Apollo came behind him and hit him between the bladebones so strong that his helmet fell down, his spear split and the shield dropped to the ground. When Patroklos faltered back Hector slayed him with one hit. The cuirass of Achilleus he took as prize.

(3) Hector's Death
By the death of his friend Patroklos Achilleus was pulled from his anger against Agamemnon and he didn't wish more than to avenge his death. Hephaistos has forged a new cuirass for Achilleus in order of his mother Thetis. This he tied up and then he jumped into the fray. When he has driven all Troyans into the city Hector alone was brave enough to stay outside the walls. But when Achilleus attacked him he retired too. Now the gods intervened. Athena in the shape of his brother Deiphobos advised him to resist, he would help him if needed. So Hector expected Achilleus and the struggle began. But Deiphobos has vanished. Furthermore Athena helped Achilleus by all means so that he could hit Hector's neck and he fell down. Crying evil invectivenesses he stabbed him with his spear to death. Dying Hector predicted him his near death by Paris and Apollo. But Achilleus transfixed his feet, tied him to his chariot and dragged him miserably from the walls across the field to the ships. Before he is said to have dragged him thrice around the walls of Troy. Others say he has dragged him only around the tomb of Patroklos as it was Thessalian convention. 

(5)Hector's burial
Thereupon in Troy raised crying and moaning. Priamos together with Hector's wife Andromache and her children, Astyanax, Laodama and Polyxena, came suppliantly to Achilleus, fell to the ground, embraced his knees and asked him in tears to release Hector's body so that he could give him a decent funeral. But not until the children start to beg him and Polyxena, who was desired by Achilleus already before, offered herself as his slave, the other Greek princes advised him to take the gifts and the gold and to give back Hector's body to Priamos. After heavy reproaches according the deeds of his sons he gave him unwillingly Hector's body. Then Hector was buried under the greatest moaning of the Troyans. These festivities lastened ten days and the war rested for this time. Then Homer's Ilias ends 

Background
Hector is the most important heroe of the Troyans and was instead of his father Priamos their highly venerated commander-in-chief. Noble mind, sense of duty and responsibility and trust in god were glowing from his character. Sometimes overhasty with words and decisions he consulted his friends like Polydamas and others and was dispraised sometimes. Reading the Ilias unbiasedly it is noticeable that Homer's sympathies lay on Hector. An abundance of epitetha and parables reveal that he is Homer's favourite heroe. You should read the scene (Homer Ilias 6, 390-502) where Hector took leave of his wife Andromache and his little son Astyanax. It is the most moving scene of the entire Ilias.

Looked at that way the Ilias is virtually an accusation against the brutal ethics of the Greeks. The merciless treatment of the slayed Troyans, the brutal murder of Astyanax,
the brutal rapes and their struggle for spoils and women, that all is deeply abhorrent. It is the transition from the Bronze Age of the Troyans to the Iron Age of the Achaians, as one likes. Has Homer tried to confront the ruling houses with a mirror? Perhaps. But whether they have regarded that?

After his death Hector was worshipped as god for a long time in Ilion at the entrance to the Hellespont (todays Dardanelles). The Thebeans were predicted well-fare of his city if they would bring the mortal remains of Hector from Asia to Thebens. They did that and at order of Zeus they worshipped him as heroe. This is told by Pausanias too. At Sappho, who glorified Hector in an epic poem about his marriage, Hector, meaning 'conservator of the city', is an epithet of Zeus.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen
Homer, Ilias
http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/Achilleus/iliad/iliad.html

Hector's deeds are depicted on many vase paintings. Of these I have selected these three:
(1) The scene of his leave-taking. It is Hector's last visite to his family before his duel with Achilleus: Astyanox, on Andromache's knees, is stretching his arms to touch Hector's helmet. It is an Apulian red-figure column-crater from Ruvo, c.370 360 BC. Now in the Museo Nazionale of the Palazzo Jatta in Ruvo di Puglia (Bari).
(2) An Attic red figure vase depicting Achilleus slaying Hektor.
     The original piece is found in the National Archeological Museum, Athens.
     This is a reproduction from the private collection of Tia C. J. H.
(3) The red-figure vase painting by the Brygos painter. It shows Hector's father Priamos, the king of Troy, who has come to the tent of Achilleus to beg for the return of his son's body. Achilleus initially ignored his request, as seen here, not even looking at Priamos. Hector's body is laying on the ground below.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 14, 2007, 03:22:22 pm
Juno Caprotina

The next article is for our Republican friends!

Roman republic, R. Renius, gens Renia
AR - denarius, 3.92g, 15.33mm
Rome, 138 BC
obv. Head of Roma,wearing decorated and winged Attic helmet, r.
X behind
rev. Juno Caprotina in goats biga galopping r., holding reigns and sceptre in l. hand
and whip in r. hand.
beneath C.RENI
in ex. ROMA
Crawford 231/1; Sydenham 432; Renia 1
VF, toned, small, struck on small flan


Caprotina (= wearing goat's-skin) is an epithet of Juno in her aspect as a fertility Goddess. As Juno Caprotina she is associated with goats (Latin capra, "she-goat", caper, "he-goat") and with figs, both of which are symbolic of fertility: the fig fruit bears many seeds (and the well-known obscene meaning of fica), and goats are well-known for their randiness. Her festival was called the Nonae Caprotinae, or the "Nones of Caprotina", held on the nones or 7th day of July, and it was exclusively celebrated by women, especially slave-women.

Mythology:
The Roman explanation of the Nonae Caprotina is thus: after Rome had survived a siege by the Gauls (historically in the 4th century BCE), some of the less-friendly neighboring Latin tribes decided to take advantage of Rome's weakened position and demanded Roman women in marriage, under the threat of destroying the city. While the Senate debated what to do, a slave-woman named Tutela or Philotis took the matter into her own hands: with a group of other slave-women dressed as free women, she went to the amassed enemy army, and under the guise of celebrating a wedding feast, got the Latins quite drunk. After they had fallen asleep the slave-girls took their weapons, and Tutela climbed a nearby wild fig tree (caproficus in the Latin) and waved a torch as signal for the Romans to attack. This they did, andthey succeeded in defeating their enemies, and as a reward for the resulting victory, the Senate gave each slave-woman who participated her freedom, as well as a generous dowry. After that, in remembrance of the victory, the Nonae Caprotina were celebrated. Typically were obscene mocking speeches hold by the slaves, beating with birches and throwing of stones. Fig-branches and the milky sap of the fig-tree were offered to Juno, and festivities, feasts and rites were held in the fig-grove of the Campus Martius outside of the pomerium. (Varro, De Ling. at. VI, 18, Plut. Romul. 29, Camil 33.)

Another explanation for this festival was that it commemorated the day that Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, mysteriously vanished during a thunderstorm, after which he was believed to have been taken by the Gods and made immortal. The site of his disappearance was the Palus Caprae (or "Goat's Marsh") in the Campus Martius, a swampy basin not far from the spot where the Pantheon is nowadays. The Nonae Caprotinae were also connected with the Poplifugia of the 5th of July, traditionally said to commemorate the people's panicky flight when faced with either a) the enemy army come to seize the women, or b) the occasion of Romulus's disappearence into thin air. The actual, original meaning of the Poplifugia had been long forgotten, though it may have referred to a ritual defeat or chasing away of the neighboring Latin armies. Another connection between the Nonae Caprotinae and the Poplifugia is that it was traditional on the Nonae Caprotinae for the women to run or be chased from the Temple of Juno to the fig-grove where a feast was held.

Goats, figs, and a fleeing populace are the common threads in these traditions; also located near the Palus Caprae (which is the name given to that area only in the legend of Romulus' disappearance) were the Aedicula Capraria, the Shrine of the Goat, and the Vicus Caprarius, a road literally named "Goat Street", which was probably named so because it led to the Aedicula Capraria. It is not known if the Aedicula Capraria was used in the festivities of the Nonae Caprotina, though that would seem likely. And yet another tradition names the invading army that frightened the populace so as being from Ficulea or Ficulnea, an ancient Sabine town whose name means "Of the Fig-Tree".

Background:
The various and confused explanations given for the two related festivals point to both their importance and their ancient origins. Probably they are both linked to the fig-harvest, which takes place in Italy in June and July, and to Juno as a Goddess of the fig tree who ensured a bountiful crop. The milk-like sap of the fig tree connects it with fertility, both of Juno as the Mother Goddess—who was after all equated with the Greek Hera, whose spilled breast milk was said to have formed the Milky Way—and of goats themselves, who were often kept for milk. The fertility of the figs and goats brought by Juno Caprotina was probably seen as encouraging the fertility of the women, as certain of the rites of the Nonae Caprotinae compare with the Lupercalia, a festival also dedicated to fertility. The other major theme of the Poplifugia and the Nonae Caprotinae (as well as the Lupercalia) was the ritual spiritual cleansing of the city: the fig was known in ancient times as a purgative, and thus associated with the driving out of evil (as both figs and fig-branches were used in the Greek rite of the Thargelia, when Athens was symbolically cleansed), so that the people and the crops might prosper. The Flight of the People (enemy army or panicky populace) may also connect to a symbolic driving out of enemies or bad spirits.

Juno Caprotina was usually depicted with goats, naturally enough: on our coin she rides a biga, a two "horse" chariot in this case drawn by a pair of goats; her dress flows in the wind of her speed and she holds what looks like a riding crop. On another coin, on which her portrait is stamped, she wears a head-dress made of goat-hide, with the goat's head over her own so that the horns are preserved in the back, and the lower jawline of the goat runs along her own.

Some notes on Romulus:
He was slain by the Senate or disappeared in the 38th year of his reign. Romulus's end, in the 38th year of his reign, was a supernatural disappearance, if he was not slain by the Senate. Plutarch (Life of Numa Pompilius) tells the legend with a note of skepticism:
"It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation of Rome, when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of July, called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat's Marsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the patricians, and rumors were current among the people as if that they, weary of kingly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and made him away, that so they might assume the authority and government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine honors to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus."

This event should have happened - according to some scientists - on the day of an eclipse. Sadly the reported dates vary very strongly! Here are some datas I have found on the web:
(1) It took place shortly before an eclipse of the Sun that was observed at Rome on June 25, 745 BC and had a magnitude of 50.3%. Its beginning occurred at 16:38, its middle at 17:28, and its end at 18:16.
(2) Romulus vanished in the 54th year of his life, on the Nones of Quintilis (July), on a day when the Sun was darkened. The day turned into night, which sudden darkness was believed to be an eclipse of the Sun. It occurred on July 17, 709 BC, with a magnitude of 93.7%, beginning at 5:04 and ending at 6:57. All these eclipse data have been calculated by Prof.Aurl Ponori-Thewrewk, retired director of the Planetarium of Budapest.

Additional I have found only the pic of an Etruscian front tile showing Juno Caprotina.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Wikipedia
http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/caprotina.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 29, 2007, 12:46:27 pm
The Thracian Rider-God Heros

1st coin:
Thracia, Odessos, Lucius Verus, AD 161-162
AE 19, 5.22g
obv. AVT KAI AVR - OVHROC
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. ODE - CC - E - ITWN
      The Thracian Rider-God Heros, nude except Chlamys, on horse trotting r., holding
      transverse spear before chest.
AMNG 2249
rare, VF, nice green patina
The horseman is often called the Emperor, but because of its nudeness alone it is surely the Rider-God Heros.

2nd coin:
Thracia, Odessos, qasi-autonomous, 270-250 BC
AE 22, 7.54g
obv. Head of Zeus, bearded, laureate, r.
rev. The Thracian Rider-God Heros, bearded, nude except chlamys, wearing kausia, trooting
       on horse r., beneath as monogram A; with baseline
       in ex. ODHCITWN
AMNG 2206; BMC Black Sea 291
Rare, VF+, brown patina with some earthen highlights
Pedigree:
ex David Freedman coll.
ex CNG auction 61, 25.9.2002, lot 194
Note: Kausia = a flat Thracian bonnet

The Thracians were an old indo-european people or group of peoples in ancient times. They are mentioned already by Homer in his Ilias and described by Herodot. Thracian tribes settled on the Balkans, the actual Thracia, todays Romania, Moldawia, Serbia, Makedonia, Bulgaria, Northern-Greece and between the Carpatian Mountains and the Aegean Sea, and in Asia Minor: Mysia, Bithynia and Paphlagonia. The are the greatest people after the Indians, Herodot wrote. They have had no own scripture, but had close connections to the Greeks and their culture. The ancient religion of the Greeks was strongly influenced by the Thracians. A number of Greek gods actually had Thracian origin, among them Ares, Dionysos, Herakles and Orpheus. Their language was Thracian.

Under the Thracian gods particularly interesting was the Heros-God, known as the Thracian Horseman, as he was worshipped by the Thracians, because he was not a specific person like the Greek gods. Although ancestor worship of real people who had done great deeds bled into it, the Thracian Hero was an abstract figure, the idea of a Hero. It is this metaphysical entity ('Wesenheit') around which the worship was centered. The Hero was no doubt the central figure in Thracian religion, the hope and faith of the people. Their hero was all­seeing and all­hearing, he was the sun and also the ruler of the nether world, he was the protector of life and health, and kept the forces of evil at bay. In modern Bulgaria he continues to perform that function going by the name of St.George.

The Thracian Hero was depicted all the time, all over the place. Always on a horse, slaying something, slaying anything, usually with a spear. Over 1500 stone reliefs and more than 100 bronze statuettes of the Horseman have been uncovered on the territory of present-day Bulgaria. From antiquity, through Roman times, through the middle ages, and today, the image of the Horseman is inescapable in Bulgaria.
The Thracian Hero is also responsible for the Greek word heros from which the English word 'hero‘ is derived. The ethymological origin is indo-european *ser- = protect (Webster)
 
This hero-god was a war-god, he was the son of Bendis, the Great Mother of Gods, and her lover too. Bendis was worshipped as goddess of hunting and fertility. Her son was born virginally. Another important aspect of the Thracian religion was the belief in Immortality, known already from the 6th century BC or even earlier. Because of that the Christianism was accepted in Thracia very early. The religious components like mother, son, immaculate conception and Lord's Supper had an old tradition in Thracia. I remind on the letters of St.Paul to the Thessalonians written AD 51.
 
He was worshipped at hundreds of sanctuaries, peasants are still making pilgrimages to one of Bulgaria’s main Thracian Horseman sanctuaries, in fact that is how a lot of Thracian archeological sites in Bulgaria have been found.Arheologists just followed the local people to the places where they performed their “Christian” rituals, in fact the rituals and celebrations were {Like St. Trifon} Christian only by name. In most cases the peasants didn’t even know that the places they went to were ex-Thracian altar sites, they had simply been going there since time in memorial, only after the archeologists dug the site, did the people see the Thracian altars. 1000 years earlier the Church had done a very good job of burying “pagan” alters, and erasing the “pagan” names, but it couldn’t change, or eliminate the culture and rituals. Today St. George is the Hero’s new name. You can see images of St. George on a horse, slaying a dragon, all over Bulgaria.

The Madara Horseman
We must mention here the Madara Horseman too. This is a large rock relief from the early medieval times near the village of Madara in northeastern Bulgaria. The relief depicts a majestic horseman 23 m above ground level in an almost vertical 100-metre-high cliff. The horseman, facing right, is thrusting a spear into a lion lying at his horse’s feet. An eagle is flying in front of the horseman and a dog is running after him. The scene symbolically depicts a military triumph. The monument is dated back to circa 710 AD and is allocated to the Proto-Bulgarians who settled in this region. Other theories connect the relief with the ancient Thracians, claiming it portrays the Thracian Rider-God. It has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1979.

Besides the two coins which have been struck in a temporal distance of  400 years I want to show an altar of the Thracian Horseman and then too the monmental relief of the Madara Horseman

Sources:
Wikipedia
http://ancient-bulgaria.com/category/nature/reliefs/

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 03, 2007, 05:21:23 pm
The unlucky King Kyzikos

Mysia, Kyzikos, quasi-autonomous, 2nd-3rd century AD
AE 29, 8.3g
struck under strategos Aur. Aristeidos
obv. KYZ - IKOC
      Head of Kyzikos, diademed with taenia, r.
rev. CTR A / [YR AR ]IC / TE[I ]DOY / KYZIKH / NWN
      (in 5 lines) all within laurel-wreath
SNG 91 var. (has an additional line)
Very rare, VF/about VF, dark-green patina
Note: In Münsterberg is named a strategos Aur. Aristaidoas. May be he is the same magistrate named in the legend.

The myth of Kyzikos belongs to the ambit of the myths around the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. Kyzikos, son of Aineus, a former ally of Herakles, and his wife Ainete, daughter of Eusor (or son of Apollo and Stilbe), was the king of an island of the Propontis (todays Sea of Marmara), called Dolionos or Arkton, which was surmounted by the Dindymon mountain. When the Argonauts on their journey to Kolchis, where they want to get the Golden Fleece, had luckily passed the Hellespont, they came to this island. Here Kyzikos just have married Kleite from the Phrygian city of Perkote and invited all to take part in his wedding ceremonies. And so they did. On this Island, called Island of Bears too, six-arm sons of Rhea were living. The Doliones hadn't worry about them because they were descendants of Poseidon. But when the Argonauts hereafter climbed the mountain Dindymon the earth-born Giants attacked their ship, the 'Argo'. But Herakles succeeded in killing most of them. With it the desaster started which the Argonauts brought to the Doliones. The Argonauts said good bye and took course to the Cimmerian Bosporos. But in the night a heavy storm descended on them and they were thrown back to the island. Because of the darkness Kyzikos couldn't recognize his guests and regarded them as his enemies, the Pelasgians, and a serious fight occured between them. In this fight Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, killed Kyzikos by his own hand, regarding him a pirate. When the sun raised the noble King Kyzikos lay dead at his feet. Both sides realized their terrible error, and Jason arranged a honorable funeral and gave the reign to Kyzikos' sons. It is told by some that in mourning all of the Argonauts have cut their hair. The burial ceremonies lastened three days and Orpheus, an Argonaut too, was assigned to reconcile Kyzikos' soul. But adverse winds prevent them of driving on. Then the seer Mopsus could understand the cry of a kingfisher and gave them the advise to reconcile Rhea, who was angry because of the death of her sons. So the Argonauts climbed the Dindymon mountain again and erected a wooden statue from a grape-vine for the goddess. Therefore Rhea is sometimes called Dindymene. Then they continued their journey.

Another version of the myth tells, that Kyzikos was a king of the Pelasgians in Thrace, was dispelled with his people from his home and then settled in Asia where he married Kleite, the daughter of Merops, king of Rhybakos, and so came to success. When the Argonauts landed at his island his people had attacked them because they regarded them as their enemies who had dispelled them from Thrace. Kyzikos has tried to detach them and then was killed accidentally by Jason. Kleite, just married, couldn't bear that and of love to Kyzikos she committed suicide by hanging. The Nymphs of the grove had cried hereafter so heavenly about her death that from their tears a spring arised called the Kleite Spring. 

Others tell that he was killed in a fight with Piasos, his father-in-law, who had loved his daughter, the wife of Kyzikos, unseemly, when because of that it came to a struggle between them. But this seems to be another myth going back to Euphorion and mentioned by Schol. Apoll. Rhod. I, 1063.

In another version of the journey of the Argonauts Valerius Flaccus (Argonautika 3.20) writes that Rhea, the Great Mother who has a cult at top of the Dindymon mountain was offended by King Kyzikos, so that she forced the Argonauts to revenge her. Kyzikos namely, betrayed by his too great love of the chase, once have killed a sacred lion with his spear that was wont to bear its mistress, the Great Mother through the cities of Phrygia and was now returning to the bridle. And now in his hybris has hung from his doorposts the mane and the head of his victim, a spoil to bring sorrow to himself and shame upon the goddess. But she, nursing her great rage, beholds from the cymbal-clashing mountain the ship of the Argonauts with its border of kingly shields, and devises against the hero deaths and horrors unheard of: how in the night to set allied hands at strife in unnatural war, how to enmesh the city in cruel terror. The Argonauts killed Kyzikos and his men at night in a confused battle.

The Doliones mourned for a full month, didn't lightened a fire and lived by uncooked food, a custom which could be observed during the Games of Kyzikos until now.

Some call his subjects Dolopes. In any case the island thereafter got the name Kyzikos and so the capital too. Later the island became a peninsula called Arktonesos (= Island of Bears). The city of Kyzikos had two harbours connected by bridged channels. Under Roman rule Kyzikos remained one of the most wealthy and powerful cities in Asia Minor, especially by its location which brought forward the trade. Until the 6th century AD it was the capital of the province Hellespont.

Literature:
Orpheus Argon. 500
Hygin. Fab. 16
Apollod. lib.I, c.9.§18
Euphorion II.c
Strabo lib.XII.p.575
Val. Flacc.Argon. 3.20
Schol. Apollon. ad lib.I.v.948

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen - Die Heroengeschichten

Sorry, I couldn't find any additional pics for this myth!

Best regards 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 06, 2007, 06:00:49 pm
Hylas - Herakles' Favorite

At first it seemed difficult to attribute this coin. But finally I succeeded by using 'Historia Numorum' von Barcley Head which is provided by Ed Snible under https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Historia%20Numorum
 
The coin:
Bithynia, Kios, Geta as Augustus, AD 209-212
Ae 24, 7.42g
obv. AYT.KP.CE - GETAC AY
      Bust with scale-armor, lareate, r.
rev. LK - IA - NW - N
      Young Hylas, with waving clothes around his hip, advancing l., holding with r. hand
      drinking vessel at his mouth.
Ref.: ANS -; cf. SNG von Aulock 518 (rev., for Volusian), cites Rec.Gen. p.225, 125;
        probably unpublished in major works
Very rare, F+, brown patina

Mythology:
Hylas, meaning 'of the wood', was the son of Theodamas, king of the Dryopians in Thessaly. When Herakles came to Trachis he met Theodamas, who was plowing his fields with oxes. Because he was hungry and because he wanted to start quarrel with the Dryopians he asked him for an ox. When Theodamas refused the delivery of an ox Herakles slew him and abducted Hylas as infant. Later Herakles fell in love with him and Hylas became his favorite.

After having brought the Erymanthian Boar to Erichtheus Herakles together with the youth Hylas went to the Argonauts to take part in their journey to Kolchis to get the Golden Fleece.  After their adventures in Kyzikos they must land at the coast of Kios in Mysia, because they had to repair the rudders which were broken by Herakles. Hylas was sent out to fetch water for Herakles. When he came to a spring the nymphs of the spring in which he dipped his pitcher were so excited because of his beauty that they drew him into the water to keep him forever. And he was never seen again. Herakles started out to search for Hylas but in vain. Only his pitcher he found at the border of the spring. But Herakles' thrice-repeated cry was lost in the depths of the water. Only the voice of Hylas came from the depth like a far echo. In anger Herakles threatened to waste the land if Hylas were not found dead or alive.

In a vision to Herakles Hylas rises from the water’s level, clad in saffron weeds, the gift of the unkind Nympha, and standing by his dear head utters such words as these: ‘Why, father, dost thou waste time in vain lament? Mine now by fate’s appointing is this glade, this home, wither at cruel Hera’s behest the wanton Nympha has stolen me; now doth she win me power to consort with the streams of Zeus and the heavenly deities, and shares with me her love and the honours of the fountain." - Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4.22

In the morning oportune winds came up and because Herakles didn't return Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, commanded to continue their voyage without Herakles. But some say that the Argonauts took Herakles search only as pretense to dispose him because he regularly broke his rudders due to his supernatural power. (Schol. Apollon. ad I.c.v. 533&1163). So Herakles must stay in Mysia.

It is told, that the inhabitants of Kios, in memory of the threat of Herakles and to appease him, every year search for Hylas in a big ceremony. On a stated day they roamed the woods and the mountains, and their priests thrice called the name of Hylas and thrice the echo answered. Probably these ceremonies were the cause for the myth of Hylas (Theocrit. xiii. 72; Strab. p. 564.). But even though this myth was told first in Alexandrinian times the so-called "cry of Hylas " occurs long before as the " Mysian cry " in Aeschylus (Persae, 1054), and in Aristophanes, Plutus, 1127). " to cry Hylas " is used proverbially of seeking something in vain .

Background
Hylas, like Adonis and Hyakinthos, represents the fresh vegetation of spring, or the water of a fountain, which dries up under the heat of summer . It is suggested that Hylas was a harvest deity and that the ceremony gone through by the Kians was a harvest festival, at which the figure of a boy was thrown into the water, signifying the dying vegetation-spirit of the year. The melancholic tunes linked with these ceremonies were known already to Aischylos.

The connection between Herakles and Hylas doubtless was homoerotical coloured. He was his 'catamite. So Hylas appears already in ancient times as an example for the homoeroticism of the great Greek heroes, either eulogized or condemned.

Kios
Kios (Lat. Cius), later named Prusias ad Mare too, was an ancient Greek city bordering the Propontis (now known as the Sea of Marmara), in Bithynia, and had as such a long history, being mentioned by Homer, Aristoteles and Strabo. It was colonized by the Milesians and became a place of much commercial importance. It joined the Aetolian League, and was destroyed by Philip III of Makedonia. It was rebuilt by Prusias I of Bithynia who renamed it for himself. An important chain in the ancient Silk Road, it became known as a wealthy town.

History of art:
This myth was very popular as is proofed by numerous places in literature and depictions in  art. Hylas appears in Hellenistic and especially in Roman art, particulary in Pompejian paintings (Villa Ephebi). Holding a jar in his hand the youth tries to flee from the nymphs. Giulio Romano (AD 1499-1546) picked up this subject as is testified by a drawing in Vienna (AD 1530) for a lost painting. Then there ia a sculpture by Thorwaldsen (AD 1768-1844) in Copenhagen (1831) and several paintings by J.W.Waterhouse (AD 1849-1917).
 
I have added:
(1) a mosaic, (Grenoble, Musée de Saint-Romain-en-Gal)
(2) a painting of Francesco Furini (1603-1646), Hylas and the Najads (1638; Firenze, Palazzo Pitti)
(3) and a painting of J.W.Waterhouse (1896/8; Manchester, CAG)

Sources:
(a) Primary literature:
Strabo, Geography 12.4.3
Strabo XII, 564
Apollonois Rhodios, Argonautika I, 1207-1357
Apollodor. I, 117
Vergil, Bucolica 6, 44ff.
Theokrit Idyll. XIII

(b) Secondary literature:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
G . Turk in Breslauer Philologische Abhandlungen, VII (1895)
W . Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen (1884) .
Robert von Ranke-Graves, griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Heroengeschichten
http://www.theoi.com/Nymphe/NymphaiMysiai.html
http://www.androphile.org/DE/Library/Mythology/Hercules/Hylas/Hylas.htm
Wikipedia
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissaraue, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen

(c) Paintings:
http://www.affinities.net/states/forum/forum_page.php?sid=4840002&forumId=1985
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/vienne/en/mosa17.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Arminius on May 12, 2007, 05:48:05 pm
This one is different from those former easy informations provided by Jochen and a few others.
Here is the coin - what might be the mythological background? (Don´t ask me - i have no idea so far).

Nicomedia in Bithynia, Marcus Aurelius, 161–180 AD.,
Æ24 (23-25 mm / 10,25 g),
Obv.: [ΑΥ] Κ Μ ΑΥΡ ΑΝΤΩΝЄΙ[Ν] , laureate head of Marcus Aurelius, r.
Rev.: ΜΗ ΝΕΩΚ-Ο / ΝΕΙΚΟΜ , eagle standing, r., spreading wings, fighting serpent erect before it.
RPC temporary № 5654 .

Regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 12, 2007, 05:58:08 pm
Hi Arminius!

That's very interesting because I got a similar coin from Apollonia Pontica. I will post it in the Provincial board to not confuse the Mythological thread by a longer discussion!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 19, 2007, 07:35:20 pm
Aphrodite Urania

1st coin:
Kingdom of Bosporus, Queen Gepaepyris, AD 37-39
AE 23 (12 nummi), 8.04g
obv. BACILICCHC GEPAIPYREWC
      Bust of Gepaepyris, draped and diademed, r.
rev. Bust of Aphrodite Urania, veiled and wearing kalathos, r.
      IB in front of her
Mac Donald 306; Anokhin 326 var.; RPC I, 1907 var. (both have IB behind the bust)
about VF, brown patina with green highlights

This coin comes from a geographical region about which I have had only superficial knowledge, the Kingdom of Bosporus. Between the seventh century BC and the fourth century AD, the Cimmerian Bosporus, an area covering the Crimean and Taman Peninsulas of southern Ukraine, consisted of a vigorous and sophisticated culture that maintained close ties to the Greco-Roman world. Much of what is known about this region comes from the coins struck by the local cities as well as the Kingdom of the Bosporus, initially independent, but by the first century BC, a client-kingdom of Rome. Alltogether an exciting matter which is worth to be engaged with!

The chief deity of the whole bosporan kingdom was no doubt Aphrodite Urania: the centre of her worship was on the east side of the strait where she had a temple in Phanagoria and one called the Apatouron on the south side of Lake Corocondamitis: after this sanctuary she is described in inscriptions as Apatourias or more often Apatourou medeousa [Minns 1913 p. 618]. Apatura probably originates from Scythian/Sarmatian *ap- tur-, meaning 'water- overflowing'.

2nd coin:
Macedonia, Uranopolis, quasi-autonom, c. 300 BC
AE 15, 3.34g
struck under Alexarchos
obv. eight-pointed star, representing the sun, in dotted circle
rev. OYRANIDW - POLEWC (in straight lines from top to bottom)
       Aphrodite Urania in sleeved chiton and cloak fixed on l. shoulder and enclosing
       legs and l. l. arm, std. half l. on celestial globe, upper part of the body and
       head turned facing. On the head she wears a conical cap ending in a star. Her
       r. hand resting on a long staff which ends at the top in an oval shaped sun
      disk.
SNG ANS 914ff.; BMC Macedonia, p.134, 2ff.; SNG Copenhagen 455-7; SNG Evelpidis 1363; Lindgren 1260; AMNG III, 3, pl.25, fig.4
very rare, F+, light-green patina

The name of the city and this type refer to Uranos, the devine personification of the city. The city was a foundation in the vicinity of the Athos mountain on the peninsula Aktos, the most east cape of the Chalkidike. It was founded c.316-300 BC by Kassander's youngest brother Alexarchos, who was half-mad and acquited himself for Helios, the sun. For statisticians: This is the earlist depiction of the globe on a coin!

Aphrodite:
Primarily Aphrodite probably was a mother and fertility goddess of growing and emerging. By assigning a longing desire to nature she became the Goddess of Love and step by step of Beauty too. Early scholars claim that the origin of her worship originates already from the time where the Greeks still were not separated from the other indo-european people. A goddess with a similar character is found at the majority of these people. While Aphrodite is mentioned already in the earliest epic literature her name is not found on the Linear B tablets of the Mykenian religion. Most probably her cult came to Greece in the peiod between 1200 BC and 800 BC. Her name is obscure and unexplained until now. For Homer, Hesiod, and other early writers, the goddess was intimately linked to Cyprus. The Odyssee lists Paphos as the goddess' homeland, while the Iliad makes Kypris her most common epithet. Hesiod calls her both Kyprogene and Kythereia.

Among leading scholars, there is something of a consensus that the cult of Aphrodite originally came to Greece from the ancient Near East: "Behind the figure of Aphrodite there clearly stands the ancient Semitic goddess of love, Ishtar-Astarte, divine consort of the king, queen of heaven, and hetaera in one." This view receives strong support from the Greeks themselves. Pausanias, for example, offered the following opinion: "The Assyrians were the first of the human race to worship the heavenly one (Aphrodite Urania); then the people of Paphos in Cyprus, and of Phoenician Askalon in Palestine, and the people of Kythera, who learnt her worship from the Phoenicians."
And so Aphrodite has numerous characteristics in common with Astarte. Both are depicted as goddesses of love and associated with rites of prostitution, for example. Aphrodite, like Astarte, was represented as armed and invoked to guarantee victory. As such she was called Areia and became the lover of Ares, to whom she was mythological related because he was the god of thunder too and thus of the fertilization of earth too. Later mainly three different forms of Aphrodite developed - a kind of a panhellenic trifold 'Great Mother'.

Aphrodite Urania:
In Homer's hymnos the goddess occurs as 'Mistress of the wild animals (pothnia theron)', which mated with each other on her hint. Especially the Goddess of Love was differentiated by two aspects, the 'holy, heavenly' Aphrodite Urania and the 'Aphrodite Pandemos', who belonged to the 'whole people'. This sometimes is called the dualism of Aphrodite. Platon has suggested that two different goddesses existed: Aphrodite Urania, goddess of the noble love, and Aphrodite Pandemos, daughter of Dione and goddess of the common morality. This was interpreted by Platon (in his 'Symposion') as the homosexual and the heterosexual love (eros).

Aphrodite Urania (Venus caelestis), the Holy Love (sacral), the Heavenly Love, the Heaven's Queen, stands for the 'virginal, celestial, noble love'. As Urania she was made the daughter of Uranos, who was said to have born her without a mother (so Platon), or to a daughter of Zeus as bright heaven and Dione, his female complement. As such she was worshipped on top of the mountains, therefore called Akraia, where she was nearer to heaven. In this function serves a polos, a round narrow cap on her head symbolizing the support of the heavenly globe, or the celestial globe or a turtle as the same symbol.

As the Greek descendant of the Semitic fertility-goddess Istar, Aphrodite has inherited as her astral symbol the planet of Istar, better known to us as Venus. In the Greek sources themselves, Plato is our earliest authority for this identification. A decisive question for the historian of religions is whether Aphrodite's identification with Venus is relatively late in origin, or whether it has a foundation in the goddess' aboriginal cult. Here the goddess' epithet Urania offers a valuable clue. Urania - "celestial one" - was a Greek translation of the Semitic title malkat ha-ssamayim, "the queen of the heavens," long understood as having reference to Venus. This epithet finds precise parallels in the cults of other Venus-goddesses throughout the ancient world. In Sumer f.e. Inanna was identified with the planet Venus. The Akkadian Ishtar shares the same epithet as is known from hymns. In Babylonian astronomcal tablets she is named "the bright queen of heavens", among the various names for the planet Venus. The Canaanite goddess Anat, whose fundamental affinity with Inanna and Ishtar is well-known, was likewise deemed the "Queen of Heaven" in Egyptian sources. And she too has been identified with the planet Venus. The celestial goddess figures prominently among the pagan gods mentioned in the Old Testament, and no doubt there was much truth in the Israelite's admission that the people had long burnt incense to the Queen of Heaven. Although Jeremiah does not name the goddess in question, Astarte seems the most likely candidate. Astarte's identification with the planet Venus is commonly acknowledged, as is her affinity with Aphrodite. Indeed, a late inscription, c. 160 BC, identifies Astarte and Aphrodite Urania.

History of Art:
Pausanias reports an Aphrodite Urania from gold and ivory erected in the temple of Aphrodite in Elis. The left foot of the statue rested on a small turtle. This statue was ascribed to the famous Phidias (500-432 BC). Sadly this statue was lost. So we have only the description. A torso in the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin possibly refers to this statue.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia
http://www.aeonjournal.com/articles/aphrodite/aphrodite.html
http://www.jannis.tu-berlin.de/23_Studies_Tauric_&_Bosporus/www_Phanagoria_6_unter_den_Roemern.html
http://www.pontos.dk/publications/books/bbs4-files/BSS4_13_Saprykin.pdf
http://www.anthroglobe.ca/docs/Sergei/scythian-sarmatian-meotian-beliefs.htm

I have added the pic of Aphrodite Apatoura of a terracotta vase from Phanagoria. It shows surprisingly a near connection between Aphrodite Urania and Anadyomene! But it is not so much surprisingly when we look at the mythology: Aphrodite was suggested to be the daughter of Uranos. When Kronos cut the genitals of his father and threw them into the sea a white foam originated around them which for some time was floating on the sea until finally Aphrodite emerged from it (Hesiod Theog.v.188; Serv. ad Vergil. Aen.V.v.801). On a scallop she came first to the island of Kythera and flowers sprouted everywhere where her feet touched the ground (Hesiod Theog.v.192). I think you all know the famous painting of Botticelli 'La nascita de Venere' (The birth of Venus)'.

Another pic is from the Naples Museum. It shows a beautiful, noble head usually called 'Sappho', but Evelyn Harrison, a eminent scholar in Pheidian sculpture, is sure that is shows the 'Pheidian head of Aphrodite Ourania (Hesperia 53)'. The pic is from Pat Lawrence, thanks!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 19, 2007, 07:41:35 pm
Sandan of Tarsos

Out of a far, strange world!

Cilicia, Tarsos,autonomous issue, 1st century BC
AE 21, 6.54g
obv. Bust of the city-goddess (Tyche), veiled and turreted, r.,
      on the face c/m in the shape of a male radiate head (Helios?) in circular incus.
rev. Pyre of Sandan in pyramidal shape, crowned by an eagle with spread wings, stg. r. on a
      small round base; within cult statue of Sandan wearing polos and holding double axe,
      stg. r. on a winged and horned lion, r. hand raised; besides l. and r. a baetylus; altogether
      on a round base decorated with garlandes.
      in the r. field from top TAR[C]EWN
      in the l. field from top AR / AR / DI / Q
Ref.: SNG BN 1333-1334; Sear GIC 5672
about VF, slight roughness

History of religion:
Center of the cult of Sandan was Tarsos. Tarsos was an important foundation of the Hetits and in Greek and Roman times the most eminent city of Cilicia. From the early times of Hetits it has kept Sandan as its main god. But Tarsos was a stronghold of syncretism too. Here Baal, Tarz and Zeus have been melted into Sandan and in Hellenistic times he was identified with Herakles too. The cult image of the god was depicted already on Seleucid coins (Houghton Coll. 475 ff.).The iconographic details of Sandan and his beastlike mixed being we know already from oriental arts, especially from the region of the Hetits.

The cult of Sandan, or Sandon or Sandas (LIMC VII), is a remnant from the time when Cilicia was conquered by the Hetits in the 17th century BC. In its Luwian form it was Teshub, the god of mountain storms. In the Hetitian sanctuary of Yazilikaya he is depicted as a bearded man, wearing a conical head-dress, holding a club and a plant, probably with reference to the Mesopotamion 'Tree of Life'. Like the other Hetitian high gods his feet never touched the earth. He was riding on the backs of mythological animals, has been borne on the shoulders of lower deities or was walking over the tops of the mountains. The tops of the mountains reminded the Hetits of their high loomed homeland, and so did the high head-dress and the pyramidal shape of Sandan's pyre. Whereas the cult of Sandan in Tarsos was assimilated with the cult of Herakles, in fact  - by his origin as nature god - he resembles more the Greek king of gods Zeus. This depiction of Sandan appears about 2000 years after his first occurence in mythology, but the similarity with the Hetitian original is striking (CNG).

Referring to his name Sandan (or Shantash too) was warshipped not only in Cilicia and Cappadocia but in Lycaonia, Isauria, Pisidia, Caria and Lydia too (look at 'Sandon' in Pauly-Wissowa or 'Sandas' in Roscher). According to H.T.Bossert he was the main god in Crete too, and it was the same god and his epiphany they longed for when the women performed her dances with bare breasts and snakes in her hands (but since then disproved by Linear B studies!). In historical times he has survived in Dionysos and Bes, the dwarf with the lion-skin over his shoulder, in Herakles with the lion-skin, especially serving disguised as woman at the court of Omphale, struggling with the lion or subdoing the bull of Marathon, as Apollo and Ares/Arte-mis Lafria = Labrys, i.e. with double-axe (the androgyne hunter split in a male and female aspect).

In hieroglyphic Hetitian texts Santas is called 'the Great', and in Syria his cult is found until the 3rd century AD. Eusebius writes that Herakles in Phoenicia and Cappadocia and yet in his times has been worshipped under the name Desandus (Tesh Shandash). And several rulers seem to call themself Tesh Shantash, where Tesh is the stem of a word we know from the Greek theos (= god).The Great Hunter then is identical with the ruler, an idea which later had big influence on the ideology around the Roman emperor. So the funeral fire, the so-called consecratio seems to be a direct copy of Sandan's pyra.
 
The Pyra:
On coins of Hellenistic times Sandan always is depicted nude, standing on the back of a lion, a burning altar behind, the lion winged and horned, the god with a mystical flower and a double-axe in his l. hand, wearing a polos on his head, which should show that he is the world pillar holding apart heaven and earth. He is depicted too standing within a pyramide shaped structure, his pyra, a funeral pile, on which he was burned. This pyra obviously was built so skillfull, that it became the symbol of the world mountain with the eagle of apotheosis on top and flanked by the two personified world pillars, representing the split world mountain. Sandan was regarded as founder of Tyros and often identified with Perseus who was worshipped as founder of the city too.

The pyra plays an important role in the cult of Sandan. It was a pyramide made from wood which was erected to burn Sandan in the shape of an idol. In Rome the cult around Sandan became the role model for the consecration celebrities of the apotheosis of the emperor. Like Herakles and the Tyrian god Melqart Sandan was raised up to heaven by the fire. This symbolism has strong connections to the Phoenician sun-bird: Phoenix after dying in the fire is eternally reborn in the fire. Here we found the idea of re-birthing or resurrection of death.

The Roman emperor too burnt up like Sandan in the shape of an idol. A wax doll was playing the role of the deceased Caesar in the consecration celebreties. And afterwards his soul was raised to heaven by the sun-bird. For that an eagle was set free from its cage at top of the burning wooden pyramide (symbol of phoenix!). This was found too in the temple of Melqart in Tyros: A flying eagle on top of the burning world pillar (or world tree).
   
Sandan and Christianism:
The creator of Christianism in the form we know today was Paulus of Tarsos. Our Christianism actually is Paulism. He grow up in a city known as centre of the cult of Sandan known by the Greek under the name of Herakles too. H.-J. Schoeps, whom I have the honour to get to know in the 60th years in Erlangen, writes about the religious enviroment in which St.Paul grew up before he came to Jerusalem. Each year in honour of Sandan-Herakles in Tarsos the festival of the funeral pyre was celebrated. The idea behind the mysterium was the dying of nature under the withering sommer heat and the following re-flourishing to new life. This reveals its close relationship to the cult of the Syrian Adonis, the Phrygian Attis, the Egyptian Osiris and the Babylonian Tammuz. Schoeps infers: "That the young Saul has seen the processions in honour of this deity on the marketplaces and in the streets of Tarsos can't be proofed, but seems to be most probably!". http://www.abrahamsknife.com/excerpt_lecture.shtml
   
On the other side no sign of syncretism of Syria or Asia Minor could be found in his letters. So nobody today is following the conclusions of Schoeps and Goppelt, that Paulus was influenced in his christianology - even only indirectly - by these impressions in his youth. But we must concede that by deities like Sandan, Herakles, Dionysos or Mithras the idea of resurrection after death was well known to the people and was not surprising.   

I have added the pic of a tetradrachm of Antiochos VIII Grypos (121-96 BC), CSE 489, from Tarsos (from CoinArchives). Here you can see the details of the pyre better than on my coin.

Sources:
http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/Hittites
http://www.tribwatch.com/hercules.htm
http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html
http://langkjer.dk/origin/1-12.htm
http://langkjer.dk/origin/1-18.htm
http://langkjer.dk/origin/2-25.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: gordian_guy on May 28, 2007, 12:18:14 am


Tarsus being one of those cities of Cilicia that seemed to have a long mythological history minted an amazing variety of coins, including these types of Sandan on his horned-lion-like creature with wings. I post here my variety of Jochen's coin without the pyramidal temple, just Sandan on his beast. I have an interesting similar type for Tranquillina.

c.rhodes
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 02, 2007, 04:47:22 pm
Diana Nemorensis

Roman Republic, P. Accoleius Lariscolus, gens Accoleia
AR - Denarius, 3.90gm, 19.7mm. 
        Rome, 43 BC
obv. P. ACCOLEIVS - LARISCOLVS
       Archaisized bust of Diana Nemorensis, draped, r.
rev. Triple cult statue of Diana Nemorensis (Diana, Hecate, Selene) facing,
       supporting with their hands and shoulders a bar; behind them a grove of five
       cypresses; the figure on the left (Diana) holds a bow in her outer hand, the
       figure on the right (Selene) a poppy.
Crawford 486/1; Sydenham 1148; Accoleia 1 
gVF, light toning, with a reasonably unobtrusive banker's mark.
According to Andrew Alföldi this coin is a type from the later time of this issue recognizable by the hairdress of Diana Nemorensis on the obv.: The first type has a double row of knob-like curls bordering the flatly combed hair which clings closely to the skull. An intermediate type has a braid falling down on the neck and the last one has a hair-dress covering the flatly combed crown of hair with a turban-like cloth wrapping - as we can see here.

The family of the mint-master is originated from Aricia at the Lake Nemi were the grove and the temple of Diana Nemorensis stood. Here too votiv-inscriptions of the Accoleii have been found. Octavian's mother was from Aricia. Perhaps Octavian himself has influenced the selection of this coin-motive.

Sadly most often the description of this coin is wrong. Often the bust on the obv. is called Acca Larentia. But more errors can be found on the rev. (A. Alföldi):
(1) Often the three figures were called Nymphae Querquetulanae. But it could be seen clearly that the depicted trees are cypresses and not oaks which would be expected for oak-nymphs. Cypresses usually remind the Romans of fear and death matching the ambit of Diana-Hecate. So the trees are neither poplars too.
(2) The figures don't hold beams with trees on it, but it is a bar which they hold on their shoulders to stress their connection (like the statue of the Dioscurs in Sparta), and the trees belong to a grove in the background. The misinterpretation is understandable because of the alterations made by the die-cutters during the issue of this series. So the three figures look like caryatids and the lower parts of the trees have been left out. On the first types they are seen clearly. 
(3) The object held by the left figure (Diana) naturally is a bow and not a poppy. A poppy could be held by the right figure (Selene) even though in later issues the plant looks more like a lily.

Diana Nemorensis literally means 'Diana of the Wood'. Her sanctuary was found at the
northern shore of a lake below the cliffs of the todays city Nemi. This lake, called  'Diana's mirror' too, in ancient times was known as the Lake of Aricia. However Aricia was situated about three miles off at the foot of the Mons Albanus and separated by a steep descent from the lake, which lies in a small crater-like hollow on the mountain side. This sanctuary was the most important Roman sanctuary of Diana. 

According to one story the worship of Diana at Nemi was instituted by Orestes, who, after killing Thoas, King of the Tauric Chersonese (the Crimea), fled with his sister Iphigenia to Italy, bringing with him the image of the Tauric Diana hidden in a faggot of sticks. After his death his bones were transported from Aricia to Rome and buried in front of the temple of Saturn, on the Capitoline slope, beside the temple of Concordia. The bloody ritual which legend ascribed to the Tauric Diana is familiar to classical readers; it is said that every stranger who landed on the shore was sacrificed on her altar. But transported to Italy, the rite assumed a milder form. The fight for the Rex Nemorensis is said to be an old reminiscence of that ritual. But Alföldi denies any connections to the Tauric Diana.

The votive offerings found in the grove of Ariccia portray she was conceived of as a huntress, and further as blessing men and women with offspring, and granting expectant mothers an easy delivery.

Diana was worshipped in a sacred grove. Sir James George Frazer writes of this sacred grove in his book 'The Golden Bogh'. Legend tells of a tree that stands in the center of the grove and is guarded heavily. No one was to break off its limbs, with the exception of a runaway slave, who was allowed, if he could, to break off one of the boughs. According to legend, only a man possessing great inner and outer strength would be able to do this. Upon breaking off a limb, the slave was then in turn granted the privilege to engage the Rex Nemorensis, the current king and priest of Diana in the region, in one on one mortal combat. If the slave prevailed, he became the next king for as long as he could defeat challengers.

This resembles a rite of initiation. The legend of Rex Nemorensis is similar to Aeneas who had to break the golden bough from the tree of the Underworld in order to complete his sacred quest. Aeneas encounters Charon the guardian who refuses to let him cross the Underworld lake. Charon and the King of the Woods are parallel figures as the latter is guardian of Lake Nemi. The King of the Woods also is referred to by other names such as a type of Green Man figure, in Italian Witchcraft as the Hooded One since he is covered with greenery of Nature, and in Diana's sacred grove at Nemi he is called Virbius.

The festival of Diana Nemorensis was celebrated on August 13. and was mainly a festival for slaves (Bellinger, 116). Already very early Diana was equated with Luna (Selene), later with the Greek Artemis too. To which extent the Latin Diana has to be differentiated from the Greek Artemis today is nearly impossible to decide. But very early she was known as Diana triformis or Diana triplex. Ovid calls her Trivia ('who is invoked on three-ways', Metam. II, 416), which originally is an epitheton of Hecate, because Diana as Moon goddess shares the nightly regime with Hecate. Then she is called Titania by Ovid because of her seeming relationship to Hyperion (Metam. III, 173). Under this name she appears as Fairy Queen in Shakespeare's 'Summernightdream'. But Diana has not been simply taken from the Greek. The depicted statue on this coin probably is Etruscian. And so is the archaic depiction of the bust on the obv. So Diana probably has come to the Romans by intermediation of the Etruscans. She was worshipped in groves like the German tribes worshipped their deities in groves according to Tacitus. The temple of Diana was built later in Hellenistic times without replacing the grove. The coin could prove that the old cult statue and the cypress grove still existed in the time of the late Republic.
 
About the political statement of the coin depiction one can only speculate. There could be a connection to the Latin League which existed until 338 BC. In its first phase until end of the 6th century it was a cultic union around which the political fusion took place. The centre of this alliance was - beside Juppiter Latiaris on the Mons Albanus - the Diana of Aricia. When this alliance got under the supremacy of Rome the sanctuary of Diana was put on the Mons Aventinus. In a second phase from about 500 BC until the desaster of the river Allia (387/6 BC) the Latins freed themselfs from the supremacy of the Romans, but were attached again to the Romans after the legendary battle of the Lake Regillus. After joining of the Hernicians to the alliance it became a Triple Alliance. Possibly the depiction alludes to this Alliance and was then an appeal for unity.   
 
(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 02, 2007, 04:49:17 pm
(continued:)

Because this is the only coin I know with an allusion to Acca Larentia I want to tell about her mythology even though she was not meant on this coin. The Nymphae Querquetulanae I will mention too.

Acca Larentia:
This myth exists in two different variations, one without, the other with a connection to the Roman founder myth. The first goes back to Varro: Once the temple servant challenged the god Hercules to a game of dice. The price was a meal and a girl. The servant playing alternately for the god and for himself lost the game and the meal was sacrificed to the god. The girl was Acca Larentia. She was left in the temple for the god. And there she dreamt she has had sex with the god and he has promised her that she would get a price from the man she would encounter first. This was the wealthy Etruscian Tarutus who married her. After his death she became his heir and later bequeathed her wealth to the Roman people. In honour and filled with thankfulness the Romans celebrates the Larentalia. This was said to have happened in the time of the king Ancus Marcius.

In the other version Acca Larentia is the wife of Faustulus, the royal herdsman and foster father of the twins Remus and Romulus. because she formerly was a lupa = prostitute. The meaning occurs that a she-wolfe, lupa too, has suckled the twins. After the death of Faustulus Acca married the rich Tarutius and  established later the Roman people or Romulus as her heirs.

It is told too that Acca Larentia has had twelve sons. After the death of one of them she adopted Romulus. These twelve men then have got the name Arvales fratres, the brothers of the meadow. Their sign was a wreath of grain-ears and a white taenia. This could be the connection between this myth and the worshipping of the rural Lares which matches the name and the time of the festival (December 23., followed by the festival of the Lares on December 24.). Acca Larentia seems to be originally identical or at least close related to Dea Dia. She is said too to have the cognomen Fabula by which she became the ancestor of the gens Fabia. 

According to public opinon the Larentalia are a festival of the deads which was celebrated by the Pontifices and the flamen Qirinalis at her tomb near the Velabrum on December 23. On the otherside there was another festival for her in April! The analysis of these myths is very difficult because oral traditions and speculations are nearly unseparable. The she-wolfe of the founder myth is the animal of Mars, the human foster mother certainly secondary and even later the connection to the harlot of the Hercules temple. The equation lupa[/i} = she-wolfe = prostitute is a kind of euhemeristic myth explanation. So the nurse of the twins gets her name. Just these two myths are connected because Hercules often appears as double of Faunus, the god of the Lupercal, whose priests are called luperci. Probably the figure of Larentia originates from the time before the foundation of Rome and belongs to the ambit of the wolfe god Faunus and has a relevance in the Lupercalia, a rural fertily festival. If that is correct the name Larentalia is not derived from Larentia but contrary Larentia from Larentalia. Acca Larentia was seen too - beside Mania - as 'Mater Larum', the mother of the Lares.

Nymphae Querquetulanae:
These nymphs, called Querquetulanae virae too, were the nymphs of the green oak grove inside the city of Rome. Referring to these nymphs the Porta Querqetularia has gotten its name. According to Tacitus the Mons Caelius was called Querquetularia in ancient times. Therefore it is suggested that the grove and the gate has been situated on the southern slope of the Caelius. But the precise site is not known. Probably it was between the Porta Capena and the Porta Caelimontana direct south of the recent church S. Stefano Rotondo. The connection of the three female figures on this late republican coin to the oak nymphs is very questionable. 

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Wikipedia
Andrew Alföldi, Diana Nemorensis, in Am. J. of Arch. Vol.64, No.2 (Apr., 1960), S.137-144
http://www.answers.com/topic/rex-nemorensis
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-golden-bough
http://www.imperiumromanum.com/religion/antikereligion/accalarentia_01.htm
Samuel Ball Platner, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London, Oxford University Press, 1929 (zu finden unter http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html

I have added a pic of the Lake Nemi from AD 1831 and a pic of Turner's painting 'The Golden Bough'

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 02, 2007, 04:50:45 pm
Apollo Smintheus and the herdsman Ordes

Dedicated to my friend Lars!

Preliminary note: The name of the herdsman referring to on these coins has been passed down as Ordes, not Orodes as he is named in error in Bellinger!

1st coin:
Troas, Alexandreia, quasi-autonomous, AD 2nd-3rd century
AE 22, 4.5g
obv. CO ALEX TRO
       Bust of city-goddess (Tyche), draped and turreted, r.: behind vexillum inscribed CO/AV
       (?)
rev. [CO or COL] AV TROAC
      The herdsman Ordes, in short dress and wearing boots, advancing l., holding pedum
      over l. shoulder, r. hand raised; r. behind him cattle leaping r., head turned l.; on the l.
      side grotto within laying cult-statue of Apollo Smintheus, above Apollo Smintheus stdg. r. 
ref.: Bellinger A480; BMC 41
rare, about VF, weakness of strike on upper part of rev.

2nd coin:
Troas, Alexandreia, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 23, 6.99g
obv. AV CEV A - NTONIN
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. CO - L - A - VG TR
      Horse, grazing r., behind herdsman Ordes, holding pedum over shoulder, stg. r., crooked
      forward; on the l. side tree with leafed twigs
ref.: Bellinger A284; BMC 95
about VF

The mythology of these coins have made troubles to me. Mostly Iliad I, 39 is added as a reference. But when you read it nothing is told about the mythology of the depicted scenes! The reason is they play chronologically after the Troyan War and are included in a rather unknown (for us!) local myth. I have found these explanations in an article of Peter Weiss and will follow him here: 

Whereas Homer's Iliad I, 39 describes the famous invocation of the Plague-Apollo Smintheus by his priest Chryses (for further informations look at the article of Apollo Sminthreus in this thread https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.0 ), the cult legend we are looking for is found in a scholion (A) to Iliad I, 39. In this scholion Polemon of Ilion is cited as source, a perieget living around 200 BC. The passage probably is originated from the Periegesis Iliov (3 volumes) which is attested by the Suda. Under the lemma 'Smintheu' we find the following:

Epitheton of Apollon. Sminthos is the locality in the Troas where a sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus existed by the following reason: In Chryse, a city in Mysia, a certain Krinis was priest of the local Apollon. Angered at his priest (the reason we dont know) Apollo sent a plague of mice to devastate the crops. But later repenting he appeared to Ordes, the chief-herdsman (archiboukolos) of Krinis,  who hospitably received him, and Apollo promised to kill the mice with his arrows. When leaving he commanded to communicate his epiphania to Krinis too. After this has taken place Krinis erected a sanctuary for Apollon and gave him the epitheton Smintheus; because in their native language the mice are called 'sminthoi'. This legend is found at Polemon. 

The depiction of the 1st coin:
On the lower left side we see a grotto within laying the cult-statue of Smintheus and above the god himself is standing r. in the same iconography. Before and greater - in the centre of the depiction - a herdsman is standing, holding a pedum over his shoulder in emotional, obviously frightened attitude, his r. hand raised (a gesture expressing surprise and adoration at once), behind him a cattle, rearing up and frightened escaping r., head turned backwards. (It seems that Krinis the priest was owner of a notable herd of cattle. This is explicable if we suggest that the cattle belonged to the god himself.) Imhoof-Blumer responded to this scene in detail and started the discussion. He cited the Iliad-Scholion, but doubtfully, denying a reference to it. But he already recognized that it was a grotto with a hidden cult-image; additionally he states in a supplement, it may have been recovered sometime later (in historic time). G.F.Hill took this image - inspired by W.Leaf - as origin of a study and connected it with the myth of the herdsman Ordes; Leaf himself joined him in hs monography about Troy: "This enables us to complete the legend; the figure above the cavern is of course Apollo himself appearing to Ordes, and the actual cult-statue of the god as he appeared was afterwards found on the actual spot of his epiphania.". This analysis is accepted and plausible. But in this case two different events have been combined in one depiction: the Epiphany which then - if we don't wont accept two different Epiphanies - is surely identical with the epiphania, the appearence of the god to Ordes at Polemon resp. the Scholion when the god left, and the - subsequent - discovering of the cult-image, probably by the same herdsman (about which in the shortened article from Polemon nothing is found, but about which he probably could have reported; in the Scholion only cursorily is told about the foundation of the cult by the priest Krinis).

The depiction of the 2nd coin:
As is known the herdsman appears another time on coins of the colonia - he is part of one of the most frequent coin pictures of the city. He is added in imperial times often to the old parasemon of the Hellenistic Alexandreia, the grazing horse, which in turn already was emblem of the polis of Neandria, incorporated in a synoikismos with Alexandreia. In imperial times - from Commodus on - this horse often is accompagnied by a herdsman with pedum. Therefore already soon the herdsman was seen in connection to the herdsmen of the other coinage (W.Wroth, in BMC Troas, as well Hill, but without any consequences), but sometimes the connection was denied too with weak arguments. But I think never before the close question has been asked wether by the formation of this group concrete mythological connotations would originate. There are some reasons for this suggestion. First: often a tree is added to the horse and the herdsman. According to the conventions of the picture language of imperial times pretty sure a sacred area should be indicated by this. With it the limits of a mere parasemon are already left. Then a distinctive feature of the herdsman always has been neglected: On several depictions (especially the better ones) he stands crooked forwards, as if he has been pointed by the the horse to something. As we have seen the herdsman seemingly was the main figure in a recovering story in the scope of the cult legend of Apollon Smintheus. Because of that the suggestion is close that the depiction of this coin with herdsman and horse points to a further detail of this recovery legend: Thus the horse - some time after the Epiphany depicted on the other coin - has led the herdsman to the recovery of the cult image, a topos often found in ancient literature. Some depictions suggest that in front of the horse a spring or a creek is hinted. Here too it is at least worth mentioning that Menander Rhetor has described the sacred groof of Apollon Smintheus situated within springs and creeks. The suggestion here put up for discussion matches a centralpoint of G.F.Hill that here an animal was the guide and he dedicated a full chapter to ancient analogies - however he thought of the cattle beside the herdsman in the first covered coin.

If our suggestions are correct this would mean twofold. The belief of the myth of the 'old' first cult image of Smintheus put it on an equal level like the 'fallen from heaven' palladion of Ilion, the most famous city in the Troas. So the archaic cult image of Smintheus in the imagination was not a human but a divine work. A hint in this direction could come from Menander Rhetor in his Sminthiakos, where he - beside some other and a bit vague - recommends when talking about the cult image to say "may be that this cult image is fallen from heaven too (445, 19)". On the other side sometimes in the future the old parasemon of Neandria and then of Alexandreia - which originally and for a long time surely had no connections to the cult legend - would have been amalgated. That means that in later times there was the need to find an aition for the parasemon and to develop  a solution. The two original disparate elements 'horse' and 'herdsman' were easily to be connected as matter of fact; in respect of content the recovery legend seemed obviously to be the closest solution. In the evolution of the cult legende this was in respect to the content and chronologically too the last step. That this occured not until imperial times - long after Polemon and when Alexandreia was already colonia - is by all means possible.

Notes:
- aition: reason, legend to explain something
- Epiphany: appearance, especially of a god
- parasemon: sign, symbol, f.e. of Greek ships
- pedum: crook, hooked staff of herdsmen
- periegesis: kind of travelogue, the most famous perieget later was Pausanias
- scholion: ancient comment to ancient authors   
- Suda: the largest Byzantine lexicon, c. AD 970
- synoikismos: combining several villages to one polis (city)

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Alfred R. Bellinger, Troy the Coins, Princeton University Press 1961 (Reprint 1979
     Sanford J. Durst)
(3) Peter Weiß, Alexandria Troas: Griechische Traditionen und Mythen in einer römischen
     Colonia, in 'Schwertheim, R. - Wiegartz, H.  (Hrsg.), Die Troas - Neue Forschungen zu
     Neandria und Alexandria Troas II, Asia Minor Studien 22, (1996) 157-173'
(4) G.F.Hill, Apollo and St.Michael: Some Analogies, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies,
     vol.36, 1916, pp. 134-162'
(5) CNG Coins
(6) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Joe Sermarini on June 23, 2007, 09:18:38 am
I think these posts would also be excellent Numiswiki entries.   I started one for Apollo Smintheus. 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 23, 2007, 05:36:11 pm
I think some articles should be revised for a better English style!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 23, 2007, 06:23:13 pm
Hera Lakinia

Magna Graecia, Bruttium, Brettii, AD 214/213-211
Ar - Drachm, 21mm, 4.39g
      struck during Hannibal's campaign in southern Italy after the Battle of Cannae
obv. Bust of Hera Lakinia, veiled and wearing polos, scepte over l. shoulder, r.: behind a fly
rev. Zeus, nude, stg. l., r. foot set on Ionic capitel, holding sceptre in l. hand; in front of him
      eagle flying l., holding wreath in talons
      in r. field BRETTIWN from top to bottom
Ref.: SNG ANS 26; HN Italy 1970; Scheu 84; Arslan dies 28/33
SS, very attractive style, dark toning

It's interesting that the identity of both depicted deities is discussed controversially. The preference for Hera Lakinia on the obv. is resting on the fact that there was a famous temple in honour of Hera and the local mint. The deity on the rev. because of his attitude reminds of the classic iconography of Poseidon but the eagle in front of him allows only the interpretation as Zeus.

Mythology:
Lakinia is a surname of Hera under which she was worshipped in the neighbourhood of Croton where she has a rich and famous sanctuary. ut he adoration was widely spread over Magna Graecia. About the origin of her name there were some different opinions. Some suggest that Lacinius was a bandit who was up to his mischief near Tarent. When he has stolen Hercules some of Geryon's cattle Hercules slew the thief. At the locality where he has killed Lacinius Hercules built the temple of Juno Lacinia (Strab. VI, 261 & 281; Liv. XXIV, 3).
Or the name is derived from the Lacinian promontory on the eastern coast of Bruttium, west of the mouth of the Tarentian gulf (today Cape Nao), which Thetis was said to have given to Juno as a present (Serv. ad Aen. iii. 552.).
Or it is said too that Lacinius was a king which has ruled at the Lacinian promontory. When Herakles drove his cattle on the way to Greece nearby he was put to flight by Lacinius because he built a temple to honour Hera by whose view Herakles removed in disgust. Six miles away Herakles killed accidentally a certain Kroton whom he buried with great honour. And he predicted that in future times a city will be raised at this spot which bears his name (Diodor. Sic. IV, 24; Ovid Metam. XV, 12ff.).
This temple in historical times was the yearly meeting place of all Greeks from southern Italy (Magna Graecia). Derived from the ruins of this temple and the rest of the columns this promontory in the Middle Ages was callede 'Capo delle Colonne'.

The Romans, despite their hatred for the Carthaginians, identified Tanit with their Juno, an aspect of their Great Goddess as Mother and Patroness of Childbirth, a Light-Goddess who brings forth children into the day. As Tanit was also a Goddess of the Sky, the Romans named her Dea Caelestis, "the Heavenly Goddess", or Virgo Caelestis, "the Heavenly Virgin". On coins of the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE she is occasionally depicted riding a lion and holding a lance; generally she is shown in portrait form wearing a diadem or crown, with wheat sheaves bound in her hair as a wreath, the crescent moon behind.

Referring to a Roman legend, Hannibal, the great general of Carthage, once raided the temple of Juno Lacinia. This temple was richly decorated and famous for having a column of solid gold; Hannibal, to test the story, drilled into the column. Finding that it was indeed solid, he decided he would take it as plunder. That night, however, he dreamt that the Goddess warned him not to despoil her temple, telling him that she'd destroy his remaining eye if he did. There Hannibal in Juno Lacinia recognized his own hometown Goddess, Tanit, so left the column unmolested in the temple. From the filings of the column he had a golden cow cast, which was then placed on the top of the column.

It deserves to be noticed that Hannibal dedicated in the temple of Juno Lacinia a bilingual inscription (in Punic and Greek), which recorded the history of his campaigns, and of which Polybius made use in writing the history of the Hannibalian war. (Polyb. iii. 33; comp. Liv. xxviii. 46.)

Another story deals with Zeuxis, the famous Greek painter, scholar of Apollodoros of Athens, 435-390 BC. He has invented the so-called illusion painting, a kind of painting, which was so naturalistic, that the birds came flying to pick at the painted vine-grapes (Plin. Nat. 35, 64). The inhabitants of Kroton, todays Crotone in southern Italy, decided to decorate the temple of Hera Lakinia with paintings of special value. They spent much money to entrust the most famous painter of their time, Zeuxis of Herakleia, to do the work. He chose to paint an image of Helena - the acme of female beauty. For that the Krotoniati should show him their most beautiful maidens from whose he chose the five loveliest. He was convinced that it was impossible to find all features - he needs to show beauty - in only one wife, because nature never creates an individial being so that it is ideal in all of its parts (Cicero, De Invenzione II, 1).

History:
The Bruttii were an Italic people of Lucanian origin, living at the 'Italian Boot' in poorness and harshness as herdsmen and charburner and by robbery. It is said that they came from Brettos, son of Hercules and Baletia, daughter of the son of Baletus, from which the city of Brettium should have its name. The Bruttii several times fought succesfully for their freedom and together with Pyrrhos they stood against the Romans who 278-272 BC triumphed six times over the Bettii and took large territories from them. 216 BC they seceded to Hannibal, hoping to get their freedom back by his victory and becoming his last refuge finally (Liv. 28, 12, 6). By the victorious Romans they were punished very severely. After a newly revolt they were subdued definitely by building military roads, colonias and extensive slavery. The Romans neither treated them ever as allies nor took them as soldiers.

Sadly the temple of Hera Lacinia was destroyed and the only remnant is a column which is shown on the added pic (Thanks for the correction to Dapsul!).

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Ovid, Metamorphosen
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hera
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo_Colonna
http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/tanit.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Joe Sermarini on June 23, 2007, 06:33:46 pm
I think some articles should be revised for a better English style!

Best regards

Numiswiki is a wiki, so someone will almost certainly revise it. 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 02, 2007, 05:36:11 pm
Euthenia

The next contributions refer to Egyptian mythology!

Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - drachm, 35.3g, 20.22g
       Alexandria, AD 117/8 (year 2)
obv. AVT KAIC TRAIANOC ADRIANOC
      Bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. Euthenia, clad in garment of Isis (in chiton and peplos with the typical knot before her breast), wearing crown of Isis (sun disk between horns), leaning l., resting l. arm on small sphinx, laying r., and holding in raised r. hand grain-ears, poppies and lotus-flower(?).
in field LB (= year 2)
Ref. Milne 844; BMC -
VF, brown patina
From Forum Ancient Coins, thanks!

The portrait of Hadrian is a bit unusual and reminds of Caligula. It seems that it needed some time until the Alexandrians got the right portrait!

The typical knot at the breast is the so-called Knot of Isis, the Tit-Knot. This knot originally was a special knottet girdle tie und has relations to the religious sign of Ankh. The Ankh Cross was suggested in ancient Egypt as symbol of welfare and life. The Knot of Isis looks like an Ankh Cross with depending wings.

The dominant triad of Egyptian gods, during the Roman period, was composed of Sarapis, Isis and Harpokrates. Nilus and Euthenia seem to have been  next in importance to the great triad, so far as Alexandria and the coinage are concerned. Euthenia was a very late addition to the Egyptian pantheon. Originally the personification of 'abundance' and 'plenty', and represented on the regular coins of Rome as Abundantia, she became the consort of Nilus, during Ptolemaic times, and acquired the status of an important goddess. She was often assimilated  to Isis. Euthenia makes her first appearance on Alexandrian coins during the age of Augustus and seems to relate to the importance of Egypt as a supplier of grain to Rome (a trade that was important to both parties).

Referring to the Greek mythology Euthenia seems to be one of a group of younger Graces. The others are her sisters Eukleia (reputation), Eupheme (acclaim) and Philosophryne (welcome). Her parents are said to be Hephaistos and Aglaia (Orph. rhapsod. fragm.)
 
The Egyptian Euthenia is often equated with the Roman Abundantia. Both were responsible for the grain supply. But there are differences too. Whereas Euthenia was seen as goddess Abundatia was a pure personification. So she had no own temples. And as an abstract idea she has no own mythology!

Abundantia:

Severus Alexander, AD 222-235
AR - denarius, 19.6mm, 3.22g
        Rome, edition 10, AD 229
obv. IMP SEV ALE - XAND AVG
       Bust, draped, laureate, r.
Rv.: ABVNDAN - TIA AVG
       Abundantia, richly draped, stg. facing, head r., holding cornucopiae with both hand and
       emptying a lot of coins.
ref.: RIC V/2, 184(c); C.1; BMC 591
nice EF (revers!)
Occasion: Perhaps the rev. refers to money gifts which the emperor gave to his soldiers before he went to the East to fight against the Parthians. Under their new dynasty of Sassanides the Parthians have begun to invade Asia.

The added pic shows a marble statue representing Euthenia. Reclining on her left side, she is shown wearing the garment of Isis. Her arm rests on a crouching sphinx, the symbol of Egypt. She holds in her left hand a vessel for holy water and is surrounded by eight children, representing half the number of measuring units (cubits) of Nile flood height required for a bountiful harvest which is sixteen cubits. It is from the time of Hadrian, AD 120-140, and is found in the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria.

I have acquired the coin with Euthenia because of the nice small sphinx on which she is resting. Therefore some words about the sphinx.

The Egyptian Sphinx:

Although we usually relate the term sphinx to mean the Great Sphinx of the Giza Plateau in Egypt, there were numerous sphinxes of various type in ancient Egypt (as well as elsewhere in the ancient world). The Great Sphinx guards the Great Pyramid of Giza, and was re-discovered during the reign of Napolean, during his Egyptian campaign. It has been nearly completely covered by the desert sand. The head of the Great Sphinx is believed to be modeled after the pharaoh Khepfre (Cheops), the body is that of a lion, and it is believed to have been carved about 2500 BC, during the time of the building of the Great Pyramid.

There are three types of sphinx:
(1) The androsphinx, the typical lion with a human face/head
(2) The criosphinx, a ram-headed lion
(3) The hierocosphonx has the body of a lion and the head of a hawk.
 
Rarely was the Egyptian sphinx portrayed as a female. When it was, it symbolized Isis and/or the reigning queen. In Egypt the intellectual faculties ennobled the bestial traits present in the physical makeup of this creature. But, in early Greek mythology, the bestial nature warped the mind and spirit of this being and it was portrayed as an unhappy monster, a symbol of the 'terrible mother'; the monster of death bringing extreme bad luck and the perversion of the intellect, womanhood, and power.
The Greek sphinx had the bust and head of a lady, the wings of an eagle, the body and legs of a lioness, and the tail of a snake or dragon. Sometimes it was portrayed with the body of a bull and the legs of a lion. Like many other fabulous beasts, the Greek sphinx was thought to live in the Ethiopian mountains.

Origin:
The Sphinx is a legendary creature made up of both human and animal parts. This figure originated in Egypt and then spread, with many modifications, throughout the ancient world. Its name comes from Egyptian ssp-'ng, meaning 'living image' (not from Greek 'sphingo = to strangle', which is often found too). According to this she is the image by which the Egyptians wanted to express the nature of their ruler.

Role:
The Egyptian androsphinx guarded pyramids, tombs, and sacred highways.
The Phoenicians and Syrians linked the sphinx to the guardian spirit lamassu
and made it a symbol of rulership and the guardian of temples and palaces.

Symbol:
The Egyptian androsphinx is a symbol of abundance, power, wisdom, mysteries, riddles, truth, unity, and secrets. Sometimes a pair of sphinx was pictured with the tree of Life as a symbol of fertility and conception. As a solar symbol, the sphinx is often associated with the sun god Ra; Horus in the Horizon; and Harmakhis, the Lord of the Two Horizons, who represents the rising and setting sun, rebirth, and resurrection.

Androsphinx usually bear the face of the pharaoh who ordered their construction and symbolize the divine power and wisdom he used to rule and protect his people.
Since its form combines human and animal parts into one body, the sphinx usually symbolizes the union of mind and body or intellectual, spiritual, and physical strengths with varying results. It is also, when composed of four animals including a human, a symbol of the four elements - earth, wind, fire, and water. The Druids counted a many-breasted sphinx among their fertility and maternal symbols.

As the Lord of the Two Horizons, the androsphinx's dual nature came to reflect the dual nature of Christ who was both human and divine. Like many other solar symbols, the androsphinx was placed in or near early Christian graves as a representation of the divine Light of the World.

Sphinx composed of a man's head and chest, eagle's wings, a bull's hindquarters, and a lions' forequarters became symbols of the Biblical tetramorph and the four living creatures of Revelation. [Ezek 1:5-14; Rev. 4:6-8] These in turn represent the cherubim; the four Evangelists and their Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the four kings of the created world - the lion (king of the jungle), the eagle (king of the air), the bull (king of the farm), and man (king of creation); and, according to St. Jerome, Christ's Incarnation (the man), His Passion (the bull), His Resurrection (the Lion), and His Ascension (the eagle).

I have added the pic of the Androsphingen of the Avenue of Sphinges of the temple of Luxor (Arnold, D., Lexikon der ägyptischen Baukunst, Düsseldorf 1994).

Sources:
Der kleie Pauly
http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Euthenia.html
http://www.coinsofromanegypt.org/html/library/curtis/curtis_chapter_I.htm
http://www.coinsofromanegypt.org/html/library/milne/milne_tokens.htm
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V3N6/stevenson.html
http://www.eternalegypt.org/EternalEgyptWebsiteWeb/HomeServlet?ee_website_action_key=action.display.home&language_id=1

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 02, 2007, 05:42:00 pm
The river Nile

Here is the next contribution to the theme Roman-Egyptian mythology. The cause for this article was the following coin, especially the meaning of the IS on the upper field of its reverse which has fascinated me.

The coin

Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - drachm, 35.4mm, 26.43g
Alexandria, 129/30 (year 12)
obv. AVT KAI - TRAI ADRIA CEB
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. Rivergod Nilus, bearded and laureate, nude to hips, leaning l., holding cornucopiae in outstretched r. hand and reed in l. arm, resting with l. arm on small hippopotamus, stg. r.,
in ex. LDWDEK (= year 12)
in upper field LS
Milne 1267; Dattari 1805; Köln 993; Emmet 1015
about VF, blue-green patina

IS = 16 (cubits), means the optimal level of the flood of the Nile. The S should be read as 'digamma', not as 'stigma'! The cubit was the unit length measured from ellbow to the tip of the middle finger. It ranged from 45 to 53cm. But the so-called Egyptian Royal Cubit (meh nesut) was always 52.3cm (with a deviation of only under 5mm over the times!). 

Mythology:

The dominating trias of Egyptian gods during Roman times was made of Serapis, Isis and Harpokrates. The next important deities seemed to be Nilus and Euthenia, at least insofar the coinage of Alexandria is considered. Nilus was the rivergod of the river Nile which is the source of all life in Egypt as we all know. Although he was regarded in Pharaonian times under the name 'hapi' only as a minor deity he achieved big importance in Roman times in Alexandria. The die cutters seemed to be very free in the depiction of this god and took obviously much pleasure in developing an endless series of types and varieties. He was often assimilated with Osiris and he in turn with Serapis.

Although Nilus represents the important river Nilus, in Greek mythology he didn't play a big role. Referring to Hesiod (Theog. 338) he was son of Okeanos and Thetis. He had several children, f.e. Memphis, mother of Libya, who then became mother of the Egyptian Belos and of Agenor. Other children were Chione, Anippe, Kaliadne and Polyxo.

The fertility of the narrow strip of country in the Nile valley depends upon the River Nile, which overflows its banks every year and brings down fresh soil from the hills. The river is at its lowest between April and June, the period of winter. Fed by the melting snows on the Abyssinian hills, and by the equatorial lakes, which are flooded during the rainy season, the gradual rise of the river becomes perceptible about the middle of June. The waters first assume a reddish tint on account of the clay which they carry. For a short period they then become greenish and unwholesome. Ere that change took place the Ancient Egyptians were wont to store up water for domestic use in large jars. By the beginning of August the Nile runs high. It was then that the canals were opened in ancient days, so that the waters might fertilize the fields. As the Nile rose the peasants were careful to remove the flocks and herds from the lowlands; and when a sudden irruption of the water, owing to the bursting. of a dike, or an unexpected and unusual increase of the river, overflowed the fields and pastures, they were seen hurrying to the spot, on foot or in boats, to rescue the animals and to remove them to the high grounds above the reach of the inundation. . . . And though some suppose the inundation does not now attain the same height as of old, those who have lived in the country have frequently seen the villages of the Delta standing, as Herodotus describes them, like islands in the Aegean Sea, with the same scenes of rescuing the cattle from the water. According to Pliny, a proper inundation is of 16 cubits. He writes "When the waters rise to only twelve cubits, the country experiences the horrors of famine; when it attains thirteen, hunger is still the result; a rise of fourteen cubits is productive of gladness; a rise of fifteen sets all anxieties at rest; while an increase of sixteen is productive of unbounded transports of joy. The greatest increase known...is eighteen cubits; the smallest rise was that of five." (Translation by Bostock, thanks to Curtis Clay!)

When the river rose very high in the days of the Pharaohs, the lives and property of the inhabitants were endangered; in some villages the houses collapsed. Hence the legend that Ra sought to destroy his enemies among mankind.

The inundation is at its height by the end of September, and continues stationary for about a month. Not until the end of September does the river resume normal proportions. November is the month for sowing; the harvest is reaped in Upper Egypt by March and in Lower Egypt by April. It was believed by the ancient farmers that the flood was caused by the tears of Isis which she wept about Osiris. When Sirius rose before dawn about the middle of July it was identified with the goddess. In the sun-cult legend this star is Hathor, "the eye of Ra", who comes to slaughter mankind. There are evidences that human sacrifices were offered to the sun god at this period.

Background:
By Homer the Nile was called - like the old capital city Memphis  and the entire land - Aigyptos. The Egyptians worshipped him as bringer of fertility, so at Silsile in Upper-Egypt and especially in Babylon, the recent Old-Kairo. Here the Under-Egyptian Nile sources were assumed whereas the Upper-Egyptian sources were sought in Elephantine (Herodot 2, 28; between the rocks Krwphi and Mwri). The inundation was measured at the southern point of the island of Rhoda near Kairo. The height of the Nile inundation is partially maintained in the so-called Stone of Annals, where 4 cubits were the normal height. In Hellenistic times the normal height was 16 cubits. But this shouldn't be seen as an increase of the flood but rather as an alteration of the used gauge.

After all the sources of the Nile were unkown to the Ancients. I remind you on the famous Four-River-Fountain of Bernini on the Piazza Navona in Rome. Here the Nile veils his head because of his unknown origin (though there is the bon-mot that the actual reason is that he doesn't want to see the church Sant'Agnese in Agone of Borromini!). Ovid (Metam. 2.254) reports the following: "When Phaethon riding the chariot of the sun scorched the earth: Nilus in terror to the world’s end fled and his head, still hidden; this seven mouths gaped dusty, seven vales without a stream.". The real  sources of the river Nile were discovered not until the end of the 19. century. The exciting story of this discovery - especially the quarrel between Burton (to whom we owe the Tales of 1001 Nights!) and his rival Speke - you can find in the web.

The Hippopotamus:

Some words about the hippotamus, Hippopotamus amphibius L. It was known by the Ancients particularly from the river Nile (hence the name!), but from Palestine too. In rivers from West-Africa (Senegal?, Gambia?) the smaller species Hippopotamus liberiensis Mort. was known. That the hippo was found in the Indus too was stated by Onesikritos but denied by Strabo 14, 706, and not suggested by Pausanias 4, 34, 3. Already in later ancient times the hippo was nearly exstirpated in Egypt and never became homelike again. It was exported to Rome for animal fights (especially against crocodiles) and later this exotic behemoth was found in imperial bestiariums.

History of art:
I have added the pic of the famous Nile statue in the Vatican (Photography of 1892 from my collection). The Vatican Nile, itself a copy of a Hellenistic statue, probably Alexandrian in origin, was discovered in the early sixteenth century in excavations of the shrine to Isis and Serapis near Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. Pliny the Elder mentions a similar sculpture in ancient Egypt in his Natural History (36.58), explaining that the babies surrounding the river god represent the ideal height of sixteen cubits to which the Nile river rose annually, thereby assuring abundant fertility in Lower Egypt. The sixteenth, the most important of all, is just emerging from the cornucopiae. Unfortunately the statue is much restored in the Renaissance.
 
Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia
Wilkinson, Ancient Egypt
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/eml/eml05.htm
http://www.gosahara.de/Forschung/rchtsforsch.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 08, 2007, 01:05:11 pm
Agathodaimon and Uraeus

This should be the last article of the short excursion in the Greek-Egyptian mythology.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE33, drachm, 22.10g
Alexandria, AD 133/134 (year 18)
obv. AVT KAIC TRAIANOC - ADRIANOC CEB 
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. Agathodaimon, bearded, erected r., and Uraeus-Snake, erected l., confronted;
       Agathodaimon wearing shkent (double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt) and
       holding kerykeion with his tail; Uraeus-Snake wearing crown of Isis (sundisk
       between horns) and holding sistrum.
       across field L  IH (year 18)
Ref.: Dattari 7901
Very rare,  VF

Agathodaimon:
Agathodaimon, lat. Agathodaemon, was in Greek mythology the 'good spirit' of grain fileds and vineyards. Usually the Greeks drank a cup of pure wine in his honour at the end of each meal (according to Aristophanes, Equites, 106). He was also regarded as the protecting spirit of the state and of individuals. He was often accompanied by 'Ayaq Tim (good fortune)', and in this aspect may be compared with the Roman Bonus Eventus (Pliny, Nat Hist. xxxvi. 23), and Genius. He is represented in works of art in the form of a serpent, or of a young man with a cornucopia and a bowl in one hand, and a poppy and ears of grain in the other.
Agathodaimon should not be confused with the many snakes of the Thracian snake-cults or the snake-god Glykon of the false prophet Alexander of Abounoteichos.

Uraeus
According to the story of Re, the first uraeus was created by the goddess Isis who formed it from the dust of the earth and the spittle of the sun-god. The uraeus was the instrument with which Isis gained the throne of Egypt for her husband Osiris.
The uraeus was a symbol for various things from early times including: the sun, Lower Egypt, the king and a number of deities.
As the sacred creature of the Delta city of Bto, the reptile was known by the same name. She soon became an emblem of all of Lower Egypt. The uraeus was often depicted with the vulture Nekhebet who served the same function for Upper Egypt. Together they symbolized the unification of the two lands. The creatures also appear together in the pharaoh's nebty or "Two Ladies" name.

The cobra was also called the "fiery eye" of Re and two uraei were sometimes depicted on either side of the solar disk. A gilded wooded cobra called netjer-ankh ("living god") was found in the tomb of Tutankhamon. It is representative of the cobra's associations with the afterlife. In funerary works, the cobra is often depicted spitting fire. Two cobras doing just that were said to guard the gates of every "hour" of the underworld. During the Late Period, uraei were also shown towing the barque of the sun in funerary papyri. In all of these examples, the cobra's protective nature is clearly demonstrated. The cobra was also representative of various deities such as Neith, Ma'at and Re.

About the meaning of this coin:
The coins of Alexandria differ strongly from the coins for the other part of Egypt, the so-called Nome coins, even though they all were struck in Alexandria. Whereas the Nome coins show the many different gods  and snake-deities of Egypt, the coins of Alexandria are always 'Greek'. So the Greek god were assimilated with Egyptian gods and the Egyptian gods were subject of a syncretism. The names of these new gods were always Greek, f.e. Hermanubis, Harpokrates  or Sarapis, never Egyptian. It should be mentioned that the assimilation regularly is founded on only one aspect of the two deities, f.e. for Anubis and Hermes only the fact that they accompany the deads. Their other, very different features were neglected.
The snake on the right side of the coin has been called Uraeus by all catalogers of Alexandrian coins and that name is not incorrect. The snake with its expanded hood doubtless resembles a n erected cobra. It is not, however, to be confused with the early known royal cobra, Edjo (also known as Buto). Edjo was a symbol associated with the pharaohs of Lower Egypt. When shown together with Nehkbet, the vulture-headed god of Upper Egypt, the symbol was called Uraeus by the Greekand was symbol of the dominion over all of Egypt.

What's the meaning of the cobra on this coin? In Roman times Isis, through the process of syncretism, had become an universal god and merged with the Syrian Astarte, Hathoe and Bastet, the cat goddess. Nut and Sothis too were merged with her and the new goddess emerged with the name Isis-othis. At the same time, Renenutet, sometimes called Thermuthis, the Egyptian goddess of fertility and harvest was personified as a cobra too. She was the mother of Nepri, the personification of wheat, who in turn was equated with Osiris, the wheat god. The parallelism between Thermuthis and her son Nepri, and Isis and her son horus, led to their ultimate union in the form of a cobra, who was worshipped by the name Isermuthis.

Bewildering as all this might sound, it is important to realize that Isermuthis, in her cobra form with the attribtes of disk, horns and sistrum, is still Isis but with her specific role as fertility goddess of agriculture being singled out and empasized.

At the time this coin was struck in Egypt the great triad of the Graeco-Egyptian gods was represented by Sarapis, Harpokrates and Isis. Could the snake on the right side of the coin be Sarapis? Usually it is designated as Agathodaimon. It is a very ancient chthonic deity and in early times largely worshipped in the old Greek cities as a househld god. But in Alexandria, almost from the date of the city's foundation, it had been elevated to the role of protector and provider for the entire city and later for all the country since it wears the shkent, the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. It was also a fertility god  and a healing spirit, particularly when associated with Asklepios. The snake entwined staff, the kerykeion (lat. caduceus), held in the coils of the Agathodaimon had in the Roman era become a symbol of plenty, particularly in dealings with grain. 

Very early in the Ptolomaic era, the Agathodaimon had to share its role as patron god of Alexandria with a new god  - the great Sarapis. According to Tacitus (Hist. IV 83-84) Sarapis was most likely introduced into Egypt by Ptolemy I, Soter. This god was the result of a kind of syncretism between the spirit of all the deified Apis bulls with Osiris, the grain god. So Serapis too was a god of fertility and grain and is depicted always with a kalathos on his head. Because of this Serapis and Osiris were interchangeable. The oneness of these two deities is illustrated by a coin of Antoninus Pius, showing Agathodaimon with the head of Sarapis (BMC 1103)

So this coin again shows symbolic the overwhelming importance of Egypt for the grain supply of  Rome. Wether this symbolic and rather indirect message has been understood by the people we naturally don't know. But on the other side it is likely that the individual in ancient times knew far more of the gods he or she lived by than the average citizen today.

So this specimen is a beautiful example for the melting of Greek and Egyptian religion on a Roman coin!

Source: L.E. Beauchaine, Graeco-Egyptian religion and Roman Policy on a Coin of Alexandria, Journal of the Society for Ancient Numismatics (SAN), vol.xviii, pp.4-7

Backgound:
The Greek word Ouraios (Uraeus) seems to go back to an Egyptian word iaret, meaning 'who is erecting'. The Uraeus was the snake on the forehead worn by the king on a diadem and from the Middle Empire on at his crown, showing a rearing cobra with billowing neck. An Egyptologist wants to attribute the snake worn as emblem at the head to a curl worn by ancient Libyan tribes on their forehead. Others regard the snake as symbol animal of the pre-historic empire of Buto, whose goddess Uto seated in the shape of an uraeus on the vertex of the king. The uraeus generally is the symbol of royalism and divinity and therefore it is worn too by the king gods Horus and Seth. Because of spitting glow which averts all evil the uraeus is called the fiery eye of the sun-god Re. By equating with the sun-eye Hathor could be invoked as Uraeus-Snake, so f.e. in inscriptions on coffins. Tefnut in her special function as fire goddess (named Upes) wears an uraeus on her head.

I have added a beautiful pic of an uraeus wearing the double crown (shkent).

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 28, 2007, 10:41:13 am
(continued:)

In the end I want to tell a bit about the Egyptian crowns. Probably this will not be new to all dealing with ancient Egypt, but I hope for some members it could be helpful nevertheless.

The crowns of ancient Egypt:
Generally this subject is very confusing because the number of different crowns is so large. There was a real crown cult in Egypt and the crowns themself were regarded as deities. The White Crown was Upper Egypt and the Red Crown was Lower Egypt. Therefore I could give only a short overview.

[1] The crowns of the Egyptian kings:
- The Red Crown of Lower Egypt, deshret, originally was the crown of the goddess Neith, the patron goddess of Sais in Lower Egypt. It is not known yet what the long thin line stands for.

- The White Crown of Upper Egypt, hedjet, was worn by the rulers of Upper Egypt before the unificaton of Egypt. It had a special relation to the goess Nekhbet. The shape was like a mitra, our bishop's hat.

- The Double Crown, pshent or shkent, a combination of the Red Crown with the White Crown. It was called by the Egyptians sechemty or psechemty, meaning such as 'the both mighty'. Egypt was unified c.3200 BC by king Menes. From that time on the Egyptian kings were wearing this Double Crown.
 
- The Blue Crown, khepresh, was a war crown and a kind of helmet. We see it on Ramses II in the battle of Kadesh against the Hetits.

- The Atef was the crown of Osiris. It looks like the White Crown (hedjet) with a red feather on each side. It was the symbol of Busitis, the cult place of Osiris in the Nile delta and it seems to be the expression of a unity of parts of Lower and Upper Egypt already before the unification of Egypt by Menes. It was worn during cult ceremonies.

- The Hemhem Crown or Composite Crown (hemhemet = war shouting) was an elaborate form of the Atef crown, called Triple Atef Crown too. It was composed of three Atef Crowns with an Uraeus on each side. It was the symbol of the power of the Egyptian kings and was worn only by special ceremonies.

- The feather crown, anedtj, was a cult crown and usually worn only at cult ceremonies. It was made of a sun-disk between two ostrich feathers.

- The Nemes actually was no crown but a head cloth, worn by the kings. We know it from the famous bust of Tutankhamun.

[2] Of the crowns of the Egyptian deities and queens only these two:
- The crown of Hathor, the sun-disk between two horns of a cow. This was the crown of the goddess Hathor.

- The crown of Isis. It originally was a throne, because the throne was the hieroglyph for Isis, Egyptian = seat, throne. Later when Isis was assimilated with Hathor she took over the crown of Hathor, the sun-disk between the horns.

I have added the following three pics:
- Kronen #1 shows from l. to r.
the Red Crown (deshrent), the White Crown (hedjet) and the Double Crown (shkent)
- Kronen #2 shows from l. to r.
the Blue crown (khepresh), the Atef crown, the Hemhem crown (l.) and the Feather Crown (anedtj) (r.)
- Kronen #3 shows from l. to r.
the Nemes head cloth, the Hathor crown and the old Isis crown.
 
Sources:
Wikipedia
- L.E. Beauchaine, Graeco-Egyptian Religion and Roman Policy on a Coin of Alexandria, Journal of the Society for Ancient Numismatics (SAN), vol.xviii, pp.4-7
- nW.R.Cooper, The Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt, 1878?
- Manfred Lurker: Lexikon der Götter und Symbole der alten Ägypter
- http://www.coinsofromanegypt.org/html/library/curtis/curtis_chapter_VII.htm
- http://www.goruma.de/tiere/uraeusschlange.html (Zoology of the Uraeus-Snake)
- http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/crowns2.htm
- http://www.sacred-texts.com/gno/gar/gar31.htm
- http://www.egyptianmyths.net/cobra.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 28, 2007, 10:43:12 am
Zeus Olbios and the Priest-Kingdom of Olba

Quite a long time I was interested in the names Aias and Teukros on the coins of Olba. Now I went further in this matter and here are the results of my investigation!

The coin:
Cilicia, Olba, quasi-autonomous, 11-12 BC
AE 16, 4.52g
struck under Aias, son of Teukros, archiereus and toparch of Kennatis and Lalassis (year 2)
obv. TOPARX / KENNAT / [L]ALAS / ET B
       in dotted circle
rev. Thunderbolt
      above ARXIER / AIANTOS
      beneath TEVKROV
SNG BN Paris 807; RPC 3729; Staffierie, Olba 15, 14
Ver rare, about EF, glossy dark-green patina
Pedigree:
ex auction F. Sternberg Zürich XXV, 1991, lot 160
ex auction M&M XVII, 2005, lot 965
Expansion of the legends:
[1] TOPARXOV KENNATWN KAI LALASSEWN ETOVS B, (on order) of the toparch of the people of Kennatis and Lalassis, year 2
[2] ARXIEREWS AIANTOS TEVKROV,  (on order) of the archiereus Ajas, son of Teukros
[3] The thunderbolt is the symbol for Zeus Olbios, the Olbian main god.

I have added the pic of another coin (RPC 3725) from CoinArchives. It shows the Priestking Aias as Hermes wearing a cap. The rev. shows the sign of the Teukri, the triskeles.

History:
North of Silifke in the so-called Rough Cilicia, near the village of Uzuncabur, we find the old cult-place Olba with the temple of Zeus Olbios. This temple of Zeus was the center of power of the priest dynasty of the Teukri. Their symbol was the triskeles. The priest dynasty of the Olbian temple state has controlled an area which was circumscribed by the rivers Kalykadnos and Lamos. The center of their power was the Zeus Olbios sanctuary built by Seleukos I Nikator, the founder of the Seleukid Empire around 300 BC. In Hellenistic times (3rd - 1st century BC) it had been extended monumentally to become one of the biggest sanctuaries in Asia Minor. This temple and a huge army tower with a height of more than 20 m and a elaborately decorated tomb tower demonstrate the connection of religious and political power.

About 45 BC Olba's Priest Kingdom had been weakened and Tyrants began capturing the country. At this time, one of the King's relative's, Zenophanes, cooperated with the Tyrants and seized the whole country. The Roman Administration preferred to control Olba with the help of a local priest king instead of a garrison, because of the unsuitable physical features of the region. When Zenophanes came to power, Rome started to lose control. Octavianus, Antonius and Lepidus established the Triumvirate Empire in Rome and shared the management. Antonius had the east lands. Octavianus and Antonius travelled to straighten out the east and killed Zenophanes and gained control over the priest kings again.
Zenophanes's daughter, Aba, married the Priest King, and joined the Olba Kingdom family. The king died from the plague and the administration passed to their mother Aba as her sons were too young to come to power. There was a disagreement between Lepidus and Octavianus in 33 BC, as a result of this Lepidus accepted the superiority of Octavianus, and retreated from Triumvirate. So Octavianus and Antonius became secret rivals in order to dominate Rome. During Antonius's journey to Persia he fell in love with Cleopatra, so his relationship with Rome got worse. However, Cleopatra wanted to regain the old lands and own Ptolemaios's splendor. She succeeded in benefiting from Antonius's passion for her, and beat Rome with the help of the Romans. Antonius married Cleopatra and gave some land to her.
Cleopatra owned the Olba Kingdom, which had many cedar trees used to make ships.
Triumvirate ended formally in 32 BC by Octavianus, after Antonius gave the land to Cleopatra, and Octavianus went to war against them.
Cleopatra donated the Olba to Aba because of her help. Aba was killed, but the Olba Kingdom continued up until 20 BC by her occupants. After this date Rome took responsibility of the administration of the area.

The Olbian Priest dynasty which could be proud for good relations to Augustus didn't succeed in outlasting the fundamental changes in the course of the Roman engagement in Asia Minor. At least  when the province Cilicia was established (1st century AD) the Priest reign changed to an urban administration. This fundamental change took place probably under Vespasian when he founded Diocaisarea which soon incorporated the temple. With it the sanctuary no more was the indisputable center of the whole region but primarly only an usual city sanctuary. 

Mythology:
The Priestkings of Olba ascribed their dynasty to Teukros, heroe of the Troyan War (Strabo 14, 5, 10). The Hellenistic inscriptions show a big number of theophoric names of typical Luwian origin. Especially frequent are names with the component 'tarki', 'tarko-', 'tarky-' and 'troko-'. These names refer to the Luwian weather god Tarhu(nt), the main god of the Luwian pantheon. Naturally Tarhu(nt) in Hellenistic times was equated with Zeus. Significantly under the names of the Zeus priests of Olba besides Teukros, Zenas and Zenophanes (these too theophoric names related to Zeus) Takyaris occurs too. So the assumption is close that the cult of Zeus Olbios was  a Hellenized Tarhu(nt) cult (Trampedach).

But what is the origin of the claimed ancestry from Teukros? The problem is that there are two different groups of myths containing Teukros and both are not compatible:
[1] The Teukros of the Apollo Smintheus myth of Troas
[2] The Teukros of the Troyan War of Homer

The Apollo Smintheus cult is said to be founded by Cretian Teukri near the Troyan Chryse when they settled there. So the identity of the names of the two mountains of Ida could be explained. Over the years the Troyans developed from the Teukri (Aischylos, Agamemnon 112). This Teukros then - as father of Tros - became the ancestor of the Troyan kings. To strengthen the connection with Troas he got as parents Skamandros and a Troic mountain nymph.

Teukros too occurs in Vergil's Aeneis. Dido told Aeneas about Teukros who came as refugee to her father Belus who ruled in Sidon. He gave him the reign over Cyprus. Teukros claimed that he was related to the Troyan king dynasty by his mother Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, who had to follow Telamon as prisoner of war to Salamis. Vergil here skilfully connects both Teukros epics but doesn't mix up the genealogies.

At Homer Teukros was the son of Telamon and half brother of Aias the Great. About the genealogic origin Homer reports nothing. This reconstruction is from Prinz: "Zeus created Aiakos with Aigina. Aiakos married Endeis and created with her Peleus and Telamon. They killed their half brother Phokos. After that murder Peleus and Telamon had to flee from Aigina because of the anger of Aiakos. Peleus came to Phthia and Telamon to Salamis." This genealogy leads from Teukros over Telamon and Aiakos to Zeus himself and got 'quasi canonic character'. This genealogy f.i. was adopted by Pindar (4th Nemean Ode).

But how Teukros came to Cyprus? In Aischylos' 'The Persians' the chorus - describing the Persian Empire - lists the cities of Cyprus. And here appears - beside Paphos and Soloi - Salamis too! And now we have the missing link between Teukros and Cyprus. Teukros founded a city on Cyprus and named it Salamis referring to his hometown. Details could be found at Sophokles (Aias 1008-1021) and Euripides (Helena 87-104, 143-150). This founder myth was known already in the first third of the 5th century BC. But Athens too was interested in a myth which could legitimate its military intervention on Cyprus. For that purpose Athens had first mythologically to take in Salamis. This was done - according to Plutarch - by an arbitration between Spartians and Athenians by which Salamis was granted to Athens. A main argument of Solon, the leader of the Athenian delegation, was the hint that Salamis once was dedicated to Athens by the sons of Aias.

But probably the Cyprian founder myth is originated from Salamis itself. The initial point according to Prinz was the homonymy of the island of Salamis and the city of Salamis on Cyprus. The descendants of Teukros, the Teukri, kept the power on Cyprus until  c.310 BC when Ptolemaios I removed their reign.

The suggested connection of Olba to the Greek myth is represented in this way:
There is no convincing relation to the Troic Teukros. The founder myth of the Zeus Olbios temple by Strabon refers clearly to the heroe of Homer's Ilias. Additionally the name Telamon occurs in the region of Olba not scarcely and the geographical proximity of Cyprus is another evidence. And Teukros is not seen only as founder of the city but as founder of the important Zeus Salaminios temple too. This could be the reason for the Olbian priests to go back to Teukros. And Teukros was suggested as descendant of Zeus too which was stressed especially by Isokrates.

The paradigm of Mallos has demonstrated for the first time that mythological founded Hellenism could bring concrete advantages - in financial aspects too. The consequence was a race of cities and sanctuaries for a noble ancestry. Even the old metropolis of Tarsus has participated with an 'Argivian' founder myth. This has been stressed after the appearence of Alexander the Great. He who searched for prestige needed a Greek myth. In the course of this development the Olbian priestkings too searched for a mythological connection to the Greek 'history'. Amphilochos and Mopsos were inappropriate because they were related to Apollon. The cult of the Anatolian weather god - who could only be identified with Zeus - needed another founder figure. Teukros was appropiate because of several reasons:
[1] He was a descendant of Zeus
[2] He was founder of a famous and not so far Zes sanctuary
[3] He was the ancestor of a famous dynasty of rulers.
After founding Seleukeia ad Kalykadnum Seleukos I did reference to the nearby Zeus Olbios. The Olbian priests told Seleukos the founder myth of their sanctuary with the (now) noble Greek ancestry and as gratification they have been confirmed or introduced as regional kings by Seleukos (Trampedach).

History of art:
Of the temple of Zeus Olbios remained 30 high columns. They are of Corinthian order and were the oldest of this kind in Asia Minor. In the middle of an impressive mountain landscape these 2300 years old columns rise to heaven. I have added a pic. Recently the Universities of Rostock and Konstanz undertake archaeological excavations.

Sources:
[1] Kai Trampedach, Teukros und Teukriden. Zur Gründungslegende des Zeus Olbios-Heiligtums in Kilikien, in: Olba II, Mersin 1999, S. 94-110
[2] Pilhofer/Börstingshaus, Olba/Diokaisarea - Priesterstaat und Doppelstadt -, Vorbereitungsübung zur Kilikienexkursion 2006
[3] Friedrich Prinz, Gründungsmythen und Sagenchronologie, Beck 1979
[4] http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/archives.php?id=24078

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on August 15, 2007, 03:35:36 am
Jochen,

It has been far too long since I engaged in this discussion board.  I had some catching-up to do.  Your posts on Mithras, Hector, Juno Caprotina, the Thracian Rider-God Heroes, King Kyzikos, Hylas, Aphrodite Urania, Sandan, Diana Memorensis, Apollo Smintheus & the herdsman Ordes, Hera Lakinia, Euthenia, the River Nile, Agathodaimon & Uraeus and Zeus Olbios are all superb!

This board is better than grad school!

Thank you,
Jim
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 15, 2007, 06:46:39 am
Hi Jim!

Thanks so much! It would be nice to hear too which subjects are wrong!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Coin_Fan_Blue_Hens on September 02, 2007, 12:48:00 pm
Check out the Mythological coin of Romulus and Remus suckling the wolf. I like that coin, mostly because I have an interest in the founding of Rome, and Roman history.

Probus, Antoninianus, 276-282, Siscia, Officina 3
IMP C PROBVS P F AVG
Radiate, cuirassed bust right
ORIGINI AVG
She-wolf right, suckling Romulus and Remus
XXIT in exergue
21mm, 3.15g
RIC V, Part I, 703 (R2)
Ex Goran Petrusic, eBay, June 2003

http://www.beastcoins.com/RomanImperial/V-II/Probus/Siscia/Probus-RICV-703-XXIT-a.jpg
you can view the coin from this link!
Enjoy
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 08, 2007, 06:32:07 pm
Some notes on Nemesis

1st coin:
Claudius, AD 41 - 54
AV - Aureus, 7.71g, 18mm
Rome 46/47
obv. TI CLAVD CAESAR AVG PM TRP VI IMP XI
laureate head r.
rev. PACI AVGVSTAE
Pax/Nemesis advancing r., holding with l. hand winged caduceus and points with it at snake, coiling r. at her feet; holding fold of her robe before the chin
RIC I, 38; C.57 (Lyon AD 45!); von Kaenel 628 (this specimen!)
R2; about VF
Pedigree:
ex coll. Moritz Simon, Berlin (1930?)
ex Glandining & Co., London 1929, Nr.666
ex Cahn, Ffm. 1930, Nr.232
ex MuM, Basel

In connection with this coin we should talk about the strange gesture where Nemesis holds a fold of her robe before the chin. Rossbach (in Roscher, Mythologie, 1909) takes it for a gesture of modesty. LIMC IV, sv. Nemesis 232 writes, that it is a gesture symbolizing self-restraint in victory. Her spitting into her bosom ('spuere in sinu') is apotropaic in nature. The type itself was first used by C.Vibius Varus in AD 49 BC (Cr. 494/35). Claudius' re-use of this type was surely due to his personal antiquarianism.

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Macrinus AD 217-218
AE - AE 26, 12.2g
struck under legate Statius Longinus
obv. AV KM OPELLI CEV - MAKREINOC
bust, laureate, r.
rev. VP C - TATI LONGINOV - NIKOPOLITWN PROC / ICTRW (NG ligate)
Nemesis, wearing double chiton, standing l., holding scales and cubit, l. to her feet a wheel
AMNG 1769 var. (has different legends and scourge instead of cubit!)
some green encrustations, elsewise EF, choice portrait
I think here it is actually a cubit because of its marks and not a scourge!

Not long from Marathon, where the mighty Persian army was defeated by the Athenians in historical times (490 BC), there was a sanctuary and statue of Nemesis. It is told that the Persians' pride was such that they believed that nothing stood in the way of their taking Athens. Accordingly, they brought a piece of Parian marble to make a trophy to celebrate their victory, being persuaded that their task was already accomplished. But as it happened, they met defeat, and of this same piece of marble, the Athenian sculptor Phidias made a statue of Nemesis, the goddess who punishes the proud. According to others the statue was made by Agorakritos, one of his pupils.

Mythology:
Nemesis is most commonly de­scribed as a daughter of Night, though some call her a daughter of Erebus or of Okeanos. She is a personification of the moral reverence for law, of the natural fear of com­mitting a culpable action, and hence of conscience, and for this reason she is mentioned along with Aidos, i. e. Shame (Hes. Theog. 223). In later writers, as Herodotos and Pindar, Nemesis is a kind of fatal divinity, for she directs human affairs in such a manner as to restore the right proportions or equilibrium wherever it has been disturbed ; she measures out happiness and unhappiness, and he who is blessed with too many or too frequent gifts of fortune, is visited by her with losses and sufferings, in order that he may be­come humble, and feel that there are bounds beyond which human happiness cannot proceed with safety. This notion arose from a belief that the gods were envious of excessive human happiness (Herodot, i. 34, iii. 40 ). Nemesis was thus a check upon extravagant favours conferred upon man by Tyche or Fortuna, and from this idea lastly arose that of her being an avenging and punishing power of fate, who, like Dike and the Erinyes, sooner or later overtakes the reckless sinner (Apollon. Rhod., Sophocles, Euripides, Catull). The inhabitants of Smyrna worshipped two Nemeseis, both of whom were daughters of Night (See the article in this thread). She is frequently mentioned under the surnames Adrasteia and Rhamnusia, the latter of which she derived from the town of Rhamnus in Attika, where she had a celebrated sanctuary. Besides the places already mentioned she was worshipped at Patrae and at Kyzikos. She was usually represented in works of art as a virgin divinity, and in the more ancient works she seems to have resembled Aphro­dite, whereas in the later ones she was more grave and serious, and had numerous attributes. As winged she should be first depicted in Smyrna. Here is a short listing from my collection:
winged, hand to chin, with caduceus, snake before
winged, hand to chin, with caduceus and wheel
hand to chin, with bridle and wheel
hand to chin, with cubit and wheel
with cubit and patera (2x)
with cubit and scales
with cubit, scales and wheel (5x)
wearing polos, with cubit, scales and wheel
with scales, scourge and wheel
with scales, cornucopiae and wheel (2x)
with short rod and cornucopiae
with short rod, cornucopiae and wheel
with short rod, bridle and wheel (3x)

Often these are goddesses who can't be identfied exactly. Pick has used in this cases a double name, f.i. Nemesis-Aequitas (with scales) or Homonoia-Nemesis (with cornucopiae). The winged Nemesis usually is called Pax-Nemesis.

But there is an allegorical tradition that Zeus begot by Nemesis at Rhamnus an egg, which Leda found, and from which Helena and the Dioskuroi sprang, whence Helena herself is called Rhamnusis. On the pedestal of the Rhamnusian Nemesis, Leda was represented leading Helena to Nemesis (Pausanias). The Rham­nusian statue bore in its left hand a branch of an apple tree, in its right hand a patera, and on its head a crown, adorned with stags and an image of victory. Sometimes she appears in a pensive stand­ing attitude, holding in her left hand a bridle or a branch of an ash tree, and in her right a wheel, with a sword or a scourge.

Background:
Nemesis literally means 'the allocator, the reciprocator'. Hence as goddess of the moment she is the anthropomorphized presiding fate. In Rhamnus happened a melting with Themis-Gaia. Later she was approximating Tyche-Fortuna. As cosmic fate she has been praised in hymns (Orph. Hymn.).

The religion of the ancient Greeks originated from the religion of the immigrated Greeks and the pre-hellenic population in Asia Minor and Greece. Compared to the great monotheistic religions it attracts attention that the greek religion missed clear laws and prohibitions eventhough the goddess Nemesis and the Erinyns punished violations of nature and especially matricide. We can speak - in ancient times since Xenophanes - of an anthropomorphism - a humanization of the gods; so they are by their origin as mythological figures more similar to men in their failing than the one and only god in Judaism, Christianism or Islam. We have even the suggestion that gods and men originally were from the same species which was separated not until late at Mekone (Hesiod, Theogon. 512). A nice idea, isn't it?

I have added a pic of the statue of Themis from Rhamnus, an art work of Chairestratos which was preserved.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology
http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Nemesis.html
http://de.greece-museums.com/greek-mythology.php

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 08, 2007, 06:35:18 pm
The Star of Bethlehem: Mythology or not?

"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2: 1f.)
"and, so, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." (Matthew 2:9)

Since the late ancient times it was tried to explain these lines. When we try to explain the Star of Bethlehem we have in principle the following options:
(A) The Star has never existed. It was added later as sign of divinity and choiceness and so like the story of the virgin birth and other miracles.
(B) It was a supranatural phenomenon like f.i.an angel.
But these explanations we should disregard until we don't have exhausted all possible scientific possibilities. And there we have several. If we ask wether a natural phenomenon exists which could explain the Star we have these interpretations:
(C) Scientifical explanations:
1. It was a comet. But this is surely wrong. First there was no comet found for the relevant time, and then in ancient time a comet was seen as sign for coming desaster (desaster = bad star!). It was only Julius Caesar who succeeded in re-interpretating a comet as sign for his divinity!
2. It was a supernova. Such phenomenon Kepler has first seen on October 10. 1604 in the sign of Ophiuchus and immediately thought of the Star of Bethlehem. But for the relevant time no supernova is known. And it couldn't not have been overlooked!
3. It was a special conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Such conjunction Kepler could observe between the signs of Sagittarius and Ophiuchus. In error he suggested that this conjunction was the reason for the supernova.   
The last two explanation originates on Kepler. Strange to say Kepler didn't use these explanations but suggested a supranatural phenomenon. Since these times no other explanation was found and there was no scientifical discussion about the Star. But in 1999 the American astronomer Michael R.Molnar has published a new explanation. His ideas I want to share, because the starting point of his research was an ancient coin of Antochia!

In AD 13/14 Antiochia started to struck a series of small bronze coins, showing on the rev. a ram and a star.

Syria, Antiochia ad Orontem, quasi-autonomous, AD 13/14
AE 21, 4.46g
struck under the governor of Syria,Metellus Creticus Silanus
obv. bearded head of Zeus, r.
rev. EPI SILANOV ANTIOXEWN
      Ram, leaping r., head turned back, star above
      beneath DM (year 44 of the Actian era)     
Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 97; SNG München 645; BMC 65; RPC 626, 4269
about VF, black-brown patina, light roughness
Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus was legatus Augusti pro praetore in Syria AD 11-17

Molnar starts from a new conception. Suggesting that the wise men from the east are men with knowledge of stars and planets and astronomy and astrology was not separated in ancient times, he puts himself in the world of ancient astrologers and asks what could have been the belief of the ancient astrologists. One of his main sources is the Tetrabyblos of Ptolemaios. In this work the ram (Lat. aries) was called the sign of "Judaea, Idumea, Samaria, Palaestina and Coele Syria", exact the countries ruled by King Herodes. So this coin may be edited to commemorate the take-over of Judaea by the Romans in Antiochia in AD 6. In any case not the Pisces (fishes) were the sign of Judaea, as it is claimed often today, possibly because the fish (Greek ichthys) was an important symbol of the early Christians. Others suggest the lion as the sign of Judaea probably because they think of the 'Lion of Juda'. Others suggest Virgo possibly because of the Virgin Mary. But actually it was Aries, the ram, where the ancient astrologers were looking in searching for news for Judaea.

The star on the rev. of the coins not only is a sign of divinity but a symbol for Jupiter/Zeus too, who is depicted on the obv. So the rev. means "Jupiter in the sign of Aries". Naturally the coin itself has no direct relation to the birth of Jesus. But it was the starting point Molnar used to get new conclusions for the Star of Bethlehem

"On April 17, 6 BC two years before King Herod died Jupiter emerged in the east as a morning star in the sign of the Jews, Aries the Ram. The account in Matthew refers twice to the Star being in the east with good reasons. When the royal star of Zeus, the planet Jupiter, was in the east this was the most powerful time to confer kingships. Furthermore, the Sun was in Aries where it is exalted. And the Moon was in very close conjunction with Jupiter in Aries. Modern calculations suggest that this was close enough to be an occultation (eclipse). But the Sun’s glare would have hidden that event. Saturn was also present which meant that the three rulers of Aries’ trine (Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn) were present in Aries. Saturn and Jupiter were said to be attendants on the rising Sun, another regal aspect for astrologers. By modern expectations this is trivial, but for ancient stargazers this configuration was truly awesome." (Molnar)

Firmicus Maternus, an astrologer in the time of Constantine I,describes AD  334 in his Mathesis this constellation as condition for a divine and immortal nature. Because at this time he converted to Christianity he probably means Christus.

"The lunar occulation of Jupiter on April 17, 6 BC was just one of several astrological conditions pointing to a king's birth. The greatness of a ruler or king was said to depend on the number of regal astrological effects at the time of birth. This distinguished, say, a low level governor from an emperor. Knowing that lunar conjunctions (close approaches) with Jupiter were one condition for a king's birth, I looked for the closest conjunctions, namely occultations in the time frame biblical scholars claim as likely for the birth of Jesus. I quickly focused on the occultation of April 17, 6 BC after realizing that Jupiter was also "in the east" in Aries. "In the east" is mentioned twice by Matthew because astrologers such as the Magi said this was the most important time for Jupiter to produce future kings. Moreover, the Moon's incredible nearness to Jupiter amplified that power. Keep in mind that astrologers of Roman times were making crude calculations of planetary positions to create horoscopes, but they could not predict eclipses or occultations as we now can. However, they could estimate when these were likely. But keep in mind that the occultation was the key to finding this incredible day which has many important conditions pointing to the birth of not just a king, but a great king in Judea." (Molnar)

The ideas of Molnar I can report only heavily shortened. Naturally it is much more complicated and profund. For all interested in his ideas I recommend his book. Mr.Molnar is very friendly and you can ask him questions.

Naturally there are objections too. The most important I think are these two:
[1] Why only Matthew mentions The Star of Bethlehem and the Magi from the east? It is known that especially Matthew in his gospel makes an attempt to explain the story of Jesus as a fullfillment of old prophecies. "The birth of Jesus was never recorded. However, the evidence is that the early Christians did believe Jesus was born under the Star because the prophecy of Balaam (Num. 24:17) said the Messiah would be revealed by a regal Star.
[2] The Tetrabiblos of Ptolemaios has been written 100 years after the gospels and the Mathesis of Maternus not earlier as in the time of Constantine I. Is it possible that the Babylonian astrologers could know these interpretations? And how could Matthew knew them?

Note: Although Matthew calls them Magi, they often were called 'The Holy Three Kings" and even their names are known (Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar). It's not wide known that the bones of the Holy Three Kings are kept in a shrine in the Cathedral of Cologne and are one of the most import relics of the Catholic Church.

I have added the pic of a scene found on a capital of the church Saint-Lazare in Autun/France from AD 1475, showing the adoration of the child. In the upper left the Star of Bethlehem is depicted - as comet as usually.

Sources:
Michael R. Molnar, The Star of Bethlehem: The Legacy of the Magi
http://www.eclipse.net/~molnar/
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: curtislclay on September 25, 2007, 11:03:51 am
In my opinion by far the most probable hypothesis is Jochen's (A), the star never existed, no wise men traveled to Judaea for Jesus' birth, these are just embellishments added to Jesus' biography after his death, in order to make his birth seem miraculous and foreordained.

In this case, of course, it is pointless to search for astronomical explanations of the star, since it never existed.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 25, 2007, 11:49:14 am
I confess, that is my opinion too! But what's the matter with Molnar's suggestion that the rev. of this coin shows the astrological constellation 'Jupiter in Aries'?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: curtislclay on September 25, 2007, 01:18:33 pm
I'm certainly willing to accept an astrological interpretation of the ram.  BMC p. lix: "The ram has been explained by K.O. Müller as a sign of the zodiac, indicating the period of the year at which the foundation of the city took place."

A star on coins, however, normally stands for the sun.  How does Molnar explain the coins of 55/6 AD with Tyche head on obv., same ram looking back rev., but above the ram either a star alone or a crescent conjoined with a star? (RPC 4286-7, cf. 4290-1)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: sid on September 25, 2007, 03:06:46 pm
I've read Molnar's book, which I would say is absolutely full of holes, which I won't go into here; I don't want to dilute the Mythology thread. I'll just answer Curtis' question that he interprets the later coins as a symbol of Nero who was supposedly going to rise from the dead in the land of Palestine (although he's not dead yet). The star or crescent there are nothing but majestic symbols for the emperor.
Molnar is first and foremost an astrologer, not a credible astronomer, historian or researcher.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on September 25, 2007, 06:41:02 pm
There's no doubt that a star was associated with the messiah; Balaam's star prophecy in Numbers 24:17 (A star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel) is used regularly in a Messianic context. A star shaped like a sword, which was evidently a comet, 'standing over the city' is one of the omens Josephus quotes in the runup tot he First Revolt. Matthew was a Jew who rejected the rebels completely, and wanted to say that his guy, born a generation earlier, was the messiah. So he puts the star in the sky to lead the wise men, and it ends up 'standing' (same peculiar phrase, though we can only speculate about the relationship between the two texts) over Bethlehem. He Believed Jesus was bringing in a thoroughly Jewish Kingdom of God, but with space for Gentiles. So he brings Gentiles to worship the baby, along with Jews. I've read several astrological explanations of the star, and found none of them convincing.

Numbers, of course, does not say that the messiah has to be a native Israelite, thus leaving a loophole for a Roman emperor to arise out of Palestine, and be dutifully hailed by Josephus as messiah. What are the ancient sources for the story of Nero redivivus?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 25, 2007, 07:21:27 pm
Molnar cites Sueton, Nero 40 and refers too to Dio Cassius, Roman History 63.27.2. After Nero's death several false "re-born" Neros occured in the East, probably because of the prophecy of astrologers (Tacitus, Histories II.8.1). There should be 'The Sibylline oracles' (which I personally don't know) collecting prophecies from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD, not related to the Roman Sibylline Books, where such prophecies about a re-born Nero are found. Nero was seen as Antichrist by Jews and Christians. The Revelation of Saint John seems to see Nero in this role too. The number of of the beast 666 could point to Nero. May be that Nero's astrologer, Balbillus, was the spirit behind these beliefs.

Best regards 
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on September 26, 2007, 03:06:27 am
I'd forgotten about Suetonius' comments (it was rather late at night). The idea that 666 is intended as Nero redivivus is well-known, and won't go away. I'm not convinced though; there's a distinct lack of early Christian references to Nero's persecution (odd if they had such a dreadful memory of the guy!). The Jews didn't see anyone as Antichrist for obvious reasons; they're still waiting for the Messiah. I think the most we can say is that Nero was a popular ruler who died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, and some of his supporters probably didn't accept that he was dead; Suetonius reports a comparable state of affairs after Caligula's death, though it didn't last as long.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 01, 2007, 04:35:38 pm
Tellus

Hadrian, AD 117-138
AR - denarius, 18mm, 3.83g
        Rome, AD 134-138
obv. HADRIANVS - AVG COS III PP
       Bare head, r.
rev. T - ELLVS - STABIL
      Tellus standing facing, head left, wearing tunic to knees, right breast exposed, plow
        handle in right hand, rake upwards in left, two ears of grain in ground, r.
RIC II, 276; C.1427; BMC 738; Hill 528
VF/VF+
This type has been struck to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hadrian's reign, praising the stabile world achieved by his wise rule.

Tellus, Lat. = earth (like Virtus feminin despite the masculine ending -us, difference between natural and grammatical genus!), was the goddess of the motherly earth and so very similar to the Greek Gaia. Her name was unexplained already in ancient times. It could be connected with 'terra', but Greek telao (supporting) or Lat. tollo (raising, accruing) was named as origin too. Diod. Sic.suggests that her original name was Titaea or Titia. In principle she was one of the primary goddesses. Varro calls here together with Jupiter the first and most important pair of gods.

But in Rome she was much younger. 268 BC Publius Sempronius devoted a temple to her in carinis, on the property of Sp. Cassis at the declivity of the noble regio IV of the Carinae, when during a battle against the Picentinians a earthquake occured. So the term TELLVS STABILITA is ambigous: It means on the one hand quite real the firm earth, untroubled by earthquakes, but - like on this coin - the world stabilized and quiet by the reign of the emperor too.

Because the earth is the source of all growth she was closely connected to Ceres, the goddess of fertility. So to honour her at the beginning of the winter sowings in January the feriae sementivae (sowing ceremonies) and on the country the paganalia were celebrated. To Tellus and to Ceres a pregnant sow was sacrificed. On April 15. with the participation of the Pontifices and the Vestal Virgins the Fordicias occured on the Capitoline Hill and in the 30 Curias and pregnant cows (fordae) were sacrificed to them. The ashes of the unborn calves was kept by the Vestal Virgins until the festival of the Palilias when it was used - mixed with the ash of the 'October Horse' - as agent for a ritual purification (suffimen).

The official Tellus cult was relative young and didn't reach to the times of the Roman kings.
It was not until the early Republic when the name of Tellus became known by the oath which was sworn by Roman commanders at the case of a devotio, the self-sacrificing for the army. The formula was 'Dis Manibus Tellurique' and with the word 'Tellurique' the earth was touched. The most famous devotio I think was by the consul Publius Decius Mus AD 340 during the 2nd war against the Latins. So it is understandable that Tellus occurs in burying rites and burying poems too as Terra Mater or Ceres Telluris. Telluric today is nearly synonymious with chthonic, meaning subterranean.
   
Terra Mater seems to be the translation of Greek Demeter, which probably means 'Ge-Mater'. Nevertheless always Tellus has kept its Roman character (which is true for other goddesses too, f.i. Juno or Minerva). Because of that it is not allowed to identify Tellus just with Gaia. A reason could be that Tellus symbolizes the 'home earth' and therefore was immunized against religious taking over from outside. The Roman author Vergil has called Italia Saturnia Tellus, the earth of the Golden Century. Therefore I want to restrict this contribution to the Roman Tellus and Gaia should be left eventually for another article.

History of Art:
In the first time there was no own depiction of Tellus although in the above mentioned Tellus temple a wall painting of Italia should have been. Not until the early Empire we can find personified depictions of Tellus. We know that especially Augustus went back to older mythological ideas. The most famous is the wall relief of the Terra Mater at the east-side of the Ara Pacis, the peace altar of Augustus on the Campus Martis. She is depicted as a mother, seated on a chair without arms and back, surrounded by children which probably should symbolize the seasons. She is too depicted on the famous cuirass of Augustus, laying on the ground, looking up to Saturn, a clear message for Saturnia Tellus, the beginning of a new Golden Century. 

This motive was admitted by a 2nd coin which I have taken from Coinarchives:
Julia Domna, AD 193-217
AR - denarius, 3.36g
        Rome, AD 207
obv. IVLIA AVGVSTA
       Bust, draped, r.
rev. FECVNDITAS
       Tellus, resting l., l. arm on urn and r. hand on globe; above her the
        personifications of the four seasons.
RIC 549; Hill, 850.

I have added a pic of the wall relief from the Ara Pacis.
 
Sources:
Wikipedia
http://www.imperiumromanum.com/religion/antikereligion/tellus_01.htm
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
The Kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 01, 2007, 04:43:22 pm
The myth of Tereus and Prokne

Coin:
Thracia, Bizya, Geta, AD 209-21
AE 26, 10.05g
obv. AVT KRA P - CEP GETAC C[?]
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. BIZ - Y - HNWN
A banquet scene: Bearded man reclining on kline to left, resting with l. arm on pillow, touching with r. hand shoulder of a woman seated half-right at his feet, youth in short chiton standing left, his r. hand on opening of a high amphora, behind him a tree with armor hanging in twigs; on the right side forepart of horse to left, raising l. forefoot; beneath the kline a tripod(?), in the upper field  a shield.
Jurukova 63 (different obv. legend); Varbanov (engl.) 1491 var.
extremely rare, about VF(?), nice green patina

Mythology:
Sometimes it is suggested that the reverse shows a scene of the myth of Tereus, Prokne and Philomele. This interpretation is very questionable. I will talk about that in the second part of this article. But first the myth.

Tereus, a son of the war god Ares, was King of Thrace. Because he has helped King Pandion of Athens against the King of Thebens, Pandion gave him his daughter Prokre as wife. Prokne bore him a son, Itys. Prokne had a sister, Philomele. Once when Philomele want to visit her sister in Thrace, Tereus got her from Athens. Because of her beautiful voice he fall in love to her, his desire raised until he raped her. After this crime he cut out her tongue, so that she couldn't reveal it and hid her away in the forest. Back home he told Prokne that her sister Philomele has died. But the mute Philomele wove a tapestry depicting what had happened and that she was alive and could send this cloth to Prokne. Prokne pretended to celebrate Dionysos' festival and by raving around she found her sister. Seeing her bad state she decided to take terrible revenge. The most  terrible version comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Prokne slayed her son Ithys, cut him to pieces, boiled him and served him as meal for Tereus. When he asked for his son, she answered that he was already here, and then she threw the head of Ithys on the table. Tereus jumped up, pulled his sword and want to kill them. But Prokne and Philomele were transformed to birds, Prokne into a nightingale, and Philomele into a swallow, and could escape. Tereus himself was made to a hoopoe.

Background:
Originally Tereus was located at Daulis in Phokis, but he is found at Pagai in Megaris too. It was first Sophokles who has relocated his home to Thrace. His tragedy 'Tereus' from before 414 BC is lost. In Aristophanes' Birds Tereus calls all birds to a meeting. The myth originally seems to be an aitiological animal fairy tale which explains the voice of the birds. The swallow can't sing, the song of the nightingale sounds moanfully and reminds on 'Itu, itu' (= Itys). This myth has been taken by Ezra Pound for one of his Pisan Cantos (IV).

...
And by the curved, carved foot of the couch,
claw-foot and lion head, an old man seated
Speaking in the low drone...:
Itys!
Et ter flebiliter, Itys, Ityn!
And she went toward the window and cast her down,
"All the while, the while, swallows crying:
Ityn!
"It is Cabestan's heart in the dish."
"It is Cabestan's heart in the dish?
"No other taste shall change this."
And she went toward the window,
the slim white stone bar
Making a double arch;
Firm even fingers held to the firm pale stone;
Swung for a moment,
and the wind out of Rhodez
Caught in the full of her sleeve.
...the swallows crying:
'Tis! 'Tis! Ytis!


This is only a part of the Canto dealing with the inconceivableness of the beauty. The poem starts with the smouldering walls of Troy - consequences of the violent rape of the beauty. Here Philomele is transformed into a nightingale and Prokne into a swallow. Pound interweaves this old Greek myth with the Provencal myth of the cavalier Cabestan whose heart was served as meal to his beloved by his jealous wife. The name Itys melts subtly with Cabestan and forms 'Ityn'. Inimitable in English the answer of the swallows to the question:
"It is Cabestan's heart in the dish?"'
"...'Tis! 'Tis! 'Ytis!''

(following Eva Hesse, Ezra Pound - Dichtung und Prosa, 1959)

Objections:
In a coin description on CoinArchives CNG writes: "Possibly a local depiction of a myth involving the Bizyan king Tereus....The coin type allegorically depicts the moment when Tereus is served his son's corpse by his wife."
But the interpretation of the reverse depiction as scene of the myth of Tereus has no actual background. I couldn't find Bizya as home of Tereus. There is no figure we can name. We have no hint for Tereus, Ithys, or Prokne. We have the horse, the shield and the armour on the rev., which have no analogy in the myth.
Jurukova, Bizye, p.37, sees a grave monument with a so called Death Feast. But that doesn't match the armor and the shield!
Pick, Jahr. Arch. Inst. XIII, 145, calls it a banquet of a god and a goddess (Theoxenion).
Varbanov calls the male figure Dionysos.

I have attached the pic of a banquet-scene on a red- ad white-figured crater. I don't know the artist nor the age of this crater, but it matches the coin depiction astonishing closely! It is the same position of the figures on the kline, we have the attendants, the amphora, even the shields at the wall! And we have a tree-footed table aside. So I think the so-called tripod under the kline could be a table to!

Recapitulatory  we can say we have a banquet-scene, possibly with Dionysiac background, but that's all! Sadly!

History of Art:
In ancient times only rarely has been dealed with the myth of Tereus (list from www.perseus.tufts.edu):
We have a neck-amphora from the Diosphos painter, showing Tereus and Prokne, now in Naples.
We have a hydria fragment from the Altamura painter, showing Tereus with bird on head, pursuing Prokne, now in Taranto/Italy.
We have a cup fragment from the Magnoncourt painter, showing Prokne and Philomela with Itys, now in Basel.
We have high classical marble sculpture, showing a child leaning against his mother's leg (Prokne and Itys), in Athens,
and cup in Paris from Makron, showing besides others Prke and Philomela with Itys.

I have attached a pic of the Makron cup (the related myth part only) and the pic of the painting 'Tereus' from Peter-Paul Rubens, showing Tereus confronted with the head of his son Itys.

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphoses VI, 438-674
Der kleine Pauly
Karl Kereny, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Robett von Ranke Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Wikipedia
www.perseus.tuft.edu

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 20, 2007, 05:42:06 pm
Mars and Rhea Silva

The coin:
Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE - As, 26.71mm, 11.65g
Rome, AD 140/144
obv. ANTONINVS - AVG PIVS PP
       head, laureate, r.
rev. T - R - POT - COS III
Mars, nude, chlamys over l. arm, helmeted, spear in r. hand and shield in l. hand, coming down from heaven to Rhea Silvia, sleeping at his feet, nude except a garment slid down to her hips, laying l. on rocks, r. arm over head, head resting on l. hand
in lower field SC
RIC III, 694; C.885; BMC 1370
Very rare, VF, dark, nearly black patina
Pedigree:
ex Küncker auction 133, Osnabrück 11./12. Oct. 2007, lot 8870

Mythology:
Prokras, descendant of Aeneas, was king of Alba Longa. When he deceased he left two sons, Numitor Silvius, the older, who was mild and well-tempered, and Amulius Silvius, the younger, who was brutal and power-hungry. Amulius kicked Numitor off the throne and exiled him. His son he let kill. His daughter Rhea Silva (or Silvia) he made a Vestal so that no descendant could threaten his reign. But when Mars first saw Rhea Silva he fell in love to her, seduced and raped her. She bore him a pair of twins. When Amulius heard that, he gave order to kill Rhea Silva and the twins. His servants should drown them in the river Tiber. But the servants had pity on the children and gave them to the Tiber in their cradle. The cradle was taken away by the water and finally was attached to the branches of a tree. Another version told that they were rescued by the god Tiberinus. When Mars heard of the ill fate of his children he sent a she-wolf to nurse them and wood-peckers which fed them with grains and seeds.

Once the herdsman Faustulus when he was in search of one of his goats came to the cave of the she-wolf and found the twins. He took them and gave them to his wife Acca Larentia to bring them up. They were named Remus and Romulus. But when the herdsman heard of the fate of Rhea Silva and her children he recognized that he has found the grandchildren of King Numitor. But for fear of Amulius he kept still. Remus and Romulus became tough youths and  together with their companions they ranged the woods. Often they had to defend her father's herds against wild animals and other herdsmen. On such an occasion Remus once was captured and brought to the aged King Numitor. When Faustulus and Romulus came to free Remus Numitor recognized his grandsons. The twins and their companions moved to Alba Longa, conquered the castle and killed King Amulius. Numitor was made king again. But the twins wouldn't rule in Alba Longa, but intend to found their own city. The rest ist well known!

Background:
There are several dfferent versions of this myth. The most important are from Plutarch (Vitae Parallelae, Romulus), who is based on Diokles of Peparethos, and from Dionysios of Halikarbassos. Possibly this myth - and so the myth of Aeneas too - first emerged by Greek influence to connect the Roman history to the brilliant history of Greece. By writing the Aeneid Vergil succeeded convincingly in this subject.
In one version Rhea Silva is said to be burned (the usual penalty for sinful vestals), in another version she has drown herself in the river Tiber. Referring to Dionysios of Halikarnassos her original name was Ilia and the name Rhea Silva she got when she became vestal virgin.

We know that under Antoninus Pius occurs a return to ancient Roman religion and mind (in distinction from Hadrian, whose character was stamped Greek.). So we find on his coins all themes of Roman mythology which ever were put on coins. Most of these coins had been struck between AD 140/144. The theory that they had been struck because of the 900-years anniversary celebration of the founding of Rome can't be proofed. This coinage more probably can be seen as a basic program for the principles of his further political activities. Often the depicted motives refer to events in Rome and Latum, which too stand in the center of Antoninus' social care.

Iconography:
This is the first depiction of this important founder myth on Roman coins. On sarcophages we find it 100 years earlier, f.i. on the columbarium of the Statilii on the Mons Esquilin. Here Mars with his usual stepping schema approaches his victim who bears a jar which she afraid let fall. This is an illustration of the version of Dionysios of Halikarnassos. A wall painting in Pompeji is closer to our coin depiction. In Nero's Domus Aureus finally we have assembled all obligatory elements, but laterally reversed. Here we find too persons which observe the events and on the r. side an unidentified temple. This specification of the area is not needed on coins because of their roundness.
The depicted topos - a deity is floating down to a human being - is known from other myths too. We find it in the myth of Endymion and Selene or when Ariadne is found by Dionysos. It is known since Hellenism. Because of the down floating figure of Mars the model for the depiction could probably not be a statue

I have added the pic of the painting 'Mars and Rhea Silvia' of Peter Paul Rubens.

Sources:
Plutarch, Vitae Parallelae
Der kleine Pauly
Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung, 1995
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 27, 2007, 06:15:54 pm
Faustulus and the twins

Roman republic, Sextus Pompeius Fostlus, gens Pompeia
AR - denarius, 20mm, 3.88g
Rome, 137 BC
obv. Head of Roma, wearing winged helmet, r.
X before, jug behind
rev. SEX.PO - F - OSTLV - S
She-wolfe, stg. r., head turned back, suckling the twins Remus und Romulus; behind tree with three woodpeckers, at left herdsman Faustulus, wearing short cloak and pointed hat, stg. with crossed legs bended r., with l. hand resting on staff, r. hand raised.
in ex. ROMA
Crawford 235/1c; Sydenham 461a; Pompeia 1a; BMC 927
attractive VF
Pedigree:
ex Kagin's Long Beach Sale, Feb. 1987, lot 4474

The rev. of ths coin shows the most important moment of the Roman founder myth: The discovering of the twins. The name Faustulus is not explained satisfyingly until now. Sometimes it is suggested that the familiy of the mintmaster claimed descent from Faustulus. But 'der kleine Pauly'  thinks tat this is not true but it is probably a hint to the depicted figure. The tomb of Faustulus was suggested to be on the Forum Romanum. Indeed the Lapis Niger (black stone) was seen as tomb of Romulus, but ths version contradicts the version of his Ascension. So the view developed that the tomb was built for Romulus but then his foster-father was buried within.

The location of the ancient lupercal (the cave of the she-wolf) is unknown. The Ficus Ruminalis (lat. 'ruma' = teat, it originally was sacred to the goddess Rumina) was shown at the comitium of the puteal of Attus Navius. There this augur should have replaced the fig-tree. But Livius tells us that the Ogulnii, aedils in 296 BC, have erected a statue of the she-wolf with the twins ad ficum ruminalem. But obviously there was no cave! First Augustus - as he writes in his res gestae - has established this cave at the Mons Palatinus. In January AD 2007 Italian archaeologists have found during restauration workings near the palace of Augustus a chamber which because of its wall paintings they suggest to be the Augustean lupercal. For a discussion about this find please look at this thread https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=41615.0

The festival of the Lupercalia, by the way, is older than the myth of the she-wolf and the twins. Lupercus was the name of an ancient god of the herdsmen and the Lupercalia so were the festival of herdsmen in honour of their guardian against wolves and other beasts. 'Lupa' too is Latin 'wolf' and 'prostitute'. This could be a random synonym. Probably the story of Acca Larentia, wife of Faustulus, who in a version of the myth should have been a prostitute herself, was invented afterwards because of this alikeness of names. So we have a version of the myth with the she-wolf and another version without. Mommsen says to this subject: "The founder myth is new and badly invented!"
For the story of Acca Larentia please look at the relating article in this thread!

I have added a pic of the place with the recently found cave at the Palatinus.

Sources:
Mommsen, Römische Geschichte
Der kleine Pauly
Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung, 1995
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070126-rome-palatine.html
 
Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 27, 2007, 06:17:32 pm
Romulus and the first triumph

Romulus has been depicted on coins not before Augustus. It was said that Augustus was flirting with the idea to take the name Romulus for himself. But as we know he has abstained it. Romulus indeed was the foundr of the city, but as first king definitely not an example for the Republic. Quite the opposite to it he was seen as tyrant and Cicero compared some of his adversaries like Sulla, Lepidus or Caesar with Romulus. At Horaz the mythological fratricide became the original guilt ('Erbschuld') which was responsible for the  misery of the Civil War. And that was the reason why Augustus quit the adoption of the name Romulus. It was not until the Flavians when Roman mythological themes occured on coins again.

The coin:
Hadrian, AD 117-138
AR - denarius, 20mm, 3.33g
Rome, AD 134-138
obv. HADRIANVS - AVG COS III PP
Head, laureate, r.
rev. ROMVLO - CONDITORI
Romulus, bare-headed, in military cloak, walking tip-toed r., holding transverse spear in r. hand and with l. hand trophy over l. shoulder
RIC II, 266; C.1316; BMC 711
nice VF

The depiction shows Romulus with the spolia opima, he has won from the Sabine king Acron whom he has killed when he conquered the city of Caenina.

Mythology:
This mythological episode is chronologically directly attached to the Rape of the Sabines. I refer to the relating article in this thread. Titus Livius (Ab urbe condita 1.10) writes:
"The feelings of the abducted maidens were now pretty completely appeased, but not so those of their parents. They went about in mourning garb, and tried by their tearful complaints to rouse their countrymen to action. Nor did they confine their remonstrances to their own cities; they flocked from all sides to Titus Tatius, the king of the Sabines, and sent formal deputations to him, for his was the most influential name in those parts. The people of Caenina, Crustumerium, and Antemnae were the greatest sufferers; they thought Tatius and his Sabines were too slow in moving, so these three cities prepared to make war conjointly. Such, however, were the impatience and anger of the Caeninensians that even the Crustuminians and Antemnates did not display enough energy for them, so the men of Caenina made an attack upon Roma territory on their own account. Whilst they were scattered far and wide, pillaging and destroying, Romulus came upon them with an army, and after a brief encounter taught them that anger is futile without strength. He put them to a hasty flight, and following them up, killed their king and despoiled his body; then after slaying their leader took their city at the first assault. He was no less anxious to display his achievements than he had been great in performing them, so, after leading his victorious army home, he mounted to the Capitol with the spoils of his dead foe borne before him on a frame constructed for the purpose. He hung them there on an oak, which the shepherds looked upon as a sacred tree, and at the same time marked out the site for the temple of Jupiter, and addressing the god by a new title, uttered the following invocation: 'Jupiter Feretrius! these arms taken from a king, I,Romulus a king and conqueror, bring to thee, and on this domain, whose bounds I have in will and purpose traced, I dedicate a temple to receive the spolia opima which posterity following my example shall bear hither, taken from the kings and generals of our foes slain in battle.'
Such was the origin of the first temple dedicated in Rome. And the gods decreed that though its founder did not utter idle words in declaring that posterity would thither bear their spoils, still the splendour of that offering should not be dimmed by the number of those who have rivalled his achievement. For after so many years have elapsed and so many wars been waged, only twice have the [/i]spolia opima[/i] been offered. So seldom has Fortune granted that glory to men."

Background:
Like Trajan Hadrian too has often emphesized traditional values, perhaps to establish a good relation to the Senate. The selection of Romulus as coin depiction points rather at his role as founder of the city than at the first king of Rome. Important seems to be his deification which strengthens the Imperial Cult. But actually an equation with Numa would have been more adaequate. His juridiction and his humanization would much better match the deeds of Numa, also his stress on the ancient religion. ut this equation could not be successful because Hadrian was not counted among the 'good rulers'. The equation with Numa was transferred thereafter to Antoninus Pius.

Iconography.
The figure of Romulus could be recognized decisively first on coin depictions of Hadrian. He is walking with a remarkable trippig step (tip-toeing). This step is characteristic for the Mars type with which Romulus is sharing attitude and armament. With this depiction he appears until 3rd century AD. First he occurs on a wall painting in Pompeji. There he forms the counterpart to the escape of Aeneas from Troy. These two figures therafter were found in the exedras of the Augustus Forum and as decoration of statues of the Divus Augustus Temple. According to that this depiction of Romulus seems to be known since the 1st century BC. Probably it has been equalized to the Mars type. The tip-toeing step is known less for warlike figures but adequate for the victorious Romulus. Later on both types, Mars and Romulus, merged and on the VIRTVS AVGVSTI types they are no longer distinguishable, which could be intended from the beginning.

Spolia opima:
Spolia opima (Lat. = 'glorious spoils') in the time of the Roman Republic was the term for the armour which was removed from a conquered enemy leader by the Roman leader in a single combat by his own hands, which afterwards was consecrated in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. In the Roman history succeeded only Romulus against Acron, Aulus Cornelius Cossus against Lars Tolumnius and Marcus Claudius Marcellus against Viridomarus (referring to Plutarch). The claim of Marcus Licinius Crassus (grandson of the famous triumvir) after his victory over the leader of the Bastarni in 29 BC to consecrate too the spolia opima was denied by Augustus, because he was not the commander-in-chief but only a general of Augustus.
BTW Feretrius means such as 'he who carries away (namely the spoils of war)'.

I have added the pic of the denarius of P. Cornelius Marcellinus, Crawford 439/1; Sydenham 1147 from 50 BC (from CoinArchives). It reminds on the capture of Syracuse by his ancestor M. Claudius Marcellus in 121 BC. It shows the head of Claudius Marcellus with a triskeles (symbol of Sicily) behind and on the rev. Marcellus, togate, carrying the trophy to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius.

Then I have added a pic of the French painter Jean-Baptiste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), The Triumph of Romulus over Acron, pen, brown ink, watercolor over pencil on paper, after AD 1812, now in the Louvre/Paris.

Sources:
Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita (English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts)
Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung, 1995
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 28, 2007, 04:25:38 pm
Byzas - founder of Byzanz

The coin:
Thracia, Byzantium, Severus Alexander, AD 222-235
AE 25, 7.68g
obv. AVT KM AVR CEV ALEZA[NDROC] AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. BYZAZ
Head of Byzas, bearded, helmeted, r
F+/about VF, dark-green patina

The bearded, helmeted bust of the mythological founder Byzas so far was known only on the pseudo-autonomous coinage from Byzantium. Schönert-Geiss, Münzprägung von Byzantium, vol.II, p.20: "The Byzas-series, which contains 66 ex. with 23 obv. and 37 rev. dies, could be dated exactly, since the same magistrates are named on their reverses as on portrait coins of the emperors. They fall into 5 issues
AD 128-135
AD164-169
c. AD 175
c. AD 176
AD 202-205
On this coin the head of Byzas appears for the first time as a rev. type, on a coin of Sev. Alex. The obv. die of this coin was already known, linked to 4 rev. types under the magistrate Fronto with the legend EPI FRONTWNOC BVZANTIWN, Schönert-Geiss V218, Kat.-Nr. 1761-1767, pl. 103
(accordingt to Curtis Clay)

Mythology:
There are two different myths of Byzas which are often mixed together. The first version is found at Stephanos Byzantinos, a Greek laguage teacher (c. AD 500), and Diodoros Sikolos, a Greek historian who lived c.60 BC in Alexandria, in his Bibliothecae historicae liber 49. The other version we know from Petrus Gyllius who on order of King Franz I of France traveled through Greece, Asia and Africa in order to describe these regions and their countries. His work is found in De topographia Constantinopoleos and De Bosporo Thracio which were published AD 1561, after his death AD 1555.

In Greek mythology, Byzas was a son of Poseidon and Keroessa. Zeus once fell in love with Io, the daughter of Inachos, King of Argos. Zeus temporarily transformed his mistress into a heifer, white with golden horns, in order to protect her from the wrath of his wife Hera. In her wanderings Io crossed the Bosporos, giving the strait its name (bovs-phoros, which is Greek for cow-ford). After reassuming her original form, she gave birth to a girl, Keroessa.
Keroessa later bore a son to Poseidon, elder brother of Zeus and lord of the ocean.
This son was Byzas the Megarian who later became the founder of Byzantium and also named Golden Horn (Greek Chrysokeras) after his mother. Some sources say that Byzas was brought up by the naiad Byzia and married Phidaleia, daughter of King Barbyzos (Steph. Byz. in Byzantion; Diod. Sic. IV 49).

According to the other version, a Greek legend, Byzas was a Greek colonist (reported by some to be a leader or even a king) from the Doric colony of Megara in Greece, son of King Nisos. He has consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi and the oracle instructed Byzas to settle opposite from the "Land of the Blind". Leading a group of Megarian colonists, Byzas found a location opposite Chalcedon, where the Bosporos and the Golden Horn meet and flow into the Sea of Marmara. He determined the Chalcedonians must have been blind not to recognize the advantages the land on the European side of the Bosporos had over the Asiatic side, and in 667 BC founded Byzantium on the European side, thus completing the oracle's quest (Gyllis Topogr. Constantinop. lib I).

Background:
Neolithic records proof that the shores of the Bosporos were settled already very early. Already for the Greek this strait was of essential importance. Here the ships coasted which supplied Athens and other poleis with grain from the todays Ukraina. To protect this strategic important place which was at the same time the key position of the land bridge between Europe and Asia and the sea way from the Aegeis to the Blacksea the first colony was founded around 685 BC by Megarian colonists at the Asiatic side of the Bosporos: Kalchedon. 17 years after the founding of Kalchedon a second founding by the Megarians, together with colonists from Argos and Corinth, occurred on the European side in an area already inhabited by Thracians. The Thracian name of this settlement, Byzantion, later was interpreted as the name of one of its mythological leaders, Byzas of Megara. Byzas itself is a frequent Thracian name.

The myths around Byzas are typical Greek colonisation myths, which we can find
all over the Greek world. The occupation of foreign and already inhabited countries was always described as if these countries were deserted. By the newly invented myths the connection to the mythological history of Greece was established and the whole undertaking was interpreted as divine mission.

Because of its favourable strategic location and its calm and safe harbour Byzantion soon became an important trading centre. In 513 BC the Persian King Darius I conquered the city. In AD 324 Constantine I the Great combined both parts of the Roman Empire and on May 11. AD 330 he named the new capital in a solemn ceremony Nova Roma (= New Rome). But more famous it became under the name Constantinopolis.

Especially under the emperor Justinian I (AD 527-AD 565), the last great East-Roman ruler, Constantinopolis acquired big glory and was finished gorgeously (Hagia Sophia). In the Middle Ages the city remained the centre of the Byzantinian Empire and for a long time it was the biggest and most wealthy city of Europe. In April AD 1204 the Crusaders conquered Constantinopolis. The city was sacked, numerous inhabitants killed and works of art of inestimable value irrevocably got lost. Reduced to about 100.000 inhabitants, stripped of its previous glory, the city was reconquered AD 1261 by the Byzantinian Empire under Michael VIII.

On April 5. AD 1453 the siege of Constantinopolis by the Ottoman army under sultan Mehmed II began and in the morning of May 29. the city was conquered. That defined the final end of the Roman Empire after more than 1200 years.

I have added a map of the geographical position of Constantinopolis.

Sources:
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
Friedrich Prinz, Gründungsmythen und Sagenchronologie, 1979
Der kleine Pauly
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 13, 2007, 06:15:14 pm
Herophile - the Sibyl

Fore those who are interested, this theme belongs to the ambit of Apollo Smintheus.

The coin:
Troas, Gergis, quasi-autonomous, 400-241 BC
AE 9, 0.98g
obv. bust of the sibyl Herophile, looking facing, laureate, decorated wit two longish ear-pendant and a pearl-necklace
rev. female sphinx, winged, std. r.
      in r. field GER
SNG von Aulock 1513; BMC 2-4
rare, F+/about VF

There are two versions to explain the name Herophile:
a) It means 'priestress of the tribe'
b) It means 'friendly to Hera'
I tend to the first version, but I don't know wether it is really correct.

Mythology:
Herophile was the daughter of Apollo, or of Ketophagos and a Idaic nymph. According to Kerenyi she was the oldest of all sibyls. In any case she was one of the most famous. She lived at the time when Troy was destroyed and she was the priestress of the Smintheum, the sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus. There she had predicted the destruction of Troy. And that happened this way:

A short time before the birth of Paris his mother Hekabe (lat. Hecuba), the wife of Priamos, king of Troy, had a dream where she bore a log from which crawled numerous snakes. Priamos asked his son Aisakos, the seer, for the meaning of this dream, and Aisakos prophesied, that this child would be the doom of the whole country, and he begged Priamos to kill this child.

With a heavy heart Priamos announced that the child together with its mother should be killed. And he commanded to kill his sister Kilia and her son Munippos and buried them in the holy precinct of Tros. She has given birth to a son at the the same time. But Hekabe too gave birth to her son and although Herophile, priestress of  Apollo, insisted in killing at least the child, Priamos spared both lifes. Finally -  due to her entreatingly begs - Priamos charged the herdsman Agelaos with this order. Agelaos took the child, but having pity on him he marooned him at the Ida mountain. There he was found by a she-bear, which nursed him. When Agelaos after five days found him alive he was astonished about this miracle and took the child with him in a basket (hence the name 'Paris', later on he was named Alexandros) and brought him up with his wife. To Priamos he showed the tongue of a dog as proof of the murder. The rest of the story is well-known.

Herophile lived at Samos, Klaros, Delos and Delphi, and finally died in Troas. Therefore her tomb could be seen in the grove of Apllo Smintheus. Her cult seems to come from Hellenistic times. The people of Erythraia adopted Herophile as compatriot, passed her off as daughter of the herdsman Theodoros and the nymph from above and showed a cave on the Korykos mountain where she should be born (Pausanias Phok. c.12.p.630).

The sibyls
The word sibyl comes from the ancient Greek, meaning prophetess. The earlier oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity prophesied at certain holy sites, probably all of pre-Indo-European origin, under the divine influence of a , originally one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place. Homer seems to have been unaware of a Sibyl. The first Greek writer, so far as we know, who mentions a sibyl is Heraclit, in the 5th century BC. Sibyls are not identified by a personal name, but by names that refer to the location of their temenos, or shrine. In Pausanias the first sibyl mentioned was the Sibyl of Delphi. The second Sibyl, referred to by Pausanias, was named "Herophile", and seems to have been based ultimately in Samos Island, but visited other shrines too, but Delphi had its own sibyl. We see that here is still much ambiguity. The reason is that the sibyls at first were not stationary. So their names and their stories were often mixed.

Even the number of sibyls is not clear. Frazier writes, that historical there were only two of them at the beginning, the Sibyl of Erythraea and the Sibyl of Samos who lived some time later. The first ancient writer to distinguish several Sibyls was Heraclides Ponticus, 4th century BC, who named at least three Sibyls, the Phrygian Sibyl, the Erythraean Sibyl and the Hellespontine Sibyl, where the last one should be our Herophile. Later on their number increased to nine and even ten, when the Romans finally added a Etruscan Sibyl. According to Lacantius who cited Varro these were the ten Sibyls:

[1] The Persian Sibyl was said to preside over the Apollo Oracle; though her location remained vague enough so that she might be called the "Babylonian Sibyl". She is said to have foretold the exploits of Alexander the Great.
[2] The so-called Libyan Sibyl was identified with prophetic priestess presiding over the ancient Zeus Amun Oracle at the Siwa Oasia. This oracle is well-known by the visit of Alexander after his conquest of Egypt. She is called Lamia too.
[3] The Sibyl at Delphi is commonly known as the Pythia, though her name was also Herophile. She was the Pythian priestess of Python, an archaic chthonic serpent. Later, Sibyl or Pythia became a title given to whichever priestess manned the oracle at the time. The Sibyl sat on a tripod over a cleft in the Sibylline Rock, gaining her often puzzling predictions from it. She sang her predictions, which she received from Gaia, in an ecstatic swoon; her utterings were interpreted by attendant priests during classical times, and rendered into of notoriously difficult interpretation. Modern scholars dismiss the archaic propensity for visions and sometimes attempt to account for the Pythia's swoon with toxic methane or ethylene hydrocarbon vapors (Scientific American, October 2003).
[4] The Cimmerian Sibyl. Gnaeus Naevius names the Cimmerian Sibyl in his books of the Punic War  and Piso in his annals. The Sibyl's son Evander founded in Rome the shrine of Pan, the lupercal.
[5]  The Erythraean Sibyl was sited at Erythrae, a town in Ionia opposite Chios. Apollodoros of Erythrae affirms the Erythraean Sibyl to have been his own countrywoman and to have predicted the Trojan War and prophesised to the Greeks who were moving against Troy both that Troy would be destroyed and that Homer would write falsehoods. The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.
[6] The Samian Sibyl's site was at the Isle of Samos.
[7] The Cumaean Sibyl. She was most concerned by the Romans. Her site was a cave near Cumae in the neighborhood of Naples. She was consulted by Aeneas before his descent to the lower world. It was she who sold to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, the original Sibylline Books, which then were hold by the viri quindecim. The Sibylline Books are not the same as the Sibylline Oracles. The Roman Sibylline Books were quite different in character from the preserved Sibylline Oracles, which typically predict disasters rather than prescribe solutions. The books contained lists of rites and procedures to avoid calamities. Christians were especially impressed with the Cumaean Sibyl too, for in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue she foretells the coming of a savior, a flattering reference to the poet's patron, Augustus, whom Christians nevertheless identified as Jesus.
[8] The Hellespontine, or Trojan Sibyl presided over the Apollo Oracle at  Dardania in Asia Minor. She was born in the village of Marpessos near the small town of Gergis, during the lifetimes of Solon and Kyros the Great. Marpessus was formerly within the boundaries of the Troas. The Sibylline Book at Gergis was attributed to the Hellespontine Sibyl and was preserved in the temple of Apollo at Gergis. Thence it passed to Erythrae, where it became famous. The coins of Gergis depict her portrait.
[9] The Phrygian Sibyl appears to be a doublet of the Hellespontine Sibyl.
[10] The Tiburtine Sibyl was added to the classical sibyls by the Romans. Her site was Tibur (today Tivoli), an ancient Etruscan city. The myth tells that Augustus has consulted the sibyl and has asked her whether he should be worshiped as a god. Whether the sibyl in question was the Etruscan Sibyl of Tibur or the Cumaean Sibyl is not always clear. An apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy exists, attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl, written ca AD 380, but with revisions and interpolations added at later dates. It purports to prophesy the arrival of the Christian emperor, Constantine, and then will arise a king of the Greeks whose name is Constans. He will be king of the Romans and the Greeks. But this is only a vaticinium ex eventu, spoken after the fact. But I think this is true for all prediction which fulfil.

I have added a pic of the famous Sibyl of Cumae of Michelangelo. She is found in the Sistine Chapel (AD 1508-1512) in Rome. Here Michelangelo has immortalized five of the sibyls.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Sagen
http://dark-legion.org/en/Sibyl
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibylle_%28Prophetin%29
http://www.weblexikon.de/Sibylle_(Prophetin).html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 23, 2007, 05:16:40 pm
Vacuna?

Roman Republic, M. Plaetorius Cestianus, gens Plaetoria
AR - Denarius, 18.52mm, 3.86g
         Rome, 67 BC
obv. Draped bust of a winged goddess, r., wearing crested helmet, lotus-blossom and
        grain-ears on her forehead, bow and quiver over r. shoulder, cornucopiae below
        chin.
        behind CESTIANVS, before s:c
rev. Eagle with spread wings stg. on thunderbolt r., head l.
       in ex. M PLAE, then TORIVS F AED CVR
Ref.: Crawford 409/1; Sydenham 809; BMCRR 3596; Plaetoria 4
VF, slightly toned
Pedigree:
ex. M&M AG Auktion 38, Basel 6./7.12.1968, lot 181 (coll. August Voirol)

The goddess depicted on the obv. of this coin is often called Vacuna, but in error. Vacuna was a Sabinean goddess identical to the Roman Victoria. She had an ancient sanctuary (Vacunae Nemis) near Horace's villa at Tibur, todays Tivoli, and another at Rome. The Romans however derived the name from Va- cuus, and said that she was a divinity to whom the country people offered sacrifices when the labours of the field were over, that is, when they were at leisure, vacui. (Schol. ad Horat. Epist. i. 10. 49 ; Ov. Fast. vi. 307 ; Plin. H. N. iii. 17.) From the Scholiast on Horace, we also learn that some identified her with Diana, Ceres, Venus, or Minerva. Her festivities, the Vacunalia, occured in December.

Today her name etymologically is derivated rom *vacu- (= lacus, i.e. lake, with change of l>v, like Umbrian 'vaper' = Lat. lapis, i.e. stone), and so her name means 'dea del lago', i.e. goddess of the lake. Her Sabinean cult centre probably was situated at the
sulphureous springs of Aquae Cutiliae (Evans: The cults of the Sabine Territory, 1939).

The traditional identification of the female bust as Vacuna is impossible, writes Crawford, citing the work of J.P. Morel, MEFR 1962, 25-29. An identification as Isis, according to the work of A. Alföldi, SM 1954, 30-31, is perhaps correct. In short, the identification of the obverse type is uncertain, as the female has attributes of Isis, Minerva, Apollo, Diana, and Victory. So it is a typical Polythea!

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online)
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 05, 2007, 03:34:50 pm
The voting pebble of Athena

My Christmas gift for the Forum's members!

The coin:
Pamphylia, Side, Valerian II, Caesar Ad 256-258, son of Gallienus
AE 30, 18.04g
obv. POV LIK KOR OVALERIANON KAI CEB
Bust, draped and cuirassed, bare-headed, r.; beneath eagle, standing r.,  with opened wings and head r.
c/m E in circular incus (Howgego 805)
rev. CIDHTWN - NEWKORWN
Athena (Sidetes), helmeted and wearing narrow peplos, stg. facing, head l., holding palmbranch over l. shoulder and dropping voting pebble with r. hand into amphora with two handles l. beside her; r. beside her a branch with a pomegranate.
ref.: cf. SNG Pfälzer Privatsammlungen 882 (Gallienus); probably unpublished
F/about VF, rough obv., rev. with slight strike weakness and distinct circular traces of the ancient smoothing process.
The E of the c/m should probably devaluate the coin from 10 units to 5 units.
Coins from Side often show pomegranates because 'side' in Pamphylian means 'pomegranate'.

Mythology:
When you search for information for the motive 'Athena with voting pebble' you unevitably come across the myth of Orestes who became the slayer of his mother Klytaimnestra. To understand the problems I have to give a short review of the cursed House of the Atrides.

The story starts with Tantalos who - to test the wisdom of the gods - slaughters his son Pelops and served him as meal for the gods. No one touched it except Demeter who was deep in thoughts about her daughter Persephone. She ate a piece of his shoulder which was replaced by ebony when Pelops was brought to life again by Zeus. Tantalos was banished to the Tartaros to his eternal penalty.

Pelops himself was a bad boy too. When he went to Elis as suitor of Hippodameia, daughter of King Oinomaos, he convinced Myrtilos, a son of Hermes, who was the stablemaster of Oinomaos, to manipulate Oinomaos' chariot so that it broke in the racing and Pelops won Hippodameia. But instead to give Myrtilos the arranged pay he pushed him from a rock into the sea and killed him. Hermes swore to take revenge on his family. Pelops married Hippodameia and named his new home country Peleponnesos (Pelop's island).

Atreus was the son of Pelops. Together with his brother Thyestes he killed his second brother Chrysippos. Because of this murder both are banished by Pelops and they went to Argos. There Atreus deceived the goddess Artemis of a golden lamb. But because his wife Aerope has a love affair with his brother Thyestes this golden lamb secretly got to Thyestes. When the Mykenians wanted to choose one of them to their king Atreus proposed as candidate who could show a golden lamb. But this was surprisingly for him Thyestes. But Zeus in anger about this fraud gave the throne of Mykene to Atreus. After that he gains knowledge of the adultery of his wife and he decided to take revenge on his brother Thyestes. Under the pretext to make his peace with him he invited Thyestes, slaughtered his sons (this seems to be a popular practice at the Atrides!) and served them to him. Having eaten the meat Atreus showed the cut heads of his sons to Thyestes and chased him away. Later Atreus married Pelopeia, daughter of Thyestes. She at this time was pregnant by her father and gave birth to Aigisthos. When Aigistos grew up Atreus send off him to kill his
hateful brother Thyestes. But Thyestes recognized his son Aigisthos and he took revenge on Atreus.

Agamemnon was the son of Atreus and Aerope and brother of Menelaos. After the murder of Atreus Thyestes became king of Mykenai. Agamemnon and Menelaos were saved from Thyestes by their nurse. When they grew up Tyndareos helped them to recover the throne of Mykenai. Agamemnon married Klytaimnestra, the daughter of Tyndareos after having killed her first husband, a son of Thyestes, and her newborne babe. Menelaos married Helena, the other daughter of Tyndareos. Agamemnon had three children with Klytaimnestra: Elektra, Orestes and Iphigenia. When Agamemnon was elected leader of the Greek for the war against Troy the Greek armada couldn't dcross over to Asia Minor because of a dead calm. The seer Kalchas announced that first Artemis has to be appeased by sacrificing Iphigenia. Using a cunning - the supposed engagement with Herakles - Iphigenia was attracted to the camp of the Greeks with intent to be sacrificed on the altar. In the last moment she was saved by Artemis who abducted her and swapped her with a hind.

After the conquest of Troy Agamemnon returned to Mykenai with his lover Kassandra. There Klytaimnestra has lived all the years together with Aigisthos. When Agamemnon took a bath - dirty from his long his long voyage - he was slayed by Aigisthos and Klytaimnestra because as well what he has done to her and Iphigenia. After this deed Aigisthos was in great fear at Orestes because he was afraid of his blood vengeance. But this was just what Apollo has urged Orestes to. He should take revenge for the murder of his father Agamemnon. Using a stealth Orestes and his companion Pylades reached the castle of Aigisthos. They were disguised and brought an urn with Orestes' ashes to Aigisthos. In the same night they slayed Aigisthos and Orestes - with great concerns - killed his mother Klytaimnestra.

After the murder of his mother mother Orestes was chased by the Erinyes, the goddesses of revenge, who didn't leave him in peace day and night. Today we would call them 'pricks of conscience'. Orestes fled to Delphi to the temple of Apollo who has commanded the matricide. He was expiated by Apollo but this external expiation was not enough. Furthermore he was pressed hard by the Erinyes.

Now Athena came into play. She challenged Orestes to go to Athens and to deliver himself up to a court. The Athenians claimed that Athena should pass the sentence. But Athena denied that and transferred this task to the Athenians themselfs. She installed a court of jury members from the citizens of Athens. This court - named Areopag after the place of assembly - should exist for all times. It consisted of an even number of men. The judgement was passed by throwing white and black pebbles into an urn. In the case of a tie Athena would throw a white pebble - so she announced before the voting - into the urn. That means in the case of a tie the accused person was free. The reverse motive of the above coin originates from the time when Orestes has delivered himself up to the jury men of Athens. Athena dropped her voting pebble into the urn. With it Orestes was absolved. After that Athena succeeded in convincing the Erinyes of the blessing of this new legal order. So the Erinyes, the goddesses of revenge, changed to Eumenides, the well meaning goddesses.

In Euripides' Iphigenia a part of the Erinyes could be satisfied not until Orestes brought the palladion, the wooden statue of Artemis, from the Taurian country to Attica freeing his sister Ipgigenia too. According to the myth Orestes has ruled over Mykenai a long time until he died high aged by the bite of a snake.

Background:
The Atrides became the theme of dramatists from ancient times until today. The fate of Orestes first was mentioned by Homer in his 'Odyssee'. The most famous plays are the tragedies from Aischylos, Sophokles and Euripides. But even Jean Paul Sartre has written 1942 his drame 'Les Mouches' about Orestes. The interpretation and the perception of the bloody deeds differ from author to author. Here my view based mostly on Aischylos. He has arranged the mythological stuff in his trilogy 'Oresteia', consisting of the plays 'Agamemnon', 'The Choephores' and 'The Eumenides', which have been first performed in 458 BC.

Which superior meaning has the scene in Athens and why Athena drops a white pebble in the voting urn? Apollo has urged Orestes to perform the matricide to revenge the murder of his father. We see Apollo here still as typical exponent of the archaic blood vengeance. Athena in contrast at Aischylos is the goddess who introduces an official rational and secular jurisdiction. With the myth of Orestes and the Erinyes we are at the beginning of a cultural turning point, as Aischylos is seeing it. Its not only the fate of Orestes which matters Aischylos, but he raises the problem to a general level of the history of mankind. It is a question of his right of self-determination, his freedom and his independence from the control of the gods. An archaic barbaric era is removed by a new human one. It appears curious that the Erinyes pursued mercilessly the matricide Orestes but didn't care about Klytaimnestra the slayer of her husband. This can be understand only from chthonic ideas. The son is connected with his mother by his blood. But this is not true for Klytaimnestra and his husband. Apollo has a very different view on human relationships which go far beyond blood bond because they base on the free will like the marriage. While the Erinyes are pre-hellenic goddesses Apollo is an olympic god. So already with Apollo begins the removal of archaic morals but first Athena introduces the new human social order. And only this saves the peace of the polis. Therefore we see Athena on the coin without her spear and shield but with a palmbranch over her shoulder.

So the reverse of this coin points to an inportant fundament of each state and human community. Without organized law a human society is not possible. That matches the depiction of several other coins where Athena is shown as Boule (Council of the City). Athena is identified as Boule. No surprise that we find these depictions mainly in Asia Minor. Hereby the connection with the Greek motherland becomes particularly clear. And to ascribe the political structures to the mythological  greek prehistory gives each city an exceptional significance.

I have found another interesting suggestion for the voting pebble of Athena by Kirchhoff 1874. He writes that in ancient times at a trial on the Areopag the king too was present but he was not allowed to vote. He had to drop his wreath, sign of his majesty, and became a normal citizen, if he want to drop his pebble in the urn. The myth of the voting pebble of Athena - where even a goddess was voting - gave him the voting right, so to speak mythological justified.

I have added a pic of the Areopag. It is a rocky hill beneath the Acropolis. Its name means 'hill of Ares'. Here - according to the myth - has been judged over Ares after he has killed Halirrhotios. Halirrhotios has raped a daughter of Ares. Poseidon, father of the killed Halirrhotios, accused Ares for murder. It is said that on one rock the accuser was sitting and on the other rock the defender. But Ares got a non guilty because there couldn't not be found a witness. This was the first trial on the Areopag. The second was the case against Orestes. We see that this description differs from that by Aischylos. The pic is from  http://www.aeria.phil.uni-erlangen.de/
   
Sourcess:
Hamburger, Käthe, Von Sophokles zu Sartre, Griechische Dramenfiguren antik und modern, 1962
Kirchhoff, Johann Wilhelm Adolf, Zur Frage vom Stimmstein der Athena, Berlin 1875
in: Monatsberichte der Königl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1874, S.105-115
Kerenyi, Karl, Prometheus, Die menschliche Existenz in griechischer Deutung, 1959
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Mythologie
Der Kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Arminius on December 26, 2007, 04:45:44 am
The second labour of Hercules, the Lernaean Hydra

In Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra was an ancient nameless serpent-like chthonic water beast that possessed numerous heads— the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint— and poisonous breath. The Hydra of Lerna was killed by Hercules as one of his Twelve Labours. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, though archaeology has borne out the myth that the sacred site was older even than the Mycenaean city of Argos, for Lerna was the site of the myth of the Danaids. Beneath the waters was an entrance to the Underworld, and the Hydra was its guardian.
The Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, noisome offspring of the earth goddess, Gaia. It was said to be the sibling of the Nemean Lion, the Chimaera and Cerberus.

The second labour of Hercules: Upon reaching the swamp near Lake Lerna, where the Hydra dwelt, Hercules covered his mouth and nose with a cloth to protect himself from the poisonous fumes and fired flaming arrows into its lair, the spring of Amymone, to draw it out. He then confronted it, wielding a harvesting sickle in some early vase-paintings; Ruck and Staples have pointed out that the chthonic creature's reaction was botanical: upon cutting off each of its heads he found that two grew back, an expression of the hopelessness of such a struggle for any but the hero, Hercules.
Realising that he could not defeat the Hydra in this way, Hercules called on his nephew Iolaus for help. His nephew then came upon the idea (possibly inspired by Athena) of using a burning firebrand to scorch the neck stumps after decapitation, and handed him the blazing brand. Hercules cut off each head and Iolaus burned the open stump leaving the hydra dead; its one immortal head Hercules placed under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius, and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete. The alternative to this is that after cutting off one head he dipped his sword in it and used its venom to burn each head so it couldn't grow back.
Hercules later used an arrow dipped in the Hydra's poisonous blood to kill the centaur Nessus; and Nessus's tainted blood applied to the Tunic of Nessus.
When Eurystheus, the agent of ancient Hera who was assigning to Hercules The Twelve Labours, found out that it was Hercules' nephew who had handed him the firebrand, he declared that the labour had not been completed alone and as a result did not count towards the ten labours set for him. The mythic element is an equivocating attempt to resolve the submerged conflict between an ancient ten Labours and a more recent twelve.
 
Near Argos, the former presence of a large freshwater lagoon, named Lake Lerna, has been deduced from subsurface deposits. The lake was separated from the open sea by a beach barrier. It originated when the postglacial sea level rise reached its culmination point and extended over a diameter of 4.7 km in the Early Bronze Age. Increased soil erosion then caused a rapid silting, but remnants of Lake Lerna persisted until the last century. Anthropological studies have shown how the inhabitants of this coastal marsh have suffered from malaria in the past. It may be that the story of the legendary fight between Herakles and the Lernaean Hydra reflects the struggle of the Lanai people as they tried to change the inhospitable environment by draining the lake. (Eberhard Zangger: "Prehistoric Coastal Environments in Greece: The Vanished Landscapes of Dimini Bay and Lake Lerna", Journal of Field Archaeology 18 (1991) 1--15)

Modern geological techniques such as core drilling have identified the site of the vanished sacred Lake Lerna, which was a freshwater lagoon, separated by barrier dunes from the Aegean. In the Early Bronze Age Lake Lerna had an estimated diameter of 4.7 km. Deforestation increased the rate of silt deposits and the lake became a malarial marsh, of which the last remnants were drained in the nineteenth century.

Tarsos in Cilicia, Caracalla, 211-217 AD.,
Æ32 (32-33 mm / 16,17 g),
Obv.: [AVT KAI M AVP CЄV]HPOC ANTΩN[ЄINOC CЄB] / Π - Π (across field), laureate head of Caracalla left.
Rev.: Herakles and the Lernaean hydra: ..ANH - CЄ.. / ЄK (uncertain legend around and in lower field) /  TAPCOV (in exergue), Herakles standing left, nude, holding lion's skin on left arm and raising club far over his right shoulder, about to beat to death the Hydra.
SNG Levante - ; SNG Levante Suppl. - ; SNG France - ; SNG von Aulock - ; R. Bräuer, "Die Heraklestaten auf antiken Münzen," ZfN 28 (1910), pl. 2, 12 ; Voegtli 2q ; Cornell 116 .

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 29, 2007, 08:04:25 pm
The Garden of the Hesperides

Matching the article of Arminius I will tell something about another labour of Herakles: Herakles and the apple of the Hesperides.

I was on search of a coin showing the apple of Hesperides already for a long time. But mostly it is only Herakles who is depicted holding apples in his hand. Now I found this coin from Tarsos which is showing the trree with the snake too. Now we have the whole scenario. In fact only the Hesperides are missing!

The coin:
Cilicia, Tarsos, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 35
obv. AVT KAI M ANT GOR[DIANOC CEB]
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, radiate, r.
       in field l. and r. P - P
rev. TARCOV MHTROPOLEW
      Herakles, bearded(?), nude, stg. facing, head l., resting with r. hand on his club, holding
      over l. arm the lion-skin and in the outstretched l. hand five apples.; l. beside him a tree
      with twigs, entwined by a nake.
      in the upper r. field A / G, in the lower l. field M / K
Ref.: cf. SNG Copenhagen 383
very rare, good F/about VF, trace of ancient smoothing process on rev.

Mythology:
The golden apples were a gift of Gaia for Hera when she married Zeus. They had the nature to give youth and eternal life. Hera was very pleased and planted them in her own divine garden. The Hesperides, daughters of the Night, were assigned to guard them. But the Hesperides, known for their sweet voices, marauded the tree and gave its fruits away. It is said f.i. that they gave apples to Hippomenes so that he could win the run against Atalante. Therefore Hera placed the dracon Ladon in her garden who entwined the tree. His order was to guard the tree against the Hesperides!

Because Eurystheus didn't accept Herakles fight against the Hydra because Ioalos had helped him, he gave Herakles another task: He should bring him the apples of the Hesperides.This was the eleventh labour in the classical kanon of his labours. The problem was that no one knew where to find the garden of the Hesperides! It was told that he was located in the high north in the land of the Hyperboraeans, or at the western horn near the Ethiopian Hesperiai. But the usual opinion was that the garden was situated far in the west. That matched the name Hesperides which means 'girls of the evening', a explicit hint to the west.

On his quest for the apples Herakles came to Illyria and the river Po. He had a fight against Kyknos, a son of Ares, until Zeus stopped the fight. The region around the Po was ruled by the sea-god Nereus. Nymphs pointed him to the sleeping Nereus and Herakles forced him to reveal where he could find the apples and how he could get them. Although Nereus took different shapes and curled around like Proteus Herakles won the fight and got all informations he needed.

Another myth (Aischylos) knows that Herakles was told the secret by Prometheus. He, a Titan like his brother Atlas, was forged to a rock of the Caucasus montains, and each day Zeus sent an eagle to eat from his liver which grew again each night. Herakles freed Prometheus and gratefully Pometheus gave Herakles the needed information and the hint not to take the apples by himself but to ask Atlas to get them for him.

Atlas was punished by the gods to carry the sphere of heaven on his shoulders. When Herakles came to Atlas he took the sphere for him and Atlas went to the garden and got the apples. Some say that Herakles has shot Ladon before. Coming back with the apples Atlas denied to take the sphere again. But Herakles fooled him. Declaring himself agreed, he ask Atlas to take the sphere for a short moment, because he wanted to set a pad on his shoulder. When Atlas has taken the sphere again Herakles walked away with the apples laughing.

Over the time the mythology changed. In the oldest versions Herakles got the apples from the Hesperides himself. Then it was said that Ladon, the guardian of the tree, fell asleep by the song of the Hesperides. The last versions said that Ladon was killed by Herakles' arrow. The story became - so to speak - more brute. Thereby Ladon, son of Typhon and Echidna (or Keto and Phorkys), was not a horrible monster but one of the wise snakes which spoke many languages and could understand them. After Ladon's death he was set by Hera gratefully to the sky as constellation Draco.

Another myth tells that the Egyptian king Busiris - attracted by the beauty of the Hesperides - sent a ship to rape them. When his assistants has raped the Hesperides they celebrated their deed at the beach. In this moment Herakles came by and freed the Hesperides. Bringing them back to their father Atlas(!) Atlas gratefully gave him the apples and teached him astrology too because he was a famous astrologer (Diodor. Sic. I. IV. c.27, p.162). Here Atlas is not the bloody idiot as he is depicted otherwise.

It is said that Herakles visited the garden of the Hesperides once before when he was on the quest for the hind of Keryneia. There is an ancient vase painting showing the hind standing under the tree with the golden apples guarded by two Hesperides. But Herakles has took the way back because no one was allowed to left the garden. In this sense the garden was like the underworld (Kerenyi).

It is told too (Apollonius) that the Argonauts visited the garden of the Hesperides on their voyage to the Golden Fleece. The came one day after Herakles has taken the apples and they met the Hesperides crying. Their sorrow was so great that they transformed in front of the heroes into trees: a black poplar, an elm tree and a willow tree. But later they could transform themselves back!

Background:
According to Hesiod the Hesperides were the daughters of the Night (Nyx), according to others daughters of Phorkys or Atlas or Hesperos. 'Beyond the Okeanos' they kept their golden apples and the fruit-trees of the garden of gods. The apples were symbols of eternal youth, or love and fertility. Gaia had let them sprout as a marriage gift for Hera and Zeus.
Originally this magic garden seems to be the theater of the hieros gamos, the holy marriage. There are similarities with the garden Eden, the Paradise, with its magic tree and the snake, which are leaping to the eye.

However the location of the garden was shifting to the west more and more together with the growing geographical knowledge of the Greeks and their growing view of the world. At first it was at Berenike on a peninsula of the gulf of Syrte in Libya, then on the slopes of the Atlas mountains, finally on a mythical island in the Atlantic ocean.

The number of Hesperides varies from three over four to even eleven on vase paintings. Hesiod knew three, named Aigle, Erytheia and Hesperthusa. The last name was divided by Apollodoros in Hesperia and Arethusa and so making four. Herakles' adventure with the Hesperides appears on pictures not before the 6.th century C, in literature not before the 5.th century BC. In the first tales Herakles was picking the apples by his own motive, not until later it became a charge of Eurystheus.

In Baroque the 'Garden of the Hesperides' was the name of many elaborately arranged exotic gardens especially with citron or orange trees. Probably the mythical apples has been citrons or quinces too because in the times of that myths apples were small, hard and inedible. Famous 'Gardens of the Hesperides' could be found in Nuremberg or Bamberg and other cities..

I have added a detail of the famous painting of the Attic painter Meidias. It is found on a red-figured Hydria from about 420-410 BC now in the British Museum. The painting shows the Hesperides and the tree with the golden apples, here together with the magician Medea with her box with magic herbs.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologischs Lexikon
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen

Other threads dealing with the garden of the Hesperides are
- An apple of immortality: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=29398.msg190749#msg190749
- Interesting Deultum of Gordian: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25677.0

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 29, 2007, 08:09:28 pm
The Cult of Dionysos in Nysa-Scythopolis

The coin:
Samaria, Nysa-Scythopolis, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 25, 13.2g
struck AD 240 (year 304)
obv. [AVT KM ANT - GORDIANOC CE]
       Bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. NVC - C - KVQ IER ACV
      Dionysos, nude, nebris waving behind, tripping forward, head l., holding thyrsos in raised
      r. hand like reaching back for a throw, his l. hand laying on the head of a small figur,
      which is kneeling before him; behind him the panther l., head turned r.
      in r. field palm-branch, beneat date D - T (year 304 of Pompeian era)
ref. Spijkerman 206, 59; SNG ANS 1054 var. (has bunch of grapes in field); BMC 12
Rare, about VF
Nysa is todays Bet-Shean in Israel. The seller is from this very city!

I have purchased this coin because I suggested that there could be something interesting behind the reverse depiction which was not clear at the first view. And I was right! The informations are not sure because the scientific dispute is not not closed. But I think they are plausible at least. Here are the results of my research:

Depiction and interpretation:
Dionysos' association with the city of Nysa-Scythopolis apparently originated from the Hellenistic period, and is connected to the city's re-foundation by the Ptolemies, who claimed to be descendants of Herakles and Dionysos. The cult of Donysos played a central role during the Ptolemaic period , reaching its climax under Ptolemy IV (222-204 BC).
 
It seems that the cult of Dionysos at Nysa-Scythopolis was also founded on the legend which identified the city as the burial place of Nysa, Dionysos' nurse. According to Greek mythology Nysa is also the name of the area where Dionysopolis grew up.

Dionysos' appearance , like the myths about him, changed through the ages. At first he was depicted as an elderly, bearded person, while later on he appears more often as a young naked god with long flowing locks.

Under Commodus, Nysa-Scythopolis minted coins with a wide range of Dionysiac themes. The earliest of these is a medal struck under Marcus Aurelius showing the head of young Commodus on the obverse. The medaillon was most probably issued to commemorate the voyage of Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus to the east in AD 175/176.

Rachel Barkays describes the coin as follows
It shows Dionysos naked but with a chlamys flying behind him, he may also be wearing a panther's skin. He is shown here in a violent scene, advancing to right, holding in his right hand a short tyrsus pointing down towards the head of a small figure, in his left hand is the forelock of the small figure, which is spreading its hand and trying to escape. On the left is a panther attacking a small figure. The same scene appears on an unpublished medal minted under Septimius Severus.

Another violent scene resembling the one on the medal is represented on coins of Elagabal and Gordian III, where Dionysos is swinging a thyrsus; the pine-cone can sometimes be seen clearly at the top of the thyrsus, touching the head of the small figure. In coins issued under Gordian III this small figure seems to be a herma. The panther seems to be running with its head turned backwards. These descriptions of Dionysos may be connected with the violent aspects of the Dionysiac cult. They are associated with the image of Dionysos as a god who hurts people while in a state of exstasy, under the influence of wine. Hill described the scene
as "An unexplained episode of Dionysiac legend...where the god seems to be threatening a small primitive idol with his thyrsos (which looks, however, more like a spear)." On the other hand , Eckhel identified the small figure as Priapus, while according to Seyrig [it may be a corybant, or a Scyth, who is dancing in front of the young Dionysos]

In the city of Nysa-Scythopolis we find the richest descriptions of Dionysopolis and depictions of episodes from the cycle of his life on city-coins. Nysa-Scythopolis was indoubtedly an important center of the cult of Donysos, a fact which is also reflected in the archaelogical finds from the excavations there. The cult of Dionysos in Nysa-Scythopolis is not indicated in the literary sources, and we do not know from them that the city claimed any special status as a result of its connection with the tradition linking it to the history of Dionysos. Thus the coins of Nysa-Scythopolis are the main source of our knowledge about the role played by the cult of Dionysos in the history of the city.

One may, however, - according to Haim Gitler - interpret the scene in an entirely different way. It very probably illustrates a Dionysiac procession related to the festival of the Anthesteria.

The Anthesteria, the Blossom Festival, were celebrated in the early spring in Athena and many Ionian towns. On the second day, which fell on the twelfth of the month of Anthesterion (February/March), new wine was ceremonially blessed before Dionysos and throughout the city the day was celebrated by drinking from special jugs of a peculiar shape known as choes. This day, the most important of the festival, was called Choes, after these squat jugs with a trefoil mouth.

Many of the choes dating to the fifth and fourth century BC were decorated with scenes of the different phases of mirth and play during the festival. One was a ceremony of initiation, parastasis, when three-year old children were admitted to the religious community. This was the first time in their lives that the children smelled and tasted wine, and for this purpose specially designed miniature choes were produced. Festal tables were placed in the sanctuary of Dionysos where the children received a choice of dainties and toys before joining the public Dionysiac procession. By the end of the ceremony the children had become a part of the civic community. On the basis of the above description the following interpretation is suggested:

Dionysos is half-covered by the nebris, a skin of a panther, hanging from his l. shoulder. Flying behind him is one of the panther's paws and its tail; in front there is probably another paw. The boy on Dionysos' right holds a choes in his outstretched left hand and a rattle in his right hand. To the left of Dionysos , another boy with bent knees carries a small panther. This identification seems certain since a small panther also appears on the medaillon struck under Septimius Severus.

It seems therefore preferable to regard the detailed representation on the medaillons of Commodus and Septimius Severus, as well as on the coins of Elagabal and Gordian III, as illustrations of parts of a Dionysiac procession at the Anthesteria. Most elements in these scenes have their parallels on fifth-fourth century BC Attic choes, which were used by children at the festival of the Anthesteria. Although the Nysa-Skythopolis medaillons and coins were produced approximately six centuries later, there is a remarkable resemblance of representations on the coins of the Syrian city and the Attic choes. Especially noteworthy is the similarity in the postures of the children's bodies and their handling of the choes.

Meshorer believed that the increase in the depictions of Dionysos on coins of some Palestinian cities during Commodus' reign reflects the introduction of a new syncretistic cult of Dionysos. The similarities between the representions on the coins od Nysa-Scythopolis and the much earlier depictions of the Anthesteria on the choes, however, would indicate that the ceremony derives from the much older tradition. Unfortunately, there is neither epigraphic nor literary evidence of such a festival in Nysa-Scythopolis.It is interesting that up to the reign of Commodus, there were only one type featuring Dionysos on coins of the city. During the next 65 years, until the city stopped minting coins in 240/1 AD, no less than seven different coin types from Nysa-Scythopolis show Dionysiac scenes. It is difficult to say what prompted them but we may safely assume that the city was one of the most important centers of Dionysiac worship in the region. This is no surprise, after all, the city was named after Dionysos' nurse Nysa who, according to a popular tradition, was buried at Beth-Shean (Plinius, Hist.nat.V,18,74).

I have added a pic of a choes of the Oinokles painter (c. 475-450) showing an interesting episode which could be seen at the vinous Anthesteria. Who could explain what is depicted on the choes?

The second picture shows todays Bet-Shean with its Tell.

Sources:
[1] Der kleine Pauly
[2] http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Beitshean.html
[3] Barkay, Rachel "The Dionysiac Mythology on Coins of Nysa-Scythopolis (Beth Shean) in the Roman Period", Proceedings of the XIth International Numismatic Congress I, Louvain-la Neuve 1993, pp. 371-375.
[4] Haim Gitler, New aspects concerning the Dionysos cult in Nysa-Scythopolis, SNR 70, 1991, 23-28 (Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau, ISSN 0035-4163)

For more informations of the Anthesteria you can look at Apollonius Sophistes:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/JO-Anth.html
or with another suggestion:
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/elisabeth.trinkl/forum/forum0297/02choen.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 05, 2008, 06:34:33 pm
Eshmun- the Phoenician Healer God

I want to share once again a coin whose mythology originates from the eastern region. It is known by most of you (at least should!) that the number of deities of the Middle East exceeds the number of Greek gods by far. But often they are local deities whose names or meanings sometimes are unknown to us, because they change from one city to the next. This is not the case with this god. And he is connected to the Greek mythology what we have seen at other gods too.

The coin:
Phoenicia, Berytos, Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 23, 10.72g
obv. IMP CAES M [AVR AN - TONINVS] AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. COL IV - L - AVG FE[L] / [BER]
Eshmoun, naked with chlamys behind, stg. frontal, head r., holding wreath(?)
in raised r. hand, between two coiled snakes
ref. BMC 216; Lindgren II, 120, 2270; SNG Copenhagen 120 (same rev. die)
very rare, VF, brown surfaces
Pedigree:
ex CNG Electronic Auction 179

Mythology:
It is said that Eshmun was a young man from Beryts who loved to hunt. The goddess Astarte fell in love with him, but to escape her advances he mutilated himself and died. Not to be outdone, Astarte brought him back to life by the warmth of her body, and changed him into a god (Photius). It is also said that the village of Qabr Shmoun, near Beirut, still preserves the memory of the young god's tomb. Known primarily as a god of healing, Eshmun's death and resurrection also gave him the role of a fertility god who dies and is reborn annually.

As God Eshmun was equated with Asklepios the Greek God of Health. Therefore we see him as Eshmun-Asklepios together with snakes which stand for the healing power of nature.

Background:
Eshmun was a god of healing of the northwestern Semitics and the tutelary of Sidon. He was was known at least from the Iron Age period at Sidon and was worshipped also in Tyre, Berytos, Cyprus, Sardinia, and in Carthage, where the site of Eshmun's temple is now occupied by the chapel of Saint Louis. So Eshmun is one of the many gods of the Phoenician pantheon.
 
According to Sanchuniathon, Sydyk 'Just', first fathered seven sons equated with the Greek Kabeiroi or Dioskuroii, no mother named, and then afterwards fathered an eighth son by one of the seven Titanides or Artemides. The name Eshmun appears to mean 'the Eighth'.

Pausanias (7.23.7–8) quotes a Sidonian as saying that the Phoenicians claim Apollo as the father of Asklepios, as do the Greeks, but unlike them do not make his mother a mortal woman. the Sidonian then continued with an allegory which explained that Apollo represented the sun, whose changing path imparts to the air its healthiness which is to be understood as Asklepios. This allegory seems likely a late invention. Also Apollo is usually equated with the Phoenician plague god Resheph. This might be a variant version of Eshmun's parentage, or Apollo might also be equated with Sadyk, Sadyk might be equated with Resheph.

The temple of Eshmun is found 1km from Sidon on the Bostrenus River, the modern River Awwali in a lush valley of citrus groves. Building was begun at the end of the 6th centura BC during the reign of Eshmunazar II, and later additions were made up into the Roman period. It was excavated by Maurice Dunand in 1963-1978. It's the only Phoenician site in Lebanon where is left more than the foundation walls. The site of his temple must have been chosen because of the nearby water source which was used in the healing rituals. It was the custom to offer statues to the god that bore the names of those who came for healing. The fact that most of these votive pieces depict children suggests that Eshmoun may have been regarded as the pediatrician of the times. Many of these votive offerings were found during the excavation.

Also found near the Sidon temple was a gold plaque of Eshmun and the goddess Hygieia, "Health," showing Eshmun holding a staff in his right hand around which a serpent is entwined. My coin from Berytos shows Eshmun together with two snakes. A similar depiction is found on a rare denarius of Geta where Asklepos-Eshmun is seen standing between two snakes in a temple. Wether this is the temple from Sidon I don't know. Other coins from Melitta (todays Malta) show the head of Eshmun, sometimes winged.

I have added
(1) a pic of Geta's denarius
(2) a pic of the Eshmun temple near Sidon as it can seen today.

Sources:
Wikipedia
www.ikamalebanon.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 10, 2008, 06:19:35 pm
The pre-Islamic goddess Al-Lat

Here I want to present an interesting interpretation of this coin:

Arabia, Philippopolis, Philipp I., AD 244-249
AE 30, 17.30g
obv. AVTOK KM IOVLI FILIPPOC CEB
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. FILIPPOLITWN  - KOLWNIAC
       Roma(?),  in long clothes, helmeted, std. l., holding spear in l. hand and eagle with
       two small figures in outstretched r. hand; shield aside
       in field l. and r. S - C
ref. Spijkerman 3
rare, EF
The meaning of the two figures is unknown. Because it seems to be a dynastic issue they could be Philip's father and Philip himself(?).

About this coin:
In addition to promoting his immediate family, Philip I also lavished honours upon his deceased father, Julius Marinus, whom he deified. Philips family hailed from a somewhat obscure town in Arabia Trachonitis (the modern village of Shahba, Syria) situated about 60 miles east of the Sea of Galilee and 25 miles north of Bostra, the capital of Roman Arabia. Philip took full advantage of his new position as emperor to honour his hometown, which he elevated to a Roman colonia, and renamed Philippopolis.

Beyond these honorary upgrades, Philip made capital improvements in his hometown. He built a temple for the worship of his now-deified father, and had numerous mosaics, a theatre, baths and temples constructed. The ruins of these survive today, and it is likely that most – if not all – were completed under Philips watch. Since the town was not on a major road or trade route, its prosperity and fame eventually faded.

The coinage of Philippopolis was an isolated event, as no coins had been struck there before Philip's reign, and none were produced afterward. Since no die links between this city coinage and any other was documented in Konrad Krafts monumental 1972 study of provincial die links, it is possible the coins were actually produced in Philippopolis, rather than at a larger regional mint. A further peculiarity is that even though Philippopolis was a Roman colonia, its coin inscriptions (except the formulaic SC) are rendered in Greek

The reverses depict a seated goddess and a standing goddess. Though the standing goddess still merits her identification as Roma, the seated goddess is perhaps better identified as Allat based upon her similarity to statues found at Palmyra and Suweida. Allat was a remarkably old fertility/mother goddess representing the earth. Her worship was important to agriculture, and she belonged to the trinity of desert goddesses, the other two being al-Uzza, the morning-star goddess, and Manat, the goddess of fate and time (from Numismatica Ars Classica).

Allat was equated to Athena and worshipped especially by the military personnel. So evidence suggests that the figure on the reverse is rather Athena/Allat than Roma. This would match the fact that in the temple of Allat at Palmyra a statue of Athena has been found.

Al-Lat:
Al-Lat was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. She is one of three goddesses that the pre-Islamic Meccans referred to as "The Daughters of God".
In the Koran, she is mentioned along with al-Uzza and Manat in Sura 53:19-23.
According to Bob Trubshaw, Allat was a triple goddess of the moon, similar to Demeter. She had three aspects, each corresponding to a different phase of the moon: Kore, the crescent or maiden; al-Uzza, the full moon or mother; and Manat, the waning moon or wise woman. The phase of al-Uzza was worshipped at the Kaaba and served by seven priests called 'Beni Shaybah' (sons of the Old Woman). Worshippers circled the stone seven times, once for each of the ancient seven planets, or like Ishtar who travelled through seven gates of the underworld. to get to her sister Ereshkigal, named Allatu too. Allatu is suggested an older name of Allat.

Her name occurs in early Safaitic graffiti (Safaitic han-'Ilat "the Goddess") and she was worshipped by the Nabateans of Petra and the people of Hatra, who equated her with the Greek Athena and the Roman Minerva. According to Wellhausen, the famous Islamist, they believed Allat was the mother of Hubal (and hence the mother-in-law of Manat).
The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, considers her the equivalent of Aphrodite:"The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alilat, and the Persians Mitra" (Histories I:131). According to Herodotus, the ancient Arabians believed in only two gods: "They believe in no other gods except Dionysos and the Heavenly Aphrodite; and they say that they wear their hair as Dionysus does his, cutting it round the head and shaving the temples. They call Dionysos, Orotalt; and Aphrodite, Alilat." (Histories III:38).

Acoording to Wellhausen, names containing Allat were frequently met in the Palmyrian region, where f.e the son of Odenathus and Zenobia was Vab-allatus. Comparison of names results in hints that in later times (but pre-Islamic too) the name al-Lat merged in Allah. In contradiction to the theory of merging the contemporary discussion about the early times of Islam debates wether al-Lat could be one of the daughters of Allah. But this contradicts the monotheism of the Islam. Remarkable nevertheless is the spelling of both names. By the lonely addition of two dots over the last letter of 'Allah' the 'h' becomes a 't', and we have 'Allat'.

According to the 'Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnam)' by Hisham b. al-Kalbi, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed Allat resided in the Kaaba and also had an idol inside the sanctuary: Her custody was in the hands of the Banu-Attab ibn-Malik of the Thaqif, who had built an edifice over her. The Quraysh, as well as all the Arabs, were wont to venerate Allat. They also used to name their children after her, calling them Zayd-Allat and Taym-Allat. Allat continued to be venerated until the Thaqif embraced Islam, when the Apostle of God dispatched al-Mughirah ibn-Shubah, who destroyed her and burnt her temple to the ground.

The Quraysh was the dominant tribe of Mecca upon the appearance of the religion of Islam. It was the tribe to which the Prophet Mohammed belonged, as well as the tribe that led the initial opposition to his message.

Originally we have some different version of the Koran, as we have from the Gospels
as well. The definite version was compiled by the Caliph Osman in the 7th century AD. Is it possible that the original Koran contained verses which were eliminated because they were against the orthodox belief? We know of the famous folk memory that not only the Archangel Gabriel but Satan too has supplied the Prophet with some verses. By these verses the three pagan goddesses al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were called 'high-flying cranes', and seen as a kind of mediators between men and God. Because these local deities of Mecca in the first time were tolerated by the Prophet, the people of Mecca followed his appeal to prostrate before God.

When later the Archangel Gabriel informed the Prophet that these verses came from Satan they were eliminated. The legend of these verses - being the background of Salman Rushdies disputed novel of AD 1988 - is dicussed controversially until today. Most of the Muslim scholars deny this story as being fictional. But some western Islamists tend to accept it as true. It would be the evidence that Mohammed has convinced the people of Mecca of the magnanimity of Allah by flatteries for their three goddesses (from 'Der Spiegel', Nr.52, 22.12.07, 'Der Koran')

I have added the pic of the statue of Athena from the temple of Allat at Palmyra, and the pic of a plate showing Allat sitting on a camel.

Sources:
- 'Der Koran', in ''Der Spiegel', Nr.52, 22.12.07
- Wellhausen, Julius: Reste arabischen Heidentums, DeGruyter Verlag. Berlin, 
   Leipzig. 2. Ausgabe 1927.
- Salman Rushdie, Die Satanischen Verse
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altarabische_Gottheiten
- http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/blston2.htm
- http://hindustan.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-2955.html
- http://www.nabataea.net/gods.html Das Nabatäische Pantheon
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Lat
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allat
- http://www.muslim.org/islam/allah.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 17, 2008, 12:37:01 pm
Aeneas escapes from Troy

Naturally the myth of Aeneas' flight from the burning Troy belongs to this thread. But I had to wait a long time for a proper coin for this theme. Because I didn't want to take the well-known
denarius of Caesar. Now I'm happy to add this phantastic coin to my collection.

Troas Ilion, pseudo-autonomous, c.79-96 (time of the Flavians)
AE - (Orichalcum-) Semis, 6.86g, 19mm
obv. Bust of Athena, wearing warlike clothes with Corinthian helmet, aegis on her chest,
       spear over r. shoulder, before that a snake twisting upwords (from the aegis?)
       ILI beneath, all in circle of dots
rev. Aineias, bearded, bare-headed, in short military cloak and boots, advancing r., leading
      his son Askanios, in short chiton, looking upwards to him, with r. hand, and carrying his
      father Anchises, bearded, head veiled, looking forward, in his l. arm
      in dotted circle
ref.: Bellinger T129; von Fritze 28; RPC II, 895; SNG Copenhagen 368; SNG von Aulock 154; BMC 20
Rare, VF, natural Orichalcum surface, slight roughness
Pedigree:
ex Künker Auction 133, lot 8140 (descibes the snake as twining around the spear!)

On this coin:
A bust of Athena...appears as the obverse type of a bronze wholly civic in character, the reverse showing the flight of Aeneas with no reference to an emperor at all. It belongs, therefore, to the class...whre it may be supposed that the profit of striking was left entirely to the city. Von Fritze assigns these pseudo-autonomous pieces, the first since Augustus, to the Flavian period on grounds of style. This seems right; I would only remark that it is likelier that Titus or Domitian should have made the new experiment than that Vespasian should have allowed a civic semis to be issued in competition with his own coins of that denomination. I should prefer, therefore, to attribute them to his sons.

The device of Aeneas carrying Anchises appeared first on a sixth century tetradrachm of Aenea in Macedonia and is said to be "often portrayed on archaic Greek monuments," but obviously such remote examples are very little likely to have influenced the mint under Augustus. A much more plausible ancestor is the denarius struck in the East by Julius Caesar about 48 BC. The attitude ofd the figures is the same, though the Palladium is not visible on our bronze. It is not impossible that a specimen had come into the hands of a die-sinker who recognized its appropriateness to the city and to Augustus whose adoption into the Julian gens gave him a right to claim Aeneas as an ancestor. (Bellinger, Troy)

The city of Ilium was founded by Augustus at the place of the legendary Troy. Aineias is Lat. Aeneas.

Anchises:
Anchises was king of Dardania in the Troas, son of Kapys and Themiste (daughter of Ilion), brother of Laokoon, father of Hipodameia and Aineias, who was the son of aphrodite. Anchises was famous because of his beauty, so that Zeus has made Aphrodite to fall in love with him. When Anchises once shepherds his cattle on the mountains of Ida - in those times this was common even for kings! - Aphrodite as Kythereia appears in the shape of a beautiful
Phrygian shepherdess. As result of this love affair Aphrodite gave birth to Aineias, but forbade Anchises to talk about it, because he was a mortal. For a long time Anchises kept the secret. But finally when he was drunken he violated the interdiction and boasted with his love affair among his companions. In anger Zeus threw his thunderbolt to kill him. But Aphrodite - still in love with him - deflected it so that he only became lamed (or blind referring to others). Because of this love theme the myth of Anchises and Aphrodite belongs to the ambit of the mythology of the 'Great Mother' of Asia Minor.

Another known myth of Anchises tells that he clandestinely has stolen six fillies from the horses which Zeus has given to Laomedon for the raped Ganymed. Two of these warhorses Anchises later gave to Aineias for his chariot.

Aineias:
Aphrodite, his mother, begged her father Zeus, to provide immortality to Aineas. When Zeus agreeded the rivergod Numicius washed all of his mortal parts away, and Aphrodite by feeding him with nectar and ambrosia made him a god, who later was worshipped under the name Indiges (Vergil, Aeneis). As commander of the Dardanians he came to Troy to assist the Trojans against the Greek. He was urged by Apollo to challenge Achilles in single combat. Aeneas was very close to die but Poseidon rescued him explaining to the other gods: "Even Zeus might be angry if Achilles killed Aeneas, who after all is destined to survive and to save the House of Dardanos from extinction... Priam's line has fallen out of favour with Zeus, and now Aeneas shall be King of Troy and shall be followed by his children's children in the time to come." (Homer, Ilias 20, 300). He was wounded by Diomedes, and rescued by his mother, Aphrodite. Diomedes attacked her and both were saved when Apollo spirited them to his temple in Pergamus, and returned Aeneas to the battle when he'd recovered. Besides Hektor he was the most famous heroe of the Trojans.

There are some different versions of his flight from Troy. One says that the Greeks have allowed the free Trojans to leave the burning city of Troy, and to take away their most important things. Aineias took the Palladium. Recognizing his piety the Greeks allowed to take a second thing. Now Aineias took his old blind father on his shoulders. That moved the Greeks so much that they finally allowed him to take his entire family.

Another version tells that the spirit of the deceased heroe Hektor has warned him of the fall of Troy, so that he could escape from the burning city at the right time, carrying his blind father Anchises on his back and holding his little son Askanios with his hand, whereas his wife Kreusa (a daughter of the Trojan king Priamos) was slain by the Greeks

After his flight from Troy he became the leader of the surviving Trojans. First they sailed to Thrace where Aineias founded the city of Aineia. Then the Trojans made their way west to resettle in Italy. There they intermarried with the local inhabitants and founded the town of Lavinium, and thereby became the nucleus of the future Roman people. One of the descendants of Aeneas  son Ascanius (known now as Iulus) was Rhea Silvia. Impregnated by the god Mars, she gave birth to the twins, Romulus and Remus. Exposed by their great-uncle, Amulius, the twins were suckled by a she-wolf, but they were eventually rescued. Romulus later founded the city of Rome, and consequently the image of the she-wolf and the twins became the symbol of that city. The mythological depictions on this coin reinforce the importance of Ilium, not only as the seedbed of the future Roman people, but also as the mother city of the future caput mundi. (CNG)

Askanios:
Homer didn't know a son of Aineias. So he is a figure of the post-Homerian tradition. He appears as son of Priamos(!) at Apollodor, in the epic Kyklos as son of Aineias and Eurydike.
First at Vergil and Livius he is the son of Aeneas and Kreus. After the fall of Troy he ruled for a while over the Daskylites at the Propontis until he came as successor of his father to the mountains of Ida or to Skepsis. There he discarded his original name Euryleon. His Roman name is Ilus or Iulus. Together with his father Aeneas he came to Italy and after the death (or Ascension!) of his father he became his successor in Latium and so the ancestor of the gens Julia. He founded Alba Longa (Vergil, Aeneis). Caesar as Julian ascribed himself to Iulus and then by Aeneas to Venus, the Roman Aphrodite. The first Roman depiction of the flight of Aeneas with Anchises and Askanios is therefore to be found on the famous denarius of Caesar, Crawford 458.

Here I Have a list of coins showing this scene:
(1) Aineia, semi-autonomous, Moushmov 6245
(2) Caesar, Denar, 47/6 BC., Crawford 458
(3) Octavian, Aureus, Crawford 494
(4) Augustus, Segesta/Sicily, 2 types: head of Augustus, head of Segesta
(5) Ilion, semi-autonomous, time of Flavians, Bellinger T129
(6) Hadrian, Semis, Ilion, Bellinger T134
(7) Marcus Aurelius, Ilion, Belinger T148
(8) Faustina, Skepsis
(9) Commodus(?), midst of AD 180, Patrae, BMC 44
(10) Commodus, Corinthe
(11) Mamaea, Skepsis, BMC 38

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite
Vergil, Aeneis
http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/comm2/legend/legend.html
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliche griechische Mythologie
Der Kleine Pauly
Bellinger, Troy the Coins
Wikipedia

I have added
(1) a pic of the tetradrachm from Aineia, and
(2) the pic of a black-figured storage jar with Aeneas and Anchises, attributed to the Leagros Group, Athens, about 510 BC, now in the Getty Villa in Malibu.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 02, 2008, 12:54:08 pm
Pyramus and Thisbe

Sometimes when you search for the mythological background of a coin you get other results than expected. This happened to me here. But first the coin:

Cilicia, Hierapolis-Kastabala, 2nd-1st century BC
AE22, 5.33g
obv. Head of city-goddess (Tyche), draped and veiled, wearing mural crown, r.
rev. IERO / POLITWN / TWN PROC TW / PYRAMW
       The river-god Pyramos, swimming in waves r., l. arm outstretched and holding eagle in
       r. hand
BMC 3; SNG Copenhagen 144; SNG Levante 1569; SNG von Aulock 5571; SNG
        France 2217; SNG BN Paris 2212-13
F+, brown patina with earthen highlights

Mythology:
Pyramus and Thisbe were Babylonian lovers. They lived in two adjacent houses, were acquainted with each other since their childhood and had been fallen in love. Their fathers had forbidden the marriage. But their love they couldn't forbid. The joint wall between their houses had an old crack. There they often stand on each side and confessed their love. When their longing grew oversized, they decided to cheat their guardians, leave the house in the darkness and meet outside the city at the tomb of Ninus under a mulberry. Thisbe was the first who arrived at the appointed place. When she waited for Pyramus a lioness - having killed cattle before - came to the nearby well to satisfy her thirst. Full of fear Thisbe fled into the tomb loosing the garment of her back. Before returning in the wood the lioness teared to tatters the garment with bloody mouth. When Pyramus reached the place a bit later he saw the traces of the lioness and the bloody frazzled garment. Thinking that Thisbe was gorged by the beast he - complaining und full of mourning - took his sword and transfixed himself. The blood from his wound sprang high and colored the mulberry - which were white before - red until now. When Thisbe left the grave and returned to the agreed place she was doubtful because of the red fruits of the mulberry but then found her dying lover. In despair she pressed his body against her, moaned and tore her hair. Then - for being united with her lover at least by her death - she threw herself in the sword of Pyramus which still was warm by his blood.

Note: King Ninus of Assyria was the consort of Semiramis, who erected after his death
a big tomb for him.

Background:
Even though the story of Pyramus and Thisbe was passed down by Ovid it is actually not a Roman myth. It is a sentimental romance of Hellenistic origin and played in Babylon. About the connection with the Cilician river Pyramos we will hear later! First this story was told by Hyginus in Fabulae 242, but much more beautiful later by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (Met. 4), yes, it is suggested as one of his most beautiful stories, not because of its thrill but because of its many poetic details. In ancient times Pyramus and Thisbe was the paradigm of an unhappy love affair. In the late antiquity the story was condemned by Christianism, especially by Augustinus, because of its emphasis of erotic passion, a verdict which has influenced its later processing. Then it was used by Shakespeare as plot for 'Romeo and Julia' and then once more as subplot in 'A Midsommer Night's Dream'. So today Romeo and Julia has replaced Pyramus and Thisbe.

The Cilician river:
The river Pyramos, today Ceyhan Nehri, is the most east of the three mainstreams of Cilicia (the other two are the Kydnos and the Saros). He arises in Katania and opens at the Gulf of Issos (today Iskenderun) into the Mediterranean. Because of his strong sedimentation the Pyramos has changed his sometimes navigable lower course very often. So the site of the city of Mallos which was located in ancient times at the left side of the Pyramos today is located on the right side. Because the core country of Cilicia was an important transit way for the traffic from Asia Minor to Syria the Cilician rivers had played during the times often as water barrier. Therefore they were mentioned very often by ancient writers (Pauly).

And now we come back to the question: What's the story of Pyramus and Thisbe got to do with the Cilician river? And the answer is: Nothing! Really nothing! It is only the accidental coincidence of their names. But it is interesting that others too have fallen for the identity of names. Please look at the following mosaic!

History of art:
This mosaic has been found in the House of Dionysos in Paphos on Cypris. It is of special
interest because it demonstrates a rare and significant error. Obviously the mosaic describes a scene of Pyramus and Thisbe, the moment of their fateful meeting, which finally ended in their double suicide. The problem with this mosaic is that rather than showing the Pyramos who committed suicide when he thought Thisbe had been eaten by a great cat (a leopard in this mosaic), the artist put in the river god Pyramos with his seaweed hair and horn of plenty. The mosaic artist probably did not know the story and was just working from a book of standard themes — and chose the wrong Pyramos to draw!

The theme of Pyramus and Thisbe was picked up by many artist since Renaissance. I want to mention Hans Baldung Grien (1484-1545), Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), Lucas Cranach (1472-1553), Nicolas Poussin (1593-1665), Gaspard Poussin (1615-1675),  Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Rembrandt (1606-1669) and John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

I have choosed the painting 'Thisbe' by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), which doesn't show the usual suicide scene but Thisbe standing at the wall to speek with Pyramus.

Sources.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
http://www.romanum.de/main.php?show=uebersetzungen/ovid/metamor/pyramus.html
Der Kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 26, 2008, 06:09:36 pm
The Genius

Especially at the times of the tetrarchs we find series of coins showing Genius on the reverse in the shape of Genius Populi Romani, Genius Augusti, Genius Imperatori or Genius Militum. So I think I should tell something about this curious deity. But first two coins.

1st coin:
Maximinus II Daia, AD 309-313
AE - Follis (AE 2), 23mm, 4.80g
London, 1st officina, AD 310-312
obv. IMP MAXIMINVS PF AVG
       Bust, cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev.  GENIO - POP ROM
       Youthful Genius, wearing mural crown, nude except himation over l. shoulder and hips,
       stg. l., holding cornucopiae in l. arm and patera in outstretched r. hand.
       in r. field: star
       in ex. PLN
RIC VI, London 209(b); C.58
EF
The mural crown here looks more like a rampart!

2nd coin:
Maximinus II. Daia, AD 309-313
AE - Follis (AE 2), 21.1mm, 5.05g
       Alexandria, 1st officina, AD 312/13
obv. IMP C GAL VAL MAXIMINVS PF AVG
       Laureate head r.
rev. GENIO - AVGVSTI
       Genius, nude, chlamys over l. shoulder, wearing modius, stg. facing, head l., holding
       cornucopiae in l. arm and in outstretched r. hand bearded head of Serapis wearing
       modius.
       in l. field one upon the other: star / N / palmbranch
       in r. field A
       in ex. ALE
RIC VI, Alexandria 160(b); C.29
VF, nice sandpatina

Mythology:
The name comes probably from Lat. gignere, because this deity was assigned to each human when he was conceived or he was taken under his protection (Varro), or he has created us himself or has been created together with us (Apuleius).

It's clear, that the Romans tried to integrate the Genius into their mythology. His parents should have been Juppiter and Gaea, who has born him, after Juppiter has created him when he was asleep. Others suggest that he was a son of the gods and the father of men. In any case all suggest that the Genii - there are many of them! - take a middle position between the gods and men. As soon as a human being was born one or two Genii were assigned to him, a white good one and a black bad one. The good one gives him all of his good thoughts, the bad one the contrary. Which ever is the stronger one he is the one who forms the character of the man. Genii always appear at males. At women there were the Junones. The Genii stayed at their person until his death when they gave him to the gods. According to others each man has only one Genius. The Genius handed down his man to the court and blamed him if he was lying or praised him when he kept the truth. According to the Genius the judgement was given to him because the Genius knew all of his secret thoughts. Even families, cities and countries had these guardian spirits. The Genius of Rome had a golden statue in the VIII regio. 

Everyone gave honour to his own Genius, especially at his birthday when he gave offerings to him but only flowers, wine and incense, because it was not allowed to kill any animal on this day. A vow done by the Genius of the emperor was the most steadfast oath as if it was done by Juppiter himself. Some suggested that the Genius was identical with the Animus, others that he actually was the mind of men. But because also mountains, swamps, lakes, fountains, valleys and forests had their own Genius it could be concluded that he actually was a fictive entity invented only to put the humans in fear and to prevent them from vice (Hederich).

Background:
The Genius is the 'power' which is inherent in man, not only becoming manifest in his virility but signifying extensively his whole personality. The Genius is neither 'soul' nor 'life'. It's particular to each one and ceased with his death. It is a kind of active principle which could be found too in collectives like troop units, councils and so on. It is assigned too to localities like provinces or cities. Power and prestige of the pater familias explain that the domestics worshipped his Genius and swore by him. The oath by the Genius of the emperor became common in private and public fields. False oath was a crime against the emperor. The concept of the Genius Augusti was the possibility to assign divine attributs to the emperor without making him a god directly which was frowned especially in the western part of the Empire!

The need for protection resulted in the idea of the Genius as protection spirit, but it was never clear wether he was immanent to men or has his own existence. In later times these ideas were mixed with the conception of the soul which could be found in grave inscriptions. The conception of the Genius as sum of the personality expanded to the idea of the Genius of a god: Genius Iovi. This required the conception of a full personalized deity.   
 
Meaningful is the Genius Populi Romani which is not only the Roman interpretation of the Greek City Tyche. On October 9 the festival of the Genius Publicus was celebrated. The later snake shape was an amalgamation with the well-known incarnation and soul conception. The Genius indeed was linked to a person but not identical with him. Life arises 'by appearing of the Genius', who then obtained it continually. We can see that the ancient world had difficulties with the interpretation of the Genius. But worshipping of the Genius was alive until the beginning of Christianism.

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
John Melville Jones, A Dictionary of Ancient Roman coins
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 16, 2008, 06:06:25 pm
The Genius Cucullatus and Christophorus

We have talked about the Genius Cucullatus already on the Forum and in this Thread too, in connection with Asklepios and his companion Telesphoros. Here are two links: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.25 (Asklepios, Telesphoros), and https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=13493.msg92245#msg92245
 
Recently I have found something which puts him in a greater context and suggests connections to Christophorus.
 
The Egyptian God of Death was the dog-headed Anubis. He accompanied the deads to the realm of the dead and therefore was equated by the Greeks to Hermes Psychopomos, the attendant of the souls and syncretizied in Hellenism with Anubis to Hermanubis.

About AD 450 in Chalcedon/Asia minor began the worshipping of an otherwise unknown martyr named Christophorus. Christophorus is Greek and means 'Bearer of Christus' (BTW There are other Christus bearers too: the pregnant Maria, Maria with Jesus in her arms, Joseph of Arimathea or Simeon). The eastern legend reports that he originally was a man-eating Kynekephalos (= dog-headed), who got his human shape and his voice not before his baptism. Then he became a Christian missionary and has preached on Samos and in Lycia. God has confirmed him by growing leaves and fruits from his walking-staff. He had to suffer many tortures and died finally by decapitation.

The eastern church until today knows depictions of Christophorus as dog-headed saint. The western church mitigated his beastlike appearance to a giant shape and reinterprets the term canineus (= dog-like) as cananeus (= from Kana, where Goliath is originated too), and let him tender his services to the mightiest ruler of the world. On the quest for this ruler he met a boy who asked him for bearing him over the river. But the boy on top of the giant's shoulders became heavier and heavier, until he nearly breaks down, and then unveiled himself as Christus, the mightiest ruler of the world. Hence his name Christophorus. From this time on he served Christus.

He is the most often depicted of all saints in the Christian Church. Very early a small manikin in the shape of a monk and wearing a hood appeared on pictures of Christophoros, sometimes a small dog too (which could be in the western church a silent reminiscence to the dog-headed ancestral saint). He is seen as the holy Cucuphates (or Cucufas, Cucufat, Cugat and so on). He came about AD 300 together with St.Felix from Gerona in North-Africa to Barcelona, was according to the legend under Diocletian first untouched burnt, then drown and died finally by decapitation. AD 845 abbot Fulrad took his head to St.Denis in Paris. AD 1079 his bones were detected in San Cugat del Valles.

Now already at the Phoenicians was known the depiction of a hooded manikin holding a light (candle, lamp or lantern), who is described without a name as archetyp by C.G.Jung. In the same way he is found on Greek depictions in the ambit of Asklepios. The Romans called him 'Genius cucullus' (from cucullus = hood). His function has seemed to be to lead deceased with his light to the netherworld in the case that the healing powers of Asklepios have failed.

In the 6th century occured a sound shift: a 'L' between two vocals became a 'F' (like 'coiffeur', which belongs to 'colerare', and who was originally a hair dyer). So 'Genius Cucullatus' became Cucufatus/Cucuphatus, and was mixed with the weak reminiscence of the martyr from Barcelona. On the other side the same syncretizing scholars must have still a distinct idea of the old function of the Anubic dog-headed soul attendant of the Christus bearer and of the hooded Phoenico-Greek soul guide of the ambit of Asklepios, so that they conclude from the guide and bearer function on one hand,  and from the similarities of their martyrdoms on the other hand, the togetherness of these two figures. So they motivated - in unknown text interpretation - artists to depict Christophorus and Cucuphatus together.

Because according to the 'Legenda aurea' Christophorus is symbolizing life and baptism and thus the bright features of the water, on the other hand Cucuphatus the gloomy and sad aspects of life and death, guiding the deceased by his lamp, he is often depicted together with other water figures, mermaids f.e. From such different ancient threads the character of these saints is composed. 

So it is understandable that pope Paul VI reforming the calendar of saints has discarded Christophorus from the list. Not understandable is on the other hand that Cucuphatus who has in no way a more reliable existence was left on the official list.

I want to add that Cucuphatus as well as cuculla belongs to an enigmatic indo-european ancient root to which the Irish heroe Cuchullain must be put too. The ancient root cel- seems to have the meaning 'dark, hidden' (related to the German 'ver-hehlen', 'Hel', 'Hölle'), which suggested for the otherwise not interpretable Cuchullain the origin from a cave, and so the connection to chthonic deities (BTW Cuchullain is derived from Irish 'cuchul' = hood, and: the words derived from cel- are meaning in Irish 'being hidden' and 'being dead' too!)

I have added
(1) The pic of Yurukova Deultum 86 with Telesphorus on the rev.
(2) a pic of the Cucullati of Housesteads
(3) a pic of Cucuphatus (with unknown origin)
(4) a pic of the 'St.Christophorus' of Dierick Bouts (1467-1468)

Sources:
Hanswilhelm Haefs, Handbuch des nutzlosen Wissens, Band 2
Gabriele Haefs, Christophorus und Cucuphatus - Zwei sonderbare Heilige (so far unpublished)
Legenda Aurea
http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienC/Christophorus.htm
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/gods_c/cucullatus.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Cleisthenes on April 17, 2008, 03:40:35 am
Here is a recent purchase from FORVM.  The reverse depicts a centaur. 

Bronze antoninianus, RIC 163, RSC 72, choice EF, Rome mint, 3.716g, 21.6mm, 180o, 268 A.D.; Obverse: GALLIENVS AVG, radiate head right; Reverse: APOLLINI CONS AVG, centaur walking right drawing bow, Z in exergue; struck on a full and round flan, rare this nice. Commemorates vows to Apollo invoking his protection against the revolt of Aureolus. Ex FORVM.


Jochen, I'm not sure if the reverse devise is "Cheiron, the wise kentaur" (the thread indexed below).  Might it be? :)

Jim
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 09, 2008, 04:47:37 pm
Hestia

This is the Greek goddess Hestia, not the Roman Vesta! Even if they have strong connections!

We find Hestia only rarely on coins. That is true for fine arts and vase painting too and is a striking contrast to the importance of this goddess for the every day life in ancient times. Here I have 2 types both provided by Pick with a question mark. On both coins Hestia is depicted holding a long torch but in the other hand she does not hold grain-ears like Demeter but a patera.

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 16, 2.8g
obv. AV KAI L CE - CEVHROC
        Head, laureate, r.
rev. NIKOPOLIT - PROC ICT
       Female figure with long garment [and veil], stg. l., holding patera in r. hand and
       resting on torch with l. hand (Hestia?)
ref.: AMNG I/1, 1352 (like the ex. from Bukarest)

Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Diadumenian, AD 217-218
AE 26, 14.19g
struck under the consulare legate Marcus Claudius Agrippa
obv. KM OPPEL ANTWNI DIADOVMENIANO - C
        Bare head r.
rev. VP AGRIPPA NI - KOPOLITWN PR / [OC ICT]
       Female figure in long garment and mantle, stg. l., patera in extended r. hand and
       resting with l. hand on long torch (Hestia?)
ref.: AMNG I/1, 1794 (2 ex., Paris and Sofia), pl.XIV, 20 (rev. same die)
rare, about VF, nice glossy patina
Note: Paris Mionnet p.2, 161, 608 (misunderstanding the torch!)

Mythologie:
Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, or rather the fire burning on the hearth, was regarded as one of the twelve great gods, and accordingly as a daughter of Kronos and Rhea. According to the common tradition, she was the first-born daughter of Rhea, and was therefore the first of the children that was swallowed by Kronos (Hes. Theog. 453). She was, like Artemis and Athena, a maiden divinity, and when Apollo and Poseidon sued for her hand, she swore by the head of Zeus to remain a virgin for ever (Hom. Hymn. in Ven.), and in this character it was that her sacrifices consisted of cows which were only one year old. Once at a festivity of the gods the lubricious god Priapos tried to rape the sleeping Hestia. By the braying of an ass she was awakened and could escape. In a rage Priapos slew the ass. The connection between Hestia and Apollo and Poseidon, which is thus alluded to in the legend, appears also in the temple of Delphi, where the three divinities were worshipped in common, and Hestia and Poseidon appeared together also at Olympia (Paus. v. 26. § 26). As the hearth was looked upon as the sacred centre of domestic life, so Hestia was the goddess of domestic life and the giver of all domestic happiness and blessings, and as such she was believed to dwell in the inner part of every house, and to have invented the art of building houses (Diod. v. 68). In this respect she appears often together with Hermes, who was likewise a deus penetralöis, as protecting the works of man. As the hearth of a house is at the same time the altar on which sacrifices are offered to the domestic gods (hestiouchoi or ephestioi), Hestia was looked upon as presiding at all sacrifices, and, as the goddess of the sacred fire of the altar, she had a share in the sacrifices in all the temples of the gods. Hence when sacrifices were offered, she was invoked first, and the first part of the sacrifice was offered to her. Solemn oaths were sworn by the goddess of the hearth, and the hearth itself was the sacred asylum where suppliants implored the protection of the inhabitants of the house. A town or city is only an extended family, and therefore had likewise its sacred hearth, the symbol of an harmonious community of citizens and of a common worship.
This public hearth usually existed in the prytaneion of a town, where the goddess had her especial sanctuary (thalamos), under the name of Prutanitis, with a statue and the sacred hearth. There the prytanes offered sacrifices to her, on entering upon their office, and there, as at a private hearth, Hestia protected the suppliants. As this public hearth was the sacred asylon in every town, the state usually received its guests and foreign ambassadors there, and the prytanes had to act the part of hosts. When a colony was sent out, the emigrants took the fire which was to burn on the hearth of their new home from that of the mother town. If ever the fire of her hearth became extinct, it was not allowed to be lighted again with ordinary fire, but either by fire produced by friction, or by burning glasses drawing fire from the sun. The mystical speculations of later times proceeded from tile simple ideas of the ancients, and assumed a sacred hearth not only in the centre of the earth, but even in that of the universe, and confounded Hestia in various ways with other divinities, such as Kybele, Gaia, Demeter, Persephone, and Artemis.
There were but few special temples of Hestia in Greece, as in reality every prytaneion was a sanctuary of the goddess, and as a portion of the sacrifices, to whatever divinity they were offered, belonged to her. There was, however, a separate temple of Hestia at Hermione, though it contained no image of her, but only an altar (Paus. ii. 35. § 2.). Her sacrifices consisted of the primitiae of fruit, water, oil, wine, and cows of one year old.

Background:
Etymologically 'Hestia' has the same origin as 'Vesta', a fact which was denied for a longer time but today is advocated by scholars not at least in reference to the following facts:  In the cult of the deificated hearth on one side the moment of the holy center which Hestia at the Delphic omphalos moves in the  proximity of Gaia and constitutes the religious basic idea of the domestic sphere of law and shelter, deserves attention; and on the other side, regarding the Scythian goddess Tabiti, the never extincted, purifying, life-giving fire which implies the virginity of the Vestalis as the phallic symbolism of the hearth. The significance of both moments places the pre-Scythian Tabiti as 'Queen' and 'Great Goddess' to Zeus Papaios; the Greek mythology counts Hestia as daughter of Kronos and eternal maiden sister of Zeus among the primal gods and concedes her a continous place in heaven, ancient traditional honours and the primacy of sacrificing. The projection of the domestic hearth cult on the national budget preserves Hestia a place in the prytaneion, so in Olympia or Milet, and in the bouleuterion. This fixes her firmly to the vowing and cursing practice and declares her position under the theoi histores of the oath of ephebes of Acharnai.

History of art:
According to her immaculate and chaste character her artistical depiction could bear nothing but the expression of rigorous morality. She was usually depicted seated or standing calmly with serious facial expression and always completely dressed. Altogether there have been only few statues of Hestia in ancient times; the most famous was the statue of Skopas. Safely proofed statues of Hestia were not found yet.  Hestia usually is referred to the 'Hestia Giustiniani' in the Museo Torlani in Rome, a female garment statue of  severe style, from the time of the pediment figures of the temple of Zeus from Olympia and closely related to them in its form.
The added pic is the photo of a plaster cast of the statue found in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Hestia is not frequently depicted in vase paintings, but on the exterior of this Attic red figure kylix of the archaic period (500 BC) representing Herakles entering Olympus, she is part of the company of gods who welcome the hero. Hestia is seated, veiled, and has her arm around Amphitrite, a daughter of Okeanos who became the wife of Poseidon; to their right is Hermes; to their left is one of the Horai (from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz: Antikensammlung)

Sources:
(1) Der kleine Pauly
(2) Meyers Enzyklopädisches Lexikon
(3)  Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
 
Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 09, 2008, 04:51:18 pm
Vesta

Clear, after an article about Hestia should be another about Vesta!
But at first two coins:

(1) Gaius Caligula, AD 37 - 41
      AE - As, 11.34g, 30mm
      Rome 37/38
      obv. C CAESAR AVG GERMANICVS PON M TR POT
               bare head l.
      rev. VESTA
             Vesta, draped and veiled, diademed, std. l. on throne,
             holding patera in r. hand and long sceptre in l. hand
             between big S - C
      RIC I, 38; C.27; BMC 46
      nearly EF

(2) Lucilla, killed AD 182, wife of Lucius Verus, daughter of Marcus Aurelius, sister
      of Commodus
     AR - Denar, 3.29g, 17mm
              Rome
     obv. LVCILLAE AVG ANTONINI AVG F
             bust, draped and diademed, r.
      rev. VES - TA
             Vesta, in long garment and veiled, standing l., holding simpulum in r. hand       
             over girlanded and burning altar l., and palladium in l. arm.
      RIC III, 788; C.92
      about EF

Vesta is the Roman goddess of hearth fire. She is one of the oldest Roman deities probably of Sabinian origin and her cult goes back to the 7th century BC. As her parents are suggested Saturn and Ops but sometimes she is the daughter of Saturn too. A real mythology of the Roman  Vesta is not known in contrast to the Greek Hestia. The tradition says that her cult was introduced by Numa Pompilius. The cult of Vesta, an important official cult of the Roman state, was in the hands of six Vestal Virgins, a special female priesthood. Their main duty was to keep the holy fire which burnt in the Atrium Vestae of the round temple (a reminiscent of the ancient Roman houses?) on the Forum Romanum as the symbolic hearth of Rome. If the fire was extinguished it would have grave consequences for the Romans. Also inside the temple, to which only the six Vestal Virgins had access, were kept the objects that Aeneas was said to have brought with him on his flight from Troy. This included the Palladium and the images of the Penates. Vesta was represented by the fire. On each New Year's Day the fire was taken from the Vesta temple and brought to the individual houses. Vesta was suggested too as inventor of houses. The Vestals were not allowed to take water from the pipes but they had to take the water from the well of the nymph Juturna beside the temple. The Vestal Virgins were obligated for thirty years of chastity. Therefore they were highly venerated.

The first of the Vestal Virgins is said to be Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus. Being pregnant against the interdiction she pretends to be raped by Mars. What happened to her we don't know for sure, it is suggested that she was thrown into the river Tiber. Lateron the Vestals were buried live in a subterranean chamber at the Porta Collina as punishment for this delict..

There was no cult statue in the temple, but Augustus had a statue placed on an altar in his house on the Palatine Hill in 12 BC. There is a famous small round temple in Rome vis-a-vis the beautiful small church St.Maria in Cosmedin (with the Bocca della Verita!) which is called temple of Vesta too, but in error. Actually that was a temple of Heracles Victor.

The main festval of Vesta were the Vestalia on June 7. AD 394 her cult was forbidden by Theodosius I.

Background:
Vesta originally was probably a Sabinian goddess whose name we don't know (Varro, Dion. Hal.). In spite of the equality of her name with the Geeek Hestia and her similar funktion there is no connection between them not etymological nor factual (Pauly). Besides her function as goddess of hearth she was equated to Terra. A Vesta of the individual house - like the Penates - didn't exist. But connected with them she was obviously, and so with Diana, Janus and Vulcanus. At the end of her festival on June 9. the penus Vestae of her temple was opened and the stercus brought to the Clivus Capitolinus and thrown in the Tiber.That seem to be the perishable remains of the supply: horse blood, ashes of calves and bean straw. The Vesta temple was tabu. Only once the Pontifex maximus has saved the palladium from the burning temple. It was located at the Forum Romanum but outside of the Palatine pomerium. So the eternal fire must have burnt outside of the temple because at each New Year's Day the fire was taken from the temple to the houses.

The Vestals were taken as children by the Pontifex Maximus, called Amata, and had to satisfy some special  qualifications. As Vestals they were highly adored. When they met on the street lictores with fasces, the fasces had to be dropped. They stood outside of the normal law.

Pales:
If you read about Vesta you inevitably come across Pales. Pales was an ancient Italic goddess of flocks and shepherds. The festival called Parilia was celebrated in her honour at Rome and in the country on the 21st of April. In this festival Pales was invoked to grant protection and increase to flocks and herds; the shepherds entreated forgiveness for any unintentional profanation of holy places of which their flocks might have been guilty, and leaped three times across bonfires of hay and straw (Ovid, Fasti iv. 731-805). The Parilia was not only a herdsmen's festival, but was regarded as the birthday celebration of Rome, which was supposed to have been founded on the same day.

Pales plays only a very subordinate part in the religion of Rome, even the sex of the divinity being uncertain. A male Pales was sometimes spoken of, corresponding in some respects to Pan; whereas the female Pales was associated with Vesta and Anna Perenna. Because Pales in Latin could be plural too sometimes it was spoken of two Pales, a male and a female. So there were another festival to Pales, apparently dedicated "to the two Pales" (Palibus duobus, being held on July 7. Marcus Atilius Regulus built a temple to Pales in Rome following his victory over the Salentini in 267 BC. It is generally thought to have been located on the Palatine Hill, but, being a victory monument, it may have been located on the route of the triumphal procession, either on the Campus Martius or the Aventine Hill. It can taken for sure that there is a connection between Pales and Palatine.

I have added two pics:
(1) The pic of the remains of the temple of Vesta on the Forum Romanum.
(2) The pic of a gypsiumstone statue of Vesta from the Staatliche Museen Berlin. Vesta is accompanied by the donkey-god Pales, a symbol of creative labor and fertility throughout the ancient world. The serpent represents Vesta's generative function, while her scepter and headdress signify her rank. Pales here is depicted as donkey, because the donkey was sacred to Vesta. According to the myth a donkey has saved Vesta of the rape by a satyr. But this story seems to be an adoption from the myths around the Greek Hestia.

Sources:
Der kleine Pauly
John Melville Jones, A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Vesta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_%28mythology%29
http://www.religioromana.net/dii_consentes/vesta.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 04, 2008, 03:24:42 pm
Artemis with child

I have presented this strange coin once already in the thread 'Hermes and the infant Dionysos', but I think it deserves an own thread.

Thracia, Philippopolis, Julia Domna, died AD 217(?)
AE 25, 6.67g
obv. IOVLIA. - DOM CEBACT
Bust, draped, r., hair bound in broad chignon
rev. FILIPP - OPOLITWN
Artemis, in short chiton with bare r. shoulder and wearing boots, stg. r., resting
with raised r. hand on inverted spear, holding in l. arm infant Dionysos, who
stretches his arm to her; on the r. side stag stg. r.
Varbanov (engl.) 1386 var. (is supposed to have IOVLIA DOMA CEB!); another ex. in Lanz 112, lot 642 (same dies, heavy worn)
very rare, VF, dark-green patina

The problem with this coin is the rev. depiction. There is no depiction of Artemis with a child in LIMC (hint of friend from the German Forum). Is it really Artemis and is it really Dionysos in her arms?

I want to share the informations which I got by my  inquiries and hope for some critical comments.

(1) Artemis as mother of Cupidus/Eros
It is obviously Artemis in her usual hunting clothes and with the stag, but there is no known myth in which Artemis is connected to the infant Dionysos. But I came across another myth where Artemis is not only connected to a child but is herself the virginal mother of this child! I don't know wether this can be the actual solution to the coin depiction, because this child is Cupido!

My source is Cicero, De Natura Deorum, lib. III, c. 58. He knows from three different Dianas and writes about their parents. There were three differents myths about Diana. According to the first one her parents were Jupiter and Proserpina, the second Diana had as parents Jupiter and Latona,  and the third one Upis and Glauce.
And Cicero knows from three Cupidos too. The first Cupido was the child of the first Mercurius and the first Diana, the second Cupido the child of the second Mercurius and the second Venus and the third one from Mars and the third Venus.
And Bingo! Here we have a child of the virginal goddess! And Diana and Cupido would be a nice counterpart to Julia Domna! Naturally the objection are the missing wings of the infant. But on the other side which attributions argue for Dionysos?

(2) Artemis/Bendis as mother of Orpheus
The friend of the German Forum has pointed me to the Thracian Artemis, the goddess Bendis. She was equated with Artemis, Hekate and Persephone. Her name is according to Kretschmer coming from idg. bhendh- = 'to tie', interpreted as Zygia. But her iconography doubtless shows her character as a hunting goddess: her epitheton dologchos is enlightened by a Bithynian coin from Nikomedes I, on which she is depicted with double spear and a dagger. She was connected with the god Deoptes who possibly could be a relative of the Thracian rider-god Heros, to whom Bendis has had a special relation too. He was suggested to stand besides Bendis as Asklepios on the relief of Piraeus. The cult of Bendis was introduced in Athens 430 BC by its Thracian inhabitants and assisted by the polis because of poltical reasons as could be seen on the stone fragments from Munychia. Her sanctum and  the festival of Bendideia on 20th of the month Thorgelion with procession and torch relay was supervised by a collegium of Thracian orgeones. This official protection of this foreign cult with its supposed orgiastic imprint calls up the echo in the Attic comedy (Strab. 10, 247).

There was the conception too that the Thracian rider-god Heros was the virginally born son of Bendis. Here we have already the conception which later in the Christianism playes such an important role. And then Orpheus himself, the famous singer and mythical king of the Rhodopian mountains, was suggested to be a son of Bendis!

Philippopolis was located in the centre of Thrace and surely the cult of Bendis was known. If the figure depicted on this strange coin would be Bendis, the Thracian Artemis, then the missing bow and the missing arrows are easily understandable. Her attribute was the spear!

And Orpheus we know from several coins of Philippopolis. Philippopolis was - so to speak - te city of Orpheus! Bendis/Artemis and her virginally born son Orpheus would be a nice solution of this strange reverse.

I personally would go with this second suggestion!

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Reclam (dtsch./lat.)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest: Nymph Nysa and the Dionysos child
Post by: Arminius on August 24, 2008, 05:46:22 pm
Cassandreia in Macedonia, Philip I., 244-249 AD.,
Æ Dupondius(?) (21-22 mm / 6,54 g),
Obv.: IMP C M IVL PHIL[IPPS] , radiate head of Philip right.
Rev.: COLΩN CA CA-SS-[ANDR(IAS?)] , the nymph Nysa, wearing kalathos, chlamys and chiton, standing left, looking right to the Dionysos child on her left arm, holding in left hand cornucopiae, little Dionysos extending its hand towards bunch of grapes, that Nysa is holding up in her right hand; the cornucopia is containing a long fruit between two poppies.
Gaebler, AMNG III, p. 55, no. 18 (rev.: plate XIII, 13) (1 specimen, Wien) ; Mionnet Suppl. 3, 58, 379 ; Imhoof-Blumer monn. gr. 68, 35 ; cf. Moushmov 6337 .
rare

Cassandreia was founded 316-315 BC. by Cassander on the site of the Potidaea on the Greek Chalkidike peninsula.
Cassandreia / Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα Kassandra, modern transliteration: Kassandra) was one of the most important cities in Ancient Macedonia founded by and named after Cassander in 316 BC located near the site of the earlier Ancient Greek city of Potidaea. Potidaea had been destroyed by Philip II. (of Macedonia). The territory comprised the areas of Olynthus and Mekyberna to the northeast, Bottiaea to the northwest and the small Isthmus of Pallene (now Kassandra) to the east. At the end of the Roman Republic, a Roman colony was settled around 43 BC by the order of Brutus, by the proconsul Q. Hortensius Hortatus. The official colonial name was Colonia Iulia Augusta Cassandrensis. The colony enjoyed ius Italicum. It is mentioned in Pliny the Elder's encyclopaedia (IV, 36) and in its inscriptions.

The modern settlement of Kassandra (Kassandreia) is south of the ancient site south of the present-day canal. The ancient site of Cassandreia is not excavated. The peninsula of Kassandra lies to the south. This was the westermost of the three peninsulas of Chalkidike, the middle one being the Sithone/Torone peninsula and the eastermost Mount Athos. Its southernmost point is near Paliouri which is also the prefecture's southernmost point, the promontories includes the Kassandreia to the west and the Kanistro to the east. Except for Kanastraio, none of these capes marks the extremities of the peninsula except for the eastern part.
The canal on the norther side of Nea Potidaia to the north divides the peninsula from the rest of Chalkidiki.The peninsula of Kassandra features picturesque villages, beautiful green nature filled with grasslands and forests, beaches and tourist attractions.

No coins of Cassandreia are known until after the time of Augustus, when the city received a Roman colony, and struck bronze coins with Latin legends between the reigns of Claudius and Philippus.


Compared to the history of the site and coins of the ancient city of Cassandreia the story of infant god Dionysos and nymph Nysa is rather complicated:

According to the common tradition, Dionysos was the son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus of Thebes; whereas others describe him as a son of Zeus by Demeter, Io, Dione, or Arge. Diodorus further mentions a tradition, according to which he was a son of Ammon and Amaltheia and that Ammon, from fear of Rhea, carried the child to a cave in the neighbourhood of mount Nysa, in a lonely island formed by the river Triton. Ammon there entrusted the child to Nysa, the daughter of Aristaeus, and Athena likewise undertook to protect the boy.
After the birth of Dionysus, Zeus entrusted him to Hermes, or, according to others, to Persephone or Rhea, who took the child to Ino and Athamas at Orchomenos, and persuaded them to bring him up as a girl. Hera was now urged on by her jealousy to throw Ino and Athamas into a state of madness, and Zeus, in order to save his child, changed him into a ram, and carried him to the nymphs of mount Nysa, who brought him up in a cave, and were afterwards rewarded for it by Zeus, by being placed as Hyades among the stars.
The traditions about the education of Dionysos, as well as about the personages who undertook it, differ as much as those about his parentage and birthplace. Besides the nymphs of mount Nysa in Thrace, the muses, Lydae, Bassarae, Macetae, Mimallones, the nymph Nysa and the nymphs Philia, Coronis, and Cleis, in Naxos, whither the child Dionysus was said to have been carried by Zeus, are named as the beings to whom the care of his infancy was entrusted.
On mount Nysa, Bromie and Bacche too are called his nurses.
Mount Nysa, from which the god was believed to have derived his name, was not only in Thrace and Libya, but mountains of the same name are found in different parts of the ancient world where he was worshipped, and where he was believed to have introduced the cultivation of the vine. Hermes, however, is mixed up with most of the stories about the infancy of Dionysos, and he was often represented in works of art, in connexion with the infant god.

with the help of Gaebler, wikipedia and h**p://bulfinch.englishatheist.org
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: archivum on August 25, 2008, 03:32:07 pm
Especially with her kalathos (or perhaps mural crown?), looks like Tyche Euposia to me . . .

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=34098.0

Earlier coins of this type from Cassandreia (RPC online) unsurprisingly show Nysa without kalathos.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 25, 2008, 04:16:17 pm
Here is another thread: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=39485.msg250726#msg250726

Indeed, a nymph with a kalathos, is that possible at all?

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on August 25, 2008, 04:28:31 pm
Well, also to consider: Euposia is an epithet, modifying Tyche.  The ones from Nicopolis have the rudder of their standard standard Tyche.  Nymphs, I agree, do not usually have a kalathos.  But Jochen's new coin is even later than the 'middle Severans'.  I'd hate to have to vouch, if this is a single issue, for the orthodoxy of the imagery.  I'll go see if Gaebler discusses it.  The question is, have we grounds for saying where the engraver got the image?  Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 23, 2008, 04:01:30 pm
Dionysos and Ariadne

Most of you know Ariadne from Ariadne's famous thread which was used by Theseus to get out the labyrinth of the Minotauros. But as we already know of Greek myths the whole story is much more complicated and profound as it seems to be at the first view. But first the coin. Sadly it is very worn. To strees the details I have lightened it a bit.

Lydia, Maionia, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 35, 22.57g
obv. AV [KAI] L CE - P CEVHR[OC] PE[R - TIN]
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. [EPI IOVLIAN - OV TAAB(??) ARXONTOC]
       Dionysos, in long garment, holding thyrsos in l. arm, leanig r. on a biga, which is
       drawn by two centaurs; the one behind seems to hold a torch, the one before 
       looking back to Dionysos holds probably a flute, above him another torch.
       in ex. [MAIONWN]
F+, slightly porous surfaces
BMC 43, pl. XIV.7 (only rev., same die); Lanz 32, April 1985, 633 (same dies)
Thanks to Curtis Clay for the correct attribution!

So obviously the figure in the biga is Dionysos and not Ariadne, which was my first suggestion. But the torches are - as we know - wedding attributes. So it is well possible that the coin shows Dionysos on his way to his marriage with Ariadne. And that would be a good reason for this article about Ariadne!

Mythology:
Ariadne was the daughter of Minos, king of Crete, and Pasiphae, daughter of Helios and half-sister of Minotauros. When Theseus came to Crete - together with the Athenians who annually had to be feed to the Minotauros - Ariadne fell in love with him. When they met clandestinely she gave Theseus a ball of wool which she once has received from the ingenious Daidalos. He should fix the end of the thread to the entrance of the labyrinth, then let run the thread with himself so that he - after having killed the Minotauros - by coiling up the thread again could get out of the labyrinth. Herself he should take to Athens to marry her there. Theseus was able to kill the beast and to get out of the labyrinth. But when on their voyage back they passed the island of Dias - or Naxos as others say - Artemis has retained her, or Dionysos - because of her beauty fallen in love with her - has abducted her. It's reported too that Dionysos has appeared Theseus in a dream and has threatened him with all evil if he didn't leave Ariadne to him. For fear Theseus has left the island. And Dionysos has abducted Ariadne in this night to the mountain Arios. Deep in sorrow about losing Ariadne Theseus forgot to take back the black sails from his ship when he reached Athens, wherefore his father Aigaios threw himself from the rocks into the sea, which hereafter was called the Aegean Sea.

Some count Ariadne among the godless persons because she has killed her half-brother and her sons. Some are telling too that Theseus has left her furtively when she was asleep, because he suggested that he was blamed in Athens if he came back with Ariadne. Recognizing that she has been left Ariadne hung herself. But referring to others Dionysos has found her on the beach sleeping and half-nude and fell in love with her instantly. We know several ancient paintings which show this discovery and the following marriage. Dionysos should have 6 children by her: Oenopion, Thoas, Staphylos, Latramis, Euanthes and Tauropolis. Dionysos has loved her so much that after her death her crown was placed to the stars. This crown Hephaistos has once forged for Aphrodite who has dedicated it to Ariadne.

It is told too that Ariadne was marooned on Naxos by some boatsmen, where she is said to have married Onaros, a Dionysos priest. They too want to proof that Theseus was not guilty and has not left her with intent because later Deukalion, son of Minos, has given him his daughter as wife. But Ariadne was said too to be pregnant by Theseus and because she has made a spectacle of herself was abondened on Kypros where she died in childbirth. When Theseus came back he was so sad about her death that he erected two statues in honour of her, one from silver, the other from ore.

Background:
Originally Ariadne ws a Minoic goddess of vegetation and probably identical with the labyrinthoio potnia, who was worshipped by ritual dances. Already Homer mentions her dance-floor created by Daidalos. Her name is the Cretic form of Ariagne (= 'most holy'). She was called on Crete Aridela too (=  'most bright'). Both are surnames which conceal her actual name. On Kypros she was worshiped as Aphrodite Ariadne. Her connection to Dionysos is Cretic heritage, her sepulchre in Argos was located in the temple of the Cretic Dionysos (Paus. 2, 20, 4). She is known by Hesiod as wife of Dionysos. But her relations to Theseus are known already to Odysseus. She let abduct herself by Theseus from Crete and died soon after on Dia (a small island near Knossos, usually equated with Naxos) 'due to the testimonyof Dionysos', probably as punishment for her unfaithfullness.

The story of the wool-thread which the king's daughter gave to a stranger so that he could get out of the labyrinth is a classic fairy-tale. Often this myth is traced to the maze of corridors in the ruinous palace of Knossos. Referring to Epimenides Ariadne has given to Theseus a radiate crown whose light has saved him; that would match the tradition that the fight against Minotauros occured in a cave. This radiate crown was a wedding gift of Dionysos and was put later as corona borealis to the sky.

The fact that Theseus left Ariadne on Naxos was not traced from the beginning to her unfaithfullness. Pausanias mentions depictions where Ariadne was raped by Dionysos. But the lonesome and sleeping Ariadne was a favourite motive in the Hellenistic and Roman literature and fine arts: Catull 64, 50ff, Ovid her. 10, so her transfer to the sky. Plutarch mentions the differentiation between an older Ariadne, wife of Dionysos, and a younger one who was abducted by Theseus. But actually the changing between joy and sorrow reflects the nature of the deity of vegatation. It could be too a process of the history of religion, the replacement of one cult by another. Main location of the Ariadne cult was Naxos, beside it Athens (the joyful festival of the Oschophorias with some mourning customs), Delos (crane dance of Theseus; he has brought an ancient image of Aphrodite to Delos given to him by Ariadne), Amathos on Kypros (a festival with very strange customs, f.e. couvade, as remembrance of Theseus' landing on the island with the pregnant Ariadne who died here in childbirth). In Italy she was worshipped as Libera, wife of Liber.

History of art:
From Hellenistic times we know several depictions of the Ariadne theme. The most favourable was the finding of the sleeping Ariadne by Dionysos. This depiction is found on wall-paintings, mosaics and intaglios. There are intaglios too with depictions of the marriage. A picture shows Dionysos leaning back on a chariot, besides him Ariadne, both wreathed with vine leaves and ivy. The chariot is drawn by two centaurs, one playing a lyre, the other two flutes. Between them and Dionysos Eros is flying. In front of the chariot are walking a bacchant with thyrsos, a bachante with timbal, a faun with two flutes and a satyr with kantharos.
Another wonderful picture shows Dionysos and Ariadne sitting in a chariot, pulled by centaurs and with a glorious entourage. On top of the procession are walking persons of both gender, playing on flutes and cymbals. Then an elephant wreathed as sacrificial animal and suggesting the conquest of India. behind Silen riding on an ass. They are accompagnied by fauns, satyrs, and nymphs holding thyrsoi, grapes, vine branches and drinking vessels. This motive is often used on sarkophages. As Holy Marriage it symbolizes the unification of the human and the divine, a consolatory suggestion.

This theme was adopted again by Renaissance artists. We have paintings f.e. from Annibale Caracci and Tizian. We find Ariadne too on paintings of Giorgio de Chirico, f.e. 'La Statua Silenziosa', 1913.

I have added
(1) the picture of a black-figured neck-amphora, showing Ariadne and Dionysos on a kline, from about 510-500 BC
(2) A detail from Caracci's ceiling fresco 'The Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne' in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome from AD 1597-1600.

Sources:
Catull, Carmina 64, 50-201
Ovid, Metamorphoses 8, 169-182
Der kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on September 23, 2008, 04:41:33 pm
Re: Bacchus and Ariadne, trope for Marriage, often shown drawn by centaurs.  There are further illustrations on coins and, earlier, on vase-paintings, but sarcophagi are a favorite place for this conceit, that the mortal pair enjoyed a union blissful as that of Dionysos and Ariadne.  Here I post a sarcophagus and, much later, a cameo in the Louvre.
Evidently, as at the Centauromachy wrecking a respectable wedding on west pediment of Temple of Zeus at Olympia, centaurs stand for uncontrollable libido...
Pat L.
These go with Jochen's entry of 23 Sept 2008 on this subject, preceding the index.
Click images to zoom
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 14, 2008, 06:41:11 pm
The Samian Hera

We know Hera as spouse of Zeus whom she jealous pursuits because of his love-affairs.  Actually she appears a bit boring compared with most of the other gods on the Olymp. Wrong from the beginning!

Ionia, Samos, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 19, 5.33g
obv. [A]NTWNINOC - KAICAR(?)
Head, laureate, r.
rev. C[A]MIWN
Cult-statue of the Samian Hera in long garment and wearing polos, stg. r.,
holding in both hands staffs from small pellets.
BMC 239; Sear GIC 1417
good F

And here a second coin in this context as we will see:

Ionia, Samos, Geta as Caesar, AD 198-209
AE 16, 3.18g
obv. AV K - AI GETAC
        Head, r.
rev. CAM, and in ex. IWN
       Rivergod Imbrasos, wearing himation, nude to hips, leaning l., holding in r. hand
       reed and resting with l. elbow on cornucopiae and vase from which water flows l.
SNG Copenhagen 1744
about VF
In the marshes at the mouth of the river Imbrasos the Ionian colonists under Proklos are said to have found a wooden image of Hera which was caught in a willow brushwood. Therefore they built an altar beside this tree. From this altar the famous temple of Hera, the Heraion, originated. Imbrasos himself has a daughter Okyrrhoe by the Samian nymph Chesias (a hypostasis of the goddess Artemis). Okyrrhoe later was seduced by Apollo (Aelian, Hist.animal. 15.23).

According to Homer Hera is known as the highest goddess of the Olymp, the consort of Zeus. But this relatively colorless mythological representation is only one aspect of the goddess and does present the whole picture of her religious significance and her essence as a divine power in Greek belief. The Hera cult corresponds not to the spouse of Zeus and the Queen of the Olymp, but to a goddess who was worshipped long before her union with Zeus, that highest god of the migrating Greeks at the end of the 2nd Millenium B.C. Zeus, moreover, seems to have played no part in the Samian Hera cult, which had been in existence since the late Bronze Age.The more recent science of religion regards Hera as an old, originally pre-Hellenic nature and fertility goddess, indeed nothing short of the primordial goddess of the pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. This original independence from the Olympian Zeus myth is also expressed later in Hera's autonomous cult. The ancient poet Alcaeus of Lesbos (7th/6th Century B.C.) still calls the goddess "genetrix of all things panthon genethla". Archaeological research further testifies, even more than poetic expressions such as this one, to the universal character of Hera during the early Greek period: the Heraia of Argos, Olympia and Samos belong among the oldest significant sanctuaries of the gods in ancient Greece. It has been convincingly observed that the broad, fertile plain, so characteristic of the great Hera sanctuary, expresses a fundamental trait of the goddess: her power over vegetation and fertility. Such an idea can be perceived amongst the older votive offerings of the Heraion. Here are to be found many ivory or clay representations of poppy heads and pomegranates, which were known as symbols of fertility because of their abundant seeds. Numerous votive offerings of clay oxen from earlier levels of the Samian sanctuary, just as the ox 'emblem' of later Samian coins, indicate a related sphere under the goddess's protection, namely ownership of herds and agricultural wealth.

Mythology:
Her name probably means something like 'Dame' or 'Lady'. She was the daughter of Kronos and Rhea and was born on the island of Samos or, according to others, at Argos. She was educated in Arcadia by Temenos, son of Pelasgos, and she was nursed by the Seasons
When Hera's twin Zeus has banished their father Kronos, he called her at Knossos on Crete, or possibly on the mountain Thornax in Argolis as other says which today is called Cuckoo mountain. Here he wooed her without success. But when he took the shape of a tousled cuckoo she took pity on him and warmed him tenderly at her bosom. But then he took his true shape and raped her, so that she - to escape the disgrace - was forced to mary him. All gods brought gifts. Mother Gaia gave her a tree with golden apples which after that was kept by the Hesperids in Hera's garden on the mountain Atlas. They celebrated the wedding night, which lastened 300 years, on the island of Samos.

Background:
Several locations are known where Hera was worshipped. One main focus was the Peloponnesos, especially Argos. One of her surnames at Homer was Argeia. Possibly she was an ancient palace goddess who lived on to the Mykenian time as Athena did in Sparta or Mykenae. But she is seen too as a kind of the great pre-olympic mediterranean Hera Pelasga.The other centre of her worship was the island of Samos. In any case she was a goddess of the women who defended the rights of women. Connected with Zeus in the hieros gamos she was the guardian of the marriage-law. To look upon her only as a fertility goddess does not seem correct. So she always appears as Zeus' spouse but never as mother of his children. In this context the myth fits where Zeus has hung Hera at her feet forcing her to swear by the river Styx that the birth of her son Hephaistos was parthogenetical. She is described in the Iliad as domineering, proud and jealous. Often she was at open strife with Zeus. During the Troyan War she was on the side of the Greek and she was the tutelary goddess of Jason during the Voyage of the Argonauts.

The Heraion:
Traces of the Hera-cult are known in Samos from the midst of the 2nd millenium BC. The centre of her cult was the chasteberry tree whose trunk still was found at the excavations beginning in 1911 AD. Under this tree Hera is said to be born.Here the annual spring festival was celebrated with the Holy Wedding and agons. Beside the stony altar of Hera already in the 8th century BC was built a 'hundred-footed' temple which was later enlarged by auxiliary buildings, altars, great halls with marble-columns and bathrooms. A giant temple, built in the 6th century BC was destroyed soon by fire and then replaced by a new giant temple probably under Polykrates after 321 BC. This temple never was completed. In the time of Strabon it was used as pinakotheca and seen as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. One of the columns on the southern front all the time stood upright as lonely sign of the sanctuary. Therefore this location was called 'Kolona'. This last temple probably was destroyed by the Heruls in the 60th of the 3rd century AD.

The cult in Samos:
There is known the age-old willow lygos (yes, there is some confusion with the kind of this tree!) in the sanctuary of Hera at Samos at the river Imbrasos. Pausanias, who has seen it yet green, names it the oldest of all he holy trees known to the Greeks. Under this tree Hera is said to be born and nursed. So it is undoubtful that the altar of the goddess must have stand under this tree. Because Pausanias mentions that the Argonauts have donated the sanctuary and have brought the image of Hera from Argos to Samos, this suggests a connection with another myth, where Admete, daughter of Eurystheus, escapes from Argos to Samos and here, due to the epiphany of Hera, consecrates her services to the goddess and becomes servant of the temple. In this story a willow too plays an important role, when the Argives - taking revenge for the escape of Admete - robbed the wooden image of the goddess which was guarded by Admete. When the Argives put the robbed image on their ship it became so heavy that it was impossible to sail away. So they put the image back on the beach and sacrifice expiation cakes. Then quickly they sail away. The people sent by the Samian to search for the image found it but suggested that it itself was gone to this place. They leaned it to the stem of a willow and braided it with long willow twigs completely so that it was invisible. Admete found it, detached it and brought it back to the temple where it was set on its frame (bathron) again and newly consecrated. From this time on this tonea called festival of the willow bed was annually celebrated on Samos. The entire procedure was repeated: each year the image of the goddess was brought to the beach and enfolded in willow twigs (as fascelites) just as if it became invisible again. After sacrificing it was bedded on a willow braiding bed and brought back to the temple. This is the reason for the great holiness of the willow on Samos. It is said that this rites were commended by the oracle of Apollon, because the inhabitants of Samos (the Carians) have bound the goddess with willow twigs. Therefore they have to wreath themselves with willow twigs and to lay on willow twigs at all festivals of Hera. Only the priests were allowed to wear laurel wreaths.

The cult image of the Samian Hera:
The Samian Hera is depicted as a woman who has on her head a crescent or a basket and a great blanket from the crescent to her feet, and under her feet a crescent again and resting with her hands on two staffs made off small round pellets (Spanhem. ad Callim. Hymn. in Dian. v.228). Her temple is said to be built by the Argonauts and the image of the goddess brought from Argos to Samos. The cult statue is said to be made by Smilis from Aegina, son of Eukleides and from the same time as Daidalos (Pausan. 7.4.4.7). At first the image should have been only a wooden plank. This origin from Argos was always vehemently denied by the inhabitants of Samos!

Besides the two coins I have added he following:
(1) a pic of the Heraion of Samos as you can see it today with the famos column.
(2) a pic of the famous votive statue consecrated by Cheramyes

Sources:
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Bötticher/Bötticher, Der Baumkultus der Hellenen, 1856
online:
- http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0008&query=bibl%3D%233
- http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/papers/sosahera/hera.html
- http://www.moonspeaker.ca/Hera/pomegranate.html
- http://www.wbenjamin.org/nc/heraion.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 14, 2008, 06:45:58 pm
Shamash - The Babylonian sun-god

In this thread we have already talked about several deities from the Middle East. Here I want to present another one, from whom most of you, I think, have never heard: The Babylonian sun-god Shamash.

The coin:
Syria, Seleukia and Pieria, Emesa, Macrinus, AD 217-218
AE - Billon-tetradrachm, 25.5.mm, 13.17g
obv. AVT KM OP CE(?) - MAKRINOC C-E-B
       laureate bust r.
rev. DHMARX EZ VPATOC PP
      Eagle with opened wings, stg. frontal, head l., holding wreath in beak; between his legs   
      bust of Shamash, draped (and cuirassed), radiate, r.
      below beak H (for officina)
Prieur 987; Bellinger 199
about VF

Mythology:
Shamash is the common name of the sun-god in Babylonia and Assyria.  The Semitic name signifies something like 'bright, shiny'. The ancient Sumerians has called him Utu. The moon-god Sin (Nannar) was the son of the god Enlil. The sun-god Shamah in turn was the son of Sin. In the early morning he raised from the mountains in the East, rays emanating from his shoulders, went in his chariot dragged by fiery mules over the sky to the West, where he in the evening entered through the gates of West the Underworld. These gates opened to the Mt.Mashu (Gilgamesh, tabl.IX) and were guarded by scorpion-men, half scorpion, half man. Like the sun disperses the darkness and sees all, so Shamash brings evil and injustice to light. Shamash was the god of justice. He punished the bad and rewards the good.

Background:
Both in early and in late inscriptions Shamash is designated as the 'offspring of Sin (Nannar)', i.e. of the moon-god, and since, in an enumeration of the Babylonian pantheon. Shamash so to say belongs to a second generation of gods, or even to a third one (Aren't that similarities to the Greek gods?). Sin generally takes precedence of Shamash, it is in relationship, presumably, to the moon-god that the sun-god appears as the dependent power. Such a supposition would accord with the prominence acquired by the moon in the calendar and in astrological calculations, as well as with the fact that the moon-cult belongs to the nomadic and therefore earlier stage of civilization, whereas the sun-god rises to full importance only after the agricultural stage has been reached. The two chief centres of sun-worship in Babylonia were Sippara (Sippar), represented by the mounds at Abu Habba, and Larsa, represented by the modern Senkerah. At both places the chief sanctuary bore the name E-barra, meaning 'the shining house# - a direct allusion to the brilliancy of the sun-god. Of the two temples, that at Sippara was the more famous, but temples to Shamash were erected in all large centres - as Babylon, Ur, Nippur and Niniveh.

The attribute most commonly associated with Shamash is justice. Hammurabi attributes to Shamash the inspiration that led him to gather the existing laws and legal procedures into a code, and in the design accompanying the code the king represents himself in an attitude of adoration before Shamash as the embodiment of the idea of justice. Several centuries before Hammurabi, Ur-Engur, king of Ur (c. 2600 BC) declared that he rendered decisions 'according to the just laws of Shamash'. It was a logical consequence of this conception of the sun-god that he was regarded also as the one who released the sufferer from the grasp of the demons. The sick man, therefore, appeals to Shamash as the god who can be depended upon to help those who are suffering unjustly. This aspect of the sun-god is vividly brought out in the hymns addressed to him, which are, therefore, among the finest productions in the entire realm of Babylonian literature. In the library of king Assurbanipal (668-633 BC) fragments of hymns were found were Shamash is celebrated as universal god, as god of earth and Underworld and Saviour.

It is evident from our material that the Shamash cults at Sippara and Larsa so overshadowed local sun-deities elsewhere as to lead to an absorption of the minor deities by the predominating one. In the systematized Babylonian pantheon these minor sun-gods become attendants of Shamash. Such are Bunene, spoken of as his chariot driver, whose consort is Atgimakh, Kettu ("justice") and Mesharu ("right"), who are introduced as servitors of Shamash. Other sun-deities, as Ninib and Nergal, in earlier times the patron deities of important centres, retained their independent existence as certain phases of the sun, Ninib becoming the sun-god of the morning and of the spring time, and Nergal the sun-god of the noon and of the summer solstice, while Shamash was viewed as the sun-god in general.

Together with Sin and Ishtar, Shamash forms a second triad by the side of Anu, Bel and Ea. The three powers, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar, symbolized the three great forces of nature, the sun, the moon and the life-giving force of the earth. At times, instead of Ishtar, we find Hadad, the storm-god, associated with Sin and Shamash, and it may be that these two sets of triads represent the doctrines of two different schools of theological thought in Babylonia which were subsequently harmonized by the recognition of a group consisting of all four deities.

The consort of Shamash was known as Aya. She, however, is rarely mentioned in the inscriptions except in combination with Shamash.

Like mentioned above the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC) should have got his famous code of law, the Codex Hammurabi, which is suggested as oldest written code of law, from the sun-god Shamash. At top of the stele where the cuneiform texts are engraved we see Shamash throning and handing over the Codex to king Hammurabi.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, whose last version was written c.1200 BC on twelve tablets, Shamash plays an important role as personal god of Gilgamesh and as victorious fighter. It was Shamash who challenged Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, to defeat Chumbaba, the guardian of the cedar woods in Lebanon. Gilgamesh together with his consort Enkidu promised to extinguish from earth all evil. In the evening before they left Uruk they sacrificed cool water to Shamash (tabl. III). When fighting against Chumbaba Shamash helped them by arousing twelfe havy gales against the monster. Later, as thanks for defeating the heaven's bull who was send by Ishtar against them, Enkidu and Gilgamesh sacrificed to Shamash again (Epic of Gilgamesh, tabl. VI).

In later times we find Shamash as part of individual names too, so in Shamash-shum-ukin, who was king of Babylon in 668-548 BC. But that phenomena we know already from Mithras. When in the Holy Bible in the Book of Kings is the talk of horses and a chariot which was set by the kings of Juda before the temple of Jerusalem in honour of the sun, which then were removed by Josia (7th century BC), then the horses and the chariot of Shamash is meant (Bellinger, 427).

Later Shamash was the sun-god of the Arabs especially of those from Hatra, an indepent kingdom between Parthia and the Roman Syria. Hatra issued coins showing the portrait of Shamash in the time of the Severians. Its legend was Aramaic HTR DSMS (Hatra of Shamash). I have added a pic of SNG Copenhagen 232.

We find Shamash in the Judaism too. Here it is a kind of helper-candle which is used during Chanukah to set fire to the Mitzvah candles. Theses were sacred and should not be violated by such profane acts like lighting candles. The Shamash was not allowed to be exstinguished during the festivities.

I have added the following pics:
(1) a pic from the top of Hammurabi's stele showing the scene where Shamash, seated l.,  handed over to king Hammurabi, stg. r.,  the text of the Codex Hammurabi.
(2) a pic of the tablet of Shamash from the 9th century BC, found in Sippar/Southern Iraque, today in the British Museum. This tablet reports a fascinating story: The restauration of the image and the temple of the sun-god. The cuneiform text describes how the Temple of Shamash at Sippar had fallen into decay and the image of the god had been destroyed. During the reign of Nabu-apla-iddina, however, a terracotta model of the statue was found on the far side of the Euphrates and the king ordered a new image be constructed of gold and lapis lazuli. The text then confirms and extends the privileges of the temple.
The tablet was discovered some 250 years later by King Nabopolassar (625-605 BC), who placed it for safe keeping, together with a record of his own name, in the pottery box. The clay impressions of the carved panel were placed as protection over the face of the stone. The original one placed by Nabu-apla-iddina was broken when the stone tablet was recovered by Nabopolassar. He replaced it with a new one while keeping the original safely in the box with the tablet.
At top of the tablet we see Shamash seated on the right, holding emblems of his authority, a staff and ring, and the king with two attendants on the left. In the center, on an altar, is a large 4-point sun image, with additional small wavy rays between the points, an old symbol for Shamash himself.
(3) A pic of the coin from Hatra with the bust of Shamash on the obv.

Sources:
- Wikipedia
- The Epic of Gilgamesh
- The Codex Hammurabi
- Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 (online)
- www.sungaya.de (Das schwarze Netz)
- www.britishmuseum.org
- H.J.W.Drijvers, Monotheismus und Polytheismus in der haträischen Religion, Proceedings of the Xiith International Congress of the Int. Assoc. for the History of Religions, 1970).

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 10, 2008, 03:14:00 pm
will be deleted
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: kerux on November 12, 2008, 10:49:41 am
The Star of Bethlehem: Mythology or not?

Syria, Antiochia ad Orontem, quasi-autonomous, AD 13/14
AE 21, 4.46g
struck under the governor of Syria,Metellus Creticus Silanus
obv. bearded head of Zeus, r.
rev. EPI SILANOV ANTIOXEWN
      Ram, leaping r., head turned back, star above
      beneath DM (year 44 of the Actian era)     
Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 97; SNG München 645; BMC 65; RPC 626, 4269
about VF, black-brown patina, light roughness
Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus Silanus was legatus Augusti pro praetore in Syria AD 11-17

Molnar starts from a new conception. Suggesting that the wise men from the east are men with knowledge of stars and planets and astronomy and astrology was not separated in ancient times, he puts himself in the world of ancient astrologers and asks what could have been the belief of the ancient astrologists. One of his main sources is the Tetrabyblos of Ptolemaios. In this work the ram (Lat. aries) was called the sign of "Judaea, Idumea, Samaria, Palaestina and Coele Syria", exact the countries ruled by King Herodes. So this coin may be edited to commemorate the take-over of Judaea by the Romans in Antiochia in AD 6. In any case not the Pisces (fishes) were the sign of Judaea, as it is claimed often today, possibly because the fish (Greek ichthys) was an important symbol of the early Christians. Others suggest the lion as the sign of Judaea probably because they think of the 'Lion of Juda'. Others suggest Virgo possibly because of the Virgin Mary. But actually it was Aries, the ram, where the ancient astrologers were looking in searching for news for Judaea.

The star on the rev. of the coins not only is a sign of divinity but a symbol for Jupiter/Zeus too, who is depicted on the obv. So the rev. means "Jupiter in the sign of Aries". Naturally the coin itself has no direct relation to the birth of Jesus. But it was the starting point Molnar used to get new conclusions for the Star of Bethlehem


Forgive this belated response, but I just recently found this thread.

Molnar's theory about the Star of Bethlehem is interesting, but appears to be Biblically unsupportable. If one accepts the Scriptures as inspired truth (I know many do not)...then several major problems with the theory appear.

FIRST - In Matthew 2:7 Herod questions the Magi about "the exact time the star appeared". While not conclusive, This would seem to imply an entirely NEW astronomical phenomena, not merely the lining up of existing astronomical lights (which the Magi would surely already be aware of).

SECOND - In Matthew 2:9 the star is given 2 attributes that are absolutely unique. The star "went on before them"...inotherwords, a MOVING star. This star did more than give a general direction (every star in the sky does that), it "went" before them like no other star. Also, this star "came and stood" over the place Christ was. Pick out a typical star in the night sky and start walking toward it...at what point will it STAND OVER a particular house in a particular city? Typical stars NEVER do this...walk as long as you like in it's direction, and a star will remain a distant light in the sky forever.

THIRD - There is a reasonable question as to whether this "star" was something ANYONE could see. Remember Herod was quite anxious to find (and kill) this potential usurper. Why couldn't he (or his soldiers) follow a light in the sky that everyone could see? His dependance on the Magi to inform him would be understandable if this "star" was something only they could perceive. No mention of the Magi or the "star" (or anyone else seeing such a star) is found in the other Gospel accounts which would seem to add weight to the idea that the "star" was something only they (the Magi) experienced.

I understand that people will believe what they want. However, it seems the only way to embrace Molnar's theory is to largely reject the Biblical record which is, after all, the only historical record of the "star" phenomena related to Christ.

Joe W.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on November 12, 2008, 05:39:19 pm
Matthew's star shares the remarkable ability to 'stand' in one place with the War Star in Josephus, the two even use the exact same Greek phrase. Balaam's star prophecy in Numbers 24 was believed to refer to the messiah; it's used, if I remember right, four times in the Dead sea Scrolls,and always in a messianic context. Several faction leaders in the first Revolt were probably regarded as messiahs by their followers, and there actually was a comet seen just before the war broke out. So Josephus' 'star shaped like a sword, standing over the city' is easily explained. Since I don't regard the Bible as 'inspired truth', I think Matthew borrowed the image of the War Star, and moved it to the time of Jesus' birth as a way of saying that he was the 'proper' messiah.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 12, 2008, 07:33:43 pm
I have listed three different explanations of the Star of Bethlehem (A to C). There may be more. But I think explanation (A) is the correct one: 'The Star has never existed. It was added later as sign of divinity and choiceness and so like the story of the virgin birth and other miracles.' If I'm correct, that would match Robert's opinion.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: His Star on November 15, 2008, 03:27:33 am
Doing a little catching up on these posts, and this is really neat that you found a statue
of almost the same image on the coin. Great posts, and still being enjoyed well past your post date!

The snake cult of Alexander of Abounoteichos (called the FALSE PROPHET)

Geta AD 209-211
AE 30, 16.5g
obv. AVT KP CEPT - IMOC GETAC
        Bust, cuirassed, seen from behind, radiate, r.
rev. AVGOVCTHC - TRAIANHC
      Snake in four elaborate coils erecting, with nimbus and radiated
not in Varbanov

On ancient coins we find many depictions of snakes. I remind of the snake as attribute of Salus, or the famous Cistophori where a snake is climbing out of a Cista mystica, the snake basket, belonging to the cult of Dionysos and playing an important role in the  Eleusinic Mysteries too. But this is not the matter with the snake on this coin.

There is some evidence that the snake erecting here in four elaborated coils and has a radiate head with nimbus is Gykon, the Snake God. Thanks to Pat Lawrence for her invaluable help.

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 22, 2008, 09:44:58 am
A founder myth from Lanuvium

In this thread we have already several myths covering the time of Aeneas' arrival in Italy, the founding of Rome and the time of the early Republic. Here is a list in informal order:
The white sow of Lavinium
The rape of the Sabinian women
Anna Perenna
Juno Sospita
Acca Larentia
Venus Cloacina
Mars and Rhea Silva
Faustulus and the twins
Romulus and the first triumph
Juno Caprotina

Here is another myth which could be dated in the time after the myth of the white sow of Lavinium. This myth plays in the time where the Trojans were looking for land for their settlement in Latium.

Roman Republic, L. Papius Celsus, gens Papia
AR - denarius, 18mm, 3.66g
Rome, 45 BC
obv. Head of Juno Sospita, wearing goat-skin, r.
rev. She-wolf r., with a wood stick in her mouth for throwing it in fire, which is burning r. before her, on its r. side an eagle stg. l., fanning the fire with his wings.
above CELSVS.III.VIR
in ex. L.PAPIVS
ref. Crawford 472/1; Sydenham 964; Papia 2
VF, attractive toning

Mythology:
Aeneas having accepted this proposal, a treaty was made between the Trojans and the Latins and confirmed by oaths to this effect: the Aborigines were to grant to the Trojans as much land as they desired, that is, the space of about forty stades in every direction from the hill; the Trojans, on their part, were to assist the Aborigines in the war they were then engaged in and also to join them with their forces upon every other occasion when summoned; and, mutually, both nations were to aid each other to the utmost of their power, both with their arms and with their counsel.

After they had concluded this treaty and had given pledges by handing over children as hostages, they marched with joint forces against the cities of the Rutulians; and having soon subdued all opposition there, they came to the town of the Trojans, which was still but half-finished, and all working with a common zeal, they fortified the town with a wall.

This town Aeneas called Lavinium, after the daughter of Latinus, according to the Romans' own account; for her name, they say, was Lavinia. But according to some of the Greek mythographers he named it after the daughter of Anius, the king of the Delians, who was also called Lavinia; for as she was the first to die of illness at the time of the building of the city and was buried in the place where she died, the city was made her memorial. She is said to have embarked with the Trojans after having been given by her father to Aeneas at his desire as a prophetess and a wise woman.

While Lavinium was building, the following omens are said to have appeared to the Trojans. When a fire broke out spontaneously in the forest, a wolf, they say, brought some dry wood in his mouth and threw it upon the fire, and an eagle, flying thither, fanned the flame with the motion of his wings. But working in opposition to these, a fox, after wetting his tail in the river, endeavoured to beat out the flames; and now those that were kindling it would prevail, and now the fox that was trying to put it out. But at last the two former got the upper hand, and the other went away, unable to do anything further. Aeneas, on observing this, said that the colony would become illustrious and an object of wonder and would gain the greatest renown, but that as it increased it would be envied by its neighbours and prove grievous to them; nevertheless, it would overcome its adversaries, the good fortune that it had received from Heaven being more powerful than the envy of men that would oppose it. These very clear indications are said to have been given of what was to happen to the city; of which there are monuments now standing in the forum of the Lavinians, in the form of bronze images of the animals, which have been preserved for a very long time.

Background:
This myth only appears at Dionysios of Halicarnassos and in a note of Horace. Dionysios lived in the 2nd half of the 1st century BC and settled in Rome from 30 to 7 BC. He wrote a history of Rome ('Antiquitates Romanae') in 20 volumes covering the time until the Punic war 264 BC which is preserved in excerpts. In this work he describes the Roman history from the teleological view: Why Rome was predetermined from the beginning to become the ruler of the world. He is known as rhetor too and has written a book about the Greek rhetor Demosthenes and about 'The arrangement of words'. He was an exponent of the Atticismus against the Asianismus.

This myth according to Dionysios occured not in Lanuvium but in Lavinium. And there too the group depicting the myth should have been found. This localisation seems to be an error of the author. On the obv. of this coin appears Juno Sospita. the main centre of her worshipping was Lanuvium, not Lavinium. The allusion to this myth at Horace (Hor. epod. 3, 27, 4) appears directly after the mention of Lanuvium. The confusion of these two sites is not astonishing. Lanuvium and Lavinium were swapped very often and in important documents too like the Fasti. The strong connection with Aeneas in this story of Dionysios can be explained as addition of the author who doesn't miss the chance to beautify the myth. Dionysios ascribes an old age to the myth but this can't be looked at as reliable. But rather a group of statues whose meaning has been lost may be the reason of this aetiological myth (Krumme).

Sources:
(1) Dionysios of Halicarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae
     online under
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dionysius_of_Halicarnassus/home.html
(2) Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung, Hitzeroth 1995
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: His Star on November 22, 2008, 03:55:53 pm
Thank you for taking the time to provide this information.  A lot of research done and all of it placed in one convenient location for us!  Thank you!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: His Star on November 22, 2008, 03:58:56 pm
Also wanted to add the Outline or grouping is very convenient - thank you
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 22, 2008, 05:33:21 pm
Thank you for your comments. Any feedback highly appreciated. There are some more themes to come but it needs time.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 30, 2008, 06:05:15 pm
A word about Aequitas

Always when I found an interesting coin - you know - I try to get as much informations as I can get. Naturally these are the history of the issueing emperor, his deeds, his importance, but the meaning of the depiction on the rev. too. Then even coins which you already have had in hand many times can appear in new light. This happened to me with this antoninianus of Carinus.

Carinus, AD 283-285, oldest son of Carus
AR - antoninianus, 3.95g, 22.6mm
Lugdunum, 1st offizina, AD 282(?)
obv. IMP CM AVR CARINVS AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. AEQVITAS AVGG
Aequitas stg. l., holding scales and cornucopiae
in r. field A
RIC V/2, 212; C.8
about EF, rest of silver boiling

I have traced Aequitas and here are my results:

1) As a first translation we find 'tranquillitas, equanimity, serenity'. In this sense Aequitas correspondends to theGreek 'ataraxia' and is a central idea of the Stoic philosophy  and therefore often called 'stoicism'. It doesn't mean carelessness for one's surrounding, but bravery in bearing of strokes of fate. But I don't want to emphasize this aspect because I think on our Carinus coin this is not meant.

2) As 2nd meaning we find 'equality before the law, justice, fairness'. This corresponds approximately to the Greek 'dikaiosyne'. Here Aequitas means a very special aspect of justice. Its already linguistic connection with equality doesn't mean formal equal treatment but equal decisions in equal situations. In this sense justice is not the equal treatment of all cases, but the challenge to treat equal cases equally und unequal cases unequally! Pauly explicates: In this sense fair decisions are consistent with Aequitas. If we understand Aequitas as fairness in law it doesn't mean however the blundering softening of firm law traditons (in the sense of a modern fairness jurisprudence), but the realisation of justice in law, particularly the material correctness of legal decisions.
Here already is distinguished between law and justice. This reference of Aequitas in the Roman right is very old. Already very early Aequitas and Ius (right) have been arranged. But naturally the fact became clear very early too, that Ius and Aequitas can 
fold apart (we know that this is true today too!).

Especially in the later Empire and then especially from Constantine I on the diverging of Ius and Aequitas became obvious. During the time of the Dominate this led to a bizarre hypocrisy because the Emperor wanted to stick to Aequitas but his actions were in blatant contrast to it. From Theodosius on the Imperial Chancellery alone has defined what has to be understand under equality. By this administration the meaning of Ius and Aequitas ultimately has been split in two. But this was no disadvantage for Aequitas - rather for Ius -, but strengthened its significance. In this sense Aequitas became the standard of criticism on legal practice.

The depiction of Aequitas has a lasting impact on our image of Aequitas. Justitia too is holding scales but her eyes are veiled which should say that she comes to a decision without looking at the person.

3) A view on the real depiction of the coin's rev. shows us a near relation between Aequitas and Moneta. Both are holding scales and cornucopiae, indeed we could confuse them unless the rev. legend makes it clear. In this connection Aequitas clearly has an economic, financial meaning too, that is to say the just and equal distribution of goods to the people. That could be the largitio, the money donation of the Emperor to the people, which is often depicted as Liberalitas with the counting board. But it could be too the fair and equal distribution of the regular grain supplies to Rome. In this sense Aequitas has a strong relation to Annona.

Which of these different meanings is meant in this coin of Carinus I can't say definitely. Personally I suggest that it is the last one. The people of Rome was existentially depending on the fair and equal distribution of grain and other goods - but not only the people, but the emperor too! If obvious injustices should have occur during the supply the emperor would have come in a severe situation. That has occured several times in Roman history. Naturally the meaning of Aequitas as the idea of right is playing an inseparable role here too.

Sources:
Der 'Kleine Pauly'
Stowasser (Latin dictionary)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: His Star on November 30, 2008, 07:40:45 pm
Very interesting -

A word about Aequitas

equality doesn't mean formal equal treatment but equal decisions in equal situations. In this sense justice is not the equal treatment of all cases, but the challenge to treat equal cases equally und unequal cases unequally! Here already is distinguished between law and justice.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 18, 2008, 04:54:30 pm
Doros - son of Poseidon

Phoenicia, Dora, Trajan, AD 98-117
AE 29, 13.85g
struck AD 111/112 (year 175)
obv. [KAIC] NER TRAIANOC CEB GERM
Bust with slight drapery on l. shoulder, laureate, r.
eight-pointed star before
rev. DWR IER ACYL AYTON NAYAR
Bust of Doros, bearded, laureate, r.
aphlaston before
in ex. ROE (year 175)
ref. Rosenberger 26; BMC 30-1; Meshorer 'Te Coins of Dora', 33;Hendin 850

Dora, the recent Tel Dor, is an very old city located on the Phoenicean coast of the Mediterranean, 30km off Haifa. About 1100 BC Dora was occupied by the so-called Sea Peoples. It is mentioned several times in the Bible: Josua 11, 1-2; Josua 12, 23; Josua 17, 11; Richter 1, 27; 1.Könige 4, 11; 1.Chronik 7, 29. But it was autonomous and not dependent on the immigrating Israelites. 734 BC it was probably a maintown of an Assyrean province. 63 BC it became Roman. Until today no mayor excavations occured

Doros was a son of the sea-god Poseidon. Often you can read the statement that there are two different sons of Poseidon named Doros, a Greek and a Phoenicean one. But then I found the following passage of Stephanus of Byzantium (probably 5th century AD), who wrotes about Dora: Next to Caesarea lies Dor, a very small city inhabited by Phoeniceans. They settled here on somewhat rocky nature beaches and the abundance of the purple fish. When their business prospered, they split the rock, and made a harbour with good and safety anchorage. They called the place in their native tong Dor. But, the Greeks, for the sake of its more pleasing sound, agreed to call the city Dora. And some make the statement that Doros, the son of Poseidon was its founder.

In other words, this statement has its source from the assonance of the words only. And indeed there is only one son of Poseidon named Doros. The convention to invent founder myths and to name the founder of a city after a Greek god or Heroe was well-known from the Greek and wide-spread. In this way the Greek provide mythological security for their territorial claims.

I don't think that there are two different heroes. But the story will become much more complicate because their is another Doros who is suggested to be the ancestor of the Dorians. In his myth are many uncertainties too. I hope that I can give an overview with due shortness.

Mythology:
The Doros from the coin, here called Doros(2), was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and the nymph Ellepsis. He gave his name not only to the landscape Doris but from him the Dorians  gave their origin and their name. The Dorians are a part of the Greek nation and after the Dorians the third language of the greeks is called Dorian (Isidor of Sevilla: 9.2.80). But a commentator to Isidor (Servius Comm. in Aen.2.27) already writes: Doros was the son of Poseidon (he doesn't mention Ellepsis). He has founded Dora in Phoenicia; but another was the ancestor of the Dorians, a son of Apollo and Phthia or Hellen and Orseis.

Because Dorian(2) according to the opinion of some authors came to Doris by ship he is suggested to be a son of Poseidon (Bocaccio. I.X.c.2; Johannes Bocaccio was an Italian scholar from Certaldo in the Toscany who died AD 1375. He wrote 15 books De Genealogia Deorum, which was issued AD 1532 in Basel). Doris was an ancient region in middle Greece, located between Phokis, Malis, Aitolia and the Ozolic Lokris on the upper reaches of the river Kephisos. The plain of Doris was enclosed on three sides by mountains and was considered as the homeland of the Dorians. In fact it was a bit too small for that (Prinz). Besides it there was another Doris in Caria/Asia Minor. That was founded by Dorian immigrants.

The other Doros, here called Doros(1), was the grandson of Deukalion and Pyrrha, and the son of Hellen and the nymph Orseis. Deukalion himself was a son of Prometheus who warned him against the Flood and told him to build a waterproof chest. So Deukalion was a man like the Biblial Noah or the Babylonian Utnapischtim of the Gilgamesh epos. After the great Flood he became king in Thessalia. His most famous son was Hellen who became father of all Greeks which where called Hellenes after him (Dio.4.60.2.); Hes.CWE.4, etc.). With the nymph Orseis he procreates Aiolos, Xuthos and Doros. Xuthos has to flee from his brothers to Athens and married Kreusa, daughter of Erechtheus, who gave birth to Ion and Achaios. So the four most important nations of the Greek, the Ionians, the Aiolians, the Achaians and the Dorians were descended from Hellen.

When the paternal countries were divided Doros(1) got the part of Greece north of the Peloponnesos and its inhabitants were named Dorians after him (Apol.lin.b.l.c.7.§2.b). According to others his father, Hellen, has given his reign to his eldest son Aiolos solely and banished all other sons. Doros settled at the Parnassos (Strabo L.VII.p.383) or in the Histiaiotis, a region beneath the mountains Ossa and Olympos (Herod.Clio seu L.I.s.56). Not until later the Dorians immigrated to the Peloponnesos, where Sparta became their most important city. 

Some background:
The Dorians were one of te great Greek nations, but immigrated much later as all others to Hellas. Probably they originated from the Dalmatian-Albanian region. At the time of their immigration the Mykenian castles were already destroyed so that the mythological reminiscence of this immigration, the myth of the return of the Heraclides, nothing kows to tell of it. Their characteristic order of phyla they brought along from their origin and cultic and cultural coincidence existed with Veneters, Illyrians and Philistines. From the Argolis the expanded step-by-step into the Peloponnesos. Only radually they could prevail aainst the Ionian elements. The intensive Dorianization of Megaris seems to be the lasting result of a failed attack on Athens. The first Dorian traces in Sparta are from the 10th century BC, but not before the 1st half of the 8th century BC they succeeded in putting their hands on the kingdom of Amyklai and southern Laconia. in Asia Minor they got to Pamphylia. Importance received their colonies Taranto, Cyrene and then especially the colonies on Sicily, Syracusa, Acragas and Messana, which all the time were a stronghold of the Dorianism (Pauly),

The return of the Heraclides:
Already the ancient Greeks have had difficulties to incorporate the immigration of the Dorians into their mythology. Mythological the Dorians were closely connected to Herakles:
1) The Dorians thought that Herakles had helped their king Aigimios threetimes before they immigrated to the Peloponnesos: against the Lapiths, against the Dryops and finally against king Amyntor of Ormenion - all of them people of Thessalia and Trachis, near the mountain Oita where Herakles burned himself.
2) Herakles didn't not succeed in founding an own dynasty, as much as the genealogists tried to ascribe kings and nations to Herakles. All stories of the children he has had with Deianeira coincide in that they disappeared from the Peloponnesos. Only thereby the genealogists could tell the story of the return of the Heraclides and connect it with the arrival of the Dorians in Sparta (Kerenyi, vol.II).
Prinz assumes the existence of two different myths: the myth of Aigimios and the Dorians on one side, and the return of the Heraclides on the other side. If the Dorian dynasties want to trace themselfs to the Heraclides - and that means to Herakles - then the Dorians under Aigimios must have come to the Peloponnesos together with the Heraclides. The problem is that the Dorians don't appear in the myth of the Heraclides and were not mentioned in the Ilias too. In the so-called Catalogue of Ships all regions were listed as far as Thessalia but Doris is regularly avoided. Prinz assumes: Homer has naturally known the Dorians and Doris suggested for their homeland. But the Dorian myth didn't fit the Troyan cycle of legends. We don't know the Dorian myth, only some allusions, f.e. at Pindar who tells of a conquest of Aigina by king Aigimios and Hyllos, a myth which contradicts all Aiginetic myth. Doris itself couldn't have been the homeland of the Dorians because it is much too small. Much more probably it was a way station on the long migrations of the Dorians. Probably the myth around Aigimios is the older of the two. An argument is too that once there was a not preserved epos of Aigimios. Not until later the myth of the Heraclides was artificially added to the myth of Aigimos (the reception of the fugitive Heraclides and the adoption of Hyllos by king Aigimios).

I have added a pic of the recent coast of Tel Dor.

Sources:
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliche griechische Mythologie
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Karl Kerenyi, Die Heroengeschichten
- Friedrich Prinz, Gründungsmythen und Sagenchronologie
- Axel Gebhardt, Imperiale Politik und Provinziale Entwicklung
- Isidore of Seville's Etymologies: Complete English Translation, Volume I: The
  Complete English Translation of Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum Sive
  Originum Libri XX
- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Tel_Dor.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: His Star on December 18, 2008, 06:20:54 pm
I love reading your discoveries, you put a lot of work into your research - I especially found the town of Dor in the Bible fascinating. . .

Doros - son of Poseidon

Phoenicia, Dora, Trajan, AD 98-117
About 1100 BC Dora was occupied by the so-called Sea Peoples. It is mentioned several times in the Bible: Josua 11, 1-2; Josua 12, 23; Josua 17, 11; Richter 1, 27; 1.Könige 4, 11; 1.Chronik 7, 29. But it was autonomous and not dependent on the immigrating Israelites.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 28, 2008, 06:12:20 pm
The bound Ares

We have talked about Ares in this thread several times before:
1) Ares - the bloodthirsty killer
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.25
2) The Love of Ares and Aphrodite
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.150
3) The voting pebble of Athena
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.225

But the subject of this article is not Ares but the bound Ares!

Cilicia, Syedra, Marcus Aurelius, AD 161-180
AE 31, 14.04g
obv. AVT KAI M A - VR ANTWNINOC
Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. C - V - E - DRE - WN
       Ares in military cloak and wearing Corinthian helmet, resting with r.hand on his
       shield, stg. l. between Dike, in long garment stg. l., head turned r., and Hermes,
       nude, wearing winged boots and with kerykeion in l. arm, stg. l. and holding Ares
       with his r. hand.
ref. Ziegler, Kilikien - (rev. same die as no.121 for Lucius Verus)
very rare

This rev. motive is known from coins of Lucius Verus, Gallienus, Herennia Eruscilla and Valerian I. I have chosen a coin from CoinArchives because my own coin is in a bad shape.

CNG writes as note on this coin:
Ares slew Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon, for assaulting Ares' daughter, Alcippe. The site where Ares came before the gods for judgement became the Areopagos (Hill of Ares) in Athens, the location of the Athenian law courts. Ares was absolved of murder. It is unknown why this event had such import for Syedra, but the scene appears frequently on its 3rd century coinage.

Here I have the explanation:
In late Hellenistic times the inhabitants of Syedra like the whole coast of Asia Minor had to suffer by the repeated assaults of pirates. In this time of need the people of Synedra contacted the oracle of Klaros. And they got the advice to erect in their city a statue of Ares bound by Hermes and being judged by Dike. This statue was said to protect them against the assaults of the pirates. The base of the statue with the inscription of this action is preserved until now. Lit.: Götter, Städte, Feste. Ausstellung Münzsammlung München 1994, 23f.

It is interesting that we have many stories about the binding of gods, especially Ares. It seems to be a preferred Greek hobby to bind Ares. Pausanias (3.15.7) tells us that in Sparta opposite of the temple of Poseidon Hipposthenes an old statue has existed showing Ares Enyalios in chains. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Victory; the former think that Enyalius will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, and that manfulness and fortunes of war were bound to Sparta,.while the Athenians think that Victory, having no wings, will always remain where she is.

In one obscure archaic myth related in Homers Ilias (5. 385-391) by the goddess Dione  to her daughter Aphrodite, two chthonic giants, the Aloades, named Otus and Ephialtes, threw Ares into chains and put him in a bronze urn, where he remained for thirteen months. "And that would have been the end of Ares and his appetite for war, if the beautiful Eriboea, the young giants' stepmother, had not told Hermes what they had done," she related. "In this one suspects a festival of licence which is unleashed in the thirteenth month." Ares remained screaming and howling in the urn until Hermes rescued him and Artemis tricked the Aloadae into slaying each other. This happened on the island of Naxos.

Background:
The mythical and cultic binding of Ares has long evoked interest and commentary. Most scholars seek to explain these stories and practices by Ares' supposedly "dishonored" status, and both ancients and moderns have counted Ares among the "Forces of Evil" from which poleis protected themselves by a magical, prophylactic binding of his statue. But this view fails to place Ares' binding within the larger phenomenon of bound cult statues and do not account for the surprisingly complex image of the god in epic and tragedy. A brief exposition of generally neglected evidence will establish that cult statues, including Ares', were not chained to incapacitate their power, but to ensure their continued presence as protective powers. Moreover, for Ares in particular, literary and epigraphic evidence suggests that he was bound to the city as the avenging protector of the city's land and agent of Zeus' daughter Dike.
The binding of Ares' cult images is not an isolated phenomenon. Several ancient authorities, clearly testify that the images of the gods were bound in an effort keep them tied to their cities. The fifth century sources on this point speak with one voice. Their consistent reference to the binding of "Daidalian" sculptures indicates a practice considered ancient even in the fifth century B.C., and the many mythical bindings of various deities, including Zeus, shows such rituals to be extremely archaic indeed. While it is true that liminal and potentially troublesome deities like Aphrodite, Artemis, and Dionysos account for the lion's share of the explicit evidence for bound cult statues, we should remember that the power of every Greek god was a double-edged sword. Apollo could be the bearer or averter of disease. Demeter could either insure the fertility of crops or drive humans into a frenzy of pre-agricultural cannibalism. The cult of Ares, I would argue, was no different in this respect.
The complex rationales for Ares' binding appear most clearly in two inscriptions from southern Asia Minor, one from Pamphylian Syedra, and another example from Iconium. In both cases, an oracle bade the cities to create a statue group depicting Ares bound before Hermes and Dike. While the position of Ares as suppliant before an image of Justice could imply a malevolent and hostile relationship between Ares and the city, a closer reading of the inscription tends to undermine this reading. The relationship of Ares and Dike had earlier received considerable elaboration by none other than Aeschylus in his 'Septem' and 'Oresteia'. In these four plays, Ares is constantly and consistently depicted as the träger of cosmic, retributive justice. It is in this capacity that Ares appears alongside Zeus and Athena at the heart of the Athenian Ephebic oath, and similar concerns likely informed Ares' binding at Syedra and Iconium. Ares was bound and placed before Dike so that his violent and retributive energies would not harm the polis. Far from diminishing the god's power, cities sought to focus Ares' potentially destructive energies outward by binding his image to the land and subjecting him to Dike. This is the Ares found alongside Athena on the Shield of Achilles and invoked in the Hymn to Ares as "ally of Themis." (Matthew Gonzales)

I have added the pic of the ancient areopag in Athens from an earlier article.

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Pausanias, Sparta
Homeric Hymns to Ares
Wikipedia, Ares
Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen
Matthew Gonzales: The binding of Ares in Myth and Cult
AERIA (pic of the Areopagos)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 28, 2008, 06:14:58 pm
Volcanus

This article about the Roman god Volcanus should be the introduction to the later following article about the Greek god Hephaistos.

Valerian I, AD 253-260
AR - denarius, 20mm, 3.1g
Cologne, AD 258
obv. VALERIANVS PF AVG
Bust, draped, radiate, r.
rev. DEO VOLKANO
Tetrastyle temple with trigonal pediment, within statue of Vulcanus in exomis and wearing pileus, holding hammmer in raised r. hand and tongs in lowered l. hand; anvil at l. side.
RIC V/1, 5; C.2; Elmer 24, 74; Göbl/MIR36, 884d
about VF, rev. slightly excentric
Together with a coin with KARVS probably the only Roman coin with K in the legend.
exomis = short tunica used by workers

The unusual architectural type on the reverse of this coin may refer to the Temple of Volcanus in Rome, but it may rather be a shrine in the city where the coin was struck.

Volcanus, also Vulcanus, was a ancient firegod, whom the Romans - as so much - have taken from the Etruscans. Supposedly he was worshipped in Rome from the times of Romulus or Titius Tatius. At this time a Volcanal existed above the Comitium on the area Volcani. That was the old Roman nekropolis where he was offered fishes for sacrifices. Later a temple on the Campus Martis was built for him. The earliest archaeological traces were found under the Lapis Niger on the Forum Romanum. Because of the frequent thunder auguries (prodigies) Volcanus is often depicted with thunderbolts. His main festival, called Volcanalia, were celebrated on August 23, but another fest for him occured on May 23, called Tubilustrum, the purification of the trumpets.

217 BC is reported a lectisternium of Volcanus with Vesta, who stands for the civilized side of fire. Otherwise his companion was Maia or Maiesta. The priest of the cult of Volcanus was a flamen. In the centre of his cult stood the arms. He was an exceptionally gifted forger. His relation to fire are verified too by the cultic burning of arms. Therefore his temples are found always outside the cities. Already very early he was equated with the Greek god Hephaistos and Volcanus became a metonym of fire. AD 64 a supplicatio took place in order of the Sibyllinic books where expiatory sacrifices occured for Volcanus, Ceres and Proserpina because of the big fire of Rome under Nero (Tacitus, Ann.).

In the Roman mythology he was the father of king Servius Tullius, of Cacus and of Caeculus, the mythological founder of Preneste. He was born through the thigh of Juno (that seemed to be a favorite birthplace for gods, look at Bacchus/Dionysos!). Ancient explanations of his name from vis (strength) or quasi Volocanus from volare (flying) are wrong for sure. Modern connections with Etruscan gens Volca (the people of Volca) are at least doubtful. So his name until today is obscure. The centres of Volcanus cults were the Roman harbour Ostia, where he was the main city god, and Perusia.

We have seen that the Roman Volcanus originally has not much identicalness with the Greek hephaistos. He is missing the love stories and the many other deeds for which Hephaistos was famous or notorious. We will here of these in the coming articles in this thread. Self-evidently it is clear that especially during the Hellenism when the Greek culture spread over the Mediterranean the educated Roman took over more and more of the Greek mythology. But I think so much more it is important not to blur the differences but to emphasize them.

I have added the pic of a statuette of Volcanus from the 1st century AD showing him in his typical working cloak, a tunica and wearing a pileus, like on the rev. of Valerian's coin.

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.imperiumromanum.com/religion/antikereligion/volcanus_01.htm
http://www.ostia-antica.org/regio1/forum/circ.htm

Best regards and a Happy New Year
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2008, 05:55:16 pm
Hephaistos

Please note that the coins which I use as entrance for an article in this thread are in principle from my collection. Because of that there are unfortunately themes which I could not deal with. But the following coin I could catch in my net. I hope that there is something new for you in this contribution.

Ionia, Magnesia ad Maeandrum, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 34, 26.53g
struck under magistrate Dioskourides Gratos
obv. T AILIOC KAICAR - ANTWNEINOC
Head, laureate, r.
rev. EPI DIOCKOVRIDOV GRATOV MHTR MAGNHTWN
Hephaistos, nude to hips, holding hammer, std. l., and holding shield set on narrow cippus inscribed with ..N/..N/OC; dog or lion at r. side
ref. cf. Schultz 100 (only obv., same die); unpublished
very rare, about VF, impressive rev.

There is a great probability that the animal on the r. side of the rev. is a dog (and f.e. not a lion), because the dog was invented by Hephaistos and therefore in the Greek mythology, f.e. at Homer, had a privileged position compared to other animals. If it is a lion then he should have some relations to the shield or the inscription on it.

Anyone who is able to decipher the inscription on the shield or has at least some suggestions?

Mythology:
It is said that Hephaistos was the son of Zeus and Hera, but another version says that he was the son of Hera alone who has conceived him without Zeus by the aid of a herb. He was the god of fire as it appears as subterranean natural power in vulcanos, but also of the fire which is used by men in handicraft and artistry. So he was the god of forgers too.

When he was born he was so ugly that his mother in disgust threw him down from the Olympos. The sea goddesses Thetis and Eurynome are said to have catched him. Then he lived for nine years in a concealed sea cave and made precious jewelry for them. He made a wondrous throne too from which nobody was able to get up without his permission. This throne he sent to his mother Hera as a gift to punish her for her iniquity. When she was fixed to the throne no-one could induce Hephaistos to let her free. It was Dionysos who made him drunken with wine and then led him from his cave back to the Olympos. Hephaistos freed Hera but never stopped to be cross with her. Another version reports that it was Zeus who has thrown Hephaistos down from heaven. When once again Zeus was at strife with Hera Hephaistos has taken Hera's part until Zeus caught him by the foot and threw him off the Olympos.He is said to have fallen down on the island of Lemnos where he has lacerated his foot. He was taken by the Sintians who nursed him. Another myth tells that he was lame from birth.

Referring to Homer he has a self-built workshop on the Olympos, where he has built domiciles for the other gods too, and made there the most wonderfull works. Later he was told to have his workshops deep in fire-spitting mountains like the Aetna or on Lemnos, and his attendants were the Cyclops Brontes, Steropes and Pyrakmon. According to the Ilias his wife was Charis, one of the Graces, according to the Odyssee it was Aphrodite, who betrayed him with Ares. This love affair has been detected by Helios and he brought the news to Hephaistos. Hephaistos made an artful invisible net, threw it over the deceptive pair and called the Olympians as wittnesses of this infamous deed.

He was a kunstsinniger (with sense for art) and an ingenious god, and like Athena he taught the humans handicraft and art. The Athenians erected statues for him together with Athena and festivals occured for both deities together where torch runnings were executed.

According to Homer Hephaistos had no descendants. But in later times he was given several children from different mothers: Eros, Erichthonios, Periphetes, Palaimon, Rhadamanthys, Olenos, the nymph Thalia and the Cabires.

Here I have list of some of his well-known works and deeds:
1) He has helped to give birth to Athena when he cleft the head of Zeus so that she could rise out of his head in full suit of armour. Her wonderful helmet too was made by him, and the Aegis, the magic shield of Zeus.
2) One of his most famous works are the shield of Achilles and his weapons, which he has forged for Thetis after they were lost by Patroklos' death at Troy.
3) Less known is Talos, the Bronzeman. He, quasi a predecessor of the robots of today, was made by Hephaistos and walked as guardian threetimes a day round Crete. He has made much trouble to the Argonauts.
4) The metallic rattle came from Hephaistos with which Herakles has scared the Stymphalian Birds so that he could kill them with his arrows.
5) It was Hephaistos who forged Prometheus in order of Zeus to a rock of the Caucasus Mountains because he had stolen the fire from the gods.
6) In order of Zeus he formed from clay the first wife, who then got the name Pandora by Hermes. She too should revenge the fire-rape. Therefore he gave her a vessel full of evil and maladies and sent her to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus. Although he was warned by Prometheus never to take gifts from Zeus, Pandora opened the vessel for him and all evil spread over the world. Before hope, elpis, could escape too, she shut the vessel, but then let her free too. But the Golden Age was lost forever.
7) Then Hephaistos with the help of Athena chained Ixion to the eternal fire wheel in the Tartaros. Ixion, king of the Lapiths, once - drunken by wine - has tried to rape Hera. But Zeus has formed a figure shaped like Hera from a cloud, called Nephele, who then was raped by Ixion and has born the Kentauros.
This list is not nearly complete!

Background:
The name Hephaistos is unexplained until today. His apparent origin from Lemnos, known for its tectonic gas-fires, where he probably was genuine, speaks for the earthboundness of his elementary function. His local hypostases, Kedalion the dwarf forger and the bad smelling cripple Philoktetes, point to a numen resident in the subterranean sphere. That not only was active creatively and artisticly but curatively too. This type of goblin-shaped, magically and artfully working earth-demon had his firm position in the pre-Hellenic world. This is shown too by the Rhodian Telchines, the Lemnian Cabires and the Idaean Daktyles (look at the related article in this thread!). They all were strongly related to Hephaistos.

The treatment of ore evidently began in Asia Minor and the Pontic-Caucasic region. This art was partly connected to religion and like viniculture and breeding of mules it was a present of the Anatolic-Eastmediterranean culture. The passing on the Greek world is reflected in the myth of the Return of Hephaistos, who was brought back drunken on the back of a donkey to the Olympos by the wine-god Dionysos who has close relations to fire too.

The depiction of the ugly, lame and smutty god shows at first a clear arrogance against the banausos, the handicraftsman (who works with his hands), the technical specialist, the inventive mechanist, who despite of all his abilities remains socially of second rank. At Homer in contrast predominates the aspect of the fairy tales forger, who can made magic devices and as representative of a superior metal-art finally becomes equal-ranking with Athena and together with her becomes the guardian of arts and crafts.

With the diadochs Hephaistos came to India (Kaniska, Kushan), and in the West he
made himself the master of the Liparic volcanos. He replaced the Sicilian fire-demon Adranos and became the father of the Palikoi. Secondary he was equated with the Roman Volcanus.The Egypts identified him syncretistically with the Memphic creator-god Ptah, who has a similar shape and appearance, and so he became the Primal King, philosopher and protos eurethes (first inventor), yes, finally, the Megas Theos Hephaistos, the Great God Hephaistos.

History of Art:
We have ancient depictions of most of Hephaistos' deeds on bowls, vessels or metopes of temples. The favourite depiction was the return of the drunken Hephaistos to the Olympos by Dionysos, especially in the archaic art.

In Renaissance the depiction of the forge was liked, f.e. 'The forge of Vulcan' by Tintoretto, 1576, now in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Here comes Thetis, mother of Achilles, to beg for new arms for her son. Or here comes Aphrodite, begging the same for her son Aineias (f.e. Louis Le Nain, 1641, Reims, Musee St.Denis). The Netherlander M. van Heemskerck has 1540 dedicated a triptychon to the love-affair of Ares and Aphrodite. The right table (today in the Kunstmuseum in Vienne) shows in the foreground Hephaistos from back, the caught pair in the net, and right above the Olympians being convulsed with laughter.

Ich have added
1) A scene on a Attic red-figured Skyphos, c.430-40 BC, ascribed to the Kleophon painter. The scene depicts Hephaistos with hammer and tongue riding on the back of a donkey, led by Dionysos holding thyrsos. On the r. side Hera is seated fixed on the throne she had gotten by Hephaistos.
2) A pic of the painting of  Marten van Heemskerck.

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Homer, Odyssee
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K7.2.html
http://thanasis.com/hepha.htm
http://www.webwinds.com/myth/hephaestus2.htm
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 02, 2009, 05:13:47 pm
The drunken Hephaistos

Working on my contributions I always swing between the overall description of a deity and the depiction of a special event. Actually I tend to the latter. So I want to add an appendix to Hephaistos.

The coin:
Lydia, Sardeis, Domitian, AD 81-96
AE 32
struck under strategos T.FL.Metrodoros
Av.: DOMITIANOC KAICAR CEBAC - TOC G[E]RMANIKOC
Bust with Aegis on l. shoulder, laureate, r.
Rv.: [EPI T FL MHTRO]DWROV CTRA - TO B CARD / [IAWN] (TO ligate)
Youthful Dionysos in long clothes, std.l. on throne, resting with l. arm on back of throne and propping his head in l. hand; with r. hand pouring wine from his kantharos in a cup which Hephaistos holds to him in his l. hand; he, nude, stands r., wearing his typical hat and hlding his r. arm behind the back; before standing his hammer
ref.: SNG von Aulock 3149; RPC 1321; BMC 128

The rev. obviously depicts the scene which precedes directly his Return to the Olympos. Dionysos has invited Hephaistos to a meeting to make him drunken with wine.

Out of the many ancient depictions I have chosen the following three:

The first picture shows the depiction of the binge. Here however  we don't have only the two gods as on the coin but besides Dionysos, seated on the l. side of the kline, we see Ploutos holding a cornucopiae on the r. side, and both were surrounded by Satyrs and Mainads. Hephaistos, already drunken, is supported by a Satyr. Beneath Eros is playing with a goose. It is an Attic red-figured Krater from about 370-360 BC, who is ascribed to the Pourtales painter. Today in the British Museum.

The second pic shows the usual depiction of Hephaistos riding on the back of a donkey. In front of him Dionysos is standing with a kantharos full of wine. He is accompanied by Mainads. This archaic scene is from a black-figured Hydria from Caere (today Cerveteri), about 550-530 BC.

Last not least I want to share this detail of a calyx from the Kleophrades painter, c.500 BC. Again it shows the Return of Hephaistos to the Olympos. He is riding on the back of a donkey carrying his hammer over the shoulder. He is surrounded by Satyrs, the attendants of Dionysos, who led him to heaven. Today it is in the Art Museum of the Harvard Unversity in Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA.

If you look at these pics with open mind then you will detect a frappant correlation with Jesus' Entry into Jerusalem. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he made sure he was on the back of a donkey, like on the depictions of Dionysos and Hephaistos. There must be a purposeful allusion in the eyes of an ancient beholder. We know of more analogies between Jesus and Dionysos.

Finally I won't keep back what I have found in 'A Encyclopedia of  Archetypal Symbolism' by George R. Elder:
Our own defects may be akin to those of Hephaistos: an unacceptable physical appearance, a naïve tendency to trust the wrong people, some kind of sexual inadequacy. And they may drive us, as they did this deity, to bitter acts of vengeance. Or we may find that they spur us on, like a goad, to compensate with a degree of "Hephaestian creativity" that otherwise we simply would not achieve; exceptional athletes, including the fleet of foot, sometimes tell such stories. At the very least, our imperfections bring us "down to earth." They may even drop us deeper into the depths of ourselves to ponder the strange relationship of strength and weakness, success and failure, good and evil. Should we find ourselves there, Hephaistos advises that we keep handy one of his more useful tools: a sense of humor.

Sources:
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/HephaistosMyths.html
An Encyclopedia of  Archetypal Symbolism, vol.2, The body, by George R. Elder
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 03, 2009, 04:50:27 pm
Leto - mother of the twins Apollo and Artemis

Pisidia, Cremna, Aurelian, AD 270-275
AE 32, 14.38g
obv. IMP CS DOM AVRELIANO
       Bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. LATO CO - L KREMNE
      Leto, in double chiton, stg. facing, headl., holding on the shoulders her twins Apollo and
      Artemis, both nude; r. and l. at her feet a Cupid with torch
von Aulock, Pisidia, 1687; SNG von Aulock 8608
very rare, F-good F, some roughness
Possibly this is a marriage issue because of the Cupids?

Mythology:
Leto was the daughter of the Titans Koios and Phoibe and so the grandchild of Uranos and Gaia. About her birth nothing is known. The inhabitants of the island of Kos claim that she was born on their island, other suggest the land of the Hyperboreans. Because of her beauty Zeus fell in love with her and begot with her the twins Apollo and Artemis. It was said that this happened at Didyma near Milet. When Hera heard of this she persued her in anger because her Gaia, her  mother, has foretold her that Leto's children would become more famous than her own children. She sent the dragon Python to kill her and took the earth's oath to give her no place where the sun shine uponwhere she could deliver her children. But Poseidon let raise the swimming island of Delos out of the sea and Zeus told Hermes to bring Leto there.

But it is told too that Leto has had a sister named Asteria who - when Zeus went after her - has changed into a quail (ortyx). When Zeus in the shape of an eagle has reached her she - changed into a stone - fell down to the sea and became the rocky island of Ortygia, or Delos, because it raising from the deepness became visible (delos). There is the suggestion too that Leto herself has changed into a quail and in this shape has united with Zeus.

For nine days she was in labour, and all goddesses were present to help her, except Hera and Eileithyia, the midwife. Then she gave birth to Artemis first and the to Apollo, helped by Artemis. This all happened under a sacred palmtree. The Curetes - being present already at the birth of Zeus - made such a noise with her weapons that Hera doesn't recognize any of the delivery.

According to some writers Hera has sent Ares and Iris to interdict all places, visited by Leto,  to give her opportunity for delivery. Likewise she stirred up the Giant Tityos to chivy Leto when she was already pregnant. Therefore he was slain by Zeus with a thunderbolt. Some peasants in Lycia who didn't allow Leto and her children to drink from the spring Melite, where she has fled when Hera at last has discovered her at Delos, were changed by Zeus into frogs, and sub aqua, sub aqua, maledicere temptant (Ovid Metamorph. VI, V.339).

Because later Niobe, queen of Thebens, boasted about having seven sons and seven daughters whereas Leto only have two Leto complained of this heavy insult. This led to the horrible end of the Niobids: they all were shot by the poisoned arrows of Apollo and Artemis.

Python was slain by Apollo. When he has been expiated for his deed - Python was the son of Gaia - he took over the sanctuary of Delphi, were Python has dwelled.

Background:
Leto was a godess from Asia Minor, etrusc. letun, who already at Homer was the respected consort of Zeus and the mother of Apollo and Artemis. Her role as mother of twins indicates that she was an ancient fertility goddess. While birthing she touched the soil of Lycia or the Delian palm tree at the river Kynthos, while the entire nature wondrously welcomes this exemplary act of creation. Therefore it is impossible to place her name as 'concealer' to Lat.  latere. In fact it is like Lydia linguistically identical  with Lyc. lad/ta 'Lady'. The Cretian festival of Ekdysia was applied to the divine 'Lady' and motherly 'Mistress' as Leto Phytia. Nevertheless a primacy of the Cretian-Argivian place of Leto as Mediterranean Potnia Theron kai Phyton, 'Mistress of animals and plants', can't be claimed rightly because the goddess genuinely is stuck to several ancient sanctuaries in Lycia especially in the north of the valley of the river Xanthos at Araxa and at the spring Melite.

From here started the expansion of her cult over Phrygia, Pamphylia, the plain of the river Maiandros to Ortygia, the place of pilgrimage and mysteries near Ephesos. In Lycia too begins - represented by the mythic poet Olen - the important connection of the Letoides cult in Asia Minor with the Apollo cult of the Hyberboreans which reaches down to Neolithic roots and has Scythic-shamanic character. So the sanctuary of Ortygia in Asia Minor stands in contrast to the worshipping of the 'quail goddess' in Delos where the Hyberborean tradition has its central place. In the sign of the tree idol of the sacred palmtree the Leto cult comes in rivalry to the cult of the Zeus consort Hera. The Romans took over the goddess from the Doric Lower Italy with Doric name  Lato, which they expanded to Latona.

I have added the following pics:
1) The pic of an Attic red-figured Amphora showing Leto with her twins Apoll with lyre and Artemis with quiver. Today in the British Museum
2) The pic of Lsatona (Leto) with her twins on the shoulders threatened by Python. From an Ovid edition from AD 1786
3) A pic showing the Lycian peasants who withhold Leto to appease her thirst why they are changed into frogs. This pic came from Giulio Carponi AD 1665-1670.

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Der Kleine Pauly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leto
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisLeto.html
http://www.latein-pagina.de/ovid/ovid_m6.htm#9

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: wandigeaux (1940 - 2010) on January 15, 2009, 11:51:26 pm
I never would have noticed the two erotes at Leto's feet unless you had mentioned them (checking my specimen, they are there)!  In regards to the Niobids, not all were killed; Leto interceded with her children and they spared one of Niobe's daughters, thereafter called Cloris because the shock of her siblings' death left her permanently pale.  For what it is worth, I include an image of my Cremna Leto, and a coin of Caracalla from Argos depicting Leto with Cloris under her arm.  The Caracalla is BCD 1216;  my example is BCD 1218 (2), but I neglected to store an image (there is not much difference between them).

Caracalla, AE24 Argolis, Argos, NCP K XXXVII
Draped and cuirassed bust right, AYK KAICAP_ANTONINOC
Leto standing facing, head left, Cloris standing under her left arm, APGE_G_IWN


  Cheers, George Spradling
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 16, 2009, 07:45:13 am
Thanks, George, for your correction. You are right with Cloris. I have overlooked it.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 25, 2009, 05:21:26 pm
Ptah - the Creator God of Memphis

After a longer time now a coin from Alexandria:

Egypt, Alexandria, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - tetradrachm, 24mm, 12.82g
        struck AD 127/8 (year 12)
obv. AVT KAI - TRAI ADRIA CEB
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. L DWDE - KATOV (year 12)
      God Ptah-Sokar- Osiris, wrapped in mummy bandages, bearded, sun disk on head, stg. r., holding
      with both hands sceptre with jackal head (Anubis sceptre)
Milne 1262; Köln 982; Emmet 883; BMC 637; Dattari 1445; Hunter 637; Mionnet 1050
Rare, VF

The Creator God Ptah, the composer, ist one the oldest Egyptian gods. He is known from the 1st dynasty
and his main cult location was Memphis, the metropolis of the old Empire of Lower Egypt. It is said that he
has ruled already 9000 years previous to all other gods.

Nevertheless he never was member of the first rank of Egyptian gods. He always was in the shadow of Re,
Osiris and Amun. But in the cosmogony of Memphis he became the supreme Creator. According to the
cosmogony of Memphis Ptha has created the universe alone by the power of his heart and tongue, the power
of his will and his words. We remember the gospel of St.John: Kai ho logos sarx egeneto (The Wort became
flesh. He himself has created himself by his own.

He was seen as god of the craftsmen and he is said to have invengted the metallurgy. Imhotep, the famous
architect of Paraoh Djoser and erector of the step pyramid of Saccara, was suggested as son of Ptah. A central
role he naturally has played in Karnak and in the village of craftsmen in the Valley of the Kings.

Another myth tells that he has created the world on his pottery wheel. Thus he looked like the god Chnum. We
see that he was a chthonic deity too. His wife was the lion goddess Sachmet and with their child Nefertem the
Triad of Memphis was completed. As incarnation of the god the Apis bull was worshipped in Memphis.

Usually he is depicted in the shape of a human mummy in a narrow robe, shaven head with a narrow blue cap. As
symbol of his power he holds a sceptre composed of the Ankh sign, the Was sceptre and the Djed pile. Often he
stands on a base formed by the hieroglyph 'maA' as symbol of the universal order. In Memphis he introduced
the group of the nine gods from Heliopolis: Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. Created he has this
group by his thoughts and his word alone. In this way he created the legal order too. In this world order he was the
God of Light and Truth.

Already in the Old Empire his cult merged with the cult of the hawk-shaped Sokar of Memphis, who probably
has named Saccara. Because here was located the necropolis of the 1st dynasty the development of the Death God
Ptah-Sokar is understandable. Gradually this god merged with the other Death God Osiris to the deity Ptah-Sokar-Osiris,
who was responsible for creation, death and resurrection. Hence many of his wooden statues have been found as
burial gifts.

During the Hellenism Ptah was equated with the Greek god Hephaistos.

I have added the pic of a statue from the British Museum, which was used as burial gift, and a pic of the temple
of Ptah in Karnak.

Sources:
www.manetho.de
http://www.egyptianmyths.net/sokar.htm

Picture:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/aes/p/painted_wooden_figure_
of_ptah-.aspx

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 25, 2009, 05:23:27 pm
The Sibyl Mantho

It was my intention to write an article about Mantho already since a longer time. Now where we
have had a thread about Manto in the Forum I want to recapitulate what we have found so long
to add it to the mythology thread.

Thessaly, Pelinna, 400-344 BC
AE 20, 5.89g
obv. Veiled bust of the sibyl Mantho, daughter of tzhe seer Teiresias, with rolled-up hair, r.
rev. PELIN - NAIEWN
       Horseman, helmeted and wearing military cloak, with couching lance galopping r.; in the
       field beneath monogram from D and P.
ref. SNG Copenhagen 191; Rogers 433
F+, thick green patina

The case of Mantho is a bit confusing, because there are several persons with the same name,
and then there is Daphne, who is said to be Manto too. But let us begin from the start.

Manto was the daughter of the famous seer Teiresias from Thebes. Her mother was never
mentioned, but her sister Historis. She was a prophetess too, the first for the Ismenian Apollo
at Thebes, where monuments of her existed: a stony seat in the Pronaos of the Ismenion (Paus.
ix. 10. § 3), and subsequently of the Delphian and Clarian Apollo. Ovid (Met. VI, 257) reports,
that she have invoked the inhabitants of Thebes to warship Latona, mother of Apollo and Artemis.
After the taking of Thebes by the Epigoni, she, with other captives and the tenth part of the booty,
was dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. The god sent the captives to Asia Minor, where they founded
the sanctuary of Apollo not far from the place where afterwards the town of Kolophon was built.
Rhakios, a Cretan, who had settled there before, married Manto, and be­came by her the father
of Mopsus. According to Euripides, she had previously become the mother of Amphilochos and
Tisiphone, by Alkmaion, the matricide and leader of the Epigoni (Apollod. iii. 7. § 7.) Being a
prophetess of Apollo, she is also called Daphne, meaning the laurel virgin (Diod. iv. 66). (Greek
daphne = laurel).

According to the Greek mythology Daphne was the daughter of the Thessalian river-god Peneios.
Like Artemis she was a virgin huntress. When once Apollo has chided Cupido for his use of the
bow Cupido waited for his revenge. And when once Apollo saw Daphne bathing in a pool he took
his bow and shot Apollo with a golden arrow and Daphne with an arrow made of lead. Thus Apollo
fell in eternal love for Daphne, but Daphne spurned all love forever. Apollo chased her and she fled.
Exhausted she came to the banks of her father Peneios and cried for help, to make her less
lovable for Apollo. And he changed her into a laurel-tree: Her hair became leaves, her arms
branches and her head a tree top. But Apollo loved her still. He embraced the branches and kissed
the wood. From that time on Apollo loved the laurel above all trees and he always was wearing a
laurel wreath.

The truth of the matter can be the following: Daphne was the daughter of Teiresias, the blind Theban
Prophet who gave birth to her during the seven years when he had been a woman. His other daughter,
Manto, the mother of Mopsus, the seer, he sired after he was a man again. Daphne and Manto
were both taken captive when Thebes fell in the generation before Troy. Manto was sent to Ionia
where she married Rhacius, King of Caria, by whom she had Mopsus - said to be the son of Apollo.
Daphne remained a virgin and was sent to Delphi; most likely to add the power of Teiresias to the
Delphi oracle which had been taken over by the Apollonians. There she became the Sibyl. There
are some who say that Manto had her name changed to Daphne when she was sent to Delphi,
but this is perpetrated by Apollonians who forget that the Sibyl spurned Apollo's love, while Mopsus
was the son of Apollo and Manto.

Later Manto appears as sibyl. These were certain renowned women inspired by heaven with
prophecy and other celestial knowledge. They are generally regarded as numbering ten, residing
usually in the following places : Persia, Libya, Delphi, Erythraea, Samos, Tiburtis, Cumae in Aiolia,
Ancyra in Phrygia, and Marpessa on the Hellespont. The most celebrated of all was the Cumean
Sibyl, variously called Amalthea, Demophile, Herophile, Daphne, Manto, Pheimonoe, and Deiphobe;
she conducted Aeneas to hell, and offered successively nine, six, and at last three prophetic volumes
to Tarquinius (Look at the thread about the Sibyls). Strabo in his Geography mentions several sibyls
more.
 
In Verg. Aen. 10, 198 is mentioned a presaging nymph Manto, later by the river-god Tiberis mother
of Bianor or Ocnus, who named the city of Mantua in honour of his mother.

I have added a pic of Let/Latona from a Lucanian red-figured vase from the 4th century BC.

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
A mythological dictionary By Charles Kent, William Charles M. Kent
http://www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/delphi.html
Ovid Met. VI (online http://www.latein-pagina.de/index.html?http://www.latein-pagina.de/iexplorer/ovids_metas.htm
Pausanias, Reisen durch Griechenland, IX
Strabo, Geographie
Wikipedia

Thanks to CGPCGP from FORUM

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 12, 2009, 04:26:36 pm
The mysterious Pygmies

Often I use coins only as entrance for further inquiries. So I did here too.
 
Pygmies appear on Roman coins only rarely. I know only of the denarius of L. Roscus Fabatus,
Cr. 412/1, symbols 69. Recently I could acquire this coin from Alexandria showing a dancing Pygmy
on the rev.

Egypt, Alexandria, Diocletian, AD 284-305
Billon-Tetradrachm, 7.51g, 19mm
struck AD 291/2 (year 8 )
obv. DIOKLHTI - ANOC CEB
        Bust, draped, laureate, r.
rev. Horus (Harpokrates), stg. facing, wearing hemhem-crownrone, nude except chlamys over shoulders,
       holding branch in lowered r. hand and pomegranate in raised l. hand; at his l. side the small figur of a
       dancing Pygmy.
       in field L-H (year 8 )
ref. Milne 5021; Emmett 4062; Curtis 2005
about VF, interesting rev. type
pedigree:
ex coll. Zach Beasley (Beast Coins)
ex coll. Keith Emmett
ex Harlan Berk oct. 1991

Name and origin:
The Pygmies were a mythological people of dwarfs, which according to Homer, Il. 3, 3-7, lived far
in the North at the border of the Okeanos. Their name, Greek pygmaios, comes from the Greek
word for fist, pygme, which as meassure of length is equivalent to the length between ellbow and hand,
and so similar to the Lat. cubitus. Besides their smallness the Pygmies were so monstrous that their head
was the third part of the whole body. Plinius says, that their houses were made from eggshells. It is said that they
originated from Pygmaios, son of Doros and grandson of Epaphos (Steph. Byz. s.v. Pygmaioi).
 
The Geranomachia:
An old, pre-Homeric myth refers, that the Pygmies were in an eternal war with the cranes, their deadly enemies. Every
fall the cranes flew to the North to the border of the ocean and attacked the Pigmies. In this war,  the Geranomachia,
the Pygmies, barely as tall like the cranes, even though armed, usually were defeated and killed by the cranes.

Ovid mentions in his Metamorphoses (6, 90-92) a Pygmy mother, who risked to  compete with the goddess Juno in a match.
After defeated by Juno she was mutated into a crane and had to fight against her people on the side of the cranes. According
to another version, passed down from mythograph Antoninus Liberalis (Metamorphoses 16) the name of this beautiful and proud
Pygmy lady was Oinoe; after the transmutation into a crane she stayed at first in the region because he didn't want to get separated
from her son Nikodamas. But finally she was banished by Nikodamas and the other Pygmies. This was the origin of the hereditary
hostility between Pygmies and cranes.

The myth of the Pygmies was amplified in various ways, even in the way Lemuel Gulliver talk about the Lilliputians. So f.e.
Hekataios reports that they have done agriculture and cut down the grain stalks with axes. Here belongs especially the funny contrast the
graphic art has put the Pygmies to Herakles. We know from a pic where a Pygmy put a ladder to the cup of Herakles to drink from it.
Philostratos (Icon. 2, 21) describes the following event: After defeating Antaios Herakles was sleeping exhausted on the sand of Africa.
The Pygmies to revenge the death of Antaios approached Herakles and attacked him. One heap of troops moved against the left hand
of the hero, two others against his right hand. His feet were attacked by archers and slingers. The troop which attacked the head of Herakles
with scale ladders was commanded by the king of the Pygmies. Meanwhile Herakles woke up, laughed, wrapped up His Majesty and the
other war heroes and left the place.

The Pygmies and Egypt:
Later writers put the Pygmies usually to the sources of the Nile, where the cranes annually came from Scythia to fight against the Pygmies
for the seed. Aristoteles doesn't took this reports for fabulous but accepts them as people from Upper Egypt, holding rather small horses
and living in caves (Aristot. Hist. An. 8, 14). Strabon reports that there are two kinds of Pygmies, five spans long and three spans long, and
that it were the three span long little men who were at war with the cranes. Even later there is the talk about  Nordic Pygmies who lived in
the region of Thule, very small sized,short-living and armored with needle-like spears (Eust. ad Hom. p.372). Finally there is the talk of Indian
Pygmies who lived subterraneously on the other side of the river Ganges (f.e. Plin. H.N. 6, 22)

Sometimes the war of the Egyptian Pygmies against the cranes was explained to thsat effect that the Pygmies were symbols of the cubiti
of the Nile flood, which at the time when the cranes came from the North, was fallen down. Therefore we see sixteen Pygmies on the
famous  sculpture of the Nile in the Bracchio Nuovo of the Vaticane, which indicate the required water level of the Nile (please look at the thread
about the Nilus). The special relation between Harpokrates (Horus) and the Pygmies deserves a further study. I couldn't find anything about it.

Ranke-Graves assumed that the myth of the Pygmies reflects an historic event: the extrusion of a native farmer population in the Upper Nile Valley of short stature by pastoral people of higher stature who liked to stand on one leg only and so have made the look of crans.

The Pigmies in art:
The Geranomachia has inspired the imagination of many Greek, Etruscan and Roman Artists. It was depicted as tragicomical and entertaining
motive on vases, drinking vessels, wall paintings and cameos. It was interpreted as parody of the heroic legends. Even statuaries, rekliefs, mosaics
and lamps show Pygmies. Various attempts have been made to account for the singular belief in the existence of such a dwarfish nation, but it
seems to have its origin in the love of the marvellous, and the desire to imagine human beings, in different climes and in different ages, to be either
much greater or much smaller than ourselves.

I have added three pics:
(1) The pic of an Attic red-figured vase, ascribed to the Brygos painter, today in the Heremitage in St. Petersburg.
       It shows a Pygmy warrior fighting against a crane. He has grasped his neck and has raised a club to hit his head.
(2) The pic of a fresco from the House of the Doctor in Pompeji, AD 60. It shows the rural life of the Pygmies at the Nile.
(3) The pic of the colossal statue of the Nile from the Bracchio Nuovo of thre the Vaticane. This statue was found in Rome
      near the church S. Maria sopra Minerva and acquired according to at the suggestion of Jacob Burckhardt. 

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Ovid, Metamorphosen
www.theoi.com
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_pygmies.htm
Vollmer Griechische Mythologie, 1874
Der Kleine Pauly
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 13, 2009, 08:53:10 am
Poseidon and Troy

I think the most famous depiction of Poseidon/Neptun on Roman coins is the rev. of the Agrippa as. Therefore I want to share another one, from Alexandreia Troas, showing some nice details.

Troas, Alexandrteia, Maximinus I, AD 235-238
AE 26, 8.18g
obv. IMP MAXI - MINVS PIVS AVG
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. COL AVG - TR - O
      Poseidon, nude, stg. r., l. foot set on dolphin, r. hand drawn back with trident pointing forwards, on extended l. arm a hippokampos
ref. Bellinger A362, type 38 (same diese); SNG Copenhagen 171
This motiv is known from Anchialos too, f.e. Severus Varbanov (engl.) 712
Look at the long horse mouth!

Poseidon and Troy:
Poseidon is strongly connected to Troy. But this relation is very ambivalent. In the battle against the Titans (Titanomachia) Poseidon was fighting on the side of Zeus, after he obtained the trident as gift of the Cyclops. When the Titans were thrown to the Tartaros, Poseidon prevented by iron gates that they ever could escape. But when later the gods revolted against the dominance of Zeus Poseidon was together with them. Poseidon especially was he who has bound Zeus. When Zeus finally succeeded he was condemned to serve Laomedon, king of Troy, for some time. Together with Apollo, who has to suffer the same verdict, he helped the Trojans to built there huuge wall around the city. With Laomedon they have arranged a wage. But when they have finished the wall Laomedon because of his greed denied his promises and both went off with empty hands. Poseidon took vengeance on Laomedon by flooding large parts of his countries. And he sent a sea monster to whom the Trojans had to give every time a virgin to devour (Homer, Il. 507), until the monster was finally killed by Perseus. So it is understandable that Poseidon in the Trojan War stood on the side of the Greeks against the Trojans. As the Trojan War was entering it’s most bloody phase, Poseidon, against the strict orders of Zeus, entered the fray. He went through the ranks of the strong-grieved Akhaians (Akhaians) and urged them to have courage and to lust for victory over the Trojans, who seemed to be winning the war. Zeus had been seduced by Hera and was lounging in the afterglow of love on Mount Ida when he heard Poseidon bellowing and screaming from the battlefield in the valley below. Zeus had warned the Immortals to stay away from Troy and now he could see that Hera had tricked him and Poseidon had disobeyed him. Zeus contained his anger and did not lash out at his brother. He sent Iris, the storm-footed messenger instead. She warned Poseidon off the battlefield and Poseidon quickly agreed to withdraw but he was defiant. He said he would leave because of his respect for Zeus but not because of fear.

Some notes on Poseidon:
Poseidon was the son of Kronos and Rhea. After the fall of the Titans the kosmos was divided under Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. The name Poseidon is found already in Mycenean Linear B as po-se-da-o. The most attention of the modern etymologies attracts that of P. Kretschmer which connects Poseidon to posei (to posis, master, spouse) and Da (to Ga, Gaia, earth). If Poseidon is called 'the master = spouse of Earth', in the sense of the hieros gamos, the Holy Wedding, then he must have been at first a god of freah water because of the infertility of salt water. His function to fertilize Mother Earth matches well his typological relationship to Zeus from whom he is often only dificult to distinguish. The trident seems to have replaced at first the thunderbolt as Poseidon's weapon. This matches well the Lightning Mark on the Akropolis in Athens (Erychtheion) which is said to come from Poseidon and was not allowed to be roofed.

The Hippokampos:
The etymology is easy: Greek hippos, 'horse', and kampo, 'I bend'. So the Hippokamps is the 'bended horse'. This was the ancient name of the sea horse, Lat. equus marinus. Pausanias writes: 'a horse that is formed from the chest as a sea monster (ketos).' It is known already in Etruscan art and appears regularly on wall paintings and reliefs of tombstones, sarcophaguses and sepulchral gables. There it is found winged too. It is possible that this an argument for the Etruscan belief that the deceased by a sea voyage reached the other world. Literally Hippokampos is mentioned only rarely. Much more the Hippokampos appears in fine arts especially in the Roman Imperial Time. Here to especially on sarkophaguses and ash chests, but on mosaics and wall paintings too, less on coins or intaglios.

The Kampe was an chthonic female monster, a monstrous she-dragon who was set by Kronos to guard the Cyclops and Hekatoncheirs in the Tartaros. She was killed by Zeus when he rescued the Cyclops for help against the Titans in the Titanomachia. The Kampe (meaning 'crooked', as in 'Hippokampos') has no mythological connection to 'Hippokampos'. Diodor describes her as an earth-born monster near the Libyan city Zabirna. After having killed her Dionysos erected a vast tumulus. This seems to be the origin of the myth.

I have added the following:
(1) the pic of a Hippokampos on a mosaic from Bath/England, 2nd century AD
(2) a pic of the Neptun statue from the Fontana di Trevi in Rome.

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Der Kleine Pauly
http://messagenet.com/myths/bios/poseidon.html
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Poseidon.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poseidon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocamp

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 07, 2009, 01:47:42 pm
Hadad - Jupiter Heliopolitanus

Syria, Dium, Geta as Caesar, AD 209-211
AE 24, 11.37g
struck AD 205/6 (= year 268)
obv. POVP - C GETAC K
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, bare-headed, r.
rev. HZC - DEIHN - WN (year 268)
       Hadad (Jupiter Heliopolitanus), in typical scaly garment, wearing kalathos with     
       bull's horns, stg. frontal, holding eagle-tipped sceptre in r. hand and Nike in l.     
       hand; at his feet on each side a bull's protome looking outwards.
ref. Spijkerman p.118, 6, pl.24, 6; SNG ANS, 1281-2; BMC 1; Lindgren 2202;
       Rosenberger IV, 34, 5; Meshorer 244; Hendin 848
very rare, VF, brown patina

Mythology
Hadad is a West Semitic weather and storm god, son of the sky god Anu. He corresponds to the Accadic god Adad. His veneration is traceable from the end of the 3rd century BC, in Mesopotamia especially from Amoritic personal names. There he represents the fruit bringing rain, lightning, thunder and hail, but he is responsible too for aridity, deluge and salinization of earth. In Syria Hadad became as Baal-Hadad (so in the myths of Ugarit) the Baal per se. As his seat was suggested the holy mountain Zaphon  (Mons Casius) south of the mouth of the river Orontes (please look at the article about Zeus Kasios in the Mythology Thread). In Hellenistic-Roman times he was equated with Zeus-Jupiter and whorshipped as Jupiter Heliopolitanus especially in Baalbek, Hierapolis and Dura-Europos. The famous Trias of Heliopolis of Jupiter, Minerva and Hermes (= Hadad, Atargatis/Astarte and Adon) probably originates from the times of Augustus. Sometimes he was associated too with Jupiter Dolichenus, another Syrian Version.

Traces of the cult of Jupiter Heliopolitanus were found in Athens, Rome, Pannonia, Gaul and Britannia, where it was brought by Roman soldiers. A temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus stood even in Rome on the Janiculum Hill, erected probably in the time of the Antonines and Severans, when his cult was established in Rome. This temple probably was built in the the grove of the goddess Furrina and was located outside of the pomerium, the holy border of the city.  The spring in the temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus, which you can see until today, probably was the spring of Furrina. An inscription was found Iovi Optimo Maximo Heliopolitano Augusto, genio Forinarum et cultoribus huius loci, showing the close connection of these two cult sites. AD 341 this temple was demolished by the Christians.

Curiously there are no depictions of Jupiter Heliopolitanus on coins of Heliopolis. Heliopolis has struck only coins with his great temple and the legend IOMH, meaning Jupiter Optimus Maximus Heliopolitanus. Depictions are found in several other cities like Ptolemais-Akka, Neapolis, Eleutheropolis, Diospolis-Lydda, Nikopolis and just Dium.

Iconography
The depictions of Jupiter Heliopolitanus can be arranged in three groups:
(1) in scabbard garment (ependytes)
(2) baetylic style
(3) Greek
On coins of Geta and Elagabalus a frontal standing deity is depicted, wearing kalathos with bull's horns, flanked by two bulls or bull protomes, resting with r. hand on an eagle-tipped sceptre; on the sidewards extended l. hand a small Nike is standing. The deity is dressed with a scabbard-like garment (the so-called ependytes). Bulls, horns kalathos and ependytes are iconographical features which are characteristic for the West Semitic god Hadad. Obviously even in Hellenistic-Roman times several cities of the region owned an appropriate cult statue of Hadad which they struck on their coins, or they have taken the famous type of Jupiter Heliopolitanus acting for their own local main deity.

In this way the iconography remained more or less orientally influenced. Especially widespread was the typus of the standing Hadad in scabbard garment, flanked by two bulls, wearing a whip in his raised l. hand and in his r. hand grain-ears. Probably it was the supra-regional relevance of Zeus Hadad from Heliopolis (Jupiter Heliopolis) which led to the wide distribution of this typus.

The coin type of Dion resembles the famous cult statue of Heliopolis but has some differences in the position of arms and attributes which emphasizes special functions of the deity. So the sceptre of the coin depiction underlines his status as 'Lord of the Polis'. Nike in his hand brings out his victorious character. This depiction is borrowed from the canonical typus of Zeus Nikephoros passed down from coins of Gadara and Scythopolis. Altogether with Nike and eagle-tipped sceptre the connection with Zeus is here obvious. The type of Zeus Hadad in ependytes - rare in the region of Dekapolis - is found more frequently on the west side of the river Jordan since the time of Marcus Aurelius, particular frequently during the dynasty of the Severans.

In difference to the Greek type Heliopolitanus is here depicted unbearded. The bulls usually are added to the Oriental and Anatolic weather gods as accompanying or pack-animals. Usually they belong to the race of humped bulls. Most remarkable is the scabbard garment. We know it from the Ephesian Artemis or the Aphrodite from Aphrodisias. By vertical and horizontal straps it is divided in rows and fields. These are filled with depictions of deities, star and sun motifs and are raising Heliopolitanus to a pantheistic god and Master of the Universe. Surviving statues show that  the zodiacal signs too were used. Other images show furthermore the Palmyrenian Trias of Bel, Aglibol and Yarhibol.

Some notes on this emission:
The cults of  Dion are known until now only by numismatic sources; these emissions come from the reign of Septimius Severus and have beeen struck probably on the occasion of an imminent war against the Parthians and the movement of Roman troops, in a time therefore where Rome was in preparation of an armed conflict with the Parthians. This could be the reason to present the City God as Nikephoros.

Baalbek:
Jupiter Heliopolitanus was the main god of the Syrian-Hellenistic city of Heliopolis (= city of the sun god Helios), were formerly Baal-Biq'ah was worshipped (therefore the recent name Baal'bek in Libane).

The history of Baalbeck dates back around 5000 years. Excavations near the Jupiter temple have revealed the existence of ancient human habitation dating to the Early Bronze Age (2900-2300 BC). The Phoenicians settled in Baalbeck as early as 2000 BC and built their first temple dedicated to the God Baal.

When Alexander the Great appears in the 4th century BC, the location was renamed 'Heliopolis'. Baal was identified with the sun god Helios, which didn't make problems because Baal was worshipped as god of fertility, thunderstorm, sky and sun. The Romans, coming to Syria in the middle of the 1st century BC, identified Baal with Jupiter, whose functions easily could arranged with those of Baal and Helios. The Romans called their god of Baalbek 'JupiterHeliopolitanus' and built up a sanctuary over more than three centuries to one of the biggest of the whole Empire, and a place of oracular divination. The temple ruins which could be seen today are from the times of Septimius Severus, whose first coins show this temple. The large courts of approach were finished under Caracalla and Philip I. From the ancient Greek buildings nothing was left over.

When the Christianity was introduced in the 4th century AD the Byzantine emperor Theodosius let break down parts of the temple. 8 columns were removed and shipped to Constantinople where they were used for his basilica Hagia Sophia. Today, only six Corinthian columns remain standing. In the entrance area he let erect the church of St.Barbara who is worshipped in Baalbek until today. But the church built in the entrance was just a thorn in the god's side; the peasants observed that the river still ran red every rainy season with the ancient Semitic god's blood -- the red silt.

I have added
(1) a pic of the bronze statuette of Jupiter Heliopolitanus from the coll. of Charles Sursock, now in the Louvre/Paris. This statue is a bit different from the coin depiction. The statue stands on a decorated base, the bulls are standing forward and the god holds a whip in his raised r.hand and grain-ears in his l. hand. The position of the bulls is caused by the space of the coin. The whip here is not the attribut of the sun god but probably a lightning symbol (Rene Dussaud, Jupiter Heliopolitain, Bronze de la collection Charles Sursock)
(2) a pic of the ruins of Baalbek as you can see them today.

Sources:
- Der kleine Pauly
- Youssef Hajjar, Jupiter Heliopolitanus, in: Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Die Orientalischen Religionen im Römerreich, 1997 Brill
- on Furina:
  http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/furrina.html
  http://www.aztriad.com/furrina2.html (pics)
- on Baal:
  http://www.rafa.at/11_baal.htm
  http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc01/htm/iii.ix.ii.htm
- on Christianity:
  http://www.vinland.org/scamp/grove/kreich/chapter9.html
- on Dium:
  http://www.diss.fu-berlin.de/diss/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/FUDISS_derivate_000000001712/07_Kapitel3Dion.pdf;jsessionid=594618E48B528321C67BEB887E201F9E?hosts%3D+hadad+heliopolitanus&cd=1&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de
-  on Baalbek:
   http://www.berro.com/lebanese_touristic_sites/baalbeck.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 19, 2009, 09:31:28 am
Io/Hathor (and Marnas)

I have found coins with depictions of Io only from Gaza. Why just from Gaza can't be explained for sure. The connection between Io and Gaza really is very thin. A possible approach could be the connection of Io to Egyptian deities like Isis or Hathor. Perhaps there was in Gaza a temple of Hathor which is not found until today (CNG). If that is true then the Greeks can well have identified her with Io.

The coin:
Judaea, Gaza, Julia Domna, AD 193-211
AE 22, 6.18g
struck 206/7 (year 267 of the era of Gaza)
obv. IOVLIA - DOMNA
        bust, draped, r.
rev. [G]AZA - EI[W]
       Io/Hathor, in long garment, stg. l., clasping hands with the City Goddess (Tyche),
       stg. r, wearing long garment and mural crown and holding cornucopiae in l. arm;
       between the the Phoenician Mem, symbol of Marnas, the local god of Gaza.
ref. BMC 128
about VF, flan damage at 10 o'clock.
Note: Sometimes we find Io in the shape of an heifer at the feet of the City Goddess.

Io:
Io (actually a shortform for Iole, Iokaste or the like), a nymph, was the daughter of the Argolic river-god Inachos and Melia. She was a priestress of Hera with whom Zeus fell in love because of her beauty. He changed to a fog and seduced her. That was regarded by his jealous wife Hera. To camouflage the rape Zeus changed Io into a white-glossy cow. But Hera saw through his trick and asked for the cow as gift. Zeus couldn't deny her ask. Hera then charged the hundred-eyed giant Argos Panoptes (who sees all) to bring Io to Mykenai and to guard her. Zeus sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and Hermes put to sleep Argos by playing on his flute and killed him (whereafter he was called Argeiophontes, the Argos Killer), so that Io - still in the shape of a cow - could escape. This too was regarded by Hera. In memory of Argos she put his eyes on the tail feather of the peacock  and she sent a horsefly, which pursued Io ceaselessly and threw her in panic. On her flight she crossed the sea which later was called Ionian Sea after her and crossed the ford between Europe and Asia, owing its name Bosporos (cow ford) to Io too. Then she was galopping to Scythia, the mouth of the Danube, the Crimean peninsula and came to the Caucasus Mountains. There Io met Prometheus, who still was chained to the rock. He foretold her her future fate.

Over India, Arabia and Ethopia Io finally came to Egypt where she begged the gods to save her. Because of the pleading requests of Zeus Hera agreed and gave her back her human shape and she gave birth to Epaphos. Hera, not yet  satisfied in her avenge, asked the Curetes to hide Epaphos and they let him disappear. Therefore they were killed by Zeus. Io was wandering through whole Syria in search of Epaphos because she has heard that he was brought up by the wife of the king of Byblos. When she has found him she returned to Egypt, married king Telegonos and introduced the cult of Demeter, who is called Isis by the Egyptians. Io herself was identified with Isis too and Epaphos with the Apis Bull. She was said to have caused the Nile Flood and have saved the life of seamen. Epaphos married Memphis and became father of Libya who gave her name to the country of Libya. But this Greek suggestions can not remain because the Egyptian cults are much older than the myths of Io. Probably the wanderings of Io reflect the spreading of the Demeter cult and should confirm the Greek supremacy over all these countries.

In Aischylos' 'Prometheus' Io is no more the priestress of Hera, but the shy child of a king and distressed by Zeus by dreams which she committed to her father to find protection against Zeus. But an oracle of the god expelled her to a long travel. She fell in madness and the head of a cow was growing on her. She was chased by a giant and after his death by a mosquito. But by all her suffering Zeus led her to the land of fulfillment.

Sophokles has written a satyrical drame 'Inachos'. The Cyrenaicean Kallimachos suggested the festive reception of Io by the Egyptian gods as symbol for the melting of Greek and Egyptian culture. 

Herodotos in his Histories has a more rationalizing view: Io was the daughter of Inachos, the king of Argos. When the Phoenicians came to Argos for selling their products and Io was visiting their stalls, the Phoenicians raped her, whereupon the Greeks raped Europa, the daughter of the king of Tyros. So the abduction of women came in use: the Rape of Helena (Ilias) or the Rape of Medea (myth of the Argonauts). However it was told by the Phoenicians too that Io was pregnant by the shipmaster and in fear of the anger of her parents she was going with the Phoenicians of her one's free will.

The ancient interpretation of Io as Moon Goddess (because of the cow's horns) was accepted still until now, so Ranke-Graves. But it is more probable that Io came from the cult circle of the  βοωπις 'Ηρα (the cow-eyed Hera), whose hypostasis Io is and whose earliest manifestation she reflects. Similar motifs are found in the myth of the Proitids.

Notes:
(1) Hypostasis = Personification of a feature or an epithet, embodiment of an own deity
(2) Proitids = the 3 daughters of Proitos, Lysippe, Iphinoe and Iphianassa. They all were priestresses of Hera but because of their beauty and the wealth of their parents felt superior to the goddess (or - according to another tradition - have denied to worship Dionysos) and became mad. They regarded themselves as cows, walked around on fields, mooed like cows, fumbled always for the horns on their heads and
feared to be harnessed to the plough. It is said that they were saved by Melampos.

Hathor:
The Egyptian goddess Hathor shares with Io the shape of a cow. She is one of the oldest Egyptian goddesses and known alread fom the 1st dynasty. At first she was a local deity who then ascended to the Sky Goddess of the West and finally became the universal Mother Deity. Iconographically she was very similar to the even older goddess Bat who at last was absorbed by Hathor. At first she was worshipped as a cow, then depicted as a goddes with cow's horns pointing outwards and with the sun disk between. She was the wife of the sun god Ra and gave birth to Horus. Later she handed over symbols and functions to the younger Isis. Both were Mother and Death Goddesses. Since the New Empire Hathor could no more be distinguished from Isis.

Marnas:
Remarkable on the coin is the symbol between the two deities. It is the Phoenician letter 'mem' (M, there is another one too), the symbol of the god Marnas. Marnas is known only from Gaza. In fact there was found a column of Gordian III in Ostia with an inscription naming Marnas, but wether there was a sanctuary of Marnas in the western Empire is unproved. The name 'Marnas' means Aramaic 'Lord', like Hadad and Baal too. He was the local god and guardian of Gaza. He was seen as god of rain and grain and therfore invoked in the case of famine. He appears on coins since the time of Hadrian. Septimius Severus (or Severus Alexander?) is said to have sometimes exclaimed his name to vent his anger.

In Gaza Marnas was identified with Zeus Kretagenes, the Cretan Zeus. It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion — the last surviving great cult center of paganism — was burned by order of the Roman emperor Arcadius in AD 402. Treading upon the sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. Christians later used these same to pave the public marketplace. But the veneration of the old cult was so great that even after years the inhabitants of Gaza haven't entered this place.

Note:
Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain and agriculture. He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla and Ugarit. He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Biblical Philistines.

History of Art:
In archaic works of art and until the 5th century BC Io was depicted as cow guarded b Argos, since the 5th century BC as wife with horns. On a Roman fresco in the House of Livia in Rome (c. AD 30) she is sitting on a rock between Argos and Hermes. Especially popular were scenes 'Io and Argos (and Hermes)' and 'Io's arrival in Egypt' on Pompeian wall paintings.  Together with Hermes, Argos an Hera Io appears on the reliefs of Antonio Filarete on the bronze doors of St.Peter in Rome (1433-45). Corregio has painted the copulation with Io in his series of Love adventures of Zeus.

I have added
(1) the pic of a red-figured hydria, ascribed to the Agrigento-painter. It is from 470-460 BC and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston/USA. It shows the moment where Hermes draws his sword to kill Argos Panoptes, who covered with eyes should guard Io. At the left side Zeus and Hera are standing and regard the scene (The pic is made of several parts of the painting)
(2) the pic of a Pompeian fresko from the Temple of Isis, today in the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale in Naples/Italy. This fresco is from the 1st century BC and shows Io's arrival in Egypt. She is welcomed by Isis and the small Harpokrates.
(3) a pic of the painting of Corregio 'Jupiter and Io', AD 1531/2, now in the KM in Vienna/Austria.

Sources:
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Aischylos, Prometheus
Apollodoros, Bibliotheke
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online)
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Heros et dieux de l'antiquite. Guide iconographique
Maarten Jozef Vermaseren, Die Orientalischen Religionen im Römerreich (online)
Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire (online)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagon
http://www.theoi.com/Heroine/Io.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 27, 2009, 12:00:21 pm
Saturn - the old Roman God of Agriculture

Coin:
Gallienus, AD 253-268
AR - Antoninianus, 4.4g, 22mm
Antiochia, AD 266/67
obv. GALLIENVS AVG
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. AETERNI - TAS AVG
       Saturnus, bearded, togate and veiled, stg. frontal, head r., holding with r. hand
       garment before breast and in l. hand harpa
       in ex. P XV (short for TRP XV)
ref. Göbl 1662i; RIC V/1, 606 var. (holds sceptre); C. 44 var.
rare, about VF, some strike weakness
note: harpa =  scythe = falx = sickle

On this coin:
That on this coin Saturn is depicted was first recognized by Eckhel. It has already been seen that the Sun was the most usual symbol of Eternity. Now, Macrobius affirms that Saturn was identical with the Sun, and he also shows, that Saturn was the same as Time. Euripides calls Time the son of Saturn. "Therefore as Eternity consists of a perpetual succession of Time, so we see Saturn very properly serving to represent it. And truly the selection of such a type is the more appropiate in this instance, inasmuch as he, who is said to have established the Golden Age in Latium, was also best enabled to furnish forth a Golden Eternity." (Stevenson)

Mythology:
It is said that Saturnus, expelled by Jupiter, has landed as fugitive with his ship at the coast of Latium. This has happened at the reign of king Janus, and he has welcomed Saturnus cordially and as gratitude for teaching him and his people agriculture he took him as co-regent. While Janus has his castle on the Janiculum Hill, Saturnus founded his city Saturnia on the later Mons Capitolinus called hill. This time was seen by the Romans as a time of an uncomplex and happy life, the Golden Age, which was commemorate by the Romans as Saturnalia Regna. This already very elaborate myth is originated from the Augustean time.

For Janus please look at the related article in this thread https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.125 

Background:
Saturn is an age-old Roman god and originally has nothing to do with the Greek Kronos. Please look at the article about Kronos in this thread https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.50 Sadly he is already very early mixed up with Kronos , and already in ancient times ist was very difficult to differentiate him from Kronos. Now here what we know about him:

His origin was unclear already in antiquity. Disputed is a mediterranean origin or an indo-european. He could come from Phrygia where a god named Satra is worshipped. Or the Romans could have Saturn from the Etruscans who knew a god Satre. Illyria is discussed, but as well he could be pure Italic (f.e. Sabinean or Siculic) or Greek (by Etruscan mediation. To cut a long story: No one knows! 

Etymological too we have difficulties. Roman writers know the phrase ab satu est dictus. According to that he could be a god of Time and his name originates from
saturare. This is contradicted by the expressions Saturnus or Saeturnus, which are built like Volturnus, Nocturnus oder Iuturna.

From a myth of Saturn we have only fragmentarily preserved reports mixing Greek and Roman conceptins. At first Saturn is a deity (or numen) of agriculture and united with Lua he ruled over the Capitolium which formerly was called mons Saturnius. There was a Saturni fanum in faucibus, an altar of Saturn, near the foot of the hill. This Sabinean agriculture god could possibly from the Etruscan Satre has his name and the bloody character of the god of the munera, surely his chthonic origin. During his month, December, several festivals of chthonic gods took place: Consualia, Saturnalia and Opalia.

From the Greek Kronos Saturn has borrowed appearance and garb: the velatum caput, the sickle in his hand, the ritus Graecus. His connection with Kronos became more close - probably caused by the Greeks - because of the economic relations with the agriculture of Sicily and due to the influence of Orphic and Pythagorean ideas (Kronos - Chronos). Saturn became the ruler of the Saturnalia Regna, the God of the Golden Age - a Greek idea too and the Greeks have searched the Islands of Happiness always in the West -  and soon a literary topos.

During the Principate, in Italy (except North-Italy) and in the provinces (except Africa) Saturn is almost unknown. But in the Roman provinces of Nort-Africa Saturn was the main-god. However the Latin name hides a Berberian 'Ammon', who himself was covered by the Punic Baal-Hammon. The sacrificing of children (molk) was substituted under Roman influence by animal sacrifices (molchomor). But according to Tertullian the cruel offerings have continued in secrecy. From end of the 2nd to the begin of the 3rd century the cult of Saturn has its largest distribution. Until today about 3000 votive steles have been found, the youngest from AD 323. But still in the time of Augustinus the Saturn cult was flourishing.

Notes:
(1) Lua = An old-Roman goddess, her full name Lua Mater, cult asociate of Saturn and together with him invoked in prayer formulas as Luna Saturni. To her captured arms were burned (f.e. the arms of the Volsci by C. Plautius, see Livy). Because this practice bears the character of an expiation ceremony we have to see in Lua an hostile deity about whose conciliation one has to try. Her name can't be separated from  luere, to destroy.
(2) munera (munera gladiatoria) = Gladiator Games
(3) ritus Graecus = the Greek manner to do sacrifices, f.e. unveiled

History of Art:
The construction of the big Saturn temple has begun already in the time of kings, and in Republican time 498 BC -  direct after the expelling of the Etruscan kings - it was inaugurated. But already before the erection of the Saturn temple there was an age-old altar of Saturn at the foot of the Capitolium. Saturn - after Jupiter - was one of the most venerated gods of the ancient Romans. This explains the very early erection of his temple. So - after the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus - it is one of the oldest sanctuaries of ancient Rome. Today we see the remnants of the columnar front which came from the reconstruction after the fire in AD 283. In the porch resided the Aerarium Saturni, the depository of the treasury, the arms, the tablets of the laws and the resolutions of the Senate. On the east side of the podium the acta diurna, the public announcements, have been attached.

The added pic shows the columnar front on the Forum in Rome.

Sources:
Livius, Ab urbe condita (online under http://www.archive.org/details/titiliviaburbec00wlgoog )
Cicero, De Natura Deorum
Der Kleine Pauly
W.H.Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (online)
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Stevenson, Dictionary of Roman Coins (online at Forum Ancient Coins)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 30, 2009, 01:12:27 pm
Herakles and the Cretan Bull

I'm happy that I  can share this coin which I have searched after for a long time. I know that its state is not the best, but better coins are always very expensive.

The coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 28
struck under governor Aurelius Gallus
obv. AVT.L.CEPT - CEVHR PER
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. VP AV[R GALLOV NIKOPOLIT]WN / PROC ICTR
      beneath: the bow
      The Cretan Bull with uplifted  forelegs and raised tail prancing l.; Herakles, nude, running
      beside him l., embracing with both hands the bull's head to subdue him; club on ground
      behind Hercules’ right foot
ref. AMNG I/1, 1309; Varbanov (engl.) 2710; Voegtli type 4m
rare, F+

Mythology:
Minos, king of Crete, has established his right of the throne by claiming that his rule over Crete was god-given. To prove that claim he declared that each of his prayers would answered by the gods. Hereupon Minos offered Poseidon to sacrifice the next animal to him which would rise from the sea, because not one of his own animals was worthy such an important sacrifice. There Poseidon sent an exceptional noble white bull. Minos however - attired in the beauty of this bull - hid him in his herd, embezzled him to the god and sacrificed instead of this bull another one from his own animals. Poseidon enraged because of this sacrilege damned Minos' wife Pasiphae so that she fell in immortal love to the bull. By the ingenious Daidalos she let built a wooden stage in the shape of a cow, covered with a cow's skin, and then she crawled into this stage and unified with the bull. From this unification emerged the Minotauros, a being with human body and a bull's head. Minos at first wanted to kill this creature, because it was an evidence of his wife's slip, but at the request of his daughter Ariadne he let Minotauros alive and charged Daidolos with construction of a prison, the Labyrinth in Knossos, in which he locked up the Minotauros. 

Furthermore the Cretan Bull was beaten with furore which caused great devastations on Crete. Especially the region around the river Tethris was hit.

Erystheus now told Herakles - as seventh of his labours - to capture the bull and bring him back to him. After the struggle against the Stymphalian Birds this was a rather easy undertaking. Herakles sailed to Crete and asked king Minos wether he has objections to capture the bull. Minos denied that if only Herakles would get along with the bull. Very soon Herakles succeeded in subduing the bull although he was breathing fire. He chained him and brought him back to Erystheus. Erystheus wanted to sacrifice the bull immediately to Hera, but Hera - hating Herakles - refused the offering because it only would increase the fame of the hero. So the bull was released.

After that the bull wandered through Lakedaimon and Arcadia, crossed the Isthmos of Corinth and reached Marathon where he did great damage and killed many humans. Therefore he is often called 'Marathonian Bull' too. Theseus, son of the Athenian king Aigeos, was sent against the bull, subdued him and led him to Athens were Aigeos sacrificed the bull to Zeus.

Androgeos, a son of king Minos and Pasiphae, stayed in this region when Theseus was hunting the bull. At this occasion he was killed from behind. Therefore Minos began a war against Athens. But because he couldn't conquer Athens he asked his father Zeus for help which he granted. He sent the plague and Athens had to surrender. To appease Minos Athens had to send as tribute each ninth year seven youths and seven maiden to Crete.

But that's another story.

Note: There is the suggestion too that the Cretan Bull was not the bull of Poseidon, but the bull who has brought Europa from Phoenicia to Crete.

Background:
Here I want to add the article, which Ranke-Graces wrote about the Cretan Bull. Principally I distrust his interpretations because I think he is fixated too much on the matriarchy and the Holy Wedding (hieros gamos). Very well then!
The struggle with the bull or a man in bull disguise - one of the ritual duties which have to be fulfilled by the aspirant of the kingship - appears too in the myth of Theseus and the Minotauros and in the myth of Jason and the fire-breathing bulls of Aietes. When the immortality which was associated with the royal dignity finally was promised all adepts of the Dionysian Mysteries the capture of a bull and offering him to Dionysos Plutodotes ('donor of wealth') became a general ritus in Arcadia (Pausan.  VIII, 19, 2) and in Lydia (Strabon XIV, 1, 44), where Dionysos hold the title Zeus. His most important theophania was the bull but he appeared too in the shape of a lion or a serpent. The contact with the bull's horns enabled the  Holy King to fertilize the land by rain in the name of the Moon Goddess. The magic explanation is that the shouting of a bull was signalizing thunderstorms which should be brought to a head by swinging rhombi or bull's shouting. Torches too were cast symbolizing lightnings: they were demonstrating the fiery breathing of the bull.

I have added
(1) the pic 'Heracles binds the Cretan Bull', a black-figured vase painting, c.510 BC, from Vulci, now in the Staatliche Antikensammlung in Munich/Germany.
(2) the pic of the mosaic 'The twelve Labours of Hercules' from Lliria (Valencia/Spain), 1st half of 3rd century, made by an unknown artist. Here the depiction with Herakles running besides the bull is very similar to the depiction on the coin.

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
Apollodor, Bibliotheke, II/94-95, III/9ff, III/209, IV/5-6

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 08, 2009, 08:42:23 pm
Thank you for your friendly words. They will help me for further posts.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 15, 2009, 12:09:59 pm
Artemis Perasia, the old Kubaba

Asia Minor is full of Gods and Goddesses. Here I want to share an age-old Goddess who was known in Greek-Roman times as Artemis Perasia.

The coins:

Cilicia, Hieropolis-Kastabala, 2nd-1st century BC
AE 21, 7.02g
obv. Head of the City Goddess (Tyche), wearing mural crown, r.; behind mongram
rev. [ I]EROPOLITW[N] (r. side, top down)
       [TW]N PROC TW / [P]YRAM[W] (l. side, top down)
       Artemis Perasia, in long garment and wearing kalathos, szeptre in l. arm, std. l. on
       throne with high back; beneath eagle stg. l.
ref. SNG Levante 1564; Lindgren 1507; SNG Paris 2208
VF, dark-green patina

Cilicia, Hieropolis-Kastabala, 2nd-3rd century AD (?)
AE 26
obv. IEROPOLI - TWN
        Bust of City Goddess (Tyche), draped and veiled, wearing mural crown, r.
rev. [TWN PROC TW PYRAMW]
       Bust of Artemis Perasia, draped and veiled, wearing mural crown, r.; burning
       torch before
ref. not in Isegrim; obv. RPC I, 4064; unpublished?
very rare, about VF, dark-green patina

For the Iconography:
On coins we find Perasia in two different versions:
(1) As entire figure with kalathos, std. on throne, an eagle beneath; often a pine
     behind.
(2) As bust, veiled and wearing a mural crown, or sometimes with a strange conical 
     hat, a torch before.
     Because of the torch she can easily seen as Demeter or Hekate (so HN), but she
     differs from these goddesses by her headdress. These goddesses don't occur with a
     mural crown, I think

Mythology:
The local myth leads back the foundation of Kastabala to Orestes and Pylades. When Orestes after the death of his sister Iphigenia has left the Crimean peninsula with the statue of Artemis Tauropolos he has come to the Pontic Komana and has erected a temple for the Tauric Artemis. But for satisfying the conflicting interests of both Komana it was told that Orestes when he has left Crimea fell ill and the oracle has answered that he would recover not until he has erected a temple for Artemis which would look alike the temple in Tauris. Because  the illness didn't vanish he peregrinated further to the Cilician Komana, erected a temple, and the oracle came true (Procopius) 

It's noteworthy now that not only both Komana claim the remembrance of Orestes, but Kastabala too. In Kastabala the temple of Artemis Perasia, read as 'Overseas Artemis',  was said to be built by Orestes. It is told that Thoas, king of the Taurians, has pursued Orestes and Pylades as far as the foot of the Taurus mountains, where he died in the city of Tyana which originally was named Thoana after him (Strabo).

We know that this was the usual method of the Greeks to confirm their acquisitions mythologically, as we have seen in this thread so often.

Name:
Perasia is a Goddess in Asia Minor, worshipped in Hieropolis-Kastabala, related to Ma, and therefore identified with Artemis, whose priestresses in cultic ecstasy were able to step safely over glowing coals (Strabo 12, 537). Here we have a connection to the laceration ritus in service of the Kybele cult, confirmed by the formulistic name 'Kubaba zi b Kastabalaj' (= the Kubaba in Kastabala) found as an Aramaic inscription near Bahadirli in East-Cilicia. The identity of Kubaba and Kybele is affirmed further by the Lydian consecration formula 'kvnaval' (of Kubaba), recently found on the piece of a jar of Sardes. Her name is already known as Pirvashua in an Aramaic inscription from the late Hittite period. This probably was a boundary stone on which she is named the 'Mistress of Kastabala'. A derivation from Persia as 'Persian Artemis', or derivated from
dia ton perathen as 'Oversea Artemis', which was thought previously, therefore is obsolete.

]History:
We have emphasized that Hierapolis - Kastabala was a sacred centre. According to Strabon of Amasia, in Kastabala, Artemis Perasia, after the long lasting dances of the religious ceremonies would reach a state of ecstasy and continue dancing on hot coals like the dervishes and at the climax of her ecstatic state would run towards the valleys of the Pyramos and to the wooded hills with her torch in hand. Again in the Hellenistic and Roman Empire Periods sacred Pan-Hellenic competitions used to be organized here in honour of Perasia. The coins have the pine tree and the torch, the symbols of Perasia, in front of the tower a female head with a hat, representing the city.

Artemis Perasia, the Goddess of Kastabala as mentioned by Strabon, is one and the same as Kubaba. It has become apparent that the cult status of Kastabala in particular went back much further than previously assumed, and the Goddess Kubaba was its ruler. Kubaba is the old name of Kybele we know and recognized as the Mother Goddess of Anatolia. She takes her place among other gods and goddesses for the first time in the sources of the Kanesh (Kültepe) archives of the Assyrian Trade Colonies Period in 1800s B.C. and in the royal archives of Hattusha (Bogazköy), capital of the Hittites dated to 1500-2000 B.C.

Following the decline of the Hittite Empire around 1200 B.C. Karkemish was a capital of some sorts of the Last Hittite Age of the Hittite world and Kubaba was its Mother Goddess and was known as the "Queen of Karkemish". In this period the Kubaba cult made great sudden progress and there is a related relief at Domuztepe. We see the goddess Kubaba who was recognized by the Phrygians also at sites of Pessinus and Sardes. Kubaba/Kybele was moved to Rome in 204 BC and settled at the Palatine hill. She was known as Artemis Perasia during the Greco-Roman period. So the depiction on the coins naturely is stamped by Hellenism.

Some notes on Firewalking:
Firewalking is the act of walking barefoot over a bed of glowing embers or stones without damage. It has a long history in many cultures within rituales as a test or proof of faith, and to make a connection to the divine. Today it is used in modern motivational seminars and fund-raising events. Many seminar facilitators claim that there is now scientific explanation for this phaenomena. But we need no psycho-physical exceptional conditions nor a connection to religious concepts to walk over glowing coal without damage.

Measurements have shown that the temperature of glowing coals is between 240°C and about 440°C. Temperatures of 1000°C as somtimes claimed were never reached.
So the soles of feet were heated only moderately. The average temperature was  47°C - 100°C. The max. temperature found was 200°C. Here are the reasons:
- Wood and coals are poor heat conductors. Walking over an equal hot iron plate is
   not possible.
- The ember which covered the glow acts as heat insulation.
- The foot contacts the coals only for a fraction of a second, normally 1/2 second. This
    time is too short to heat the foot for burning.
- The surface of the coals is uneven and reduces the transfer of the heat energy.
- The blood circulation ensures the transport of the heat away from the soles of feet.
- The horny skin of the feet acts as heat protection.
Further the fear for the fire plays an important role. He who expects danger and damaging will feel minimal burning as much painfuller than he who doesn't fear the walk.
(Inge Hüsgen, Wolfgang Hahn, Dr. Christoph Bördlein, in 'Skeptiker 3/4 2007, S.92-102)

I have added the pic of the basalt relief of Kubaba, Karkemish, late Hittite, 850-750 BC. The Goddess is holding a pomegranate in her r. hand and a mirror in her l. hand. Today in the Museum of Anatolian Civilization in Ankara/Turkey

Sources:
- Strabo
- Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
   (on-line)
- Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Theodore Reinach, Mithradates Eupator (on-line)
- Der Skeptiker (on-line)
- Wikipedia
- Dupont-Sommer/Robert, La Deesse de Hierapolis-Kastabala
- Publishments of the Turkish government (on-line)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 15, 2009, 12:15:26 pm
Apollo Philesios and the movable stag of Kanachos

This article contains nearly all information I could get about this subject. I bet some of it will be new for you. Enjoy!

The coins.

The first one:
Ionia, Miletos, Nero, AD 54-68
AE 18, 2.44g
struck under magistrate Louros
obv. CEBA - CTOC (A and T upside down)
        Head, laureate, r.
rev. EPI LO -  VROV
      Cult ststue of Apollo Didymeus, nude, stg. r., holding bow in l. hand and in his
      extended r. hand stag, turning head back to the god.
ref. BMC 198, 149; RPC comments p.449, 5a
F+/about VF, dark green patina

And an interesting second one:
Cilicia, Tarsos, Maximinus I, AD 235-238
AE 30, 21.49g
obv. AVT.K.G.IOV.[OVH.MAZIMEI]NOC / P - P
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. TARCOV THC MHTROPOLE[WC]
       Apollo, in long garment, stg. frontal, holding bow in l. hand and in lowered r.
       hand stag(!) at fore-legs.
       in l. field A / M / K
       in r. field G / B
ref. SNG Levante 1099(?)
very rare, F+, brown-green patina

This coin is often put in the series of the Tarsos coins depicting Apollo holding dogs. But here it is obviously not a dog but a stag! The magnification shows clearly the typical head shape mit the long face of the Cervidae and the - only poorly preserved - antlers. So it is not the so-called (in error!) Apollo Lykeios, but Apollo Philesios, known as Apollo Didymeus too, referring to its location.

The depiction on the Milesian coin matches the description of the original better, because here Apollo holds the stag on the palm of his extended r. hand.  But we know of two votive gifts where Apollo holds the stag at his forelegs too. Altogether the coins belong to the few objects which show us a model of the famous statue. It should be said that the Apollo head on Milesian coins - showing a lion on the reverse - is not Apollo Philesios but Apollo Delphinios, the city god of Miletos.

Mythology:
The mythology of Philesios goes back to the beautiful herdsman Branchos. Branchos, a rather unusual name in Greek, means 'sore throat, horseness'. This name is explained so: When his mother was pregnant with him she had a dream where the sun entered her mouth and left her through her belly. After gaving birth to the child she called him Branchos because the sun had entered her by the throat. The origin of this myth is surely pre-Hellenic and shall lead back Branchos and his later foretelling power to the sun-god or at least establish a connection to the sun-god. The etymological explanation of the name Branchos seems to be Greek but is somehow unfortunate because Branchos does not mean throat but sore throat!

A probable later but now typical Greek myth tells, that once the herdsman Branchos, son of Smikros from Milet, herded his flock at Didyma near Miletos. As soon as Apollo had set eyes on him he fell in love with him. He kissed him, bestowed him a crown, a laurel rod and the power of forecasting. This myth explains the cult name Philesios, which Apollo has in Didyma, meaning such as 'the loving, the kissing' (from Greek philein = to love, to kiss).

Thereupon Branchos endowed the Didymaic oracle which became widely famous. It is told that Apollo once came in conflict with the Milesians and sent them a plague to punish them. But Branchos saved the Milesians. He sprinkled the people with wet laurel branches and sang an hymnos on Apollo (Apollodor of Kerkyra). And the boys repeated the following magic verses:
(1) ΚΝΑΞΖΒΙ ΧΘΥΠΤΗΣ ΦΛΕΓΜΟ ΔΡΩΨ
(2) ΒΕΔΥ ΖΑΨ ΧΘΩΜ  ΠΛΗΚΤΡΟΝ ΣΦΙΓΞ
These magic verses are said to be invented by Branchos. They are well known and appear on several papyri. Originally they are pure nonsense verses. But they contain all 24 letters of the Milesian alphabet. Because of that there is the opinion too that Branchos has taught by these verses the art of writing to the Milesians, because sorcery and spelling are semantic closely connected, look at the double meaning of 'to spell' (related too with German 'Spiel', playing).
Branchos became the founder of a mighty family of priest rulers whose were called Branchidai after him. To them he had bequested the power of forecasting.


History:
About the birth of Apollo we have talked already in the article 'Leto - Mother of the twins Apollo and Artemis'. While Delos claimed the birth of Apollo, Delphi his first deeds, Didyma as location of the conception could show a similar important myth.

We have heard that Branchos became the founder of the Didymaic oracle and ancestor of the priestly ruling dynasty of the Branchides. Pausanias writes, that the sanctuary of Didyma has existed already before the colonisation by the Ionians. That matches well the fact that the name 'Branchos' as well as 'Didyma' originate from the Carian language, related with the Luwian language, closely connected to the Hittite language, and so both pre-Hellenic. Two donations testify the outstanding importance of the Didymaic sanctuary: The royal garment which Pharaoh Necho has worn at the battle of Megiddo where he has defeated Josiah, and several precious votive gifts of the Lydian king Kroisos. The oldest parts of the temple can be dated to the 7th century. Probably they were built around a holy spring. Didyma, also called Branchidai (so Herodotos), was connected with the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios in Miletos with a holy street. The most import art work in Didyma was the bronze statue of the standing Apollo Philesios made by Kanachos in the 5th century BC, probably a gift of the Milesians to Didyma and therefore rather a votive gift than actual a cult statue. In 494 BC Didyma and Milet were destroyed by the Persians under Xerxes and the bronze statue was carried off to Ekbatana. Strabon reports, that the Branchides have committed betrayal and have handed over the huge treasures of the temple to the Persians. Then they have followed the Persians in the East- fearing the revenge of the Milesians - and were settled in Sogdania at the river Oxos in Bactria. We should know that a great part of the elite was traditional Persian friendly.

When after the death of Alexander the Great his Empire was divided under the Diadochs the treasures of Ekbatana came in possession of the Seleucids. In 300 BC Seleukos Nikator gave back the statue to the Milesians. So after nearly 200 years the statue came back to Didyma. Pausanias probably has still seen it. During the raids of the Goths in the 3rd century AD it was lost forever.

The Massacre of the Branchides:
When Alexander the Great on his campaign of conquest came in AD 327 to Bactria and conquered Sogdania, he let burn down it to the ground, and killed not only the
descendants of the Branchides but all inhabitants together with women and children. It is said that he has done that to revenge their blasphemy and the betrayal of their ancestors. The temple treasures he has held for his own properties as son of the sun god (Kallisthenes, probably an eye-witness). Another hypothesis says that Milesian generals, f.e. Demodamas, have forced Alexander to this massacre, because they were afraid that the Branchides after returning to Didyma would claim the old rights of their ancestors for the sanctuary.

This happened c.150 years after the events in Didyma! But like Schiller writes about Wallenstein in the Prolog: "Von der Parteien Gunst und Hass verwirrt / Schwankt sein Charakterbild in der Geschichte" (= By the parties favour and hate confused / his character sketch sways in history), so the opinion about Alexander sways between youthful hero and cruel tyrant. The massacre of the Branchides undoubtedly belongs to his most disgusting deeds. Parke (see sources) suggests, that it is the sign of collapse of the moral objective of his campeign. From the defensiveness of the Greek civilisation it has degenerated to the purpose of  world domination. And the actual reason of the collapse has been the overwhelming success and the achieving of the highest thinkable aims.

Under Alexander the oracle was re-established in AD 331 - now under a Milesian administration - and a new temple erected around the holy spring which started to flow again. This temple was amplified and decorated gorgeously especially under the Seleucids. Even the looting by the Galatians in 277/6 BC could only shortly delay the further advancement of the sanctuary. At its zenith in the Roman imperial time the temple of Apollo in Didyma was the largest temple in the ancient world. He was so large that he never was roofed. The Roman emperors took much care about him, especially Caligula, Trajan and Hadrian. Trajan f.e. was prophetes and enlarged and paved the holy street to Miletos. Here about 80 AD the oracle has forecasted Trajan the future reign - referring to Dio of Prusas. Only the Christians succeeded in demolishing the temple. But he was so large, that his fundaments are preserved until today.

I have added
(1) the pic of the Kanachos relief from the theater wall in Miletos. It shows Apollo Philesios holding the stag in the palm of his extended hand accompagnied by two torch-beares. It was found AD 1903 and is today in the Pergamon Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin. It is possible that the torch-bearers were added later.
(2) a pic of the Apollo temple in Didyma as you can see him today. If you look at the visitors on the stairs you can imagine the huge dimensions of this temple

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 27, 2009, 04:09:22 pm
(continuation)

History of Art:

(a) Kanachos of Sikyon
Kanachos of Sikyon, brother of Aristokles, was a late-archaic sculptor around 500 BC. He is known for creating the bronze statue of Apollo Philesios in Didyma (Plin. nat. 34, 75), of which we have resonances in reliefs, on coins and intaglios, for creating the seated statue of Aphrodite in Sikyon (made from gold and ivory, Paus. 2, 10, 5) and several other works (Plin. nat. 34, 75), f.e. in Olympia, from which we have no more views. The use of so different material shows his virtuosity and the geographical distribution certifies his fame and his importance.

(b) The Apollo of Didyma
Sadly we know the statue of Apollo Philesios only from descriptions, reliefs and from pics on coins and intaglios. The most detailed description comes from Plinius (nat. 34, 75): "Kanachos has made from Aiginetic bronze a nude Apollo, called 'the Lovely', located in the temple of Didyma, together with a stag who is floating on the soles of his feet, so that it is possible to draw a thread under his feet, because heel and toes by alternate grasping hold tight on the ground, because in both parts a movable tip is affixed so that  it alternately rebounds when it swings back." So the statue was especially important because of this mechanics which must have made a lasting impression to the ancient beholder because the stag appeared alive. Wether the stag on the palm of the hand actually stood forwards turning his head backwards to the god we don't know. We not even know wether the stag has stood or lain. Generally the stag is seen as sign of the close affinity between Apollo and his twin sister Artemis or as reference to the Hittite concept of a 'tutelary god of the animals'.

(c) Between Late Archaic and Early Classic
Cicero (Brut. 18, 70) mentions Kanachos in a row with Kalamis, Myron and Polyklet. He refers to a scale of hardness grades which probably is borrowed from an Hellenistic source and where the archaic works of art belong to the most hard. In the development of the Greek art to genuine natural truth (veritas) and to beauty (pulchrum) to reach with Polykleitos finally perfection, Kanachos has stood on the 1st stage. This verdict meanwhile has been revised. Kanachos stood at the end of the Late Archaic with one foot already in the Early Classic. The relief in Berlin shows that Apollo no more was standing frontal with straight knees - as usually in the Archaic -, but with his r. knee slightly bent. "Alone the attempt of the Kontrapost signifies a qualitative leap, because it is the exterior sign of a principally new concept of liveness and self-determination of man." (Strocka). Ok, it was actually not yet a Kontrapost but he was on the way. And the movable figure of the stag too was post-Archaic. The most reliable copy for the body seems to be the Apollo of the Forum Romanum which was found AD 1900 near the Juturna fountain - matching well Didyma as an original holy spring -, and for the head the Apollo Townley in the British Museum. Both show a style which unifies features of the Late Archaic with those of the 'Strenger Stil' (Winkelmann) and thus bearing first lines of the Classic.

(d) The movable stag: Some notes on a possible solution
Schwerdhöfer tries a reconstruction of the mechanics of the famous movable stag. That has been tried already previously, f.e. 1880 by Petersen, 1904 by Schmidt and 1991 by Schürmann. All these attempts were not satisfying and at last it was noticed: "Over the kind of this mechanism has much been puzzled; to solve this question will be probably impossible." (B.K.Weis) All the more interesting it is that here a new attempt is made which for the first time uses the method of Construction Systematics which was developed in the last 60 years as an own engeenering science.

Here we have a rough draft of his line of thought which performs in 5 steps:
(1) Evaluation of the ancient sources to determine the basic principle
Referring to the description of Plinius we have a standing stag. His description and the fact that the stag after 600 years, carrying off and re-installation was fully operative is evidence of robust techniques and speaks for an one-piece stag without internal mechanics.
(2) Determination of the basic principle of the device
The stag is moved by a mechanism so that he can lift alternately his hindlegs and forelegs and bounce back when he touches down the feet.
(3) Formulation of partial functions and quest for structural elements to perform the partial functions
Important terms were defined: pivot, bearing and centre of gravity. As partial functions are needed slewing (geometry and bearing) and manipulation (power source and  control elements). For slewing there are 2 possibilities: common pivot for both pairs of hoofs, or separate pivot for hindlegs and forelegs.
With this we have the following leading points (a):
I. Pivot on the middle vertical line:
   - Bearing in the range of the middle vertical line
   - Bearing on the circular arc of the hoofs
   - Bearing outside the circular arc of the hoofs
II. Pivot on the hoofs:
    - without lateral shift
    - with lateral shift
and the following different criteria (b):
I. Pivot beneat the base line
II. Pivot on the base line
III. Pivot above the baseline
IV. Pivot at the body
(4) Combination of these solution elements in a morphological box
The 4 different criteria and the 5 leading points were combined in a 4x5 matrix (morphological box) which gives 20 solution fields. 8 of them can be eliminated immediately because they are technically impossible. The other 12 were now discussed one after the other taking into account literary criteria (Plinius), art history criteria (relief, coins) and technical criteria like stability (very important!), inseparability of the stag from the hand, manufacturability in ancient times, optical impression, but also features like raising of the feet, rebound effect, manipulation and loss of friction in the bearing. All these critera were evaluated in a scale from -2 (unfavourable) to +2 (favourable)
(5) Discussion and valuation of the solutions and removal resp. reduction of realized lacks
After all his consideration he comes to the result that his solution no.13 matches best all criteria. Here the stag moves around a pivot on the hoofs. If he lifts the forelegs the bearing is on the hindlegs and lifting the hindlegs it is on the forelegs. To do that under the hoofs were claw-shaped attachments and in the palm of the hand indentations with a bolt which fit the attachments. By an easily arranged lock it can be achieved that the stag is unremovable from the hand (please take a look at the pics!). The most simple transmission element for manual power is a string. This reconstruction is robust, longlasting, easily to establish and easily to operate. The stag has the claws which Plinius has mentioned which interfere in the hand, and the hoofs can rebound as described.
.
Clarified by classical studies should be the function of the Apollo statue. Was it a 'toy', accessible for everyone, or was it manipulated by an adept, hidden behind a wall? Or could it be used by pilgrims, who can't distinguish between both cable controls for the movement, for forecasting or decisions depending on wether the stag lifted his hindlegs or forelegs?

I have added
(1) 2 sketches of the stag showing how the claws under the hoofs interfere in the hand of Apollo.
(2) A sketch showing the run of the cable controls. We see the possibility of 2 cables Z1 and Z2 to move the legs or the possibility of only one cable where the stag is moved back by his own gravity.
(3) A sketch of the Apollo statue how it could have stood before a wall, with an invisible operator behind.

Sources:
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Jennifer Lynn Larson, Ancient Greek Cults
- V.M. Strocka, Der Apollon des Kanachos in Didyma und der Beginn des Strengen
  Stils
- Reinhold Merkelbach, Weisse KNAXZBI-Milch, in Philologica - Kleine ausgewählte
  Schriften
- H. J. Schwerdhöfer, Eine Methode zur Rekonstruktion antiker Mechaniken erläutert
   an der Apollon-Philesios-Statue des Kanachos ,in Thetis, Mannheimer Beiträge zur
   klassischen Archäologie und Geschichte Griechenlands und Zyperns, Band 10 (2003)
- Wikipedia

BTW I would be happy to hear some comments on this article. It has me cost two weeks of work and some money to obtain the needed literature.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 27, 2009, 04:11:03 pm
The Greek Sphinx

Working about Greek riddles I recognized - a bit surprised - that there is yet no article about the Greek Sphinx in this thread. That should be caught up now. An article about the Egyptian Sphinx - highly appreciated - could be read here  http://www.numismatikforum.de/ftopic11926-240.html

The following coin was presented already in the article about the Sibyl Herophile on the obv. Now it is the rev. standing in the centre. The myth of the Greek Sphinx belongs to the best-known of the Greek mythology. All the more I hope to present yet unknown to you!

The coin:
Troas, Gergis, quasi-autonomous, 400-241 BC
AE 9, 0.98g
obv. Bust of Sibyll Herophile, looking frontally, laureate, decorated with two longish
        ear-pendants and a pearl necklace
rev. Female Sphinx, winged, std. r.
       in r. field GER
ref. SNG von Aulock 1513; BMC 2-4
Rare, F+/about VF

Mythology:
The best-known story of the Thebanian Sphinx is told as follows:
Hera was in anger with the Thebans because king Laios - seen as inventor of homosexuality (by others it was Orpheus) - has abducted Chrysippos, son of Pelops and nymph Astyoche - during the Nemean Games because of his beauty. Therefore she sent the Sphinx like an Angel of Death to punish them (according to others it was Dionysos who sent the Sphinx). The Sphinx was the daughter of Typhon and Echidna, who has brought to world several monsters: the Kerberos, the Hydra, the Nemean Lion, the Chimaira, Skylla and Gorgo and some more.

From the furthest parts of Ethopia the Sphinx came flown to Thebens and set down on the Phikion mountain near Thebens and harassed the people heavily. After having learned many riddles by the Muses she asked the Thebans the following: What's that which has only one name and became four-footed, two-footed and three-footed?

The oracle has told the Thebans that they were freed from the plague not before they have solved the riddle. So many Thebans went to the Sphinx and tried to solve it. But because they didn't succeed the Sphinx catched them, tore them to pieces and devoured them. Yes, she went to Thebens herself and asked the Thebans in the streets and on the places, and gorged the unlucky people here as well.

Meanwhile Laios was killed - without being recognized - by his son Oidipus, and his brother Kreon has come to the throne of Thebens. When now even his own son Haimon was killed by the Sphinx and she threatened Kreon himself he proclaimed publicly that any who could solve the riddle should have his sister Iokaste (sometimes called Epikaste) as wife and the kingdom as well.

In this moment came Oidipus and solved the riddle: It is man, borne four-footed, grown up he is two-footed and aged he took a staff as third foot. Hearing that the Sphinx jumped down from her rock to death. And Oidipus got the promised price.

The seer Teiresias however charged him in Sophokles' drama 'King Oidipus', that he indeed was able to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, but not the riddle of his own existence: "You look around and don't see, how you stand in the malady, not where you live, and not with whom you live. Do you know, from whom you are?"

There are other versions too of this mythology. Pausanias f.e. reports:
The Sphinx has been a natural daughter of king Laios. Because of his love to her he has told her the solution of the riddle. Once it was communicated to Kadmos and only the kings themselves have known it. This knowledge then passed over to Iokaste and her children. Now Laios had several sons by his concubines. Every time, when one of them came to Sphinx and claimed his right for the kingdom, she told him that if he was the legitime successor to the throne he would be able to solve the riddle. If not he would lose his life because he wanted to capture the kingdom unauthorizedly. Finally came Oidipus who was told the oracle in a dream.

Background:
Naturally the Greek Sphinx is originated from the Egyptian Sphinx. She came to Greece by mediation of the Cretan-Mycenian culture, but was taken over in a free form. She has made a change of meaning by mixing up with creatures of the old people's mythology: Empusas, Lamias, Harpyias, Sirens and other weird spooky shapes. The Sphinges were demons of death and used as apotropaion, heraldic animal, at sanctuaries and on graves, or only ornamentically. The Thebanian Sphinx stick up from them as individualized figure.

Homer didn't know her. She was mentioned first by Hesiod. In his Boiotian dialect she was called Phix. Therefore the mountain near Thebens is named Phikion = the Sphingian mountain. Only later this became Sphix and then Sphinx, possibly to connect it with sphingein = to strangle. A proper name for a monster, however she didn't strangle her victims, but tore and gorged them. In 'Der kleine Pauly' this derivation is called  only little plausible, because the S as initial sound seems to be the primary; cf. Egyptian ssp-'nh. As female being she occured first in c.750 BC and the first depiction we find on an Attic black-figured Vase of Archikles and Glauketes in 550 BC. Here she is named explicitly SPHIXS.
Appolodor describes her as a winged lion with the head of a human wife. In the first time she had sickle-shaped wings, later on bird's wings, sometimes with a serpent's tail.

The famous Riddle of the Sphinx actually is a typical motive of fairy tales, known about the whole world: Achieving the bride by conquering a monster and its following self-destruction. The Greeks - loving riddles (ainigmata) passionately - called this kind of riddles a griphon. It is first mentioned on a vase of 470-460 BC in the form of an hexameter. So possibly from the 'Oidipodia', a lost work, from which are found elements at Sophokles and others. Recorded it is in two fragments of Euripides' 'Oidipus', also a lost work. The same riddle is known from Zakynthos and on Lesbos. A second riddle is reported too: "Who are the two sisters, who create themselves alternately?" The answer is: Day and Night!

I have found a nice explanation of the myth at Palaiphatos which I want to share. Palaiphatos - about whom we don't know much - lived at the time of Alexander the Great and has explained in his work 'Peri apiston istorion' (= unbelievable stories) the old myths rationalistically. Just of the myth of the Sphinx he made fun. So he asks:  Why the Thebans have not easily shot the Spinx instead of looking how many fellows she gorged? Or: Why it was possible to fall to death when she had wings? In reality the story was so: When Kadmos came to Thebens and settled there he has an Amazon as wife named Sphinx. But when he married Harmonia, Sphinx out of jealousy has gathered a troop of Kadmeans and went with them to the Sphinx mountain to fight Kadmos. The Greek word for riddle (ainigma) in Boiotian language means 'ambush'. The insidious attacks of the Sphinx by this misunderstanding have generated the myth of the riddle. Finally the Sphinx was overwhelmed at night by Oidipus because Kadmos has allured him with rich promises.

Later erotic moments slipped into the image of the Sphinx. Especially at the Symbolists of the 19th century. For the psychoanalysts she sometimes stands for the erotically attracting, intellectual superior - but cruel too - personification of the female nature, terrifying man.

I have added:
(1) the pic of a red-figured Attic Kylix from Vulci, 480-470 BC, ascribed to the Oidipus painter, Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco. It shows Oidipus as traveller with petasos in front of the Sphinx seated on a column, when he listens to her riddle.
(2) a pic of the oil painting 'Oedipus et Sphinx', AD 1808, from Jean Auguste Dominiques Ingres (1780-1867), the great French painter, Louvre/Paris. Here we see the same scene from the viewpoint of a classicist.
(3) a pic of the painting 'The Sphinx or The Caresses', 1896, from the Belgian symbolist Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), today in the Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Sources:
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
Sophokles, Oedipus Tyrannus
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst
http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M18.3.html
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/sphinx.htm
Palaiphatos, Unglaubliche Geschichten, in: Brodersen, Die Wahrheit über die griechischen Mythen

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 05, 2009, 11:53:53 am
Derketo and Triton(?)

I have hesitated for a longer time to post this article because I doubted wether my conclusions were true. But after deeper research I think that they are at least plausible. And what more you can expect on this subject?

Palestine, Askalon, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 27, 16.52g
struck AD 156/57 (year 260 of the era of Ascalon)
obv. ANTWNINOC - SEBASTOS
      Head, laureate, r.
rev. ACKA[LWN] - ZC (year 260)
      Derketo in long garment, puff og garment over l. arm, [crescent on head,] stg.
      frontal, head l., holding long sceptre in l. hand and dove on extended r. hand; at her
      feet Triton in several coils swimming l., holding cornucopiae with both hands.
ref. BMC Palestine, p.130, 197; Rosenberger 184 var. (different date); SNG ANS 723
      var. (different date)
about VF, brown patina, slightly rough
Pedigree:
ex CNG electronic auction 168, lot 197
ex coll. J.S.Wagner
Note: This rev. motiv is known too for Severus, Diadumenian and Elagabal.
CNG writes:
Triton and dove suggest that the main figure is Derketo, a Phoenikian fertility goddess with relations to Astarte and Aphrodite, proving that there was an unbroken  syncretism until imperial times.
 
BTW Derketo was named already once in the article about Atargatis in this thread.

(1) Derketo
It is said that Derketo has been a princess of the oldest noble family of the Assyrians, who later was worshipped as deity. Once she has insulted Aphrodite and was punished by her with a passionate improper love to a young Syrian. When she was pregnant by him with her daughter Semiramis she killed him and exposures the new born babe. She herself jumped into a lake near Askalon where she was turned into a fish. When Semiramis was found no one knows her origin. But her precious clothes suggest a noble parentage, and the fact that she was nursed several months by doves proves that she was a favourite of the gods. She was called 'daughter of the air'. She later became world-famous because of her Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. At the place where Derketo has sunk into the lake the Syrians erected a gorgeous temple. She was depicted as maiden ending in a fish body.

Derketo seems to be the same as Atargatis and as Astarte. The difference between them is that Atargatis was described as fish goddess whereas Astarte was not. Even more this is the case with Derketo whose name is seen as variation of Atargatis. Both were depicted as woman with fish body. Her main location of worshipping was Askalon. Later some imagination was added that she has been a Syrian queen Gatis. Because she liked to eat fish she has ordered that nobody except she herself was allowed to eat fish, hence Atargatis, meaning 'except Gatis.' A typical people's etymology! Her reign was so stern that all captured fishes must have been brought to her so that she alone could eat them. Later the priests have placed boiled and fried fish in front of her cult-statue and then eaten it themselves. In fact the fishes were worshipped like deities. (Diod. Sic.)

Besides the sceptre her attributes were the fish and the dove.

(2) Triton
On the rev. of this coin Derketo is depicted together wit a sea-monster described as Triton. According to most of the mythographs Triton was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, according to others son of Okeanos and Thetis, but son of Nereus too.
Referring to Hesiod he lived with his parents in a golden palace in the depth of the sea. The myth of the Argonauts placed him at the coast of Libya. When their ship, Argo, ran ashore  at the Small Syrte the crew dragged the ship to the lake Triton, from where Triton, the local god, dragged it across the desert back to the Mediterranean (Apoll. Rhod.). Triton is depicted as man to the hip with the tail of a fish. His main attribute is the coiled shell of a sea-snail, called after him Horn of Triton (Charonia tritonis Linne), but sometimes the trident of Poseidon too or a shield. He was the trumpeter of Poseidon and was able to stir the sea waves by the sound of his horn or to calm them again. The sound from his conch shell horn was so terrible that it puts the Giants to flight when she tried to attack the gods. This was his proud and joy. When once Misenos, the trumpeter of Aeneas, challenged him for a contest he out of jealousy has thrown him into the sea. They say that Poseidon has brought him Amymone.

Triton seems to be the same who - referring to a Boiotian myth - ambushed the cattle which came to the beach for drinking and raped it, sometimes even attacking the small fishermen's boats. Finally the people placed a vessel full of wine on the beach which attracted him quickly. When he had drunk he fell asleep and the people cut his head with an axe. This happened near Tanagra (Pausan. Boiot.).

In the course of time Triton became the name of an entire class of individuals. This happened too to Pan and Silen. Male and female Tritons are mentioned in the plural and were usually companions of sea deities.

Probably the concept of Triton has its origin in the Phoenician fish-deities.

During my research the doubt was growing wether it was really Triton on this coin of Askalon. I couldn't find any depiction where Triton holds a cornucopiae as attribute! And because I'm not believing in the arbitrariness of attributes I was looking for another more reliable explanation. And I think I have found it. It is Dagon!

(3) Dagon
Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, the god of grain and agriculture, worshipped by the early Amorites, by the people of Ebla, by the people of Ugarit and probably the chief god of the Phoenicians. He is identical with Marnas which is his name in Greek (look at the article about Marnas in this thread). He is mentioned in the Old Testament f.e. 1. Sam. 5, 1.; Book of Judges 16, 23. Because 'dag' is fish in Hebrew it is understandable that Dagon is depicted in the shape of a fish, and so he joins Atargatis or Derketo and can be - besides the female - a male principle of life and eternal reproduction. BTW Atargatis is said to has a son named Ichthys (Greek = fish), a fact that too belongs to this connection.

Sadly the etymology is not quite clear. Whereas one theory derives his name from the Hebrew dag, meaning 'fish', another theory has its origin in Ugarit dgn 'grain', meaning the same in Hebrew. Philo Bybl. therefore calls him 'Siton' as inventor of grain and plough and equates him with Zeus Arotrios (= Zeus the plougher).

The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the gods El, Dagan and Adad are especially common. At Ebla Dagan was the head of the city pantheon comprising some 200 deities. His consort was known only as 'Lady'. One entire quarter of Ebla was named after Dagan.

An interesting early reference to Dagan occurs in a letter to King Zimri-Lan of Mari, 18th century BC written by Itur-Asduu, governor of Nahur. It relates to a dream of a man of Shaka in which Dagan has appeared. In the dream Dagan blamed Zimri-Lim's failure to subdue the king of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim's failure to bring a report of his deeds do Dagan in Terqa. Dagan promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: "I will have the kings of the Yaminites cooked on a fisherman's spit, and I will lay them before you."

Around 1300 BC Dagon had a large temple in Ugarit  and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and El, and preceding Baal (= Hadad/Adad). Here we have finally some fragments of a myth: He was the son of Uranos and Ge, brother of El/Kronos, of Baitylos and Atlas. But he was not the true father of Hadad. Hadad was begotten by Uranos on a concubine before he was castrated by his son El/Kronos whereupon the pregnant concubine was given to Dagon. In this version Dagon was Hadad's stepfather. Otherwise we have no surviving mythology of Dagon.

Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes prominent only in later Akkadian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector. In the preface to Hammurabi's law code, King Hammurabi calls himself: "the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his creator". In an Assyrian poem Dagan appears as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder.

The fishgod motif is found in Assyrian and Phoenician art including coins from Ashdod and Arvad. It seemed reasonable that the chief god of a coastal folk like the Palestines might be so imaged. As sea-monster Dagon too appears in the 1st book of John Milton's 'Lost Paradise''. However no findings have ever explicitly supported the merman interpretation, though nothing actually denies it.

So the 'Triton' on the rev. of this coin is probably a reminiscence of Dagon, the companion of Derketo, whose depiction naturally is influenced by Greek conceptions.

I have added a pic of the Triton Fountain at the Piazza Barberini in Rome, created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini AD 1643. Upon four dolphins the bearded Triton rises and  from his conch shell horn he spouts a water fountain into the air.

Sources:
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
W.H.Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (online)
Wihelm Vollmer, Lexikon der Mythologie (online)
Der kleine Pauly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atargatis
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2938/deasyria-intro.html
http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Triton.html
http://www.bible-history.com/past/dagon.html
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/dagon2.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 29, 2009, 07:49:39 pm
Juno Martialis

One of the most remarkable coins we find at Trebonianus Gallus and his son Volusian. It is the type with the rev. legend IVNO MARTIALIS. This legend doesn't occur in the time before nor in the time after him. I confess that I will not be able to unravel the mystery, but I have compiled what was thought about it in the past. Peculiarly all works I found are from the 19th century. I couldn't find more recent works. But I have added some suggestion which should be new. I hope that this article can give you an impression what this is about at all. But first three specimens:

#1
Trebonianus Gallus, AD 251-253
AR - Antoninianus, 3.53g, 20.70mm
Antiochia, AD 251-253
obv. IMP CC VIB TREB GALLVS AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
beneath bust 4 dots
rev. IVNO MARTIALIS
Iuno Martialis, in long garment, std. l. on throne, holding in l. arm transverse sceptre and in r. hand pair
of grain-ears(?)
in ex. 3 dots
ref. RIC V/1, (Antiochia) 83, pl. 13, 18; C.47
Scarce, VF+, slightly toned
The dots are probably the officina numbers. We see that the obv. die was made by the 4th officina and the rev. die by the 3rd officina.

#2
Trebonianus Gallus, AD 251-253
AR - Antoninianus, 3.19g, 23.24mm
Antiochia, AD 251-253
obv. IMP CC VIB TREB GALLVS AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. IVNO MARTIALIS
Iuno Martialis, in long garment, std. l. on throne, holding in l. arm transverse sceptre and in r. hand pair
of grain-ears(?)
ref. RIC V/1, (Mediolanum) 69, pl. 13, 15; C.46
about VF/F+, slightly toned, flan crack at 2 o'clock

#3
Trebonianus Gallus, AD 251-253
AR - Antoninianus, 2.95g, 22.53mm
Antiochia, AD 251-253
obv. IMP CC VIB TREB GALLVS AVG
Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. IVNO MARTIALIS
Iuno Martialis, in long garment, std. l. on throne, holding in l. arm transverse sceptre and in r. hand pair
of grain-ears(?)
ref. RIC V/1, (Mediolanum) 69, pl. 13, 15; C.46
about VF/F+, slightly toned, flan damage on rev. at 6 o'clock

(1) About the attribute:

Grain-ears
The usual description of the object in the r. hand of Juno is 'grain-ears', in RIC correctly provided with a question mark. Pichler writes: "As I kann see on originals - even on less conserved ones - it is obvious: for a single ear the elaboration is too massive; the attribute is hold downwards; it's broader at the top, thinner at the bottom and looks in principle like a slightly opened pair of compasses of hand length. That there are other specimens showing ears I don't want to deny."

So we have coins where the object looks like ears, f.e. coin #1 from Antiochia, and others where it looks rather like a pair of tongs, f.e coin #2 and #3 from Mediolanum. Now the coins showing grain-ears usually were struck in Antiochia whereas the coins with the characteristic different type came from Mediolanum. Because the temple with the statue of Juno Martialis was located in Rome, I think that the die-cutters in Italy should be better informed what this attribute really was and how it actually looks than their colleagues in Antiochia. The objection - which often could be read - that it was actually a pair of grain-ears and that the die-cutters of the different looking coins have no more understood the sense of the attribute is not convincing. Grain-ears were depicted on many coins all over the Empire. What should be misunderstood? This very objection turns actually against the interpretation as grain-ears. What indeed could be misunderstood that is the unusual depiction of a pair of tongs, scissors or a double knife, which then because of lack of knowledge were depicted as grain-ears. Iconographically grain-ears occur at Ceres, Annona, Tellus and Ops, and some more. But looking at these grain-ears you see immediately the differences.

Another argument against the hypothesis of grain-ears is the epitheton 'Martialis', meaning 'warlike', in any case establishes a relation to Mars. So one must be puzzled that the 'warlike Juno' should have grain-ears in her hand, which is not really warlike. It's not convincíng at all and to put it briefly: grain-ears are obsolete!

Therefore I began to search for alternatives. In the first part of the article I will present the different interpretation with some comments. I want to start with the earliest description of this type which comes from the famous archaeologist Johannes Joachim Winckelmann:

Winckelmann: Tongs as military operation
Wickelmann (AD 1717-1768) was the supervisor of the ancient monuments in Rome and the very founder of archaeology. He writes about a find: "Between the goddesses on the mentioned Etrurian altar especially a Juno should be noticed, who holds with both hands a great pair of tongs, and was depicted by the Greeks in the same way. That was Juno Martialis and the tongs indicate probably a special kind of battle formation called tongs, forceps, and it was called fighting like tongs, forcipe et serra proeliari, if an army in a battle split in such a manner that it could grasp the enemy in the middle and could open the formation in the battle so that it could attack the enemy from behind too."
But against Winckelmann's suggestion Visconti (Mus. Pio-Clem. t.6.p.6. et 85.) has already stated that the figure with tongs in its hands originally was Vulcanus who has lost his upper part and has become a female deity only by an ignorant addition.

Roscher: Obstetric forceps
Roscher, in his monumental work, suggests, that Iuno Martialis like Iuno Lucina or the Greek Eileithya has been a goddess of delivery, if her attribute which she holds in her r. hand (like the ancient Hera statue in Argos) could be verified without doubts as an obstetric forceps. A statue with this attribute was said to have stood in Argos, but Pausanias has not seen it. I think this interpretation is a bit devious because it misses the warlike attitude of the epitheton Martialis.

Visconti: Bunch of herbs
G.B.Visconti (AD 1722-1784), successor of Winckelmann as supervisor of the ancient monuments in Rome, identifies twice -when he spoke of the three-sided Borghesian altar, which was described by Winckelmann - the scissors as groppo d'erbe, bunch of herbs, (Museo Pio-Clementino T.VI.p.86 and in Monumenti Gabini p.215).
According to an ancient myth Juno has born Mars solely by the touch of this herbs.
That's why she was called Martialis. General opinion was that the parents of Mars were Jupiter and Juno (Hesiod Theog.v.921; Apollodor). But a few said that Juno has born Mars alone without any help by Jupiter because she wanted to give him back the affront that he has created Minerva alone out of his head. Mars has been conceived by the touch of a flower which has the goddess Flora has given to her. (Ovid. Fast. V.v.229). This myth is relative young und shall have been originated by Latin poets (Hederich). This story is today naturally often told by feminists!

Lenormant: The scissors of the Fates
Lenormant (nouv. gal. mythol. 76, explanation to pl. 10, 13, 14) interprets the scissors as symbol of the Fates like the shearing knife of the Lysippean Kairos. There are actually coin types from Mediolanum where Juno holds a tripartite object so that each of the Fates might have been accommodated. Trebonianus was in need of war fortune, Lenormant explains, and an amicable relationship to the Fates would be highly appreciated. But W.H.Smith, who reports this interpretation, holds the scissors of the Fates in this sense as far too little active.  

Pichler: The scissors as warlike instrument
Pichler too holds Juno's attribute for scissors but he interprets the scissors more warlike and ressembles in this sense the opinion of Winckelmann. He reminds that scissors, forfex, not only mean a peaceful kitchen instrument. There are indeed depictions on intaglios or Pompejan wall paintings where scissors are used for cutting flowers. But this peaceful instrument can't be suggusted here. The Forfex in the r. hand of the goddess can't be called Forficula, because in relation to the entire figure it is at least of hand length if not arm length. The peaks are separated in an angle. So the shape of a V is indicated which is called forfex if it is a unit of troops which is arranged in this shape. Flav. Renatus Vegetius (epit. inst, rei militar. III, 18), a Roman military writer, has worked about that lengthily. This military arrangement has the purpose to attack the enemy - advancing in the shape of a cuneus - from both sides in the flank. Wether Trebonianus really has used this tactics is not known. But around AD 375 (Vegetius) is was a known maneuver.

Eckhel: Hair cutting shears
The great Eckhel was the first one who recognized in Juno's attribute hair cutting shears. He supports his argument by learned quotations, summing up in these words: "At vero iterum aio nummos huius argumenti copiosos, et nitidissimos musei Caesarei certam nobis forficulam offerre." Here is the background: According to the Eudocia Violarium of Villoison it is told that in the temple of the Argivan Hera has stood a statue with scissors. This was a symbol of cleanliness because with the scissors the hairs were cut and this promotes the cleanliness of the body. The same is said by Suidas about Hera and by Codinus too in his desription of Constantinopolis (p.44.ed.Lugd). It is remarkable that this ancient type of the Argivan Juno was brought out under the Roman emperor Treboninanus and his son Volusian when in AD 251 a big  plague devastated the provinces, and was depicted frequently on coins, obviously to demonstrate that the plague could be fighted by hygienic activities. Juno usually throning in a small round temple - but without her temple too like here - is holding in l. hand her sceptre and in her r. hand scissors or better a double knife, which was used in the same way, but often is called a pair of grain-ears in error. But so as Winckelmann erred of course in calling the figure of Vulcanus on that altar Juno with tongs so for sure they are barber shears, occuring at several Greek writers and in anagrams of the Analektes (a kind of anthologies), which were used for cutting hairs and often for beards too instead of a shear knife. The Greek poet used the term phalis. However the term scissors or shears is inappropiate. This instrument (machairai kourides, Pollux II.32.X.140. s.Sabina, or the Toilette of A Roman Lady,
Th.I. S.313.Th.II.S.60.f.), consisted of two knifes which joined with their sharpnesss and should be called better double knife.

In this times Juno was usually allegorized according to the Stoic point of view with the air between sky and earth. And from here it was said originate all desease miasmas.
Juno might appear at that juncture a deity whose aid ought to be propitiated, because, according to Tullius "The air which floats between the skies and the ocean is consecrated to the name of Juno; and it was this region (or element) which, having contracted some taint, brought destruction on men". Now it is needful to explain two new concepts: The Four Element Theory and the Miasma Theory.

The Four Element Theory
The theory of the four elements fire, water, earth and air goes back probably to the Greek natural philosopher Empedokles (c.494 BC -  434 BC). He has introduced the four elements as gods and has already assigned Hera to the air. His theory has been developed later, f.e. by Platon (Krat. 404c), Aristoteles and not least by the Stoics. Then in Alexandria it got by its usual connection to religion a spiritual touch and became a secret lore (esoterism). Juno was responsible for the lower thick air, Jupiter for the upper thin air, or she for the 'Aer' and Jupither for the 'Aether' (Phurnus. de N.D. c.3; Cicero de N.D. I.II.c.26). The anagramatic relation is obvious if Greek letters were used: HRA - AHR!

The Miasma Theory
This concept, going back to Hippokrates of Kos (460 BC-375 BC), states that epidemias arises by noxious evaporations coming out of the ground, were carried away by the air and thus propagate deseases. This theory was still common in the 19th century, until Robert Koch in AD 1884 convincingly demonstrated by his pur cultures the connection between the Cholera bacterium and the Cholera desease.
There is no need to mocking about that. Max von Pettenkofer f.e. was a convinced supporter of the Miasma Theory and trying to falsify Koch he swallowed a pure culture of Cholera bacteria without falling sick. Today we know that he as pathologist was immun. Nevertheless he succeeded with his Miasma Theory in fighting the Cholera pandemia of AD 1892 in Munich by sanifying the Munich wastewater system from which the miasmas are said to come from the ground!

One should consider that Böttiger has written his paper in AD 1826, so long before the discovery of bacteria by Pasteur or the proof by Koch that they are actually the cause of deseases. Until that time the Miasma Theory was widespread and the people was open for this concept, a fact difficult to understand by us 'enlightened' people today.

If we want to evaluate and judge the meaning of the depiction correctly we must look at the time in which she was done. Gallus' short reign was overshadowed continously by desasters. But the most worst of all was the awfull plague, an epidemia that killed too his Co-emperor Hostilian, the son of Trajan Decius. This epidemia raged one and a half decades in the entire Roman Empire, devasted the provinces and led to heavy losses of people and in the army.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 11, 2009, 05:40:12 pm
(continued)


(2) About the name:
Now we have to talk about the name MARTIALIS, which gives us another riddle.
Literally martialis means 'belonging to Mars' (Georges) or 'sacred to Mars' (Stowasser). So it is not automatically equal to 'warlike', but naturally this meaning resonates too.
a) The relation to Mars results from the myth that Juno is the mother of Mars. Festus testifies that Mars as Mars Gradivus, who is foregoing the battle, has rised from the grass. The grass was sacred to Mars, mentioned Servius (ad Aen.XII, 119). If the grass was sacred to Mars then it is possible that the unclear object in Juno's hand could be a vegetable object. If we recall the parthogenetic birth myth of Mars with the aid of a flower then Juno could signifying fertility.
b) Related with the explanation of Juno as fertility goddess is the opinion that this coin was struck in honour of Baebiana who was the wife of Trebonianus but never got the title Augusta, because she had to abandon the title in favour of Herennia Etrusca. A so-called consolation may be. Devious I think.
c) Another explanation understands under the term Martialis simply the 'Juno of March' because her festival was celebrated on March 7th on the Campus Martius. I think that this explanation is a bit superficial. I think Juno Martialis has played an important role for Trebonianus. And the most important event in his life was the plague which threatened the Empire basically. Therefore the connection of a such important deity for the emperor only with a mere date seems indeed to be featureless.
d) Then we have the claim that Juno Martialis is equated with Juno Perusina, Juno of Perugia. Perugia in Etruria, one of the important cities of the Twelve Etruscan Cities, was the home of Trebonianus, which got many privileges from the emperor. Already Octavian has brought the goddess to Rome where she was said to be called Iuno Perusina Martialis. That's historically possible, but doesn't help us to explain her name or her attribute at all. I have read too that she was warshipped already since the Rape of the Sabine Women.
e) So we come to the last explanation of her name as 'warlike', even though indirect by her relation as mother of Mars. That has something sounding well. But then we had to interpret the attribute as warlike too in one or the other way. Mighty in the struggle against plague, that would match the interpretation which I prefer. That Iuno Martialis is connected to the plague now should be obvious I hope.

The festival of Juno Martialis was - already mentioned - celebrated on March 7th on the Campus Martius. But her temple according to Sext. Rufus stood on the Forum Romanum. Sadly until today no remains of her temple have been found which could shed some light on our problem.

Summary
The resume of most of the scholars is resignating. Eckhel writes: "But why Juno is in this instance called Martialis, I have not been as yet able satisfactorily to ascertain." Overbeck (Griech. Kunstmythologie 1873, Hera p.155-157) prefers "to accept Juno Martialis - especially because of her changing and unclear attributes - as an unsolved riddle which to solve we have not much hope even in future because of the singularity of her entire appearance". But even if we have without new archaeological or epigraphical discoveries little hope to solve the riddle the connection with the terrific events of its time, plague and war, corresponds most naturally with the conception of powerof Juno and Mars. They together with all other Olympian gods were invoked to stay the plague which has afflicted the empire.

I have added a pic from the 19th century, which shows an allegory of the Cholera epidemia. The pic from an unknown artist is now in the National Library of Medicine, Washington/USA.

Sources:
- Pausanias, Buch I, Argos
- Cicero, De natura deorum
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Michael Grant, Die römischen Kaiser
online:
- Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums,
- Karl August Böttiger, Ideen zur Kunst-Mythologie, 1826
- William Henry Smith, Descriptive catalogue of a cabinet of Roman imperial large-
  brass medals, 1834
- S. W. Stevenson, A Dictionary of Roman Coins, 1889
- W.H.Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
- http://www.roman-emperors.org/trebgall.htm
- Dr. Fritz Pichler; Numismatische Zeitschrift, Band 5 (1873), Wien, S.92-101
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Joachim_Winckelmann
- http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/viscontig.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 11, 2009, 05:44:00 pm
Some notes on the Phoenix

I know that we have talked several times about the Phoenix, especially in connection with the FEL TEMP REPARATIO series. But a profound article in this thread is still missing.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE - tetradrachm, 11.44g, 22mm
struck AD 138/9 (year 2)
obv. [AV]T [KT AIL ADR] - [AN]TWN[INOC EVCEB]
        Bare head r.
rev. AI - WN
       Phoenix, nimbate, stg. r.
       in l. and r. field L - B (year 2)
ref. Milne 1603; Geissen 1291; Dattari 2430
Rare, F+, slightly porous
pedigree:
ex CNG electronic auction 219, lot 386
ex coll. Jörg Möller
AIWN = eternity

Mythology:
The origin of the mythology of the magic bird Phoenix is Egypt. Here the bird Benu, a purple heron, played an important role. During the flood of the Nile, this beautiful, bluish bird rests on high places and resembles the sun floating over the waters. Therefore this bird was associated with the sun god Ra, whose soul it was thought to be. Especially venerated was the Benu in Heliopolis, the "city of the Sun".
According to the Heliopolitan myth, the Benu had created itself from a fire that was burned on the holy jsd-tree in the sacred precinct of the temple of Ra. It had rested on a pillar that was known as the bnbn-stone. The priests showed this pillar to visitors, who considered this the most holy place on earth. In another myth, the famous bird was associated with the god Osiris, who had once renewed itself. It was said that the Benu had sprung from the god's heart.

The name Benu is related to the verb wbn in Egyptian texts meaning 'to rise brilliantly' or 'to shine'. In the last period the hieroglyph of the bird was used directly for the sun-god. As symbol for the rise and decline of the sun it was master of the royal jubilee. And naturally it was connected with the Nile flood and the Creation. Standing alone on isolated rocks of islands of high ground during the floods the heron represented the first life to appear on the primeval mound which rose from the watery chaos at the first creation. This mound was called ben-ben. It was the Benu's cry at the creation of the world and thus marking the beginning of time. So the Benu was the got of time and its divisions - hours, day, night, weeks and years. Therefore the Benu was connected very early with the calendar and the temple of the Benu was indeed well known for its time-keeping devices (clepshydrae, water meters) and its priest was responsible for the calendar.

The first Greek known to have mentioned the Phoenix, meaning 'the brilliant', was Hesiod (c.700 BC), who stresses the Phoenix's longevity of 972 human lifes, almost 100000 years! And then we have the famous description of Herodot (490/480 - c.424 BC), which probably based on Hekataios: 'There is also another sacred bird called the Phoenix, which I did not myself see except in painting, for in truth he comes to the Egyptians very rarely, at intervals, as the people of Heliopolis say, of five hundred years. They say that he comes regularly when his father dies; and if he be like the painting, he is of this size and nature, that is to say, some of his feathers are of gold color and others red, and in outline and size he is as nearly as possible like an eagle. This bird, they say (but I cannot believe the story), contrives as follows: Setting forth from Arabia he conveys his father, they say, to the temple of the Sun plastered up in myrrh, and buries him in the temple of the Sun. He conveys him thus. He forms first an egg of myrrh as large as he is able to carry, and then he makes trial of carrying it, and when he has made trial sufficiently, then he hollows out the egg and places his father within it and plasters over with other myrrh that part of the egg where he hollowed it out to put his father in, and when his father is laid in it, it proves (they say) to be of the same weight as it was; and after he has plastered it up, he conveys the whole to Egypt to the temple of the Sun. Thus they say that this bird does.'

Only later sources tell us that the Phoenix burned itself, and was born again from the flames. Sadly I can't found the first sources of this myth. But it is this Greek myth which is most popular until today. In this version the Phoenix appears in the Bible too: It is mentioned by Ezekiel. Therefore we should distinguish the Egyptian mythology and its Greek interpretations.

Tacitus in his Annales (6.28) mentions the appearance of the Phoenix in 34 AD. Because this happened already 250 years after his last appearance under Ptolemaios III this gave cause to a dispute about the length of a Phoenix Cycle which sometimes was equated with the Sothis Cycle of 1461 years (see below). A short time later, under the reign of Claudius, a Phoenix again appeared which was brought to Rome, but Plinius the Elder writes that this Phoenix probably was not authentic (NH, 10.3-5). So the problem rose to distinguish between true and false birds! Plinius is said to have written that the bird dies in a nest of cimmamon and similar aromatic herbs and that the new Phoenix was born from the bones of the dead bird.

Martial then was the first one who used the Phoenix as symbol of Rome's eternity (Epigrams 5.7). And in this sense we must see the Phoenix on the coins of the Late-Roman series FEL TEMP REPARATIO: as resurrection of the eternal Rome. Philostratus (c.170 AD), who has written the biography of Apollonius of Tyana, writes about the Phoenix that it have lived in India but would migrate every 500 years to Egypt. This conception is influenced apparently by Garudas, the bird of the Hindu god Vishnu. Lactantius and Claudian have written long poems about the Phoenix.

The Egyptian Phoenix became very popular in the early Christian Church, in its art, its literature and symbolism. So the first Christians made Phoenix a symbol of resurrection, immortality and life-after-death, yes, to a symbol of Christ himself. One of the early Church Fathers, Flavius Clemens, has written a long chapter about the Phoenix. But the most important influence probably has had the Physiologus, an anonymous work of the 4th century AD, probably originated in an Alexandrian Christian community and widely spread in the Middle Ages. He writes: 'Now the Phoenix becomes the symbol of our Redeemer; he too came down from the heavens and brought along his wings full of fragrances, i.e. full of sublime divine words, so that we too at prayer spread our hands and bring upwards spiritual fragrance by conduct of life pleasing in the sight of God.'   

Background:
An ancient explanation for the Egyptian Phoenix was a specific bird species of East Africa. This bird nests on salt flats that are too hot for its eggs or chicks to survive; it builds a mound large enough to support its egg, which it lays in that marginally cooler location. The convection currents around these mounds resembles the turbulence of a flame.

The Benu was a large imaginary bird resembling a heron. The bird may be modeled on the gray heron (Ardea cinera or the larger Goliath heron (Ardea goliath) that lives on the coast of the Red Sea. Archaelogists have found the remains of a much larger heron that lived in the Persian Gulf area 5000 years ago. There is some speculation that this bird may have been seen by Egyptian travelers and sparked the legend of a very large heron seen once every 500 years in Egypt. It had a two long feathers on the crest of it's head and was often crowned with the Atef crown of Osiris (the White Crown with two ostrich plumes on either side) or with the disk of the sun.

Another suggested inspiration for the mythical Phoenix, and various other mythical birds that are closely associated with the sun, is the total eclipse of the sun. During some total solar eclipses the sun's corona displays a distinctly bird-like form that almost certainly inspired the winged sun disk symbols of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

History of Art
On ancient pictures, especially on coins of the Imperial Era like here from Alexandria, the Phoenix - described by Herodot as an eagle-like bird - is depicted as a winged animal with long stilts with a nimbus or an aureole around its head, sign for eternity. The bird symbolized the change of an era. In Christian art the Phoenix is known in connection with pictures of Christ or the paradise, f.e. on the mosaic in the apsis of SS. Cosma e Damiano in Rome from AD 526-530, in S. Clemente, S. Prassede and other churches, and already in the 3rd century AD the Phoenix which burnt and renewed itself was the symbol of resurrection as in the Priscilla catacomb in Rome. The symbolic content of resurrection and eternity was taken up again in Renaissance

I have added the following pics:
(1) the pic of an Egyptian wall painting showing a boat wit the Benu who is wearing the sun disk on his head. We can see the distinct similarity with an heron.
(2) the detail of the mosaic in the apsis of S.Prassede in Rome. You can see the Phoenix with a nimbus seated on a palm.
(3) the pic of a wall painting from the Priscilla catacomb, showing three children standing in a furnace with the Phoenix above as symbol of resurrection.

Sources:
- Herodot, The Histories II, 73
- Tacitus, Annales
- Ovid, Metamor. XV, 392-407
- Physiologus, Kap.7
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, 1994
- Jefferson Monnet, The Benu (Bennu) (online)
- Mattingly, FEL TEMP REPARATIO
- http://www.egyptianmyths.net/phoenix.htm
- http://www.livius.org/phi-php/phoenix/phoenix.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phoenix_(mythology)&oldid=93996420
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(mythology)

Best regards

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 12, 2009, 11:37:33 am
(continued)

The Sothic Cycle

Now we turn towards the second theme on this coin: The Sothic Cycle. Therefore back to this remarkable coin: LB, the 2nd year of the reign of Antoninus Pius (AD 139), marks according to the Roman writer Censorinus the renewal of the Great Sothic Cycle, a cycle of 1461 years beginning always in the moment when the Sirius (Greek Sothis) rises from the horizon at the same point as the sun.

The Egyptian Calendar:
In early times of the Egyptian calendar the lunar cycles were summarized from I to XII as lunar years and continously enumerated, careless of the course of the natural year. But because the strictly performed administration, already introduced in the 1st dynasty, needed a strict obedience of the dates of irrigation, tillage and appearance, the Egyptians introduced schematic months existing of 3 decades of days each which could counted easily at one' fingers. The beginning of this fixed truncated year was proclaimed publicly and probably fell on the day of the opening of the upper floodgates of the flooding basins (around August 26. Gregorganian), when the height of the water-level, the water delivery and the enhancement of mud in Upper Egypt have reached their optimum (Pauly). So the Neilotic year was connected most closely to the inundation of the Nile.

Besides this Neilotic year there was already early in 3rd century BC a year connected to the rise of the Sirius (in that time around the midsummer and the green coloration of the Nile). It was devided in three(!) seasons of equal length, so-called tetramenia echet = inundation, projet = winter and shomu = sommer. A date was written f.e. 'II echet, 2 decades + 4 days'. This year had 365 days where the last 5 days (epagomenes) were seen as sinister. Plutarch has delivered the following myth: God Set and Nut, the goddess of heaven, had clandestinely communed with each other. But the sun cursed Nut that her children should be borne neither in a month nor a year. Nut asked the wise Thot for advice. And Thot played a game of dice with the moon goddess and won the 72th part of each day of the 360 days year, making  5 days and these days were added to the year after the 12 months. So the solar year won 5 days more than the old year and the lunar year lost 5 days and came to 355 days. And so the 5 posthumous gods could enter the world.

All other fixed year, the annee sacree, the canopic year, the Alexandrian year, the Coptic year, and others, are years derived from the Neilotic and Sothic year standing in a fixed relation to the original years (Pauly).

Sothis:
Sothis (Egyptian spdt) was a female Egyptian deity embodying the bluish gleaming dog star Sirius (Canicula) which was called Sothis by the Greeks. Because Sothis could be seen directly before the beginning of the inundation of the Nile at the morning sky she was seen as bringer of the flooding of the Nile which was crucial for Egypt. The Egyptians made the rise of Sothis to the beginning of the year. But because the Egyptian calendar year defined by the rise of Sothis was about 1/4 of a day too short the rise of Sothis was wandering in about 1460 years once through the entire year. This is the so-called 'Sothis Cycle', a term from a later time; the ancient Egypts have not used it! Because according to the Roman writer Censorinus ('De Die Natali', AD 238) in AD 139 (see at our coin!) a new Sothis Cycle began we can consider by back-calculation c.2768 BC as probable date of the introduction of the Egyptian calendar (about the beginning of the 2nd dynasty).

Already in the middle of the 3rd millenium BC the Egyptians probably recognized that their systematized calendar year of 365 days had an increasing discrepancy to the heliactic rise of the Sirius, the star which indiccated the inundation of the Nile. In this way the natural year of 365 1/4 days and a calendar year of 365 days were opposing each other. This discrepancy made in 4 years a difference of one day between natural year and calendar year until 1460 years later both years coincided again. This discrepancy was never corrected in the time of the Pharaohs. The attempt to introduce a 6th leap day (epagomenon) under Ptolemaios III failed and even after the finally calendar reform by Augustus the priests in the Egyptian temples held to the old calendar still for a long time. It was probably the authority of the priesthood that inhibited a calendar reform. So the kings were forced to swear an oath before their coronation that they never would try to introduce leap days or months or to alter anything of the established year of 365 days.

The ancient Egyptians celebrated the day where the Sirius appeared over the horizon again after 65-70 days of invisibilty hiliariously with the Sothis festival. The dates of the heliactic Sirius rising therefore represent an important supporting pillar for the chronology of the ancient Egyptian kings and are in connection with the Sothis Cycle of  great historical importance.

Please note: These can only be short remarks because this subject is very sophisticated especially because there were for a long time scholarly oppositions against the interpretation of the Sothis Cycle. Therefore for further studies I recommand the articles of Wikipedia which I have cited below.

At least some Notes on the Conception of Time:
The Egyptian conception of time was obviously cyclic. All is repeating itself in eternity. But this doesn't happen in a fatiguing circle as in Buddhism but rather as spiral: Indeed all is repeating itself, spring, sommer and winter, birth and death, a new king, but it is each time a new year and a new king bringing along new hope. This I suggest as a natural conception of time.

In contrast to this conception is our Christian time conception, which is linear- eschatological. Here the time runs in a straight-line way to a far aim, the doom of our world at the last day (eschaton) and the then following Last Judgement. This judgement about Good and Evil was known in ancient Egypt too where the souls were weighed after death.

I have added a pic showing ancient Egyptian priests looking for the heliactic rise of the Sirius (Sothis), the bringer of the Nile flood so crucial for Egypt's fortune (until the construction of the Aswan High Dam!). You can see the Sirius left beneath the Orion with its three girdle stars.

Sources:
- Der Kleine Pauly
- James P.Allen, Middle Egyptian: An introduction to the language and culture of
   hieroglyphs, pp.104-106
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%84gyptischer_Kalender
- http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sothis-Zyklus
- http://www.astronomische-vereinigung-- -
- augsburg.de/artikel/astronomiegeschichte/fruehe-kulturen/teil-2-aegypten/

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 12, 2009, 11:38:51 am
Amor and Psyche

I want to share this beautiful coin together with the fairy tale, one of the most exciting ancient stories. Sadly I couldn't get the coin itself. I have bid on it but surprisingly (or possibly not) the price went over $3000!

The coin:
Thrace,  Serdika, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE - 3.05g
obv. AV KL [...] - CEVHROC (HR ligate)
        Head, laureate, r.
rev. [C]ER - DWN
       Eros, winged, nude, stg. r., and Psyche, nude to hips, stg. l., embracing; on the l.
       side a burning altar
ref. not in Ruzicka (cf. nr.384 for Caracalla); not in Varbanov (engl.); unpublished
very rare, about VF, dark green patina
ex Gorny&Mosch auktion 181, lot 1696
Photo courtesy of Lübke&Wedemann, Stuttgart/Germany

The story we know goes back to an ekphrasis (insertion) in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, known too under the title 'The Golden Ass'.

The fairy tale:
"In a certain country once lived a king and a queen, who had three daughters. The two eldest were adorned by charm and grace. But both vanished like a shadow by the bright brillance of her sister." From near and far the people came to look at her. Yes, rumour arose, that Venus herself has come back to earth and was wandering around, and people began to  worship her.

No more anyone went to Paphos nor Knidos nor Kythera to venerate Venus. Her temples decayed, her altars became orphans. Venus burned with anger and she vented her displeasure that a mortal would compete with her. She called her son Amor, led him into the city where Psyche - the name of that princess - lived, told him the sacrilege and commanded him to wound her with one of his arrows that she as a punishment became inflamed with passion to the lowest and most depraved creature on earth.

Psyche herself was not happy with her supernatural beauty. Indeed she was admired and gazed in amazement, but there was no prince asking for her hand, whereas her elder sisters were married felicitously already early. Lonely and hopelessly she wept her empty days. Her beauty became an horror to herself. Her sorrowful father asked the age-old oracle of Apollo in Miletos. And Apollo gave him order to invest Psyche like to a marriage and then to put her on the highest peak of the mountain. For she was destined not to marry a mortal but a beast, false and cruel like the brood of vipers, where the Styx itself was afraid of.

There was moaning and lamentation in the whole city. But to defy the god's order was impossible. In a long procession more like a funeral cortege than a marriage procession the sobbing Psyche was led to the allocated mountain. There she was left alone. All the bridal torches were extincted by her tears.

However still waiting for her end she felt softly floating. A zephyr (south wind) raised her, bore her to the valley below and placed her in the bloomy fold of a soft lawn.

Awakened after a refreshing sleep she found herself in a graceful park with a crystal-clear brook coming softly sweeping from a cliff, and with a gorgeous palace whose walls were made of gold and whose beauty was blinding her eyes. She arrived and was astonished at the celestial grandeur. Psyche recognized that she was adopted by a deity. After having taken a bath she sat down at a table full of the most excellent wines and the most exquisite foods. But nobody dished up, all seemed to be put on the table by magical hand. After the dinner an invisible singer appeared accompanied by another with a kithara. Then Psyche retired.

But about midnight she awoke by a low noise. It was her unknown husband. He loved her and rushed away before daybreak. Immediately the invisible servants were present and shepherded her at the best. And so one day followed the other and Psyche enjoyed the unusual life.

Meanwhile her sisters had heard about her desaster and hurried to the inconsolable parents. In the same night Psyche was warned by her unknown husband against the enviousness and badness of her sisters. But she longed for them in desire, dispraised her new home as a golden prison and ceased eating and drinking. So her husband with a heavy heart accommodated her on condition that she never will explore his true likeness.

Hearing her sisters calling her all about Psyche sends for the cephyr who brought both smoothly down to her. They celebrate the reunion and Psyche shows them the palace. They both are astonished, wonder about the invisible servants, and ask Psyche for her husband. She quickly invents a beautiful youth being hunting most of the time. Then with lots of rich presents the zephyr brought them back.

Now the jealousy of the happy Psyche arose and the sisters bemoaned each other her own fate and complained about their own husbands. Especially the proudness of the younger sister seemed to be unbearable for them and they decided to break it.

Again she was warned by her husband who promised that her child would became immortal when only she kept his secret. Overhappy she pledged to do it. But the sisters are on the way already. Seeing that Psyche is pregnant they adulate her and cropped up in her confidence. They begin to talk about her husband and remind her of the Pythean oracle. It has prodicted her as husband a monster who will devour her after the childbirth. They convince Psyche to look in the coming night with a lamp at the monster and then to cut its head with a knife. And so did Psyche. But flipping the bedspread she looks at the most  graceful and most lovely monsters of all: It is Cupido, the sweet god of love! She controls his arrows and incautiously she pricks her finger. Suddenly she falls in love with him, by her own blame but without her knowledge. She admires his golden curls and his purple wings and she is drunken of delight. She bends over to kiss him. With that some drops of hot oil from her lamp fall down on his shoulder and with pain the god jumps up. He flies to the next tree and begins to berate her that she has betrayed their love. To punish her he now will leave her forever, and saying this he flies away.

When she couldn't see him anymore Psyche in despair jumped into the near river. But the river took pity with her and laid her down on a meadow where Pan seated together with Echo and his goats. Pan tried to console her and advised her to pray to Cupido. On her further way she came to the city of one of her sisters. She told her about her unfortunate fate, that her husband has been Cupido whom she has hurted with hot oil. Hereupon he has cursed her and now she - her sister -was chosen as his new wife. Hearing that her sister was lying something of the parent's death and embarked to the rock in question. On top of it she called zephyr, jumped down, and dashed to pieces. With the same fraud her other sister came to her end too.

Whereas Psyche was in search of Cupido he rested in a room of his mother and suffered from the pain at his shoulder. A sea-gull recognized that and defamed him at his mother Venus who just was bathing: Cupido would lay with his paramour, would fornicate and she amuses herself with bathing. There were no more pudicity on earth, no matrimonies, no friendship nor childlike love. When Venus asked for the name of that girl and heard it was Psyche she became very angry, went to the bed-chamber of her son and charged him heavily. To punish him she would send him to her enemy, the temperance, who would empty his quiver, blunt his arrows, cut his golden curls and crop his wings.
 
Ceres and Juno - who already know the case - met Venus. They tried to soften the rage of the goddess and doubted that Cupido has done something wrong. It's just the way he is, they said. But actually they feared his arrows. But Venus became even more indignant.

In the mean time Psyche came to a temple full of wheat and barley ears laying on the ground confused with wreaths and sickles. Immediately she began to bring order into it. When Ceres - whose temple it was - arrived she was surprised that Psyche even in her sorrow didn't forget the order of the sanctuary. Psyche fell down before her and begged for protection against the revengeful Venus. But Ceres must refuse her because she was joint to Venus in friendship. Psyche walked onwards and came to another temple. Now it was the temple of Juno, mother of heaven. Psyche prostrated and supplicated her, who immediately stood before her in all her majesty. But she was disappointed again. Now Psyche is ready to deliver herself to Venus even if that would be her doom.

Venus was tired to search for Psyche on earth. In a golden chariot drawn by doves and accompanied by sparrows she drives back to heaven and goes to Jupiter. Proudly she claims Mercurius for help and asks him to search for Psyche on earth. Mercurius promises each human being he would help him kisses of Venus herself. Psyche is hurrying to the door of Venus. Consuetudo drags her to the throne of her mistress. Looking at Psyche Venus loughs out loud and insults her as unworthy to be her daughter-in-law. She leaps at her, tears her garment and insults her unborn child as bastard. Then she pours out a heap of wheat, barley, millet and other grains and commanded Psyche to sort these until evening. Psyche stands stiffened from the insolvable task. But an ant feels pity with her, calls her people and until evening all is sorted in nice heaps. But Venus didn't accept this as work of Psyche.
 
The next morning Venus pointed at a flock of wild and dangerous sheep at the bank of a river in a near forest and prompted Psyche to bring her a flake of their precious wool. Psyche went to the forest to drown herself in the river. But the reed begged her not to desecrate the river by her death nor to deliver herself to the furious sheep. She should gather the wool from the bushes when the sheep were fallen asleep. And so did Psyche. But again Venus was not appeased and gave her another task. To prove her courage she should bring her water from a river on top of a rugged cliff which fell down deep to the Styx and drowns out even the roaring of the Kokytos. With a jug Psyche hurries to the cliff. Horrible gorges open up, dragons threaten in caves and bark against her. She is certain that this is her last task because it is impossible to leave this place alive. Exanimated she stands, even tears she has no more.

But the misery of he who suffers innocently has not remained hidden to the all-bountiful providence. She sends an eagle, Jupiter's bird, who levitating over the abyss fills the jug. Full of joy Psyche brings it back to Venus. But she reviles Psyche as sorceress, gives her a box and sends her to Proserpina in the underworld to bring her beauty for one day which she has lost while caring for her son. But she should be quick. Now Psyche knows Venus' intention. The hint for orkus is enough. She scales a tower to jump down. But the tower begins to talk and tells her of a gate to the underworld at Cape Taenaron in Lacedaimon where she could cross over giving Charon a boatage. Two honey cakes she needs to soften Cerberus. Then she would get the gift from Proserpina. But never she is allowed to look at the divine beauty in her box. She succeeds and comes luckily back to the surface. But in the bright light of the day her desire to look at the divine beauty becomes overwhelming and she opens the box. But out comes a deadly sleep and Psyche sinks down on the way.

In the mean time Cupido was recovered from his wound and longed for Psyche. He escaped his prison and his wings brought him to her. He released her from the deadly sleep, put him back into the box and wakened Psyche by the soft stick of his arrow. Again he accused her of her curiosity but now he promised that he will care for her from now on. Psyche brings the gift of Proserpina to Venus.

Cupido  soars up to Jupiter, complains of his misery and makes him inclined to his wishes. Graciously Jupiter kisses the little rascal and promises to help him, even though that he himself has suffered so often by his arrows. He calls up a convention of the gods and prompts them to agree with him to apply finally reins to Cupido and to marry him off. He already has chosen a girl: In Psyche's arms he would find eternal fulfilled love. Venus was comforted that from now on everything would be prohibited which offends decency and is against the laws.
 
Mercurius was ordered to bring Psyche to heaven. Jupiter himself hands her the cup of immortality and the most glorious marriage dinner was prepared. Anyone embeds around. Ganymed poured out nectar from the Ida mountains to Jupiter, the Muses enjoyed the guests with their silvery voices and Apollo sang to the lyra. Venus was dancing gracefully. So Psyche was wedded ceremoniously to Cupido. Soon she gave birth to a daughter, called by the mortals Voluptas, lust.

(continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 13, 2009, 07:44:09 pm
(continued)

Apuleius:
Apuleius of Madaura was a Platonist and sophist of the 2nd century AD. He was born in AD 125 in Madaura in Numidia and grew up in Carthage. After a study stay in Athens he undertook long voyages in the East which almost eroded his assets. For a short time he was lawyer in Rome but then he returned to Africa. In AD 158 he was charged of sorcery. He had married in Oea a rich widow being much older than he. The accusation was that he has made the widow inclined by sorcery. After the verdict of not guilty he moved to Carthage again where he became a reputable member of the society. He was elected priest of the Imperial Cult. Apuleius enjoyed high prestige as rhetor and as thaumaturg (wonder maker). He was honoured in Carthage by erecting a statue. Another statue stood under the 80, which decorated the Gymnasion Zeuxippos in Constantinopolis. Here he was together with Vergil the only Roman poet. He was seen as great sorcerer precisely because he was acquitted of the charge of sorcery. His miracles were put beside the miracles of Apollonios of Tyana and over the miracles of Christus.

Apuleius is the type of the educated provincial Roman of that time. He has adopted the stuff of the educational heritage, but this is no more self purpose but working through the matters it serves for transcendental religiousness. Sometimes it tends to Platonism soon to the Isis cult, of which Apuleius was a devotee. The Platonism he changed to a secret science possibly because he himself has never access to the inner circle. His stylistic education is remarkable; it goes widely beyond the only rhetoric and qualifies him for a very nuanced mode of expression, reaching from the crude and burlesque to the tender and fairy-tale like, often a bit frilly (Pauly).

The Metamorphoses:
Of his survived texts the 11 books of Metamorphoses are the most important. It is a fantastic novel depicting the adventures of a Lucius who was transformed into in ass in Thessalia. The same plot is the base of the pseudo-Lukianic novel 'Lykios the ass' and the story of Lukios of Patrai which is briefly depicted by Photios. But Apuleius has widened this novel by the insertion of spook, bandits and love stories to a real fabula Milesia. And like all novels this too is composed so that behind the superficial action, the adventure of the ass, another profound level must be seen: As errant, brutish creature the first-person narrator finds his salvation by the mysteries of Isis. The fairy-tale of Amor and Psyche is one of his ekphraseis, a novel within the novel.

Interpretations:
The fairy-tale of Amor and Psyche which passed down by Apuleius has a long background. We can differentiate between 4 different main directions of interpretations: a symbolic-allegorical, a mythologic-literary, the fairy-tale theory and the psychoanalytical.

(1) Reitzenstein regards as origin an Iranian mythos, depicting the path of the human soul to god. This path leads through suffering and examinations down to the underworld. Merkelbach interprets the tale of Psyche as holy story of the mysteries of Isis. Psyche is the suffering Isis who on her search for  Osiris/Eros is wandering through the world. Venus is the cruel appearing Isis-Tyche, who finally leads the human to bliss if only he will serve her faithfully. In this way the fairy-tale reflects the entire novel. These symbolic-allegorical interpretations are old, the first is known from the 5th century AD.
 
(2) Helm takes the novel first for a literary work in which motives are found of mythology, novel-like literature and erotic poetry. The phrases which Apollo uses to name Eros concealingly are known already in Hellenism. The palace of Cupido is modelled on the palace of Menelaos at Homer or the house of Helios at Ovid. The tasks which Psyche has to fulfil have their analogy in the labours of  Herakles: The sorting of the grains he compares with the clearing out of the Augean stables, the wild sheep with the cattle of Geryones or the mares of Diomedes. Bringing water to Venus is corresponding to the apples of Hesperids and Psyche's walk into the underworld is clear parallel to Herakles' walk into the Orcus to get the Cerberus.

(3) In contrast Friedlaender takes as base for the novel of Apuleius a genuine folk tale, whose motives can be found in fairy-tales of different people of several cultures. The begin of the tale alone 'Erant  in quadam civitate rex et regina' could be recognized by each reader as the well-known beginning of Grimm's fairy-tales 'Once upon a time'. Especially in the fairy-tales of the Brother Grimm, but at Basile too, many of its motives are found. The disfavour of Venus reminds of the disfavour of the queen in Snow White and in sorting the grains each unbiased reader would see Cinderella. Many other parallels are found immediately: the invisible domestics in nr.90 of Grimm's Fairy Tales 'The young Giant', the jealous sisters are a well-known topos, and the feature that the beloved doesn't show his true figure is the theme of fairy-tales from the type 'Animal Husband'.

(4) The psychologists Neumann, von Franz and Bruno Bettelheim establish a direct reference to the recent human. They conceive the depicted events as steps of the development process of human capacity of love. Bettelheim points out that the attempt to accelerate experiences concerning sexuality could have fatal consequences. This fairy-tale is a parable of the difficulties - but possibilities too - to reach a mature love relationship via the development of consciousness.

Wether this all was meant by Apuleius must remain doubtful. It is an artificial fairy-tale delighting the reader for long periods. Without this ancient text the occidental literature would miss a jewel (Kurt Steinmann).

History of Art:
In Attic vase paintings we find occasionally on pics of dead warriors small armored and winged figures as depiction of the soul. There are paintings too writing 'Psyche' explicitly. On white-coloured leukyths we see small winged silhouettes around a grave stele (c. 444 BC, Athens, NM). In its love relation to Cupido Psyche is depicted as a pretty young girl often with butterfly wings. Several examples are found on Pompejan wall paintings. This refers to the Roman believe that a moribund exhales his soul in the shape of a butterfly. This allegory is acquired by Roman sarcophagi too.

The most famous ancient sculpture of Psyche was found in 18th century on the Aventine hill near St.Balbina. It was the marble group of an embracing and kissing young love pair. Just this sculpture is depicted on our coin. It is a Roman copy of the 2nd century AD of a lost original from the time around 200 BC, today in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. It is ascribed to Pasiteles (not Praxiteles!) resp. the Pasitelan school, which is mentioned by Plinius.

In early Christian times depictions of Psyche are found in the Domitilla catacombes (Rome, 1st half of 3rd century AD). This tradition was continued. Raffael with his scholars has painted the ceiling of the Villa Farnesina about AD 1508-1511 with the tale of Amor and Psyche. A similar cycle we have in the Castel St.Angelo in Rome by del Vaga (AD 1543-1548). A third cycle is found in the Palazzo del Te in Mantua by Giulio Romano, conceived as manieristic-erotic.

Rubens and van Dyck too have adopted this theme. In Classicism the symbolic power of the legend was renewed: Canova created six different versions of Amor and Psyche where the youthful pair in gracious arabesques turned to each other (f.e. AD 1787-93, Louvre; AD 1794-96, Hermitage). It was a motive too for Thorvaldsen, Rodin, Chaudet and J.-L. David.

Of literary adaptations I only want to mention Patrick Sueskind. In his novel 'The parfum' Baldini wants to copy the fragrance 'Amor and Psyche' of Pelissier. The secret of the ingredients has been unveiled: lime, storax, orange blossoms, bergamot, rosemary, rose, jasmin and musk. When Baldini in the film of Tom Twyker smells at 'Amor and Psyche' he has the charming vision of a beautiful girl who gives him in the ambience of a summer garden a kiss on his cheek.

I have added
(1) a pic of the famous statue in the Capitoline Museum in Rome,
(2) a pic of of one of Canova's sculptures, and
(3) a pic of Anthonis van Dyck's 'Cupid and Psyche', c.1638, Royal Collection, Windsor

Sources:
- Apuleius, Metamorphoses
- Milo Manara, Der Goldene Esel, 2000 Schreiber & Leser
- Die Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, (1819)
- Giambattista Basile, Pentamerone (1634-36)
- Meisterwerke der griechischen und römischen Literatur, Interpretiert von Kurt
   Steinmann, 1998 Reclam
- Bruno Bettelheim, Kinder brauchen Märchen, 1977 dva
- Günter Krampen, Zu Vorstellungen von der Psyche bei Apuleius von Madaura im
   2.Jh. n.Chr., Psychologie und Geschichte, 1. Jg., Heft 2
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst,
   2000 Reclam
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 13, 2009, 07:44:52 pm
Some Notes on Eros

After the article about Amor and Psyche it was a must to be engaged in Eros (the mythological of course!). But at first four different coins which cover some of the various aspects of Eros:

1st coin:
Thrace, Hadrianopolis, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 17, 3.8g
obv. [AVT KM AVR CEV] - ANTWNEINO[C]
      Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate,r.
rev. ADRIANO - POLEITWN
      Eros, winged, nude, stg. r., holding tablet in extended hands; bow and quiver behind him
ref. Jurukova 389; Varbanov (engl.) 3520
very rare, about VF, dark green patina
Eros seems to read love poetry.

2nd coin:
Thrace, Philippopolis, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 19, 5.31g
obv. AV KL.C - CEVHROC P
      Head, laureate, r.
rev. FILIPPO -POLEITWN
      Eros, winged, nude, stg. l. with crossed legs, resting with r. arm on narrow column and
      holding burning torch downwards in r. hand.
ref. not in in Varbanov (engl.)
rare, about VF, brown-green patina
This frequent depiction is often misunderstood as Thanatos. But Thanatos can't be exhausted.

3rd coin:
Moesia inferior, Tomis, pseudo-autonomos, time of Elagabal or Severus Alexander
AE 17, 2.43g
obv. TO -MOC
      Bust of Tomos, draped, wearing taenia, r.
rev. TO -ME / ITWN (WN ligate)
       Eros, winged, nude, riding on lion advancing r.; whip in raised r. hand
ref. AMNG I/2, 2573, pl.VI, 13 (same dies)
about VF, dark green patina
This is the typical depiction of the motive 'Amor vincit omnia'.
(When I have the coin in hand I will place a better pic!)

4th coin:
Plautilla, killed AD 212, wife of Caracalla
 AR - denarius, 3.64g, 18mm
         Rome
obv. PLAVTILLA - AVGVSTA
       Bust, draped, r.
rev.: VENVS VICTRIX
       Venus, nude to waist, stg. l., holding apple in extended r. hand, resting with l. arm on big
       ovale shield set on small base, and holding in l. arm palm; l. before her Cupido, winged,
       nude, stg. l., holding in extended l. hand crested helmet.
ref. RIC IV/1, Caracalla 369; BMCR 429 var.; C.25
scarce, about VF, slightly toned
BTW This is the only rev. showing Cupido holding a helmet!

Mythology:
The story of Eros leads us far away to the begin of the world. We find him in the cosmogony, the story of the origin of our world, and in the theogony, the story of the birth of gods. But these seem to be actually the same.

Referring to Hesiod first of all arose Chaos. After that arose Gaia, the fertil earth,  and Eros, who dominates the mind of gods and men, the most beautiful of the immortals. From Chaos derived Erebos, the lightless deep, and Nyx, the night. Nyx by surrendering to Erebos gave birth to Aether, the light of the sky,and Hemera, the day. Out of herself Gaia created Uranos, the heaven, the eternal seat of the gods, and she created Pontos, the sea, and this all without Eros. To Uranos she bore the Titans, male and female, then three Cyclopes with only a single eye, and then the Hekatoncheires, giants with hundred arms and fifty heads.

Referring to the Orphics at first was Nyx, the night, who was feared even by Zeus. Impregnated by the wind she laid a silver egg into the womb of the darkness. From this egg sprung a god with golden wings, Eros, the god of love. But this was only one name of many: His name was too Protogonos, because he was the firstborn of all gods. Or Phanes, because he brought to light all which was hidden in the silver egg, actually the whole world: above a hollow space, the Chaos (meaning literally the gaping emptiness), at the bottom everything else. This story is told however in this way: Above in the egg was the heaven and at the bottom the earth, who - forced by Eros - copulated and created the siblings Okeanos and Tethys. Or below was the Okeanos and his sister Tethys who first felt the power of Eros. But their mother was always the Night.

This Eros, the first so to say, was a cosmic principle, an elementary power which primarily enabled life. He must not be seen as personal deity like the later gods. This concept of a personal human-like deity is much younger and probably appeared not until Hellenism. In this sense the so to say second Eros was the incorporation of love passion. He is said to be the son of Hermes and Artemis, of Hermes and Aphrodite and finally of Ares and Aphrodite. But he is said too to be the son of Zephyr and Eris or of Abundance and Poverty too. Other parents should have been Zeus and Persephone, Zephyr and Flora (probably a poetic invention) or Hephaistos and Aphrodite. According to Platon he was parentless.

But generally Eros is seen as son of Aphrodite. Already before his birth he should have been very bratty. So he is said to have sprung from the womb of his mother already before the due date, have shaked his wings and swung in her arms. But he is said too to have been her servant and has welcomed her when she arose of the sea at Paphos. He has carried her scepter or hold the mirror when she came out of the bath.
 
Actually there are no stories of Eros as we know so many from the other gods. The reason is - as Hederich wrote - that he is only a fictional poetic being. He is depicted holding a torch with which he inflames love, or like on the 2nd coin resting on a column exhausted by his work. Most famous are his bow and his arrows. He has two kinds of them: golden and sharp ones to awake love, and leaden blunt ones to create antipathy and aversion. Depictions where he is shown riding on a lion -as on the 3rd coin - symbolize his power: Omnia vincit amor, love conquers all (Vergil, 10th ecloge)! This too is shown by depictions where Eros breaks the thunderbolts of Zeus or sitting on Herakles' shoulders weighs him down. Once he has stolen his lion-skin even though Herakles has resisted with his club. He attached the greaves of Ares, climbed his shield, is playing with his helmet (like on the rev. of the 4th coin) or demands Apollo's lyra. The fact that he is seen on the triumphal chariot of Dionysos, sitting on his wineskin, symbolizes the importance of wine for love affairs. Usually he is depicted as a child and reminds me of the wonderful poem of Else Lasker-Schüler: Meine Liebe war ein Kind und wollte spielen (My love was a child and wants to play) 

Sometimes it is dfferentiated between a celestial Eros, son of Aphrodite Urania, an earthly or common Eros, son of Aphrodite Pandemia, and a mixed Eros (Plato). The first affects only mind and soul, the other only the body and the third one soul and body. This trichotomy is found in three statues of Skopas in Megara depicting Eros, love, Himeros, desire, and Pothos, the longing (Pausanias). The first one searches for what is to be loved, the second stimulates the consumption of what is lovable, but makes a fool of someone too, and the third one provokes the longing to be for ever with the beloved one. It is said however that these are only three different grades of the one Eros. Besides him there is said to be too a Lyseros or Dyseros, the unfortunate unanswered love.

According to some he was the oldest god of all (Empedokes), according to others the youngest (Pausanias). He is said too to be the creator of all human misfortune (etymological related to Eris?), the reason of crapulency, phlegm and opulence, and strife, war and hate would accompany him. He was more powerful as all other gods.
 
Especially worshipped he was in Thespiai where a statue of Praxiteles has stood, and in Parion. The Greeks used to set a statue of Eros in the entrance of their gymnasia. The Romans added Minerva and Hermes.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 05, 2009, 10:55:19 am
(continued)

Background:
Homer doesn't know Eros. But in the scenes of Chaos in the ancient cosmogonies he takes a primary place. Hesiod puts him together with Tartaros and Gaia at the beginning of all things. This is true too for the fundamental similar Pothos in the 'Cosmogony of the Sidonians' of Eudemos of Rhodos. According to Parmenides (frg.B13) the female elementary power (daimon) conceived the Eros protiston theon, Eros, the first of gods. In Platon's 'Symposion' Phaidros comes back to the theos palaiotatos, the most ancient god, of Hesiod, Akousilaos and Parmenides. Aristophanes parodies in his 'Birds' the Orphic conceptions and let the world creator arise from an egg which was created by the Night in the womb of Erebos, before earth, air or heaven were at all, and makes him a relative of the birds!

The role which Eros is playing here as cosmic creator principle originates from an idea which understands the creation and the development under the suggestion of sexual mixture and genealogic succession. That was the reason that for the so understood Eros pre-Hellenic origins were assumed. This suggestion matches well with the archaic stone cult of the aniconic Eros of Thespiai (Paus. 9, 27, 1). This cult unifies phallic-priapic with cosmic-keraunic conceptions. On similar ideas is based the ancient sacral community with the fertility goddess Aphrodite in Athens.

At Hesiod he is the kallistos en athanatoisi, the most beautiful of the immortals. The early  Orphism endows him, the light bringer, golden wings, but deformes him soon after to a multinamed bisexual monster Phanes-Erikepais-Protogonos by mixing him with other creative divine entities. In this polymorphic shapelessly he resembles Kronos-Chronos.

Whereas in archaic times Eros was conceived as an aspect of light in contrast to the chaotic dark powers of prehistoric times he became in Greek poetry by aesthetical glorification an insuperable life power. Already Hesiod recognized in 'the most beautiful of all immortals' the conqueror of gods and men. Gold-haired (Anakreon), gold-winged (Aristophanes), springlike, in the brightness of heavenly thunderbolts, related to Zephyr and rainbow, the deinotatos theon, the most terrible of gods, brings like a storm (Sappho) the bitter and the sweet of love glykypikros with fateful violence. Eros has no pre-literary myths. The fairy-tale of Amor and Psyche at Apuleius is a later excrescence and belongs to the ambit of the Isis mysteries. So he is formed by poetical phantasy only which enjoys the antagonism of naive innocence and raging furor.

This type of divine youth with his attributes flower, lyra or bow is separated by an abyss from the primordial god of Thespiai or Parion. But his naive nature as child -  which deprives him of any mythological determination and lets him without a female companion - covers however too as pais amphithales, the child flourishing from both sides, the plurality of the possible which is so typical for the archaic daimon. In this way it is possible to use him for the exemplification of more differentiated erotic possibilities. Out of pederastic ideals of the palaistra (a kind of school of physical education) the antagonistic pair of Eros and Anteros emerged. And since 'Theseus' and 'Stheneboia' of Euripides it was distinguished between Eros sophron, restrained Eros, and Eros aischros, dirty Eros. Further systematic speculations led to a Eros triplex in the catalog of gods, Cic. nat. 3, 60. This trichotomic principle - provided with syncretistic nuances - dominated still the the depiction of Eros in the Hellenistic erotic novel of Longos. The countless Erotes who populate the literature since Pindar and Bakchylides, and at the same time enrich the Greek vase painting, are lately the expression of a symbolism of an idea pointing to the universality of Eros.
(Kleiner Pauly)

History of Art:
In the archaic and classical Greek art Eros is almost always a winged youth or boy (Mellephebe), the incorporation of beauty and love desire. His weapons are arrows and bow. Sometimes he is accompanied by Himeros and Pothos (f.e. statues of Skopas in the temple of Aphrodite in Samothrace and Megara, BC 340-330, which we know by Plinius and Pausanias). Several statues of Eros are known of Praxiteles and the bow stringing Eros of Lysipp, around 330 BC, we know from Roman copies.

Beginning in the end of the 5th century BC the depiction of Eros received more and more childlike traits and in Hellenism and in Rome finally appeared Erotes in plural, flighty, childish chubby-faced beings, who playfully imitate human activities (f.e. on wall-paintings from Pompeij). Eros is shown how he is pricking himself with his arrow or how he is sharpening them. He is shown how he is pouring a full purse or at other drolleries. The Eros-Psyche motiv is found especially on Roman sarcophagi. 

In modern age he is used by Tizian seriously allegorical in his work 'Heavenly and earthly Love' (AD 1512; Rome), or by Caron AD 1566 in the 'Burial of Amor'  for the death of Diana of Poitiers. Since the 15.century the small Erotes belong to the image library where they easily can be confused with Genii or Putti. As inventor of the Putti is seen Donatello. But that their origin are the Erotes of antiquity is evident. These funny tots could be found on all possible pictures: they decorate festive processions, play musical instruments and are often shown together witch fauns and nymphs. When in 1759 in Stabiae near Pompeij a Roman wall painting was found depicting a salesgirl selling winged Erotes this soon became a popular theme of painting and handicraft (f.e. porcelain of Meissen; Wedgewood stoneware). These cupids often appear as companions of Olympian gods, especially of Aphrodite of course; their presence at the birth of Aphrodite belongs to the convention since Renaissance (Botticelli, AD 1482; Uffizi, Firenze). Surprisingly Putti are found too on memento-mori paintings, depicting the uncertainty of human life. (Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarague)

I have added
(1) the pic of an Apulian red-figured skyphos (a drinking bowl) of the Ilioupersis painter, late
    Classic, 375-350 BC, now in the Museum of Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, New
    York City. It shows Eros playing ephedrismos, piggyback, with a woman, driving her in
    love towards her suitor. The man is accompanied by a seated Aphrodite, holding a
    dove in her hand.
(2) the pic of a Roman copy of the bow-stringing Eros of Lysippos from the Villa
     d'Este, now in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. The bronze original, 4th century BC,
     has stood in Thespiai. Pics of this statue are found too on coins. Please look at
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=50391.0
(3) a pic of the oil canvas of Michelangelo Caravaggio (AD 1571-1610), Amor vincit omnia
     or The victorious Eros, AD 1598, today in the Staatlichen Museen, Berlin.

Sources:
- Hesiod, Theogony
- Apollodoros, Bibliotheka
- Platon, Symposion, Phaidros
- Aristophanes, The Birds
- Cicero, De natura deorum
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
- Karl Kerenyi, Greek Mythology
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
- Luc Ferry, La sagesse des mythes, 2009 (recommended)
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen
- https://www.forumancientcoins.com/ayiyoryitika/ProlegomenaEros.html
  Website of Francis Jarman and Pat Lawrence (warmly recommended)
- www.theoi.com

Enjoy!
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 05, 2009, 10:56:23 am
The Greek sun-god Helios

Recently I could add a drachm from Rhodes to my collection depicting the head of Helios. Surely I have searched for the background. But I have confined myself to the Greek Helios. The Roman Sol will be another article.

The coins:

Caria, Rhodes, struck c.205-188 BC
AR - drachm, 2.50g
obv. Head of Helios, slightly turned r.
rev. Rose, above GORGOS (magistrate), beneath R - O
in l. field bow in bow-case
ref. Ashton 288; SNG Helsinki 582; SNG Copenhagen 783
VF, uncleaned, some earthen deposits
Note: The similarity with Alexander the Great is highly visible, even the anastole is present.

Probus, AD 276-282
AE - Antoninianus, 5.77g
Siscia, AD 279, 6th emission, 5th officina
obv. IMP CM AVR PROBVS P AVG
Bust, in imperiale mantle, radiate, holding eagle-tipped sceptre in r. hand
rev. SOLI INVICT - O
Sol, radiate, nude except chlamys waving behind him, holding whip in l. arm and raising r. hand in greeting attitude
ref. RIC V/2, Siscia 744(S); C.659; Alföldi type 76, nr. 120
very rare, EF, dark green patina
Note: Sometimes the raised r. hand is suggested as driving away the darkness of the night.

Mythology:
Helios is the Greek sun-god. As parents are considered the Titans Hyperion and Theia resp. Thias. He is brother of Eos and Selene and grandson of Uranos. However there are other reports about his origin too. So it is said that he was the son of Zeus, but usually he is seen as Titan. From his spouse Pereis the 'unresting' Helios is father of Kirke and Aietes (Hesiod,Theogony, 955ff.), by others of Pasiphae, and from Klymene father of Phaeton. Pindar names as wife of Helios the nymph Rhode (Olymp.7.54ff.). A grandchild is Medea. Homer moreover lists as Helios' children the nymphs Lampetia (= the illuminating) and Phaetusa (= the shining), whom he has created with Neaira (Odyssee, 12.131-133)

Helios drives a chariot with golden reins during the day from East to West over the sky. Ahead Eos is harrying, the dawn, and Selene, the moon, is following behind. In the night he returns from West to East in a golden bowl through the Okeanos to his starting point, so that he can repeat his journey on the next morning. In the meantime the Hores have cleaned his chariot which he has got from Zeus as gratitude for the victory over the Titans. Helios - himself a Titan - stood on Zeus' side against the other Titans. The names of the four horses are known as Pyroeis, Eous, Aithon and Phlegon (Ovid, Metamorphoses II,153) or Erythraeus, Aktaeon, Lampos (bright) and Philogeos or Aethon (burning), Chronos, Astrape and Bronte, or Eos, Aethiops, Sterope and Bronte. Out of their nostrils they are said to blow the light.

As god of light he heals blinds, but punishes sinners with blindness too. He is seeing and hearing all (Homer, Ilias 3.277). So he revealed the escapade of Aphrodite to Hephaistos, which is why she later took revenge on the daughters of Helios and seduced them to improper love. Take a look at the article about Hephaistos under http://www.numismatikforum.de/ftopic11926-330.html When Hades has raped Persephone it was Helios who could help Demeter to find the whereabouts of her beloved daughter. Take a look at the article about the Rape of Persephone under http://www.numismatikforum.de/ftopic11926.html In this way Helios too was the god of oath. On the other side he who was seeing all has had several love affairs and a numerous offspring. But Hederich suggests that this only have been said because all beautiful people are always called 'beautiful like the sun'.

Phaethon:
It is told the sad story of Phaeton, son of Helios and Klymene. He was an avid charioteer and has often clad as his father Helios. Once when he got in strife with Epaphos, a son of Zeus, who doubts that his father was the sun-god, he complained at his father and Helios to solace him promised to fulfil  each of his wishes . There Phaethon wanted to drive the sun-chariot for one day. Against all objections and risks he insisted on his demand until Helios conceded. But when he mounted the chariot the horses immediately recognized that it was not the sun-god himself who guided them and began to leave the way. When Phaethon took his whip they became ferocious even more. They rushed to the North so that Bootes because of the heat jumped from his car, and when Phaethon saw the Skorpio he with shock let go of the reins. Now uninhibited the horses swept through all regions of the sky, set the clouds on fire or drove so closed to earth, that all withered and forests, cities and people burnt up. It is said that from this time on the Africans are black. The great rivers were boiling and when Poseidon wanted to look what happened above the water he had to dive down quickly because of the heat. It was Tellus who called Zeus for help who tried to help with rain. But the rain was dried up. There Zeus took his thunderbolt and struck Phaeton. The chariot broke and Phaethon was drowned in the Eridanus. Helios in mourning veiled his head for one day and then spurned his chariot. Not until the pleas of the gods and the threats of Zeus he changed his mind and he began to do his duty again. Phaethon was put as Auriga at the sky. The tears of his sisters however became amber. (Ovid, Metamorph.; Diodor; Hyginus u.a.)

The Cattle of the Sun-god:
On the island of Trinakia (that is Sicily) were living seven immortal herds of fifty cattle and fifty sheep, sacred to Helios, herded by Lampetia and Phaetusa, his daughters (Odysse, 127-133). The seer Teirsias and Kirke have had pronounced the break-up of the ship and the death of the companions if the herds would be harmed. But Odysseus allowed the landing and against his interdiction the companions butchered some of the cattle, sacrificed the bests to the gods and banquetted six days from the rest. Lampetia reported it to Helios and he asked Zeus for revenge. Zeus smashed the ship with his thunderbolt (Odyssee, 12.371-419). The number of three hundred and fifty animals is corresponding to the number of days of the ancient lunar year. Therefore 'it was just naturally that Helios because the companions of Odysseus have had eaten the cattle, took them the countervalue of the cattle, the days and especially the day of return.' (Kerenyi)

I have added the pic of a marble bust, showing Alexander the Great as Helios. It is the Roman copy of an Hellenistic original of an unknown artist from the 3rd-2nd century BC, today in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. The resemblance with the Helios portrait from Rhodes is striking.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 14, 2009, 03:23:57 pm
(continuation)

Background:
The conception of a divine being surely was inspired by the religious perceiving when looking at the sun. Homer and Hesiod describe his journey over the sky. At Homer there were already flamy steeds, at Hesiod a team of bulls. How Helios came back in the night remains unclear. Mimnermos reports a bowl in which he returns through the Okeanos from the Hesperides to the Aithiopes. Euripides and Ovid describe the gorgeous sun palace. As witness of all deeds he became a oath god besides Zeus. As creative vital force he is a symbol of life. Helios so means happiness, freedom and blessed with children. Even though he was called a god already by Sophokles he has an exceptional position because he didn't resides on the Olympos, and had - except of some cult sites - no terrestrial residence. As parents were mostly suggested Hyperion and Theia. Both were Titans and therefore Helios was called a Titan too, especially by the Romans. Kerenyi would like to see in the escorting women and his mother the moon goddess. His daughters, the Heliades, were changed in poplars after the death of Phaethon (which probably was an old surname of Helios) and their tears changed to amber. The Greek name HLEKTRON for amber is derived from HLEKTWR, an old name of Helios.
     
The actual island of Helios was Rhodes. According to mythology Rhodes has originated from the sea and Poseidon and his daughter Rhode watched over it. When Zeus reallocated the world he forgot Helios who was on his journey around the sky. Therefore he asked Zeus for the island of Rhodes which just raised from the sea and which he named after Rhode, who became his wife (Pindar, Olymp. 7). With Rhode he has seven daughters, the Heliades. And he was the guardian god of Rhodes. In honour of Helios each year the festival of the Halieia were celebrated by the cult priests of Haliastes and a quadriga was plunged in the sea. Everyone who was once in Rhodes and has seen the unbelievable light of this island can understand the close relation to Helios! When Demetrios I Polyorketes besieged in 304/303 BC Rhodes the Rhodians ascribed the lucky outcome of the siege to the help of their guardian god Helios. In his honour they erected the huge statue of Helios Eleutherias which under the name Colossus of Rhodes became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Colossus comes from a Phrygian word meaning just statue. The Rhodian statue was erected in 290 BC by Chares, a scholar of Lysippos. But the statue didn't survive for long. Already in 227 BC it was destroyed by an earthquake and its ruins could be visited until the 7th century AD.

 The Helios cult in Rhodes was the only one in classical Greek. Later he was worshipped too on the Peleponnesos, especially on the areopagus of Corinthe, in Elis where his specialname Augeias became an own deity, and in Athens too. The worship in Corinthe wasn't beginning until Hellenism when Greece opened more and more for not-Greek deities. After all it must be said that Helios was rather a not-Greek deity. Herodotos describes a multitude of these sun cults.

Regarding to Platon Helios and Apollon should be venerated together and indeed about since 5th century these two deities were merged more and more, so that Phoibos Apollo too was seen as sun-god. In Megalopolis both were worshipped together as Soter, redeemer. This was forced by Orphic theocrasy, Stoic philosophy and by the astrology which came from the East. Under this influence and based on the Phrygian Mithras and the Syrian astral god Sol Invictus he finally became the Roman Imperial God. But that is another story.

The Cattle Problem of Archimedes:
Speaking about the cattle of the sun-god one should at least mention this famous mathematical problem, known too as problema bovinum.

In AD 1733 Lessing, librarian of the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel edited the translation of a Greek poem which described a mathematical problem. It challenged the reader to find the correct number of cattle in the herd of the sun-god. In the title of this poem is named Archimedes and it is said that he has sent it in a letter to Eratosthenes so that the mathematicians in Alexandria may examine it. But this claim is doubted because this problem has not been mentioned by any ancient mathematician.

Compute, O friend, the number of the cattle of the sun which once grazed upon the plains of Sicily, divided according to color into four herds, one milk-white, one black, one dappled and one yellow. The number of bulls is greater than the number of cows, and the relations between them are as follows:

White bulls = 1/2 + 1/3 black bulls + yellow bulls
Black bulls = 1/4 + 1/5 dappled bulls + yellow bulls 
Dappled bulls = 1/6 + 1/7 white bulls + yellow bulls
White cows = 1/3 + 1/4 black herd
Black cows = 1/4 + 1/5 dappled herd
Dappled cows = 1/5 + 1/6 yellow herd
Yellow cows = 1/6 + 1/7 white herd

If thou canst give, O friend, the number of each kind of bulls and cows, thou art no novice in numbers, yet can not be regarded as of high skill. Consider, however, the following additional relations between the bulls of the sun:

White bulls + black bulls = a square number, 
Dappled bulls + yellow bulls = a triangular number.

If thou hast computed these also, O friend, and found the total number of cattle, then exult as a conqueror, for thou hast proved thyself most skilled in numbers.

Please, don't try to solve this problem! It was solved by using computers in 1965 by mathematicians of the University of Waterloo in Ontario. It is a so-called system of Diophantine equations of Pell and its smallest solution has 206.544 decimal places!

I have added
(1) the pic of a cutting of an Attic red-figured vase painting of an unknown painter, high Classic, today in the British Museum, London. It shows Helios or perhaps Phaeton driving the sun-chariot into the dawning.
(2) the pic of an Attic red-figured vase painting of the Eleusinian painter from the late Classic, c.350 BC, today in the Heremitage in St.Petersburg. It shows the bowl in which Helios each night is sailing from the sunset in the West around the Okeanos to the East to be back early enough at sunrise. On this depiction Herakles is sitting in the bowl which he has borrowed from Helios to reach Geryon's cattle.
(3) and at last the pic of an oil painting of Nicolas Poussin, 'Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons', painted 1629-1630, today in the Gemäldegalerien Berlin. We see Phaeton kneeling before his father Helios and asking for the sun-chariot. Helios is depicted as youthful Apollon resting on his lyra. 

Sources:
- Apollodor, Bibliotheka
- Benjamin Hedrich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Head, Historia Numorum
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes'_cattle_problem
- http://home.arcor.de/angelion/koloss/koloss1.html   
- www.theoi.com

I hope there is something new for you.

Enjoy!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 14, 2009, 03:25:37 pm
Aphrodite Stratonikis

This can be seen as a little thank-you for the poll.

Coin:
Ionia, Smyrna, c.175 BC - 85 BC
AE 16, 4.29g, 16.3mm
struck under magistrate Heras
obv. Head of Sipylenic Kybele, wearing mural crown
rev. SMYRNAIWN / HRAS
       Statue of Aphrodite Stratonikis, in long chiton and wearing kalathos, stg. r.,
       resting with l. arm on small column and holding in l. hand small Nike, stg. l. and
       holding wreath in raised r. hand; between her and column scepter.
ref. SNG Copenhagen 1187 var.
F+/about VF, dark green patina

History:

Stratonike I (317 BC - 254 BC) was the only daughter of king Demetrios I Poliorketes with his first wife Phila, daughter of Antipatros, Regent of Empire. Stratonike was married in 300 BC to Seleukos I Nikator and so she became a Queen of Seleukids. In 293 BC Seleukos I left Stratonike to his son Antiochos I Soter who - referring to tradition - became melancholic and ill by falling in love with his stepmother, who was seven years younger than he. The following story is reported: When the physician Erasistratos was examining Antiochos, the young wife of the king entered the room and Erasistratos recognized  by the accelerated pulse of his patient that it was no physical sickness but the love for this untouchable stepmother. Thus his father left his young wife to him and his empire too. And when Antiochos I died Antiochos II, his son with Stratonike, became his successor on the throne from 261 BC to 246 BC.

The cult of Aphrodite Stratonikis was introduced by Antiochos II in honour of his mother Stratonike, who died in 254, at the recommandation of the Delphic Oracle. Its boom years the cult has in Hellenistic times. The highlight probably was that at the request of Seleukos II in 242 BC her temple - and with it the entire city - was declared as hieron kai asylon by the Delphic Oracle.

The fact that queens were venerated as goddesses and especially as Aphrodite was not unusual in antiquity. I remind of Julia, daughter of Augustus, who was worshipped as Aphrodite Geneteira (Venus Genetrix), of Teos, wife of Attalos I from Pergamon or of Arsinoe, daughter of Ptolemaios I and Berenike I.

Ikonography:
On coins struck from c.170 BC on Aphrodite Stratonikis appears in long chiton with kalathos on her head, holding a scepter in her r. hand and a statue of Nike in her l. hand, resting with her left arm on a column. This depiction met the pic of Aphrodite Nikephoros, which we know f.e. from coins of Skepsis in Troas.
On early pieces (170 BC - c.85 BC) Aphrodite is standing r., since 85 BC she is standing facing. From 75 BC on a dove as further attribute is added to the r. field. The depiction of Aphrodite Stratonikis apparently recalls the cult statue which was erected in the temple.
Dove and kalathos are well known attributes of Aphrodite. Nike probably was added referring to the name of Stratonike. The column has no cultic meaning. It was probably required to carry the outstretched arm bearing the weight of the statue of Nike. We know that from many other statues.

The End of the Cult:
Whereas this type is very common until AD 14, later this type occurs no more at all.  The decreasing of interest in the cult of Aphrodite Stratonikis surely is not related to the revision of the asylons under Tiberius in AD 22, because Smyrna was allowed to keep its right of asylon, though it now didn't extend over the entire city but was constricted to the temenos. But after granting the first neocory under Tiberius the new temple of the Emperor apparently became the most important sanctuary of the city and repelled the ancient cult of the Seleucid queen. As asylon the temple of Aphrodite Stratonikis lost its importance as well, in contrast to the new sanctuary because the temple and the statues of the emperor generally were considered as asylons. (Cass. Dio47, 19, 2; Sen. de clem. 1, 18, 2; Tac. ann. 3, 36,1)

The Sipylenic Kybele:
The only deity whose depiction was equally frequent on coins in Hellenism as in Roman Imperial time was Kybele. She was worshipped in Smyrna under the name Meter Sipylene. This surname points to Sipylos, the mountains which surmount Smyrna and as whose dominator the goddes was seen and where she was venerated already in pre-Hellenic time. This mother goddess was borrowed by the Greeks and Smyrna became one of her main cult locations. Under the name Mater Deorum Sipylene the lawyer Ulpian listed her as one of the few deities to whom a legacy could be assigned(!). Referring to the outstanding importance for Smyrna the bust of our coin often is suggested as Kybele, and not as the rather common Tyche.

 History of Art:
The theme of the lovesick king's son was picked up by numerous painters, among them Antonio Bellucci (1654-1726), Jean-August-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) and others. It was popular already in Middle Ages (f.e. the Master of Stratonike, about 1490). I have added the painting of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), Antiochus et Stratonice, 1774, today in the Ecole Nationale Superiere des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Sources:
Dietrich O.A.Klose, Die Münzprägung von Smyrna in der römischen Kaiserzeit, 1987
Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 30, 2010, 05:43:46 am
Dear friends!

I have seen that last week we have crossed the border of 100000 pageviews. Thank you all for your interest! Sadly I'm so busy with the Markianopolis and Nikopolis Addenda that there is not much time left for mythological articles.  But I have some themes for the future.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 21, 2010, 12:51:02 pm
Gordios - Founder of Gordion

After a longer pause (I am busy with Nikopolis and Markianopolis!) I want to share a coin which seems to point to an interessant mythology. Thanks to archivum who has found the hints to Gordios and to Louis Robert, who wants to see on a stele from Thiounta in Phrygia the ox-car of Gordios.

The coin:
Thrace, Tomis, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 26, 10.81g, 26.15mm, 195°
obv. AV K.L CEPTI - CEVHROC P
Head, laureate, r.
rev. MHTRO - P - P - ONTOV TO - MEWC (from 12h clockwise to 9h)
Two-wheeled cart drawn by a bull pacing l.; in the cart a man, bearded, bare-headed, in himation(?), std. r., upper part of the body and head turned l., r. hand stretched out l., r. hand bent; in front of the bull a woman in double-chiton advancing l., head turned r., with r. hand holding an unknown object (long stick?) on r. shoulder, l. hand raised r.
in upper field Delta (for tetrassarion)
ref. a) not in AMNG
          rev. AMNG I/2, 2756 (depiction)
                 AMNG I/2, 2757 (legend)
         obv. AMNG I/2, 2757
     b) Varbanov (engl.) 4845 var. (= AMNG 2757)
F/F+, brown patina

This type we find in Tomis regularly from Marcus Aurelius until Philip II (except for Macrinus and Diadumenian!). Because of the constancy of the depiction Regling has suggested that is the copy of a monument. Any explanation for the pic he couldn't find. He took it for a local myth. Perhaps we have found the explanation?

What we have:
(1) a rural cart drawn by an ox
(2) an artless clad bearded man std. in the cart
(3) a woman with a stick(?) over the shoulder walking in front of the cart
These 3 essentials my point to Gordios! Here we have his mythology:

Mythology:
Gordios (or Gordias) was a royal name in the mythic prehistory of Phrygia. In the mythological age, kings of Phrygia were alternately named Gordias and Midas.

The first Gordios was a poor farmer from Macedonia who was the last descendant of the royal family of Bryges. This was the name of the Phrygians when they settled together with the Macedonians in Europe (Herodotus VII, 73). He only owned 2 oxes, one for working, the other for transporting (Arrian II, 3). One day, while he was ploughing, an eagle came down and settled on his yoke of oxen, and remained there till the evening. Gordios was sur­prised at the phenomenon and interpreted it as a sign that he would one day become a king. He made for Telmissos to consult the soothsayers of that place, who were very celebrated for their art. Close by the gates of the town he met a Telmissian girl, who herself possessed prophetic powers. He told her what he had come for, and she advised him to offer up sacrifices to Zeus-Sabazios at Telmissos.

"'Let me come with you, peasant,' she said, 'to make sure that you select the right victims.' "By all means,' replied Gordius. 'You appear to be a wise and considerate young woman. Are you prepared to marry me?' 'As soon as the sacrifices have been offered,' she answered." (Robert Ranke-Graves, Greek mythology, §83) )

She herself accompanied him into the town, and gave him the necessary instructions respecting the sacrifices. Gordios, in return, took her for his wife, and be­came by her the father of Midas. It is told too that with Kybele, or under her patronage as Great Mother, goddess of Phrygia, Gordias has adopted Midas, who was recast as his son in later mythology.

When Midas had grown up to manhood, internal disturbances broke out in Phrygia, and an oracle informed the inhabitants that a cart would bring them a king, who should at the same time put an end to the disturbances. When the people were deliberating on these points, Gordios with his wife and son, suddenly appeared riding in his ox-cart in the assembly of the people, who at once recognised the person described by the oracle., and made ehim their king.

According to Arrian, the Phrygians made Midas their king, while, according to Justin, who also gives the oracle somewhat differently, and to others, Gordios himself was made king, and succeeded by Midas.

Gordios founded the city of  Gordion, which then became the Phrygian capital. His ox-cart and the yoke to which the oxen had been fastened the new king dedicated to Zeus in the akropolis of Gordion. In this manner the founding myth justified the succession of Gordion to Telmissos as cult center of Phrygia. The yoke was fastened by a complicated knot and an oracle declared that, whosoever should untie the knot of the yoke, should reign over all Asia (the recent Anatolia). It is suggested that the name of Dionysos was tied into the knot. This was the famous 'Gordian Knot'.

And now we have the well-known story of Alexander the Great who came to Gordion in 333 BC and sliced the knot in half with his sword. This was accepted by the priests as solution and the oracle came true.

Interpretations:
The knot may in fact have been a religious knot-cipher guarded by Gordian/Midas's priests and priestesses. Robert Graves suggested that it may have symbolized the ineffable name of Dionysos that, enknotted like a cipher, would have been passed on through generations of priests and revealed only to the kings of Phrygia.
Unlike fable, true myth has few completely arbitrary elements. This myth taken as a whole seems designed to confer legitimacy to dynastic change in this central Anatolian kingdom: thus Alexander's "brutal cutting of the knot... ended an ancient dispensation." The ox-cart seems to suggest a longer voyage, rather than a local journey, perhaps linking Gordias/Midas with an attested origin-myth in Macedon, of which Alexander is most likely to have been aware. To judge from the myth, apparently the new dynasty was not immemorially ancient, but had widely remembered origins in a local, but non-priestly "outsider" class, represented by Greek reports equally as an eponymous peasant "Gordias" or the locally-attested, authentically Phrygian "Midas" in his ox-cart. Other Greek myths legitimize dynasties by right of conquest, but the legitimizing oracle stressed in this myth suggests that the previous dynasty had been a race of priest-kings allied to the unidentified oracle deity (Wikipedia).

I have added the following pic:
Jean-Simon Berthelemy (1743-1811), Alexander cuts the Gordian Knot, Paris, Ecole de Beaux-Arts

Sources:
(1) Herodot, VII
(2) Arrian, Alexandri Anabasis II
 
Literature:
(1) William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1867
(2)  Robert Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology, 1955, §83d.
(3) Louis Robert, "Les dieux des Motaleis in Phrygie," Journal des savants 1 (1983),
     45-63 , 51, n. 16, online
(4) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: curtislclay on July 21, 2010, 02:30:54 pm
An interesting idea, but two questions arise which prevent me from accepting it as the undoubted explanation of this unusual Tomis reverse type!

First, the myth of Gordios relates to the foundation of a ruling dynasty in Phrygia. Even if the Phrygians are supposed to have originally come from Thrace, it seems odd that Tomis was so persistent in depicting this Phrygian myth on its coins. In general, provincial cities depicted their own myths on their coins, not the myths of distant foreign cities, even if related.

Second, the details of the type don't seem adequately explained by the Gordios interpretation. Why does the man sit backwards in the cart, but turn around and gesture towards the woman? Why is the woman leading the ox while looking back at the man, and what is she carrying over her shoulder?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 21, 2010, 03:30:41 pm
Thanks, Curtis!
,
As so often you here too have twisted the knife in the wound. Why just Tomis? Why just the strange position of the two persons. But the suggestion was so strong that I wanted to use this type as a plug for the founder myth of Gordion. I have done this a few times in this thread and I hope that the justified doubts were always clear.

BTW Regling writes: She doesn't lead the animal at the horns like it seems on some coins.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest -- Gordios? from Tomis
Post by: archivum on July 23, 2010, 05:23:35 pm
An interesting idea, but two questions arise which prevent me from accepting it as the undoubted explanation of this unusual Tomis reverse type!

First, the myth of Gordios relates to the foundation of a ruling dynasty in Phrygia. Even if the Phrygians are supposed to have originally come from Thrace, it seems odd that Tomis was so persistent in depicting this Phrygian myth on its coins. In general, provincial cities depicted their own myths on their coins, not the myths of distant foreign cities, even if related.

Second, the details of the type don't seem adequately explained by the Gordios interpretation. Why does the man sit backwards in the cart, but turn around and gesture towards the woman? Why is the woman leading the ox while looking back at the man, and what is she carrying over her shoulder?

  What we need and still lack for the Gordios ID is a clear local Tomis connection with the lineage of Midas and Gordios, and I doubt we'll find one in a hurry.  But it isn't especially far-fetched to make a great deal of a mythical link with a migrant or emigré founder, especially when the home-port can use extra prestige; I am thinking of Sidon and Tyre with coins featuring Europa and Cadmus and Dido, or coins from the Troas that feature Aeneas especially.  Some coins featuring Leto and her children or either Bacchus or Zeus as an infant bear mention as well, even though migrant gods aren't quite founder-figures.

   The Tomis details actually seem to tolerably well with the Gordios story, such as it is -- sitting backward (reluctant to leave his first home), the male figure still reaches to clasp the wife-seeress leading the way to his new Phrygian homeland and future dynastic renown.*  What's she carrying?  Maybe a rope -- the lead-end of a durable line -- just the thing for the symbolic knot Alexander alone could resolve  Regling thought that this crowded reverse might well be based on some work of art; some big south-oriented civic mural would fit the bill nicely, though undoubtedly risky to reconstitute using guesswork alone.  So the jury's still out, but the case seems substantial.

   * Thus Poole finds the figure lordly enough for an emperor (on p. 60 of http://books.google.com/books?id=aDMGAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#).  More examples of this enigmatic reverse (cut-and-paste Wildwinds link) at http://wildwinds.com/coins/greece/thrace/tomis/t.html; see also the old thread on this topic with Robert and Fredricksmeyer references at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=64590.msg403654#msg403654.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: curtislclay on July 30, 2010, 11:55:30 pm
Maybe I'm too skeptical, or maybe further reading of the articles cited would change my opinion, but from the evidence so far presented, if I were judge the case would certainly not go to the jury, I would throw it out for failure to prove the indictment beyond reasonable doubt or even to the level of fair probability!

What I miss is (a) any proof apart from the coin type itself that the people of Tomis regarded Gordios as a home-town hero, (b) any proof that this coin type, with its particualr details, was meant to represent Gordios at the time he drove by in his cart and was acclaimed king in Phrygia.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 16, 2010, 11:10:30 am
Minos

As so often in this thread the depicted coin is only the plug serving as starting point for the actual theme. And so here too. Sadly the coin is very worn. But the import parts of the legends and the important attributes are still recognizable.

The coin:
Phoenicia, Gaza, pseudo-autonomous, time of Hadrian
AE 13, 3.01g, 12.86mm, 0°
struck AD 131/132
obv. King Minos in short chiton stg. frontal, head l., holding in l. arm spear and and in raised
       r. hand long branch
       r. MEINW
rev. Sacred tree
      l. [GAZA G]. r. E.BYR
      in lower r. field Phoenician Mem (symbol for Marnas, city-god of Gaza)
ref. Yashin no. 312; SNG ANS Palestine 913 var.
      (Thanks to all me bers who have helped me, especially Snegovik!)
pedigree:
ex Coin Galleries NYC Mail Bid Feb 22. 1992, lot 244
rare, still S

Dating:
Gaza has used two different systems:
(1) The era of Gaza, beginning with 61 BC referring to the visit of Pompeji in Palestine in September 61 BC, so a variant of the Pompejian Era.
(2) Dating according to the visit (epidemia) of Hadrian in AD 129.
At the time of Hadrian often both dates can be found on coins, the 2nd usually marked by EPI.
On this coin the date is difficult to identify. But by comparing it with the descriptions in Yashin, p.72, the best match is E.BYR. E is abbreviation for EPI, BYR is Greek 192, where the Y is a variant spelling of Greek koppa, meaning 100. Then it is 192 = AD 131/132, which I have adopted for my coin. The Gamma for the 3rd epidemia of Hadrian sadly is invisible.

Mythology:
It is well possible, that there are actually two different persons named Minos: Minos I the Elder, the grandfather, and Minos II the Younger, the grandson. Evidence for that is the fact, that we have two quite different characteristics which seem nearly incompatible. But it is possible too that we have only one king Minos where the later myths - depicting a rather dubious character - arose from the Attic viewpoint which - for reasons we will hear later - was interested in not allowing Minos to escape unscathed. For reasons of clarity and comprehensibility I follow Hederich and Roscher and will split Minos in two different persons.

Minos the Elder:
According to Homer Minos was the son of Zeus and Europa. He was the first of this name and should not be confused with Minos the Younger, his grandson. He ruled in Apollonia on Crete. Wether he for himself originated in Crete or came from outside on the island is disputable. In any case he was king of Crete and married with Itone daughter of Lykos. By Itone he was father of Lykastos and Akakallis with who Apollo and Hermes fell in love.
He was famous for his fair and just laws by which he ruled his people. This laws he will have received from Zeus himself. To meet Zeus every nine years he climbed to a deep cave which should have been in the Ida mountains. When he died on his tomb was engraved  ΜΙΝΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ ΤΑΦΟΣ. As time goes on the name of Minos vanished and only ΤΟΥ ΔΙΟΣ ΤΑΦΟΣ remains. Therefore the Cretans claimed that Zeus was buried here (Hederich).
After his death because of his justness he was enthroned as judge of the dead together with his brothers Rhadamanthys and Aiakos. But he was the most distinguished of this three who has to decide in the case of disputes. He is enthroned with a sceptre in his hand and judges over the deeds of the shadows. The evils are sent to the Tartaros, the good to the Elysian fields. An urn in his hand contained their fate.
However there are some who don't hold him for so just because he has pursued Britomartis with his passion. Britomartis was a nymph and huntress on Crete loved by Artemis in particular. Minos fell in love with her and chased her over the mountains and through the oak woods. After nine month of hunting he has catched her on a cliff of the Dikte mountains but she could wrest from him and jumped from the top into the sea where fishermen saved her with their nets. Artemis raised her to a goddess. But this could well have been Minos the Younger who was known for stalking young girls.
 
Minos the Younger:
Minos the Younger was the son of Lykastes and so the grandson of Minos the Elder, albeit some are holding him for a son of Zeus too. In any case it was this Minos who has as wife Pasiphae, daughter of Helios. His children were Androgeos, Deukalion, Glaukos, Phaidra, Ariadne and some others. As a sign that his reign was given to him by the gods he claimed that the gods always were fulfilling his requests. And he asked Poseidon for a bull to make a sacrifice. Poseidon fulfilled his request and sent him an extraordinary beautiful bull raising from the sea. But Minos retained this bull and sacrificed an inferior one. In revenge for this fraud Poseidon arose in Pasiphae a passionate love to his bull. After being banned from Athens the famous artist and inventor Daidalos has found asylum at Minos. Daidalos made a wooden mock-up of a cow so that Pasiphae could unify with the bull and so Minotauros was born, a monster with human body and the head of a bull. To lock him up Daidalos constructed the famous labyrinth. When Minos discovered that he was involved in the matchmaking he enclosed him and his son Ikaros in a tower. But by making wings Daidalos and Ikaros succeeded in flying away.

At this time Androgeos, son of Minos, was in Athens to take part in prize games. Athens was ruled at that time by king Aigaios. Because Androgeos won all competitions the sons of Pallas joined him. Pallas was a son of Aigaios, once expelled from Athens by his brother, Therefore Aigaios feared for his throne and let kill him. That murder led to a war with Minos. Minos came with a large fleet from Crete to Greece and besieged at first the city of Nisos where Skylla, daughter of king Nisos, helped him to conquer the city (This Skylla is not the Odyssean Skylla!). But he doesn't succeed in conquering  Athens. So he invoked the gods for help and they sent starvation and plague and the Athenians had to surrender. As punishment for the murder the Athenians had to sent every year seven youths and seven girls to the Minotauros who devoured them until Theseus made an end to this horrible tribute.
Minos ruled in Knossos but by his powerful naval power over large parts of the Mediterranean too. So he might become the founder of Gaza which was called after him Minoa.

He was infamous for stalking young girls. But Pasiphae out of jealousy has poisened his sperm so that vipers and skorpions came out and all his favourites died a painful death. It was only Prokris who could survive.

The fact that Daidalos has insulted him Minos could never forget. So finally he started with a mighty fleet to search for Daidalos, who since then lived at king Kokalos on Sicily. Minos has conceived a trick: He carried along a triton shell and promised a big reward to whom who succeeded in dragging a linen thread through the shell. When he came to king Kokalos in Kaminos on Sicily he gave the shell to Daidalos. And he drilled a small hole in its top, brush the helices of the shell with honey and sent an ant through the helices with a silk thread on which was knotted a linen thread. There Minos recognized that he has found Daidalos and demanded to deliver Daidalos. But the daughters of Kokalos refused to hand over Daidalos because he had made them elaborate toys and when Minos was sitting in the bath they suffocated him with hot water vapour. Minos was splendidly buried and found his final repose in the temple of Aphrodite in Kaminos. Later he was brought back to Crete.

Background:
Minos was a famous mythological Cretan king, after whom the archaeologists rightly have named the Cretan culture from the 3rd century to the end of the 2nd century as Minoic. Wether Minos actually was the name of a king or was a kind of king's title, because there were several kings bearing the name Minos, is not clarified definitely. In antiquity he was seen as ideal type of king (referring naturally to Minos the Elder!), who by ever recurring dialogues with Zeus was educated to ethical competency which was reflected in his legislation for his people. As location of this meetings mostly the Zeus grotto on the Ida mountains is mentioned.

Minos was in posession of a large fleet and is hold as first ruler of the sea. He succeeded in expelling the Karic pirates from the Cyclades. He colonized many islands and enthroned his sons as governors. He not only ruled over the Aegeis but many foundings named Minoa point to regions outside the Cyclades too.

The mythology of Minos preserves the memory of the importance of the Minoic culture for Crete and Greece. But a complete general view is not possible. So f.e. no trace of the feminine Phaiakian-like character of the Minoic world could be found (Pauly). The campaigns against Attica or Sicily don't need to be only mythological inventions. They are evidence for the importance of the thalassocracy which doesn't need a closed realm. Athens, the great adversary of Crete, claimed Daidalos, the ingenious artist who surely was an Cretan figure, for itself and tried too to devaluate the reputation of his high justice by enhancing his cruel deeds. An attempt which in the end was not successful, proved by his role as judge of the dead. (Pauly).

Minos and Gaza
Gaza praised itself on the close relation to Minos. According to Stephanos of Byzantium Minos, Aiakos and Rhadamanthys made an expedition from Crete to Phoenicia, captured Gaza and named it Minoa albeit there is the claim that Minoa is originated from Aramaic 'marlu (harbour). The connection to Greece is supported by the takeover of the Attic standard of coinage. The depicted coin shows on its rev. a sacred tree. According to Yashin it is the evergreen sycamore of Gortyna on Crete. Under this tree - referring to the myth - Zeus has unified with Europa. And Marnas, the city-god of Gaza, is said to be a concretion with Zeus. Meant is Zeus Kretagenes, the Cretan Zeus.

Art of History:
I have added the pic of Minos from Michelangelo's wall painting in the Capella Sistina. Surprisingly Minos is entwined by a snake. Here is the explanation:
Baigio da Cesena, a papal master of ceremonies, criticized Michelangelo's work saying that nude figures had no place in such a sacred place, and that the paintings would be more at home in a public tavern. When Baigio complained to the Pope the pontiff explained that he had no jurisdiction over hell and that the portrait would have to remain. Michelangelo included da Cesena in the Last Judgement as Minos, one of the three judges of the underworld. Michelangelo has depicted Minos with ass-ears and wrapped in serpents coils. The coils indicate to what circle of hell the damned are destined. The serpent's bite on the genitals of Minos (da Cesena) illustrates Michelangelo's disdain for the Cardinal and of course Baigio must have been furious.

The second pic shows the so-called throne of Minos in Knossos.

Sources:
- Homer, Odyssee XI, 568-571
- Apollodor, Bibliotheka III, 3-20, 197-211; IV, 7-15
- Ovid, Metamorphosen VII 456-490; VIII, 6-292
- Stephanos von Byzanz, Ethnika

Literature:
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
- Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Roscher, Mythologie
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Chaim Yashin, From Ascalon to Raphia, 2007

Online:
- Wikipedia
- http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Last-Judgement.html

Other articles dealing with this theme:
(1) Europa and the bull
    https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.100
(2) Dionysos and Ariadne
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.250
(3) Herakles and the Cretan Bull
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.275
(4) Apollo with double-axe
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.175
(5) Io/Hathor (and Marnas)
     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.275

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 16, 2010, 11:14:18 am
The Griffins

About Sphinxes we have talked several times. Today I want to tell something about Griffins, which obviously seem to be related closely to Sphinxes. The myths about the fabolous peoples of the Arimasps and the Hyperboreans belong to their ambit.

The coins:
Thracia, Abdera, 352-323 (VIII Period)
AR - Triobol, 1.5g, 12.98mm, 0°
obv. Griffin, jumping up l., peaked feathered wing directed diagonal upward, beak
        slightly opened, his feet on club, laying with grip l.
        above eight-pointed star
        beneath MHNO
rev. square of lines, within head of Apollo(?), with short hair, laureate, r., field
       barely deepened
       around the square ABD / HRI / TE / WN
AMNG II, 206 (3 ex., Copenhagen, London, Ratto)
rare, VF

Note:
(1) The club was added to the coin depiction as a symbol of the sovereignty of the Heraklids after Abdera came under the rule of Philipp II from Makedonia 352 BC. Abdera, a Ionian foundation, probably of Teos, was a provincial city of the province of Macedonia since 341 BC. It was the birthplay of the important Pre-Socratic natural philosopher Demokrit who together with his teacher Leukippos was the inventor of the theory of atoms. Protagoras and Anaxarchos too came from here and the poet Anakreon of Teos settled here. Nevertheless in antiquity Abdera was hold as something like the German 'Schilda', a city full of fools.
(2) There is the opinion too that the portait doesn't show Apollo but the hero Abderos.

Gallienus, AD 260-268 (sole reign)
Antoninianus, 3.27g
obv. IMP GALLIENVS AVG
       Head, bearded, radiate, r.
rev. APOLLINI CONS AVG
      Griffin, stg. l.
      in ex. D
ref. RIC V/1,165; C.77
ex Romanorum

Mythology:

(1) The Arimasps and the Gold of the Griffins:
The griffons were mythological wingend beings with a lion's body and the forepart of an eagle. In his lost work 'Arimaspeia' Aristeas of Prokennos reports at length how the griffins in India or in the Riphean Mountains north of the Black Sea rose gold in their gold mines, accumulates huge treasures and defend them against the Arimasps. The Arimasps were an one-eyed horse people, who tried to steal the gold from the griffins, so that permanently combats between them arose. According to Herodot Aristeas has visited the regions of the Scyths and the Issedones. The Arimasps were situated - so Herodot - further north of the Issedones. Aischylos for his work 'Prometheus Bound' seem to have used his reports. He describes regions beyond the Caucasus Mountains where Gorgons, Griffins and Arimasps were living. The feature of one-eyeness goes back to Herodot who derives the name of Arimasps from Scythian 'arima' = 'one' and #spu' = 'eye'. Others think it is Mongolian meaning 'mountain people' or Iranian where 'aspu' = 'horse', meaning 'owner of a horse'    

When you are searching for gold you can successfully use griffins. If you are skilful they lead you to their gold treasures! This myth obviously plays in Scytia. The Scyths are well known for their skilfulness in working with gold and griffins were one of their favourite motifs.

(2) Apollo and the Griffin:
I think it is not well known that Apollo always at the beginning of the winter betakes himself to the country of the Hyperboreans and stays there for the winter. The Hyperboreans were living in the extreme North beyond the Boreas, the cold north wind. Therefore it was the most delightful and most fertile country of eternal springtime and eternal youth. There Apollo was flying each on a swan or a griffin. Both animals were sacred to Apollo: The swan because of its singing and because he has played an important role at his birth, and the griffin because of his visionary abilities which were assigned to him. The people of Hyperboreans has venerated Apollo so much so that each of them was thought to be priest of Apollo. According to Pausanias (X, 5, 4) the Delphic Oracle was endowed by the Hyperboreans and according to Diodor (II, 47) Leto has come from the Hyperboreans. Regularly they sent votive offerings to the Apollo Oracle in Delphi. According to H.L.Ahrens the Hyperboreans originally were just the bringer of votive offerings and actually Apollo attendants. The myth of the country north of the Boreas then arise from a wrong etymology (Roscher)
The fact behind this mythology can well be the cultural-historical procedure that this Apollo, the kithara playing Apollo, gifted in fine arts, was brought to Greece by the Dorians, and so was of Scythian-Pelasgian origin, in contrast to the other Apollo, shooting with bow and arrows, bringing - and ending - plagues, who came from Asia Minor. Both were melted to one deity not until later.

The close connection between Apollo and the griffin can be seen on coins too. An antoninian of Gallienus shoes a griffin and along with it the legend APOLLINI CONS AVG, dedicated to Apollo the conservator of the emperor.

Griffins and Nemesis
In later times we find a connection with Nemesis, as we see e.g. on coins from Teos. This is possibly associated with his sharp-sighted vigilance, but with his role as tantalizing spirit of revenge too (Pauly). That would match the depiction where the griffin is holding a wheel, which probably represents the wheel of vengeance. Since Nemesis, daughter of the Night, in the darkness lets rolling the wheel of vengeance from heaven down on the culprits. From there dates the fame of the griffin that he has a distinct sense of justice. The depiction together with Dionysos on coins of Teos doesn't have any mythological background. He merely was the main deity of Teos.

Alexander's Flight to Heaven:
In India - it is said - Alexander have met griffins. In the Alexander romance, a legendary biography from the 3rd century AD it is reported that Alexander in his desire to know everything has undertaken a flight to heaven. He let capture two griffins and starving. Then he sat down in a big basket and the animals hitched up to the vehicle. Two spears with horse-liver he held in front of their beaks. The starved griffins tried to reach the liver, started to beat their wings, raised into the air and were flying higher and higher. Alexander saw the countries of the earth under his feet laying there 'like a threshing-floor', enclosed by the sea 'like a snake'. But then a bird with a human face, may be an angel, came to him and blamed him for his hybris. Thereupon Alexander abandoned his undertaking, gave the meat to the griffons and landed safely. In the Middle Ages the Alexanderflight was equated with the Ascension of Christus.

Name and Origin:
The Greek name of griffin was gryps, Latin gryphus, derivated probably from the Indogermanic stem *grabh, to grip. Herder et alii wanted to find the griffin in the Cherub of the Old Testament, gryps = kherub. But recently this seems to be denied. There is neither a etymological nor a semantic connection, despite you can read this often.
Originally the griffin, [i['achech[/i], cames from the ancient Egyptian mythology, where he was mentioned already in the 4th century BC as heaven's being closely connected to the sun. The Mesopotamian griffin is known first c.1400 BC. And the Sumeric composite creatures of lion-griffins were rather dragons. Earlier the griffin is known in Syria where he was mentioned in the 2nd century BC. From the oriental Kulturkreis of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hettites and the Syrians the griffin was adopted into the Cretan-Mycenaen culture and from there since the Geometric Time into the Greek art. He is often depicted with a knob on his forehead whose meaning is unclear. According to ancient Greek myths the griffin was living in mountains and his lifespan was 60 years. North of the land of the Scyths a realm of gold-hoarding griffins should have been or have been a part of them.

Some meanings of the Griffin:
Because the griffin was a widespread fabulous animal for a long period of time he has several different meanings:
(1) First he was a guardian, keeper and custodian of the gold, later of light, the sun and the divine. In this sense he became a symbol of divine power. The conception that griffins were pulling the chariot of the sun cames from Syria. Usually he is depicted calmly seated often with raised forepaw. Here he never appears as predator.
(2) But he can be warlike too as the use of griffins on helmets an cuirasses point out. Surely here he is meant apotropaic. His depiction on sarcophaguses allows us to assume that he stands for eternity and immortality.
(3) He means wisdom, ingenuity and foresight. In connection with Apollo too for visionary abilities.
(4) Because he is built-up of the king of air and the king of animals he is seen as master over heaven and earth. In Middle Ages this naturally was Christus. So the griffin in his double character as terrestrial and aerial animal symbolized Christus.
(Wikipedia)

Background:
If one approach the stories of mythological animals rationally then there are assumptions that the gold digging Scyths in the large deserts of Central Asia have found fossils of Protoceratops, a dinosaur frequently occuring in Cretaceous Age. This is true for the Gobi desert today. In this connection the Riphean Mountains were equated with the Altai Mountains. These finds could well have led to the myth of griffins. The Protoceratop has a big beak and his body remains slightly on that of a lion. When the Greeks came along the caravan routes in the direction to China, they took the tales about the griffin with them on their way back to the West.
(Wikipedia)

History of Art:
Only some notes: According to the Kulturkreis and the era we find various depictions. So we find alternative depictions on the portals of Persepolis and of Persian or Babylonian walls, further on helmets, f.e. on the helmet of Athena Parthenos of Phidias on the Acropolis in Athens, on cuirasses or coins. The griffin was the crest animal of Teos - and then of Abdera - as powerful demonic guardian of Syrian type, in apotropaic sense. Griffins we find in arabesques, especially on Roman columns, and as acroteria on temples. Well known are the large griffon bowls. The cuirass of Trajan as Britannicus, now in the Lateran Museum, is decorated with pics of Arimasps who serve the griffins with drinks, above Sol is floating in his chariot. Hanfman et alii suggest that the fighters on the Ara Pacis of Augustus on the Campus Martis are rather Arimasps then Amazons, because Amazons as allies of the Trojans, the mythic ancestors of Augustus, would never been depicted as enemies.

I have added:
(1) The pic of an Attic red-figured chalice krater showing the fight between a griffin and an Arimasp. At the l. side a Satyr is standing. Unknown artist, c.375-350 BC, Louvre/Paris

(2) The pic of an Attic red-figured ´kylix (dringing bowl) showing Apollo riding sidesaddle upon the back of a griffin. The god strums a lyre with one hand and holds a laurel branch in the other. He is on his way to the Hyperboreans. C.380 BC, Late classic to Early-Hellenistic, KHM Vienna

(3) A world map created according to the narrations of Herodot so that you have an idea of the geographical circumstances used in this article. At the very top you see the Riphean Mountains extending broadly from West to East where the griffins and the Arimasps were living.

Sources:
- Herodot, Histories
- Aischylos, Prometheus Bound
- Pausanias, Voyages
- Diododor, Bibliotheke
- Physiologus

Literature:
- Roscher, Mythologie
- Der kleine Pauly

online:
- http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Griffin.html
- http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Grypes.html
- Wikipedia

I hope that something was new for you. And as always this article should be seen as starting point for own further researches!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 21, 2010, 05:40:09 pm
Tyche Euposia

From Nikopolis ad Istrum exists a coin type depicting Tyche with cornucopiae and rudder but shows additionally - if one looks more closely - an infant seated on the cornucopiae and reaching for Tyche. This infant, usually called Ploutos, is often overlooked (even by Pick!). I want to share 2 ex. from my collection and then to tell something about the history and meaning of this depiction.

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Diadumenian, AD 217-218
AE 27, 12.19g, 26.82mm, 30°
struck under governor Statius Longinus
obv. KM OPELLI DIA - DOVM[EN]IANOC
       Bust, draped (and cuirassed?), bare-headed, r.
rev. VP CTA LONGINOV NI - KOPOLITWN PROC I
      in ex. (smaller) CTRON
      Tyche Euposia in long garment and mantle, wearing kalathos, standing frontal, looking r.,
      holding cornucopiae in l. arm and in extended r. hand rudder; in crook of cornucopiae
       infant Ploutos, nude, std. l., reaching out r. hand for Tyche
ref. a) AMNG I/1, [1867] var. (2 ex., Sofia, Sestini)
      b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
      c) not in Megaw
      d) Hristova/Jekov No. 8.25.38.9 (same dies)
rare, F+/about VF, dark green patina

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal, AD 28-222
AE 27, 11.07g, 26.83mm, 0°
struck under governor Novius Rufus
obv. AVT KM AVRH - [ANTWNEINOC]
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. VP NOBIOV ROVFOV NI - KOPOLITWN PROC ICT
      in l. and r. field RO - N
      Tyche Euposia in long garment and mantle, wearing kalathos, standing frontal, looking r.,
      holding cornucopiae in l. arm and in extended r. hand rudder; in crook of cornucopiae
       infant Ploutos, nude, std. l.
ref. a) not in AMNG:
         rev. AMNG I/1, 1972 var. (legend break N - I, in fields R - ON, Ploutos not mentioned)
         obv. AMNG I/1, 1968
      b) cf. Varbanov (engl.) 4090 (Ploutos not mentioned)
      c) Hristova/Jekov No. 8.26.38.13 corr. (this coin, but Ploutos not mentioned)
rare, F+/about VF
note: Because Tyche here is wearing a mural crown it is obviously the City-Goddess!

The type of Tyche Euposia is known not only from Nikopolis. Pat Lawrence has a wonderful coin of Caracalla from Markianopolis and then this type occurs on several coins of Asia Minor, f.e. Isinda, Kassandreia and Hierapolis.

3rd coin
Phrygia, Hierapolis, pseudo-autonomous, time of Trajan, middle of 2nd century AD
AE 30, 13.18g
obv. IERAPOLEI - TWN
       Head of Dionysos with ivy-wreath r.
rev. EVBO - CIA
      Euposia stg. l., holding cornucopiae and rudder, in crook of cornucopiae infant Ploutos
      std. l., reaching with r. hand for grapes hanging down from mouth of cornucopiae
ref. SNG Munch 22 (same dies); BMC 35 var. (has EVPOCIA)
ex Gemini Numismatics Auction #6, January 10, 2010, lot 622
Pedigree:
ex Dr. Stephen Gerson coll.

Mythology:
Now who is Euposia? With this question we are already in Asia Minor and the 3rd coin wilp help us further. On this coin the legend is Eubosia, written with B, and that means something like 'good pasture'. She is sometimes depicted wearing grain-ears and in this way she is very similar to Demeter. She is a kind of fertility deity. Mythologically Euposia like her brother Koros were children of the Lydian Kore (= Demeter).

An excursion:
The assumption of a Demeter Eubosia in Phrygia can be connected immediately with a narration of Stephanos of Byzantion. In a founder myth of the Phrygian city Azanoi by the hero Euphorbos he writes: "Hermogenes says: Not so (= Azanoi) it should be called but Exuanun. Near at this place - it is told - were manors. When a dearth occured the herdsmen came together and sacrificed and prayed for plenty feed. When the gods didn't listten to them Euphorbos has sacrificed a vixen and a female hedgehog. This sacrifice has enjoyed the gods and a great fertility (Eubosia) has occured and the soil has brought much fruit. When they heard this the neighbours have made him priest and ruler. And the city was called Exuanun, which is literally 'Hedgehogfox'."

On the coins, which are a thoroughly political institution, we find both, Euposia and Eubosia, the former an impersonation of the public banquets, known not only at the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor but in Olbia/Sarmatia too, and the latter of the fertility of the soil, both being forms of the mother-goddess of the city in her civic aspect. Imhoof-Blumer considers the two forms to be mere variants in spelling, but they are distinct terms. At Smyrna the public banquets were directed by an Euposiarch, and Eubosia was a goddess at Akmonia.

But Eubosia not only was an epitheton of Demeter but was used in Phrygia also as a name of empresses. So Poppaea on coins of Akmoneia was wreathed with grain-ears and that suggests a relation to Demeter. And in a inscription, found in Ahatkoi and referring to the archon Gervenius, a certain Nikias is mentioned who was priest of an empress with the cognomen Eubosia, which in fact belongs to Demeter and means 'the fruitful, the food giving'. This Sebaste Eubosia however could have been Agrippina the Younger too, wife of Claudius, for she too is depicted with grain-ears, and Gervenius was archon under both empresses. But probably Poppaea was venerated as Eubosia not before the death of Agrippina, and so this cognomen was attached not to an individual empress but more to her dignity. In Melos was found the statue of a certain Aurelia Euposia, wife of a certain Aelius Chrestos, from the 3rd century (now in Athens).

History of Art
To understand the meaning of Tyche Euposia we must look at the famous statue 'Eirene with infant Ploutos' from Kephisodotos. This statue of the Peace Goddess Eirene, carrying in her arm the infant Ploutos, personification of wealth, we know from several Roman marble copies. The Bronze original which is lost was erected by the Athenians c.374 BC on the Agora (market place) when the cult of Eirene was introduced. It was created by Kephisodotos, father of Praxiteles, and depicts Eirene in peplos. Garb and
maternal body shape reminds on Demeter, the mythological mother of Ploutos (40 years later this statue became the prototype for 'Herakles and the Infant Dionysos' by Praxiteles).
The idea of this work of art leaps to the eye: Wealth is possible only by Peace! Ploutos means wealth, but we tend to think of Money as Wealth, whereas still in the 4th century BC they meant all the produce of the fields and the treasure of the mines, yes, and, in sum, enough to eat and prosper in Peace. (Pat Lawrence)

A last word to Ploutos in the arm of Tyche Euposia:
The depiction on the rev. of the coinage from Hierapolis from the time of Trajan corresponds to the pattern of the group of the statue from Kephisodot. The legend names the female figur Euposia/Eubosia and it is possibly the copy from a statue. The child in her arms is always called Ploutos by scholars. But that is not so sure! Euposia actually is a late cult personification from Asia Minor who has her own genealogy in Sardeis. There she is the child of Kore and was depicted statuarily together with her brother Koros. Sadly the statue from Sardeis is lost but it is possible that it have matched that of Hierapolis. So the nomination Ploutos for the infant in the arm of Euposia is not compelling (Ruth Lindner).

Of course it is possible too that under the influence of the statue from Kephisodot an amalgamation of this two types has happened or even a transfer of meaning has occurred.
 
I have attached a pic of the famous statue of Kephisodot from the Glyptothek in Munich. There are other copies too where the missing parts are added.

Sources:
- Stephanos von Byzanz, Ethnika

Literature:
- William Mitchell Ramsey The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, Oxford 1895
- Numismatische Zeitschrift, 4. Band, Wien 1872
- Ruth Lindner, Mythos und Identität: Studien zur Selbstdarstellung
  kleinasiatischerStädte, 1994 Franz Steiner
- Wikipedia

Links:
- https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=39485.msg250726#msg250726
- https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=34098.msg217174#msg217174

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 04, 2010, 01:08:21 pm
Apollo Karinos, the stony Apollo

Inspired by Pat Lawrence's article about the horned Apollo I want to share some information about Apollo worshipped as a stone.

The coin:
Megaris, Megara, 307-243 BC (Head)
AE 16, 2.76g
obv. Prora of galley l.
       above MEGA
rev. Obelisk of Apollo Karinos flanked by two dolphins stg. upright
ref. BMC Megaris 30-34
rare, F+/about VF
note: The prora is probably the trireme disposed in the Olympieion of Megara (Paus. I, 40, 4)

Mythology:
The myth of Apollo Karinos is part of the founder myth of Megara and Alkathoos, one of its kings. Alkathoos was a son of Pelops and Hippodameia and brother of Atreus and Thyestes.
He was first married with Pyrgo and then with Euaichme. By her he was father of Echepolis, Kallipolis, Iphinoe. Periboea and Automedusa. Pausanias reports that Euippos, son of king Megareus of Megara, was killed by the Kythaironian lion. Megareus, whose elder son Timalkos has fallen by the hands of Theseus, offered his daughter Euaichme and his kingdom to him who should sly the lion. This task was undertaken by Alkathoos who has fled to Megara because he has killed his step-brother Chrysippos. He conquered the lion on the Kythairon mountain and so obtained Euaichme as his wife and became the successor of Megareus as king of Megara. In gratitude for his success he built at Megara a temple of Artemis Agrotera (Huntress) and Apollo Agraios (Hunter). And he restored the walls of Megara, which had been destroyed by the Cretans (take a look at the article about Minos in this thread). In this work he was said to have been assisted by Apollo, and the stone, upon which the god used to place his lyre while he was at work, was even in late times believed, when hit by a pebble, to give forth a sound similar to that of a lyre (Paus. I, 4 1; Ov. Met.VIII 15).
Echepolis, one of the sons of Alcathous, was killed during the Kalydonian hunt in Aetolia, and when his brother Kallipolis hastened to carry the sad tidings to his father, he found him engaged in offering a sacrifice to Apollo, and thinking it unfit to offer sacrifices at such a moment, he snatched away the wood from the altar. Alkathoos imagining this to be an act of sacrilegious wantonness, killed his son on the spot with a piece of wood. The acropolis of Megara was called by a name derived for that of Alkathoos. (Pausanias)

Pausanias reports:
"As you go down from the market-place [of Megara] you see on the right of the street called Straight a sanctuary of Apollo Prostaterios (Protecting). You must turn a little aside from the road to discover it. In it is a noteworthy Apollon, Artemis also, and Leto, and other statues, made by Praxiteles. In the old gymnasium near the gate called the Gate of the Nymphai is a stone of the shape of a small pyramid. This they name Apollo Karinos, and here there is a sanctuary of the Eileithyiae." (Pausanias I, 44, 2)

In honour to Apollo the city of Megara has introduced the lesser Pythian Games.

Background:
The epitheton Karinos I think goes back to Kar, an predecessor of Alkathoos as king of Megara. Another explanation which I have found, that it comes from Greek 'karine' = lamentation at funeral rites, is farfetched, I think.
The worshipping of Apollo Karinos in the shape of a stone is not exceptional. We know of several stones which were worshipped in Greece. Here is a list which is surely not complete:
Zeus Kasios in Seleukeia Pierias,
Zeus Teleios in Tegea,
The stone of Zeus in Gythio, harbour of Sparta
Zeus Meilichios in Sikyon in the shape of a pyramid,
Artemis Patroa in Sikyon in the shape of a pillar,
Artemis Pergaia in Perge,
Aphrodite of Paphia in the shape of a black stone
the stone of Astarte in Sidon,
the stone of Kybele of Pessinus, brought to Rome in 205 BC,
Heliogabal, the sun god in Emesa, the famous stone of Elagabal,
Dusares in Petra,
and:
Apollo Agyieus as conical column standing as protection in front of house doors
The stone in the Apollo sanctuary on the Palatine in Rome
and the famous Omphalos of Apollo Delphinios in Delphi
Most of them were meteorites. We know from the stones fallen at Aigospotamoi 467/6 BC during the 78th Olympiade. This cosmic shower has had an important influence on the pre-Sokratic nature philosopher Anaxagoras who thereafter postulated that the sun is a glowing stone of the size of the Peloponnesos and the moon gets his light from the sun.

In Greece the usual sign that a stone is itself an object of cult is when it is 'translated' into person-language: it is given the name of a god. At Megara in the 2nd century AD 'in the Old Gymnasium next to the Nymph Gates there is a stone shaped like a small pyramid. They call it Apollo Karinos and there is a sanctuary of the Eileithyiai [goddesses of childbirth, usually singular] here' (Pausanias 1, 44, 2). The shape recall the Cave of Eileithyia at Amnisos (Crete), known to Odysseus (Odyssee 19, 188), where a stalagmite was marked off for worship. In that case we are clearly dealing with the remains of worship going back to before Greeks arrived. And this picture is confirmed by the prominence given, in religious contexts, to stones and pillars on Minoan seal-rings and more generally in Minoan and Mycenaean religion. So here we see a strange form of cult object, somewhat alien to classical Greek practice, perhaps reaching back to Phoenician influence in the Dark Age, perhaps to the pre-Greek population of Greece and Crete, but in either case representing the continuation by persistent religious tradition of something from a very different past. Sacred stones and barely representational non-statues are in fact felt and respected by the Greeks for the special things that they are. In the sacral landscape of Sikyon,

after the heroon ('hero-shrine') of Aratos there is an altar [a stone?]
to Poseidon Isthmios, and a [statue of] Zeus Meilichios and Artemis
Patroa, neither made with any skill - the Meilichios is like a pyramid,
the Artemis like a pillar. (Pausanias,2.9.6)

The lack of skill highlights, and reinforces, the fact that these statues are talking a different language. It is important that they should not display that sort of skill which privileges form over material. (Ken Dowden)

Sources:
Homer, Odyssee
Ovid, Metamorphoses
Pausanias, Description of Greece
Diels/Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker

Literature:
Wikipedia
Ken Dowden, European Paganism: the realities of cult from antiquity to Middle Ages

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 22, 2010, 04:58:19 am
A note on Apollo Karinos by Pat Lawrence:

I think that the roots of such worship of unworked objects is far older than the "Phoenicians", i.e., far older than the early Iron Age.  I think that it is generally Mediterranean, eastern half probably, and was a part but not the whole of early worship.  Tree and Pillar cults certainly are very old, but not specifically Cretan or Cypriote or Phoenician, I think.  Stone markers at crossroads, also, probably belong in their category.  Even in early modern Greece (but not there alone) rural people had deep but inexplicit beliefs about such objects, often associating them with Christian stories, too.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 25, 2010, 07:34:34 pm
Apollon Iatros - Apollon the Doctor

1st coin:
Thrace, Serdika, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 31, 15.37g, mm, 0°
obv. ANTWNEINOC - AVT KM [AVR CEV]?
       Bust, laureate, l., with decorated aegis and sword-belt over l. shoulder (rare bust variant)
rev. OVLPIAC - CERDIKHC
      Apollon Iatros, nude, stg. frontal, head l., resting with r. hand on snake-staff and l. hand
      akimbo; at his r. side infant Asklepios stg. frontal, looking up to him and stretching the r.
      hand to him.
ref. a) Ruzicka online 169-177 var. (this coin)
      b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
      c) Hristova/Jekov No. 12.18.7.17 (this coin)
Very rare, VF+, brown-green patina
The small companion usually is called infant Asklepios. But there are doubts. More in this article.

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Markianopolis, Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 28, 10.69g, 28.04mm, 210°
struck under governor Julius Antonius Seleucus
obv. AVT.K.M.AVRHLIOC - ANTWNEINOC
       bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. VP.IOVL.ANT.CEL - EVKOV MARKIANOPO / LITWN
      Apollon Iatros, nude, unbearded, chlamys over l. shoulder, stg. frontal, head l, resting on
      snake-staff set in arm-pit
ref.: a) AMNG I/1, 832, pl. XVII, 4 (3 ex., Löbbecke, Rollin, probably Wizcay too)
           called by Pick Asklepios
       b) Varbanov (engl.) 1559 (Asklepios)
       c) Hristova/Jekov No. 6.26.7.2. corr. (writes in error CELE - VKOV and has in ex. TWN)
           here correctly named Apollo Iatros!
rare, F+/about VF, blue-green patin
Clearly his nudity and the lack of the himation is evidence for Apollo!

Apollon Iatros, lat. Apollo Medicus, is literally "Apollo the Doctor". Already at Homer Apollon not only was the bringer of evil and plagues but too the healer who could end the plagues. I refer to the first article in this thread about Apollo Smintheus. But here we have Apollon Iatros who satisfies a special function by which he is closely related to his son Asklepios, whom he had by Koronis.

Origin of the Cult
Walter Burkert discerned three components in the prehistory of Apollo worship, which he termed "a Dorian-northwest Greek component, a Cretan-Minoan component, and a Syro-Hittite component." As an eastern component in both Greek and Etruscan civilization Apollo came to the Aegean from Anatolia during the Iron Age (i.e. from c. 1100 BCE to c. 800 BCE). Homer pictures him on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War, and he has close affiliations with the Luwian deity Apaliunas, who in turn seems to have traveled west from further east.
The Late Bronze Age (from 1700–1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian deity Aplu, like the Homeric Apollo, was a god of plagues, and resembles the mouse god Apollo Smintheus.

Apollo Iatros himself originally came from Asia Minor too. He was worshipped everywhere in Ionia, especially in Milet, where he was called Apollon Ietros due to the Greek dialect in Ionia. From Milet he was taken by the Milesians to the new founded colonies at the northern coast of the Black Sea. C. 600 BC Olbia was founded, where a large cult complex of Apollo Ietros was located. Together with Apollon Delphinios, Zeus and Athena he belonged to the main deities of the city. A Tempel of Apollon Ietros existed on the Akropolis of Pantikapaion too. Possibly north of the Black Sea, with its large swamps of the opening rivers, Danube, Tyras, Borysthenes or Tanais, the danger of diseases was greater and the help of the gods more required.

To Greece Apollon Iatros came not before the late 5th century. He was first mentioned literarily by Aristophanes in his "Birds", 414 BC.

The kind of Healing
In Attica we had beside Asklepios other healers too: Amphiarchos, Amynos and last not least the anonymous Heros Iatros. The latter had sanctuaries in Athens, Marathon, Rhamnos and Eleusis. His cult is not attested before the 4th century. The methods of healing of these Attic healers corresponded to that of human doctors. They must have acquired their knowledge somewhere, like Asklepios who was teached by Chiron the wise Centaur. This in contrast to Apollon who had his healing powers already since his birth. And so Apollon doesn't use to heal by surgery, bandages, salves, poultices or similar procedures, as we know from doctors, but by his presence only or touching. Therefore his sanctuaries have no special features: An altar, a temple and a retaining wall. Prayers and sacrifices were sufficient enough for divine help. Another relative unknown aspect of his healing power was the assistance in the desire to have children especially male children. A number of names like Apollodoros are evidence of this side of Apollon Iatros. It is interesting that Apollon was not able to remedy his own sufferings as we can see in the myths of Daphne or Koronis.

This difference between Apollon and Asklepios rests on two different conceptions of what illness is. In the cosmology to which Apollon belongs disease is part of the larger world of evil that confronts and limits human freedom and happiness. In this sense there is no essential difference between diseases and other troubles that affect humanity and have the potential to destroy individuals or to wipe out entire cities, like an earthquake f.e.
In contrast according to Asklepios diseases are entirely different from other evils and can be often treated as a bodily defect. That needs knowledge and experience, This conception is more modern and equals our view. In 5th and 4th century BC the healing priests of Apollo became the objects of polemic and ridicule by the more modern-minded. We should not mock about them. What else is Lourdes today?

Paeon/Paean
Paeon is a healing god whom we know from Homer. He appears only rarely but is famous for his knowledge of herbs and drugs. When Ares was wounded by Diomedes (Il. 5), he rushed to Zeus to show him his 'immortal blood'. Zeus ordered Paeon to heal him. And Paeon applied a salve that brought immediate relief. The same he has done for Hades, a generation before, when he received an arrow in his shoulder by Herakles. He was quasi the private doctor of the gods!

It seems as if Paeon was an own, independent god of healing. But outside these Homeric passages Paean is mentioned only once in a fragment (no.3037) by Hesiod who treats Apollon and Paean as two different divinities. Everywere else Paean is used as epithet of Apollon especially if he is defined as healer. So it is possible that at Homer Paean actually means Apollo because in Greek (and Latin too) the epithet could stand for the god himself.

The name Paean comes from the late Greek Bronze Age where he is known in Mycenaean Linear B as pa-ia-wo. He disappeared together with other divinities and their cults when the
Mycenaean culture collapsed and was handed down only orally by epic singers.

Apollon was not known in Mycenaean times and it is sure that he doesn't belong to the Greek pantheon of the Bronze Age. He must have arrived later replacing Paean whose name then became Apollo's epithet. We don't know when, but it must have happened early, probably before Homer. Here Apollo is worshipped as healer but not for gods as Paean but for humans only, f.e. at the wounded hero Glaukos (Il. 7, 528), who calls for Apollo, who abducted him to his temple where he was tended by Leto and Artemis.

Already at Homer Paeon was not only the god but a song as well, both apotropaic or triumphal. Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods: to Dionysos, to Helios, or to Asklepios too. About the 4th century BC, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune, or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become recognised as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won. (Wikipedia)

The small boy beside Apollon
Usually the small figure is called the infant Asklepios. That is possible because Asklepios was the son of Apollo. But normally he is depicted adult and wearing a himation. Here the small figure is nude. On other coins he wears a chlamys. Therefore Pat Lawrence thinks of Telesphoros where a similar statue is known. On her coin the boy seems to hold an unknown object which is missed on my coin. My first idea was Paean, but it is an unsolved riddle.

Apollon Medicus in Rome
In Rome Apollo originally was not indigenous so it is not possible to identify him with a Roman deity. He kept his Greek nature. In Etruria he was known earlier, f.e. in Veii or Cere. He was called Apulu or Aplu by the Etruscans. His arrival in Rome in 443 BC was due to an advice of the Sibylic Books. To avert a plague a temple of Apollo Medicus was vowed and in 431 errected on the Campus Martius outside the pomerium. In 34 BC Gaius Sosius began to restore the temple. The Civil War interrupted the works especially because Sosius took the party of Marcus Antonius. When Because the theatre of Marcellus was erected the temple was modified once again. Today we can visit beside the theatre of Marcellus 3 re-erected columns with its architrav.

When Rome was in great danger by the Carthaginians the Romans vowed games to Apollo Medicus, the ludi Apollinares. Macrobius reports that - when the games took place for the first time - an enemy was attacking the city. When all Romans were hurrying for their weapons a cloud of arrows could be seen hailing down on the enemy and dispelling him. The Romans could return to the games of this hospitable god. So Apollo Medicus changed to Apollo auxiliary in battle.

His greatest importance in Rome Apollo achieved when Augustus choosed him as his special god answering Marcus Antonius who as ruler of the east has chosen Dionysos. After the battle of Actium, where the god from his near sanctuary has contributed to his victory over Antonius, Augustus vowed a temple to Apollo which was erected in 28 BC. This temple stood near his house on the Palatine, with a magnificent adjoining library

Both temples were competing with each other. According to Horace, Odes 1, 21 it is possible that the Palatine Apollo has taken the function of the older Apollo Medicus. Of this temple only some fragments could be seen today.

The Hippocratic oath
This famous oath begins with the invocation of Apollo Medicus:
"I swear by Apollo the healer, by Aesculapius, by Health and all the powers of healing, and call to witness all the gods and goddesses that I may keep this Oath and Promise to the best of my ability and judgment, this oath and this legal agreement."
Actually this oath was not known to Hippokrates, c.460-c.370 BC, although in his time the doctors were organized in schools. Probably it is from the time of Claudius. His most important purpose was the protection against hostile persecutions which were common since Hammurapi where a doctor was draconically punished if a healing failed. And the oath compelled the young doctors to take care of the older doctors even in financial sense. t was a kind of old-age pension. Parts of this oath flow in the Declaration of the World Medical Association.

At the end: Naturally the Christianism take up the idea of the healer. Christus as Saviour is the healer kat' exochen. First at Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD) he was called explicitly Christus Medicus. In this function he played a big role especially in the ancient culture of sarcophaguses. But that is another subject.

I have added
- a pic of the columns of the temple of Apollo Medicus in Rome
- a pic of Apollo Medicus from the Etymologiae of Isidor of Sevilla (560-636 AD)
  (artchive.com)

Sources:
- Homer, Iliad
- Hesiod
- Livius
- Horaz, Odes
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Dion von Prusa, Oration 36

Literature:
- Fritz Graf,  Apollo
- Norbert Ehrhardt, Apollon Ietros. Ein verschollener Gott Ioniens?, in Istanbuler Mitteilungen
  39 (1989), S.116-122
- Bronwen Lara Wickkiser, Asklepios, medicine, and politics of healing in fifth-century 
  Greece, 2008
- Der kleine Pauly

Online:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Apollo_Sosianus
- http://janusquirinus.org/essays/Apollo/ApolloCult.html
- Pat Lawrence, Cult OTD: Apollo Iatros
  https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=51500.0

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 25, 2010, 07:38:53 pm
Apollon Klarios and the Oracle of Klaros

The coin
Ionia, Kolophon, 480-450 BC
AE 6 (tetartemorion), 0.2g, 6.22mm, 0°
obv. archaic portrait of Apollon Klarios, frontal
rev. rectangular incus with inscription TE (value)
ref. SNG von Aulock 1999; SNG Kayhan 356; Rosen 567; Milne Colophon 8
VF, a bit rough

Klaros was a small site between Kolophon and Lebedos, known for its famous sanctuary of Apollon. Klaros itself never became a city throughout its long history,  but rather served as a prophecy center, oracle, and a sanctuary to Apollon. In this way it resembles Didyma.

Etymology:
I have found two different explanations. The first refers to Klaros, site of the temple of Apollon. Then Apollon Klarios is the Apollon of Klaros. The other leads back to the Doric word 'klaros', meaning 'allotment of land, supervisor over cities and colonies'. Then the Klarian Apollon would belong to the founder myth, as it was usual at the Greeks.

Mythology:
The founding myth of Klaros connects the city with the Epigoni, fleeing after they had sacked the Mycenaean citadel citadel of Thebes; among them was Manto, daughter of the blind seer Teiresias and herself a seer. At the site of Klaros the fugitives were seized by the Cretans: the legend was confirmed by the historic Minoan settlement at Miletos that was discovered in 1995/96 by the German school. In the legend, when Rhakios, son of Lebedos and leader of the Cretan settlers of Caria, learned who they were, he let them settle in the country and married Manto himself. Thus the origin of the oracle at Klaros was remembered by Greeks of the classical period as Minoan-Mycenaean in origin. The Ionian migration from the north of thePeloponnesos dates to the 10th century BC. Revealed proto-Geometric pottery of the 10th century BC found at this site, attesting to the presence hinted at in myth.

Homer made mention of its Temple of Apollon in the 7th century BC. But probably the oracle is much older. A sacred cave found near the temple suggests the presence of a Kybele cult in earlier periods here.

Recording to a myth Kalchas the official seer of the Greeks during the Trojan War has been predicted to die if he met a seer who was superior. At the site of Klaros he met Mopsos, son of Manto, who together with Amphilochos was travelling home after the Trojan War. Kalchas challenged him for a competition and asked him to state the number of figs of a nearby fig-tree. The answer of Mopsos was correct to the last fig. Another version reports this story with a high pregnat sow. They discussed the number of piglets the sow would cast. Kalchas said eight, Mopsos nine. When the sow littered eight, Kalchas triumphed. But then a nineth piglet came and Kalchas died in Kolophon of shame of his defeat.

It is reported too, that Alexander the Great once visited the oracle of Klaros to let interpret a dream in which he founded a city at the Pagos mountain. The oracle explained the dream as demand to rebuilt Smyrna.

In the time of the Hellenism the oracle was famous over the whole ancient world. Many people came to Klaros from neighboring cities and towns to consult the oracle of Apollo. Even though nearby Ephesos and Miletos had their own oracle in Didyma, they envied the position and importance of Klaros. The religious center thrived under the Roman empire. Emperor Hadrian made a considerable contribution to the reconstruction of the temple which was destroyed by an earthquake.

The games held here, every 5th year, in honor of Apollo, were the Claria.

Aelian writes (in  On Animals 10. 49):
"Particularly in Klaros do the inhabitants and all Greeks pay honour to [Apollon] the son of Zeus and Leto. And so the land there is untrodden by poisonous creatures and is also highly obnoxious to them. The god wills it so, and the creatures in nay case dread him, since the god can not only save life but is also the begetter of Asklepios, man’s saviour and champion against diseases. Moreover Nikandros (priest from Kolophon) also bears witness to what I say, and his words are: `No viper, nor harmful spiders, nor deep-wounding scorpion dwell in the groves of Klaros, for Apollon veiled its deep grotto with ash-trees and purged its grassy floor of noxious creatures.'"

The Temple of Apollon:
The temple, which probably replaced an earlier one, is dated to the 4th century BC. It was built upon a stepped platform measuring 26 by 46 meters. The site of the temple was probably chosen over a higher elevation because of its proximity to the sacred spring. 11 columns were placed at the long side of the temple and s6 at the short. In the cella of the temple stood a huge statue of Apollon.

A Sacred Way leads from the propylaea or entrance way to the Temple of Apollon. Inscriptions were later carved on the columns that named delegations from Greece and Asia Minor that had come to worship and consult the oracle. Along the Sacred Way were columns, statuary monuments and some interesting friezes attributed to the vanity of certain influential Romans. Most of these date to the first century BC. These inscriptions belong to the greatest assembly of Greek inscriptions at all.

The Oracle:
The oracles were received in the form of verses in a vault below the temple's cella. This area was the adyton, the holy of holies. Two stairways lead down to a narrow passage that extends to the end of the temple. After a labyrinthine series of bends and turns, the corridor eventually leads to the two small oracular vaults. One of these served as an outer chamber. The inner vault was located directly under the cella. It was in this chamber that the priests drank from the sacred spring in preparation for their duties. A large basin was in the rear of the cavern for this purpose. The oracular staff was composed of thespiodes (composer of the verses), the scribes (recorders), and, of course the prophets themselves. It seems that prophets held office for a year, whereas the priests and thespiodes were appointed for life. The language in which the thespiodes composed the oracles should imitate the language of gods. And for the Greeks this was a poetic and archaic Greek. It consisted of formulas and curious and difficult to understand words, and didn't follow the usual grammar.

Persons seeking advice from the oracle were not permitted to enter into the inner chamber where the mysterious work was done. Apparently, they waited in the passageway or in the outer chamber. Stone benches were found here, as well as the omphalos, the sacred stone of Apollo. This was of blue marble in the shape of an egg, and was found at various sanctuaries dedicated to Apollo, including the oracle at Delphi. And an elegant bench was found with serpent-arms, showing that this sanctuary had a chthonic origin as all of the genuin Greek oracles.

Outside the temple an additional altar for Dionysos was found. This division of deities, or rather separation of worship, was common among the many sanctuaries of antiquity.

The oracle of Klaros was the only one lasting till Christian era. Under the many intaglios found at this site were several invoking a god Jao. Probably this meant Jahwe. In this time Apollo has been decayed to a mediator only between god and men, and he was called angel (angelos) and daimon (probably in the Platonic sense).

The Excavations:
The historic Clarus, referred to by Greek and Roman poets, had been entirely buried in the alluvial silt deposited by the small river at the site, a widespread phenomenon along this coastline during the last century BCE, as the hinterland was deforested. T. Macridy uncovered the monumental entrance to the sanctuary in 1905 and returned for further explorations with the French archaeologist Charles Picard in 1913. Excavations recommenced between 1950 and 1961 under Louis Robert, and a series of important Roman dedicated monuments came to light, as well as the famous Doric Temple of Apollo, seat of the oracle, in its final grand though uncompleted Helelnistic phase, 3rd century BC. The Sacred Way was excavated in 1988 under J. de La Genière, and since then much alluvial spoil has been carted off-site and Clarus has been prepared to receive visitors.

I have added a pic of the Temple of Apollon as we can see it today.

Sources:
- Apollonius, Argonautika
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Strabo

Literature:
(1) Karl Buresch, Apollon Klarios - Zum Untersuchungen zum Orakelwesen des späteren
     Altertums, 1889
(2) Merkelbach/Blümel, Die Sprache der Orakel, in Philologica, 1997
(3) Reports of the Turkish Government
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarus
(5) http://www.theoi.com/Cult/ApollonCult5.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 31, 2010, 11:21:21 am
Silen and Dionysos

Today I want to share a wonderful and rare coin, showing Silen with the infant Dionysos on his knees. The coin itself I have already posted some time before. Here is the "story behind the coin". As usually this article is overloaded with all kinds of information which I found interesting.

The Coin:
Lydia, Sardeis, pseudo-autonomous, 2nd century AD
AE 22, 5.81g, 21.99mm, 165°
obv. CARDIA - NWN
        Head of Dionysos, wearing ivy-wreath
rev. CARDIANWN
       Silen, bearded, nude, std. r. on basket, holding in r. hand kantharos and with l.   
        hand infant Dionysos std. l. on his knees, stretching his arms to him
ref. L.Beger Thes. Brand.Select. I (1696!), p.501, fig.I; Mionnet supplement (1835), 
      no. 445, cites Beger (Thanks to Mauseus);
      not in von Aulock, Copenhagen, BMC, Lindgren, Imhoff Lydien St., Righetti,
      Isegrim
very rare, about VF, sand patina
Pedigree:
ex Hauck&Aufhäuser

This coin was originally called 'Dionysos with child', in error, because this motive is mythological unknown. And the kanthoros is known as attribut for Silen too, f.e. on tetradrachms of Naxos/Sicily or obols from Thasos. Furthermore the figure is too muscular for Dionysos. The object on which Silen is seated is not well defined. I vote for a cista mystica - especially because of the structure of the surface. Such a cista you can find f.e. besides Silen on a frieze of a sarcophagus showing the wedding of Dionysos and Ariadne. It belongs to the cult of Dionysos.

Mythology:
1) Origin:
In the Greek mythology Silen or Silenos is the son of Pan, god of shepherds, or Hermes, and a nymph. In Nysa at the river Meander (often confused with an island Nysa in Libya) he was nursed by nymphs and later became king of Nysa. He was married with Nais. From nymphs he had a great number of sons, Silens or Seilenoi, all looking like him: a composite being of man and horse, but looking different than a Centaur: Silen had a snub nose and the tail, the hooves and the ears of a horse.
 
2) Relations to Dionysos:
Hermes has brought the infant Dionysos to Silen for education. So Silen in Nysa became the teacher of Dionysos and has taught him all sciences. Silen was teacher not only of Dionysos, but for Olympos or Maron too. Eventually this is a relic of his role as a kind of good puck as he was hold in Athens. Later together with the Maenads he was the companion of Dionysos on his wars and traits (thiasos). It was said that Silen almost always was drunk and had problems with the truth. Nevertheless he was praised for his worldly wisdom, which however was biased heavily pessimistic, and for his divinatory skills.

3) Silen before Midas:
When Dionysos once was tracking from Thrace to Boeotia with his wild entourage Silen fell behind and was found drunk by gardeners of king Midas in his rose gardens. He was bound and brought before the king. For five days Silen told Midas wondrous tales of a country in the West beyond the Okeanos. It was decorated with gorgeous cities and populated with huge, happy and long-living inhabitants. And it was famous for its exemplary legal system. Once they have undertaken a big expedition to the Hyperboreans. But when they were told that this country was the best of the Old World they returned heavily disappointed.
Then Silen told about an horrible water whirl at the border of the world. In its vicinity two rivers were flowing with two different kinds of fruits at their banks. The fruits of the first tree made the humans sad, so that they must weep and moan and would slowly but inexorably pine away. The fruits of the other tree made young again even old men. They developed back through youth to infancy and then vanished at all.
Five days Midas listened eagerly to his narrations and then asked him what the best was for men. Only after longer urging Silen answered, that the best thing for a man is not to be born, and if already born, to die as soon as possible.
Dionysos was afraid of the whereabouts of his old teacher and sent a messenger to Midas to ask how much he would demand for releasing Silen. Midas was predicted to became fabulous wealthy and so he asked for the gift that all that he touched with his hands changed to gold. That happened immediately, but dishes and drinks changed to gold too, so that Midas threatened to die of starvation or of thirst. Midas begged Dionysos for help and Dionysos commanded him to go to the river Paktolos near the Tmolos mountain and to have a wash. So Midas was freed from this disastrous gift. But the Paktolos river is famous for the gold of its sands until today. Later Midas was adopted by king Gordios of Phrygia and after his death became king of Phrygia himself.

4) Silen and the Gigantomachia
Silen, riding on his ass, was together with Dionysos participant in the Gigantomachia. By the awful crying of his old pack donkey he has frightened the Giants. They had never heard such a crying and thought that the Gods had created a new unknown beast and sent against them. They fled. It is said that he has killed Enkelados too. But this whole myth is a later Alexandrian invention, in which Silen was involved by his connection to Dionysos.


Background:
Silen and Satyr can't be separated (Pauly). The etymology is non-Greek. We have only few literarily  material, more archaeological and in visual art. Homer doesn't know them. Both are composed beings of man and horse, but in contrast to Centaurs more human-like. Originally Silen was an autonomous demon, without any connection to Dionysos, a serious, wise, music loving god of the forest, and like all demons he could do good and evil. Often they are found in plural, and they owned a secret knowledge, deep wisdom and experience. They had a relation to springs and had given hooves because of that because horses in Greek mythology were connected to springs too. So they could cause a spring by beating with their hooves. Some Silens are known by their names: Silen, Marsyas, Maron (called too son of Dionysos, see Euripides), Nysos (equated with Silen too), Astraios (a son of Silen), Sabakchos (who is said to have laid hands on Hera) and others. Their female antagonists were the Nymph, whom they often stalked.

Probably they were originated from Northern Greece, but were known elsewhere too, in Phrygia probably first by Marsyas, but Silens were never river-gods. Midas came from Macedonia and is transferred later to Phrygia (look at the article about Gordios in this thread!). Coessential demons are known from several locations under different names. The Satyroi came from the Peleponnesos and the satyr play probably came to Athens from there. The connection to Dionysos is secondary. But thereby they were connected to wine and drunkenness and changed from the nativ demonic creatures of nature to the ridiculous figures we know today. They were included in the entourage of the god and silly and contemptible features emerged. In this process the satyr play - which was connected with the Dionysos cult - had big influence. As Papposilen he appeared as father of the satyr chorus. Here we have the origin of the senile baldheaded Silen from the 5th century BC. We know that Socrates was called Silen and Satyr too.
Papposilen was the oldest and most serene of them and became the educator of Dionysos, at first in Sophokles' Dionysiskos. The oldest depiction we find on a vase painting in the Museo Gregoriano: Hermes hands over the infant Dionysos to Papposilen. Alexandrinian are the inventions of Nonnos giving him the sons Maron, Astraios and Leneus. Similarly horns and ram-feet are later additions and - complety un-Hellenic - taken over from Pan. That Silen should be a son of Hermes or Pan from a nymph stems from Servius to Vergil's Buc. 6, 13 and lacks any origin.
According to Pausanias Silens have been mortal. Graves should have be seen in the country of Hebrews and in Pergamon.
Cults are barely known. There was a temple in Elis where Methe (drunkenness) presents a cup of wine to him. Usually he was worshipped together with Dionysos, who was said to have worn an amethyst against drunkenness!

Some notes on the Tales of Silen before Midas:
The first story, told by Aelian in his Varia  Historia, resembles strongly Solon's story about Atlantis. Why this story was ascribed to the drunken Silen we can read at Plutarch. Solon has undertaken several journeys to Asia Minor and Egypt. According to Plutarch Solon has believed the story about Atlantis which he has heard in Egypt and also used for an epic poem. Aelian seems to have known a comedy of Thespis in which Thespis has mocked about the utopian lies of Solon and has depicted Solon as restless wandering Silen.
The philosophical part of the story has passed down by Aristoteles (Eudemos, fgr.44) and Cicero (Tusculanae disputationes I, 114f.). "Miserable ephemeral race of hardship and distress, how you can force me to tell you that would better for you not to be heard. Then only in unawareness of your own misery your life can elapse without suffering." And then culminates in the famous sentence: "The best of all is unreachable for you at all: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But for you - once you were born -the next best is, to die as soon as possible." This extremely pessimistic sentence we have expected to find rather at one of the Seven Wises than at Silen. But this sentence is evidence for his deep wisdom. Later it was adopted by many philosophers, f.e. Schopenhauer. Alfred Polgar has contradicted this sentence: "Not to be born is the best, says the wise. But who ever has this luck? To whom ever happens that? Under hundreds of thousands barely one."

Note: The term 'satire' previously was ascribed to Satyr in error (hence the older writing satyra), especially to the ram-leaps of the Attic tragedy. Actually it cames from Lat. satira, from 'satura lanx' = bowl filled with fruits.

History of Arts:
In archaic art Silens were depicted often ithyphallic, with thick heads and awkward, f.e. on Chalkidic vases, and often together with nymphs. On numerous Attic vases they became - despite all animal shape - more graceful and human. Here they are already affiliated to Dionysos and subordinated. The Silen no more is the autonomous demon of archaic times. We see him in the Dionysian Thiasos with wine, musik and dance. They are often in company with donkeys and mules, possibly a very old connection. The ass's ears are a typical attribut.
During the so-called Severe Style, as we see at Epiktetos or on the cup of Brygos, to name only few, the depiction under the influence of the satyr play was developed to grotesqueness.
In the following time of the Beautiful Style the Silens and Satyrs became under the influence of Phidias noble, gentle and serene men. Their common attribut now is the thyrsos which was taken from the Menads. They are playing double flute or lyra. Two different types developed: A more youthful Silen and an older, senile one who deserves a walking stick. Here originates the allocation of the role of Dionysos' teacher as it is shown on the - already mentioned - nice vase painting of the Museo Gregoriano, where Silen is seated on a rock and Hermes hands over the infant Dionysos to him. Among the mythological scenes we find depictions of the Marsyas myth and the myth were Silen was captured by Midas.
Lysippos has created a new type in his group with the infant Dionysos. He accentuates the fatherly, clement and wise. Here Silen resembles more a poet or a philosopher. His body is muscular and powerful. We find no flabbiness. Only a slight fullness of his belly points to the gourmand. This depiction we find obviously on my coin!
In Hellenistic times he was a favoured theme on sarcophaguses - and here especially the depiction of the wedding of Dionysos and Ariadne - and as fountain figure, also apotropaic.
In Baroque this theme has been picked up again, f.e. by Anthonis van Dyck and Peter-Paul Rubens. A modern sculpture we know from Alfred Hrdlicka.

I have added
(1) the pic (Satyr with Flute'. Tondo of an Attic red-figured bowl of Epiktetos
      (signed), 520-500 BC, Vulci. Today in the Bibliotheque nationale de France in
      Paris.
(2) A pic of the statue 'Silen with infant Dionysos' from the Louvre/Paris. Found in 
      16th century AD in the gardens of Sallust and belonging to the coll. Borghese until
      the French under Napoleon take it to Paris. Possibly this statue is the Silen from
      Porticus Octavia, mentioned by Plinius (n.h. 36, 4, 8). Probably this is a Roman
      copy of Lysipp's statue (310-300 BC)
(3) A pic of the painting 'The drunken Silen', AD 1616/17, from Peter Paul Rubens (AD
     1577-1640), today in Alte Pinakothek in München/Germany. We see a humanistic
      interpreted scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses. This painting once hung in the house of
      the artist.

Sources
- Herodot, Histories
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Vergil, Ecloges (VI)

Literature:
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Roscher, Mythologie der Griechen und Römer
- Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
- Robert Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 10, 2010, 06:27:53 pm
Who is the boy between Asklepios and Hygieia?

This article is dedicated to Pat Lawrence who has teached me so much.

I want to confess at the beginning: I too can't say with certainty who is the small boy. But I want to recapitulate which explanations have been found and why they were rejected at last. The first time I took notice of this problem it was a thread of Pat Lawrence about Apollo Iatros on the FORVM. And then I was confronted again with this problem when I got my coin, here no.3. That was the cause to engage myself more intensively with this matter. But first the coins:

Coin no.1
Nicopolis ad Istrum, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 16, 2.82g, 16.6mm, 90°
obv. AV KM AVRH - ANTWNINOC
       Laureate head r.
rev. NIKOPOLITWN PROC I(?)
      Telesphoros, clad in hooded mantle, stg. frontal
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1593 (1 ex., Vienna; Eckhel, Mionnet, Arneth under Elagabal in error)
      b) Varbanov (engl.) 2991
      c) Hristova/Jekov No. 8.18.21.3 (this coin)
Pick: This coin - in a better state - certainly belongs to Caracalla.

Coin no.2
Nicopolis ad Istrum, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 27, 10.32g
struck under governor Aurelius Gallus
obv. AV KM AVR - ANTWNINOC
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. VP AVR GALLOV NIKOPOLIT / PROC IC.
       Asklepiad Triad: Hygieia in long garment and mantle, stg. r., feeding snake in r.
       arm from patera in l. hand, and Asklepios in himation, stg.  l., l. hand akimbo,
       resting with r. hand on snake-staff; between them a small boy in hooded cloak stg.
       facing, arms hidden
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1559, pl.XVII, 9 (rev. same die)
      b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
      c) Hristova/Jekov No. 8.18.21.1
very rare, yellow-brown patina, VF
ex Numismatik Lanz auction 120, 18.5.2004, lot 415

Coin no.3
Nicopolis ad Istrum, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 27(?), 10.7g
struck under governor Aurelius Gallus
obv. AV K.M.AVR. - ANTWNEINO - C (NE ligate)
       Laureate head r.
rev. VPA AVR GALLOV NIKOPOLITWN / PROC ICTR
       Asklepiad Triad: Hygieia in long garment and mantle, stg. r., feeding snake in r.
       arm from patera in l. hand, and Asklepios in himation, stg.  l., l. hand akimbo,
       resting with r. hand on snake-staff; between them a small boy, in short girded
       chiton, and bare arms, stg. frontal, head r.
ref.. a) not in AMNG:
           rev. AMNG I/1, 1549 var. (legend, has ICTRO)
                  AMNG I/1, 1550 var. (depiction, pl. XVII, 9)
            obv. AMNG I/1, 1551
        b) Varbanov (engl.) 3087
        c) Hristova/Jekov No. 8.18.21.2 corr. (writes ANTWNINOC)
rare, about VF, slightly rough

Coin no.4
Serdika, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 31, 15.27g
obv. AVT KM [AVR CEV] - ANTWNEINOC
        Heroic bust, laureate, l., with sword belt and decorated aegis over l. shoulder,  
        seen from behind
rev. OVLPIAC - CERDIKHC
       Apollo Iatros, nude, stg. l., l. hand akimbo, resting with l. hand on snake-staff; r.
       beside him a small boy, nude, stg. facing, looking up to him and stretching r. hand
       to him.
ref. a) rev. Ruzicka 173 (this coin in Ruzicka online)
          obv. not in Ruzicka
        b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
        c) Hristova/Jekov No. 12.18.7.17 (this coin)
very rare, VF, green-brown patina, slightly smoothed in fields
Pedigree:
ex Numismatik Lanz auction 120, May 2004, lot 419

The matter of this article is the small boy, found on all of these coins. Looking a bit closer we can differentiate between three different types:
(1) Boy wearing hooded cloak, arms hidden
(2) Boy in short chiton, arms free
(3) Boy nude, sometimes with chlamys over back (only from Serdika)
I think we should well distinguish these three types. Antiquity was not a time of arbitrary interchangeability as we can find it in many cases today.

Here we have the list of deities which have been suggested as an explanation:

(1) Telesphoros:
This is the most usual interpretation. Take a look at the article 'Asklepios and Telesphoros' in this thread under https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.25
Our first coin, a so-called Einer from Nikopolis, shows on its rev. Telesphoros as we know him: A small child in hooded cloak, his arms hidden below. Now after extensive studies about Phrygean steles by the University of Ankara it becomes clear, that Telesphoros was clad in a garment wich in ancient times has been worn in Central Anatolia by peasants and shepherds and especially by children. So the Celtic origin of Telesphoros - prevalent until today - could now be suggested as rather unprobable.
The Celtic origin of Telesphoros comes from R. Egger, Genius cucullatus, who refers to a votiv inscription found in AD 1930 near Wabelsdorf in Carinthia/Austria. But it is well possible that Telesphoros has come to the Celts by the Etruscans who had a similar deity. That would match the suggested origin of the Etruscans from Asia Minor. The first time Telesphoros appeared on coins was in the time of Hadrian in Pergamon.
A different opinion was represented by Hug: He suggested that Telesphoros arose from the Egyptian Harpokrates. He mentioned a coin from Pergamon where together with Asklepios the small Harpokrates occurs (Numismata moduli max. e cimeliarch. Eleutherop. 1704, pl. XII). A misinterpretation?

Some coins of Nikopolis ad Istrum depicts Asklepios and Hygieia. On some of them a small boy is standing between the two. This group is called Asklepiad Triad. The small boy usually is called Telesphoros (Pick, Hristova/Jekov and others). The Asklepiad Triad with Telesphoros in the middle we can see on the 2nd coin.

But then a problem emerges: We know Telesphoros explicitly with a hooded cloak and with hidden arms. Telesphoros was indeed the mysterious daemon who brought healing hidden by visiting the sick people when they sleep. Without hood no Telesphoros. But on the 3rd coin we have a boy without a hooded cloak but with a short chiton and free arms!

Pick writes in a note to this coin: The boy in the middle is by position and garment very different from the usual Telesphoros occuring between Asklepios and Hygieia. He can't be named for sure but it should be mentioned that on coins from Pergamon sometimes instead of Telesphoros another boyish figure appears but nude, either as autonomous type (BMC Mysia 136, 227, 230, XXVIII), or beside Asklepios (ibidem 148, 292, XXIX, 7).

Pat Lawrence (in an article in FAC) considers that this figure in short chiton is Telesphoros too but here clad in Epidaurean style. In Epidauros - together with Pergamon the biggest Asklepios sanctuary in antiquity - Telesphoros was worshipped beside Asklepios too. Here he should have worn not his typical hooded mantle, but his head was still hooded. The hooded head should be seen on coin no.3 if one look more closely. But I'm not sure. And about the garment of Telesphoros in Epidauros I unfortunately haven't found anything

(2) Euamerion
Pick writes further: "Panofka wanted to see in this figure Euamerion, which was with reason declared by Wroth (Num. Chron. 1882, 38ff.) as unprobable."
Euamerion, a daemon of well-being, was hold as son of Asklepios and was worshipped in Titane in the region of Sikyon. Previously it was suggested that his name was composed of Greek 'eu' (= good) and 'hemera' (= day). Today his name is rather led back to Greek 'hameros' (= clement). Pausanias, II, 189 (Titane) writes about him: " Alexanor and Euamerion too have ornamented columns here; and for Alexanor as a hero one brings after sunset offerings to the dead, but for Euamerion is made a sacrifice as a god. If I suggest correctly the Pergameneans calls this Euamerion Telesphoros according to an oracle, the Epidaureans however Akesis". Here we see that Euamerion very early was merged with Telespohoros. And he was depicted very similarly: Boyish and clad with mantle and hood against the influence of the weather.

On a coin of Lucius Verus from Pergamon with Asklepios and a small nude figure Pinofka had recognized Euamerion with a torch in his hand which would well match the daemon of the morning. Between them he saw a pig. But this pig is actually a rat, and a rat never was an attribute of Asklepios, but above all of Apollo Smintheus in Troy, and often he is depicted on coins with a rat. The famous statue of Skopas depicts Apollo with one foot on a rat.
We know that there was a close connection between Asklepios and Apollo Smintheus in Pergamon, almost equal to an assimilation, and therefore this depiction is a hint to this relation. Wroth writes: "Who is the small nude figure beside the god of healing on the coin of Lucius Verus I can't explain. But he has no visible torch. I can't help it but I suppose that the whole scene has a relation to any mystic rites of initiation or divination." And the rat is known not only as bringer of plagues but as symbol of divination too. On a vase painting - he writes - it is said that a scene have been found of an initiation with connection to Apollo Smintheus: A female figure, probably Telete (initiation) receives a boy kneeling before her to mystic rites. He is unclothed and between him and the wife there is a rat.

(3) Akesis
Above we have read that Pausanias mentions Akesis. Akesis is an Epidaurean deity of healing and is equated to the Sikyonean Euamerion and the Pergamenean Telesphoros. His name means 'healing'. He was hold for a son of Asklepios. More I have not found. But we see that there were gods - or rather daemons - of healing at several different locations which later came into the ambit of Asklepios.

(4) Ianiskos
Ianiskos (not to be confused with the mythological king of Sikyon) was one of the lesser known sons of Asklepios. His name could be come from Greek 'iao' (to heal) but I'm not sure for that. In Schol. laudatus (I.c) I have found a text about his origin:
Asklepios was married with Koronis, Epione, Hygieia, Lampetia or Arsinoe. These goddesses often were called his daughters too. And there are more: Aegle, Iaso and Panakeia. As sons were named especially Machaon and Podaleirios, which were mentioned already by Homer and have helped the Greek as physicians at Troy. They became the ancestors of the Messenean family of Asklepiades. Later the Pergamenean Telesphoros, the mythical Ianiskos and the historical Aratos joined the family.
 
Originally Asklepios came from Thessalia from where his cult spread to Boeotia, to the Attic Eleusis and to the Peleponnesos, where especially Epidauros became an important centre. From there the cult of Asklepios came to Kos and finally to Pergamon. Like his brothers Machaon and Podaleirios Ianiskos too should stem from Perrhaibia in the northern Thessalia. So a version of a Greek myth led Ianus, like Euander, Aeneas and Saturn, immigrate from Perrhaibia. But this strange derivation seems to be a confusion with Ianiskos (Roscher).

It is said that Ianiskos together with Asklepios was worshipped in Pergamon, one of the centres of the Asklepios cult. Svoronos describes in AD 19111 some coins of Pergamon depicting a nude child holding an goose in his outstretched r. hand. Svoronos points out that there are many statues of children where the children have geese in their hands. And the goose was sacred to Asklepios. Because of that Svoronos ascribes this depictions to Ianiskos, the somewhat obscure son of Asklepios who in fine arts often is represented by a bird, living in fever contaminated swamps.

A temple of Asklepios and Ianiskos was found at excavations in Sounion, the most south point of Attica which actually is famous for its important temple of Poseidon. In a report about these excavations Ianiskos is called 'God of Malaria', a name which could be ascribed to the nearby swamps.

Now there are strong objections against Svoronos's Ianiskos theory. A.W.Lawrence writes in an article about a statue from Mesopotamia that the above mentioned statues of children not only are holding geese but equally frequent doves and ducks. So it is more probable that these animals are not the attribute of the god but rather pets used for playing with. So an important argument of Svorons is fallen. The small Terracotta statues are probably votiv gifts for the birth of a son.
Another theory for the meaning of the geese represents Ridgway in his article: "The Boy who strangled  a Goose", 2006: The goose came from the Egyptean mythology and is the symbol for evil forces and the boy as Harpokrates/Dionysos overcomes the evil. But this too has no relation to Asklepios or Ianiskos.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 18, 2010, 07:44:59 pm
(continued)

(5)The infant Asklepios:
Now we came to our last coin , from Serdika. On the coins with Apollo Iatros from Serdica we find another, a bit different depiction of the small boy. Here he is nude or sometimes with a chlamys over his back. Sometimes he stretches out his arm to Apollo with an unknown object in his hand. This boy usually is called the infant Asklepios, an explanation which is based on the fact that mythologically Asklepios was the son of Apollo.
Pat Lawrence however is not convinced of that: If he actually would be the infant Asklepios then any attributes should be find as hint. And it would be interesting what object the boy holds in his hand. If it is not the infant Asklepios then one could point to the suggestion of Wroth that there is a connection to mystic rites of initiation.

(6) The Asklepiades:
A last word about the Asklepiades. These were a group of families and persons who led back their origin to Asklepios or his son Podaleirios. Their main places of activity were Trikka in Thessalia, Epidauros, Rhodos and Kos, and the facing Knidos. Belonging to this group were Machaon in Geronia/Lakonia too and his sons Sphyros and Alexanor in Pharai/Messenia. To the ambit of the Asklepiades belong too the Pergamenean Telesphoros and the Sikyonean Euamerion. The latter originally could have been daemons of healing later incorporated in the ambit of Asklepios. This too is true for some epitheta of Asklepios which originally stood for autonomous entities.

The temple service was done in the first time by the Asklepiades themselves as an own guild of priests and physicians where medical knowledge was bequeathed from father to son. At least until Hippokrates it was forbidden to communicate something to strangers. They seem to have cured sick people outside the temple too, and probably the physicians which - according to Lykurgos (886 BC) - have accompanied the Spartan army were Asklepiades. It is sure that their temple service was of great importance for the empirical medical science. By the efforts of Hippokrates of Kos, the most famous of the Aklepiades, the knowledge of the Asklepiades no more stayed the secret of priests. And it was necessary already in the 4th century to accept strangers in their guilds.

The priests of Asklepios were named Asklepiades until later times and it is known that they, without medical knowledge, were busy to obtain their priestly influence on the people by all avaible means which provide superstition. The fact that among them were many swindlers proves Lukian in his 'Pseudomantis'.

Recapitulating we can say that the little boy surely comes out of the ambit of the Asklepiades. The small boy with the hooded mantle naturally is Telesphoros. Sadly we don't know who are the other two figures exactly. The nude figure from Serdika could be the infant Asklepios or an adept of mystic rites. So only the boy with the short chiton is left. But he could be, because of his hidden head(?) , the Epidaurean Telesphoros (Pat Lawrence).

It is interesting that all coins we have seen here are coins of Caracalla. That is not by chance! Caracalla was a psychic sick human. Tortured by the awful spirit of his father and his murdered brother, who in the night stands before him, the emperor sought refuge in strange rites and evocations of dead, and at last he tuurned to the great god of healing (Wroth).

We are situated in the 2nd century AD, in a time where the old gods were no more sufficient to satisfy the need of the people for irrationality. The old gods have lost their mystery, they have become too rational. The people evaded to the secret knowledge of the Celts and especially the deep wisdom of the East, murmured in unintelligible words. On our coins it is obviously depicted how the mysterious powers of the East, here in the shape of a small boy, have barged between the old deities, until they superseded them in the form of Christianism.

All coins which make trouble have been struck in Thrace or Northern Greece. Wether this plays a role or not I don't know.

I have added a depiction of the great temple of Asklepios in Epidauros how it could be seen after a recostruction (Source: www)

Sources:
- Pausanias, Description of Greece

Literature:
- Umberto Eco, Das Irrationale gestern und heute, Vortrag zur Eröffnung der 
   Frankfurter Buchmesse 1987, aus Umberto Eco, Über Spiegel und adere
   Phänomene, dtv 1991
- Kay Ehling, Ein reitender Telesphoros, Epigraphica Anatolica 38 (2005), 159-164
   (online)
- Eduard Gerhard, Griechische Mythologie, Berlin 1854 (online)
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (online)
- Johann Leonhard Hug, Untersuchungen über den Mythos der berühmten Völker der
   alten Welt, 1812
- A.W.Lawrence, A Crowned Head and a Statue of a Child from Mesopotamia, in The
   Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol.27, (1925/1926)
- Pat Lawrence, Cult OTD: Apollo Iatros (online under https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=51500.msg321308#msg321308 )
- Brunhilde S. Ridgway, The Boy Strangling a Goose: Genre Figure or Mythological
   Symbol?, in AJA 110, No.4, 2006 (online)
- Theodor Sigismund Panofka, Asklepios und die Asklepiaden, Berlin 1845 (online) 
- Berendt Pick, AMNG I/1, 1898 (online)
- Brunhilde S. Ridgway, The Boy Strangling a Goose: Genre Figure or Mythological
   Symbol?, in AJA 110, No.4, 2006 (online)
- Wilhelm.Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen 
   Literatur, Leipzig, 1884 (online)
- Joannes.N. Svoronos, Das Kind Ianiskos und Asklepios in Pergamon in Mysien, in
   Nikopolis in Moesien und Serdika in Thrakien, JIAN 13 (1911), S.113-120 (online)
- Warwick Wroth, Asklepios and the Coins of Pergamon, Num. Chron. 1882, pp.1-51
   (online)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 18, 2010, 07:46:55 pm
Zeus Syrgastes

Today I want to share a bit obscure coin about which we actually don't know much. I have tried to gather all I could find. And at the end I have made a discovery which I will present at the end of this article.

1st coin:
Bithynia, Tion, Domitian, AD 81-96
AE 22, 7.45g, 21.74mm, 180°
obv. AVT DOMITIANOC KAISAR SEBA GERM (BA and RM ligate)
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. ZEVS SYRGASTHS - TEIANWN
      Zeus Syrgastes, in himation, stg. l., holding patera in extended r. hand and resting with
      raised l. hand on sceptre; l. before him an unknown object (surely an animal but surely
      not an eagle!)
ref. Rec.Gen. II, p.619, no.22, pl.CVI, 25; RPC 702
extremely rare, VF, red-brown patina
Thanks to Pat Lawrence and Markus for attribution!

Syrgastes was a Thracian-Bithynian deity who - as so many others too - was melted with Zeus. Much more we don't know. Coins with his depiction are known only from Tion from Domitian to Gallienus. Inscriptions citing his name we know from Philippi and Amphipolis.

Etymology:
Syrgastes is a Thracian personal name with a sacral value but is used as sacral epithet too. So the epithet of the Bithynian sun-god was Syrgastes, Syrgastor, presumably related to the Thracian personal name Suregethes 'the bright one'. If so, the meaning must have been 'the bright god'. Compare to the Roman 'sur (now still only used for horses) = with whitish fur'. This may be eventually related to Basque 'txuri (tsuri) = white, whitish'. If this relationship with Basque (and it is not unique) is accepted then the Thracian 'sur(e)-' may be of Pre-Indo-European origin. (Sorin Paliga)
Roscher however is of another opinion. It is true that he too suggests that Syrgastes is related to Suregethes, but he writes: Referring to the etymology Tomaschek believes that 'surs-' stems from the ar. 'tsura = strengthen, enhancing', the same stem which is found in the Scythian name for Apollon as 'Goito-syros' (Herod. 4. 59) = 'gaitha-tsura', "strengthen the world of living". And the second part '-gethes' he compares with the Dacian '(Sarmi)ze-gethousa', whose stem is "g'e", enhanced to "g'et" = 'advancing, walking'.

The Burial Society of Philippi:
In Philippi/Macedonia inscriptions were found which gave evidence that a burial society has existed for Suregethes. The most interesting inscription reads:
"I, Valeria Montana, have according to the order of my husband Aurelios Zipyron Dizas given 50 denarii to the burial society of the god Suregethes next to the agora opposite the clock; from that they shall from the interest income sacrifice annually by the sepulchre at the time of the Rosalia. If they don't sacrifice they shall give the double of the sum to the members of the burial society of the hero 'pros ta Torbiana' as punishment."
Dizas is a Thracian name. So the dead person was a Thracian who - may be because he has been in the Roman army - has adopted the surname Aurelios.

The Festival of Roses (Rosalia):
The Rosalia were a festival of roses within the Roman funerary cult but not attested before the 1st century AD (Plin. nat. 21, 11). So it can't be ancient Roman as I have read too. It was a festival celebrated primarily by the ordinary people and associated most of all with the dead. The date of the Rosalia to which several sepulchral inscriptions from Philippi refer depends on the date of the rose blossom which is different from region to region. At the Rosalia the survivors of the society annually betake to the sepulchre of the deceased colleague of the society who had made the donation to lay down roses (some inscriptions in Philippi are talking from burning too). Not only roses were offered but food too. If there was enough money it was cared for the members of the society, a safe way to go on living in grateful memory. The deceased donator and the members of the society celebrated a
joint  dinner or the society was dining at the sepulchre from the money which was left after the decoration with roses.

In principle the Rosalia were a Roman phenomena which initially has nothing to do with the veneration of Dionysos. But just for Philippi the connection of the Rosalia with the veneration of Dionysos was specific. Here the Rosalia so to speak have made an alliance with the Cult of Dionysos. The donations were committed to the myst of Dionysos and the association of mysteries should celebrate the Rosalia and annually hold the dinner of Rosalia at the sepulchre of the donor. This clearly is an amalgamation of Thracian, Greek and Roman religious beliefs. Especially in Thrace the belief in an afterlife was very distinct and the paradise promised by the god to his devotees was painted in brightest colours. This surely was one of the reasons why just here the Christian belief has been fallen on so fertile ground. Philippi - as we all know - was the first Christian parish in Europe. The problem for Christianism was rather the fact that the Philippians were used to venerate several gods side by side without problems.

Now the 2nd coin of Tion:
Bithynia, Tion, Trajan, AD 98-117
AE 27, 11.47g, 26.8mm, 20°
obv. AVT NER TRAIANOC - KAICAR CEB GER
       Bust, laureate, r.
rev. DIONYCOC K - T - ICT TIANWN
      Dionysos, in himation, stg. l., resting with raised l. hand on garlanded thyrsos decorated
      on both ends with pine cones and pouring from kantharos in lowered r. hand; l. beside
      him the panther std. l., with raised r. paw and head turned r. looking up to him.
ref. Rec.Gen. II, p. 620, no. 28 var., pl. CVII, no. 2 (has DINVCOC!); not in SNG
      Copenhagen, SNG von Aulock, SNG Tübingen, Lindgren, BMC
extremely rare, F+/about VF, nice green patina

Here Dionysos is depicted on the rev. Both gods are explicitly named and both gods are depicted on these coins very similarly: Both are wearing a himation whose end is thrown over the l. shoulder, a garb we see only rarely at Dionysos. And Zeus Syrgastes is resting on a knotty sceptre shaped like the thyrsos of Dionysos. Both gods have an accompanying animal at their side: Dionysos his panther and Zeus Syrgastes usually the eagle. But here it is obviously another animal! Pat Lawrence has addressed it as a snake but not without making a big questionmark to the suggestion of Zeus with a snake. After having learned so much about the close relation of Zeus Syrgaster with Dionysos I have a new explanation: Is it possible that we can see the spotted forepart of a panther behind Syrgastes?
 
Literature:
- W.H.Roscher, Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 1884
- Martin P.Nilsson, Das Rosenfest, Lecture given already AD 1914, edited 1951)
- Sorin Paliga, Etymological Lexicon of the Indigenous (Thracian) Elements in Romanian,
  2006 Bukarest
- Peter Pilhofer, Philippi - Die erste christliche Gemeinde in Europa, 1995 Tübingen
- Pat Lawrence, Post to the coin of Domitian in FAC 19.12.2006

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on December 07, 2010, 10:16:17 am
Wonderful thread. Only two comments.
I miss the Muses.
I do not agree with the legend of Leda.
Following Apollonius Ponticus " of women and birds" VII,2 :

(Leda enters, to have a solitary picnic by the lake.)
CHORUS
Lo! Zeus has transformed!
Now a swan, with mighty wings.
See how he swims to Leda,
where she feeds the fowl from shore.
LEDA
What bird is this? No duckling you, a giant swan!
Do you forgo the bread I cast upon the water?
Indeed, you come onto the shore, so bold!
So fair a fowl I have not seen.
I would feed thee bread from my own hand.
CHORUS
Alas! Zeus deceives poor Leda!
On his approach, he takes not the offered bread,
But spreads his wings and...
LEDA
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back off, swan. I don't like where this is going.
(Zeus stops, looks around, confused. He raises his wings again.)
LEDA
Sorry, all you get is bread. (Picks up basket.)
Leda fed the swan some bread, who then swam off and left her alone.
She finished her picnic, and went home to her husband, where she lived happily
as queen.
This version is not mine.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 07, 2010, 03:01:36 pm
Hi benito!

Thanks for your comment. I don't know 'of women and birds'. But I think Apollonius Ponticus is identical with Apollonius Rhodius. And from Apollonius I have this quotation where he calls Leda 'the bride of Zeus':
"[For the gathering of the Argonauts :] Aitolian Leda sent from Sparta strong Polydeukes and Kastor, skilled to guide swift-footed steeds; these her dearly-loved sons she bare at one birth in the house of Tyndareus; nor did she forbid their departure; for she had thoughts worthy of the bride of Zeus." (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1. 146 ff.)

And here is a list, surely incomplete, of authors who report or mention the myth where Leda was seduced by Zeus in the shape of a swan:
- Homeric Hymns
- Pindar
- Pseudo-Apollodoros
- Apollonius Rhodios
- Theokritos
- Diodorus Siculus
- Pausanias
- Lukian
- Pseudo-Hyginus
- Ovid
- Seneca
- Valerius Flaccus
- Nonnus


Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 21, 2010, 10:53:40 am
Pelops and the Curse of the House of Atreus

With this mythylogical article I want to say Good Bye for the rest of this year. I don't think it's a true Christmas gift because this coin leads us in a sequence of murders and atrocities over several generations which freezes the blood in our veins still today. It is doubtless the most important cycle of ancient Greek myths which has generated the interest of poets and dramatists until our days. I only mention Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Elektra, Jean Giraudoux, Electre, Eugene O'Neill, Mourning becomes Electra and Jean Paul Sartre, Les mouches.

The coin:
Lydia, Sardeis, Geta, AD 209-212
AE 26, 8.97g, 26.48mm, 180°
obv. PO CEB - GETAC KAI
        Head, laureate, r.
rev. CARDIANWN B NEW - K - ORWN
       Pelops, son of the Lydian king Tantalos, in short chiton and with chlamys running
       r. and seizing a prancing wild horse by the head; beneath horse, herbage
ref. cf. BMC 264, 168; not in Aulock, Copenhagen, Lindgren, Tübingen, Righetti.
very rare, F+, a bit rough olive-green patina

Mythology
(1) Tantalos:
Pelop's father was Tantalos, an important king in Phrygia or Pamphylia. Tantalos was a son of Zeus with the nymph Pluto, according to others a son of Tmolos. His residence was Sipylos. He was immensely rich. The pun 'Talents of Tantalos' was an ancient phrase for wealth. As son of Zeus he enjoyed the honour to dine at the table of the gods and invited them too to be guests in his palace. From his wife Euryanassa he had the sons Pelops and Broteus, and the daughter Niobe.

The myth reports a series of crimes done by Tantalos: He should have stolen nectar and ambrosia  from the gods and given to his companions, which later has been reinterpreted as breach of secrecy.
Another crime was theft together with perjury: When Zeus was still an infant on Crete Hephaistos has created a golden mastiff for Rhea to watch over Zeus. This mastiff has been stolen by Pandareos, son of Merops in Lydia, and brought to Tantalos who hid it on the Sipylos mountaín. When Pandareos wanted back the mastiff Tantalos swore by Zeus that he had never seen this dog. Zeus sent Hermes to him but Tantalos insisted on his oath. Hermes indeed found the dog and Zeus slew Tantalos with his thunderbolt under a rock of the Sipylos mountain.
His most atrocious crime and the most notorious of all was this: Once when he has invited the gods for a banquet, he - in his hybris - slaughtered, cooked and served his son Pelops to the gods. Their disgust prevented them to eat something. Only Demeter distracted due to the rape of her daughter Persephone has eaten a shoulder. Nemesis then put him together again and the gods breathed life into him. Demeter replaced the lost shoulder by an ivory one. From this time on the Pelopids, the descendants of Pelops, had all a white mark on their shoulder.

On the other hand Tantalos is described as a man pious and devoted to the gods, toward humans very kind and a great teacher. So we find the interpretation too that it was not an attempt to try the gods but an act of religious sense of duty and highest adoration that he gave them his most valuable possession which was his son Pelops.

His punishment was terrible: He was condemned to stay eternally in the Eridanos, the notorious underworld stream, but could never reach the water in his thirst, which sank everytime he tried to drink. In front of him lured wine grapes which went away every time he wanted to pick them in his hunger, and above him a big rock was hanging which threatened to come crushing down every moment. This rock was seen as punishment for his perjury against Zeus and was probably his oldest punishment. The other punishments seem to be added in later times. Tantalos is considered as the great penitent so at Dante too where he is located on the 6th terrace of the Purgatorium.

(2) Pelops:
When Pelops was reanimated again he became an exceedingly beautiful youth so that Poseidon fall in love with him at the first glance. He abducted him to the Olympos and made him his cup-bearer and lover like Zeus has done later with Ganymedes.

When Tantalos once raped Ganymedes, son of king Tros from Troy, a war occured. After the death of his father Pelops took the throne and continued the war. But the war passed off unhappily and finally Ilos from Troy compelled Pelops to flee fom Phrygia to Pisa on the Peloponnesos. For that Poseidon has given to Pelops as a present horse and cart by which he was able to go over the sea so fast that their feet stay dry.

In Pisa Oinomaos, son of Ares, was king of Elis. He had a beautiful daughter, Hippodameia. Pelops asked for Hippodameia. But Oinomaos has always  prevented a marriage because an oracle has predicted that he would be killed by the hand of his son-in-law or because he himself loved his daughter illegally. He required from the suitors to win a chariot racing against him. The racing went from Pisa to the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmos and back again. Oinomaos conceeded to the suitors an advantage - he always sacrificed a ram before he started, but they had to get Hippodameia in their chariots. The winner should get the bride and the entire kingdom. But nobody has succeeded. All were killed and with their heads he has decorated the roof of his palace.
Myrtilos, son of Hermes, was stable master in Elis and charioteer of Oinomaos. Pelops promised him half of the kingdom and the right to spend the wedding night with Hippodameia if he was willing to betray his master. Hippodameia who was fallen in love with the beautiful Pelops persuaded Myrtilos to change the iron posts of the wheels against waxen ones. And so he did, and in the racing the chariot of Oinomaos fell apart and he was dragged to death. Pelops got Hippodameia and became king in Elis.
It is told that Myrtilos was fallen in love with Hippodameia too and has claimed the wedding night for himself. But after the racing Pelops won't fulfill his promises, or Myrtilos tried to rape Hippodameia, and it came to a struggle. Pelops pushed Myrtilos over a cliff into the sea, were he drowned. After Myrtilos this sea was called 'Myrtoic' but certainly this name arose from a different version of this myth (Euripides). Before he died Myrtilos cursed Pelops and his descendants. This was the origin of the Curse of the Pelopids and Atrids, not the crimes of Tantalos as could be read sometimes. To absolve himself Pelops erected a temple for Hermes at Pheneos - the first in Greece - and Myrtilos was buried behind the temple, a heroon, at which annually was celebrated a nightly sacrifice to honour him. According to others Myrtilos was set by Hermes to the sky as 'waggoner'.

Pindar reports the version that Pelops has won the racing without fraud alone by the rapidity of his horses which he has got from Poseidon. So on the east pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia, where the racing between Pelops and Oinomaos is depicted Myrtilos couldn't be found. Nor on the chast of Kypselos, but on the attached pics.

When Pelops has become master of Elis he succeeded in conquering many of the neighboring realms so that the entire peninsula was named Peloponnesos after him, literally 'Isle of Pelops'. He his seen as one of the great Greek founder figures. Only king Stamphylos of Arcadia withstood him. So he invited him perfidiously, killed him, hacked him to pieces and scattered his parts over the land. This crime was so awfull that a great starving occured in all Greece.

Even so that he has erected a temple for Hermes because of the murder of Myrtilos and has in honour of Zeus considerably enlarged the Olympic Games and brought to hightest reputation, his desendants had to suffer from his crimes. They were compelled from Elis and spread over the Peloponnesos. Pelops himself died peaceful after 59 years of reign. After hid death he was highly venerated in Elis as demigod and had his own altar in the temple of Zeus where already Herakles made sacrifices.

It is said that the Greece were not able to conquer Troy without his ivory shoulder blade. But the ship which should have bring it to Troy has sank in a storm, and at the same time in Elis a plague broke out. The Eleians sent a delegation to the oracle of Delphi. Fortunately in the same moment Damarmenos, a fisherman from Eretreia, came to the oracle, asking for a big shoulder blade he has recently fished out of the sea. When they heard that this was the sought after bone of Pelops they overwhelmed the fisherman with gifts, took it back to Elis and made the fisherman and his descendants to guardians of the relic (Pausanias).

(3) The Pelopids:
Pelops was by Hippodameia ancestor of a great house, called the Pelopids. His sons were Atreus, Thyestes and Alkathoos, his daughter Eurydike. Among them the atrocities continued. The brothers, instigated by their mother Hippodameia, killed their half-brother Chrysippos. They were cursede by Pelops and had to flee. They went to Argos/Mykenai. There Atreus bekame father of Agamemnon and Menelaos. When later Thyestes took away from Atreus the golden lamb and the golden scepter - both pledges of the reign over Argos - Atreus took revenge on him by slaughtering his children and serving them to him. A motive shift in mythology?
Thyestes - connected to Atreus in acrid hate - became father of Aigisthos who later killed Agamemnon, son of Atreus. I skip the chain of atrocities between Atreus and Thyestes. Alkathoos later became grandfather of Ajax the Great, the Telamonian. Eurydike (according to Diodor) married Elektryon, son of Perseus, and gave birth to Alkmene, mother of Herakles.

The descendants of Atreus are called Atrids. Here the curse culminated: After returning from Troy Agamemnon, who has marooned his daughter Iphigenia in Tauris, was killed by his wife Klytaimnestra and her lover Aigisthos. He was revenged by his children Orestes and Electra who took on a matricide because of that. In a famous trial on the Areopagos Orestes was absolved and after five generations finally the curse has been terminated. But that is another story.

I have added a pic of the so-called 'Throne of Pelops' on the Sipylos mountain, near Manisa/Turkey

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 21, 2010, 10:58:10 am
(continued)

Background:
Some words about the Greek tragedy:
The Curse of the Atrids means the begin and the zenith of the 'wonder of the Greek tragedy' (Käthe Hamburger). Before there was the epos were the action stood in the center. But now, 300 years after the epos, we have the drama. And here the main emphasis is on the acting persons and their conflicts. For the first time in the history of men the Greeks have discovered man as problem. That is why the conflicts in these ancient tragedies are exemplary and eternal, and were performed despite their age over and over, or adapted by modern poets and writers.

Driven to its height the conflict was not before the late Atrids, Orestes and Electra, children of Agamemnon. The slaughteries of Tantalos or Atreus seem - dramaturgically seen - not to serve so much. The tragedy covers questions like that for being, conflicts between individual and world, between human and gods, fault and expiation and the tension between character and fate. Fate or the gods bring the acting human in an undissolvable situation - the conflict which is typical for the Greek tragedy - which at last leads to the inner and outer breakdown of this person. There is no possibility to became not guilty without abandon ones own essential moral concepts, impossible for a tragic actor. The definition of tragic in this Greek sense is: The human being becomes guilty without its own guilt! This conception is lightyears away from the inflationary use of this term today. About each car accident it is said that it was tragic. It's horrible!

History of Art:
A group of figure on the east pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia depicts the chariot racing between Pelops and Oinomaos, a depiction in honour of Pelops, who should have founded the Olympic Games. We can see Pelops preparing for the racing sacrificing to Kydonian Hera. The racing itself we can see on Apulic vases, where sometimes Niobe is shown too, sister of Pelops, f.e. on the Apulic lutrophoros, c.350 BC, now in Malibu GM.
On Roman sarcophagi the depiction of the racing and the accident was preferred. A dramatical scene where the horses rear up over the dead Oinomaos is found on a sarcophagus in the Louvre, c.230-240 AD. Post-antique depictions of Pelops are rare. There is an oil sketch from Rubens. I wonder why not the scene was chosen were Pelops was reanimated. That would be an appropriate scene for a sarcophagus, I think. But may be that this scene doesn't fit their dramaturgical necessities.

I have added
(1) the pic from a red-figured krater of the Oinomaos painter, Naples, c.380-370 BC.
      In the centre we see Oinomaos sacrificing, a ram is brought to him; above him   
      Poseidon and Athena; on the right side Pelops and Hippodameia already driving
      their chariot over the waves; on upper left Myrtilos guiding the horses of
      Oinomaos.
(2) the restaurated pic from an Apulic red-figured amphora from Ruovo, 360-330 BC,
      ascibed to the Varrese painter, now in the British Museum. In the centre Oinomaos
      (with helmet) performing a libation, on the left side Pelops (in Phrygian garment)
      resting on his spear, between them a column, dedicated to Zeus (inscription
      DIOS); above them the head of Periphas, a mythic ancient Attic king, who was
      because of his piety more worshipped than Zeus and then raised to heaven,
      possibly a former suitor of Hippodameia; on the right side a group consisting of
      Myrtilos, Eros and Aphrodite; on the left side Hippodameia led by a Muse (or her
      mother?)
      (A detailed description of this picture you find at Gaifmann, see bibliography)

Sources
- Apollodoros, Bibliotheke
- Homer, Odyssee, XI
- Ovid, Metamorphoses
- Diodor, Bibliotheke
- Pindar, Odes
- Pausanias, Description of Greece
Tragödien:
- Aischylos: Oresteia
- Sophokles: Electra, Antigone
- Euripides: Electra, Orestes
Moderne Bearbeitungen:
- Gerhart Hauptmann, Die Atridentetralogie
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Elektra
- Jean Giraudoux, Electra
- Eugene O'Neill, Mourning becomes Electra
- Jean Paul Sartre, Die Flies

Bibliography:
- Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen, 1994
- Milette Gaifman, The Libation of Oinomaos, in Dill/Walde, Antike Mythen: Medien,
  Transformationen, Konstruktionen, de Gruyter 2009
- Käthe Hamburger, Von Sophokles zu Sartre, Griechische Dramenfiguren antik und
   modern, 1962
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
- Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie
- Der kleine Pauly
- Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
- Wilhelm H.Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
   Literatur, 1884
- Gustav Schwab, Sagen des klassischen Altertums, 1840
- Bruno Snell, Die Entdeckung des Geistes. Studien zur Entstehung des europäischen
   Denkens bei den Griechen. Hamburg 1946
- Kurt Steinmann, Meisterstücke der griechischen und römischen Literatur -
   Interpretiert, Reclam 998

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on December 21, 2010, 11:23:04 am
Priapos

I know this coin is in not so good condition. But I want to tell something about Priapos and for that this coin is qualified especially well. It is an AE21 of Trajan Decius from Lampsakos.

Trajan Decius AD 249-251
AE21, 4.15g
obv. AYT KOI TRAIAN DEK[IOC]
        bust draped, laureate, r.
rev. LANYAKHN / [W]N - EPI APOLL[WN?] - ETOY
       Priapos, stg. l., draped to hips, with Ithyphallos, holding Thyrsos l. and Kantharos
       r.
cf. SNG Paris 1294
vry rare, good F to about VF

This coin shows beside its mythology some numismatic anomalies:
1) LAN in error for LAM
2) KOI in error for
   a. KVI, as abbreviation for QVINTVS
   b. KAI, as abbreviation for KAICAR = Caesar (Curtis Cay)
3) For the magistrate Apollonius it is not pssible to find a reference

Priapos was the son of Aphrodite and born in Lampsakos in Mysia. Therefore Lampsakos the most important city of  the Priapos cult The special feature of this coin is the fact that Priapos here is not depicted as a dumb and horny garden dwarf as usually but with Thyrsos and Kantharos, the attributes of Dionysos!

Mythology:
Priapos was the son of Aphrodite and Dionysos, referring to other sources of Adonis or even of Zeus himself. When Aphrodite saw how ugly her child was looking, with big tongue, thick belly and exorbitant member, she threw it away and denied it. It is said that the reason for his deformity was the envy or jealousy of Hera. She should have touched the pregnant belly of Aphrodite with evil magic hand. A herdsman should have found the child and brought it up because immediatly he has assumed that this being could be important for the fertility of plants and animals. Not until Roman times he changed into a bizarre garden god and a kind of  scarecrow. So it was assigned to him that he tried to rape the sleeping Hesta but was betrayed by the cry of an ass. In Bithynia it is said that he has educated the young War God Ares whom he first has teached dancing and thereafter the war handcraft. So he rather was a warlike god, and one of the Titanes. For this reason he belongs probably to the series of pre-hellenic, semi-animal teachers of gods, like Kedalion, Chiron, Silen or Pallas.

Background:
Priapos is the ithyphallic god of animalic and vegetabilic fertility and generally a bringer of mercy and protector against evil, originated at the coast othe Helespont, especially in Lampsakos. The city of Priapos is named after him. His name is related to Priene, Priamos and the name of the Bithynean war god Prietos. Probably together with Alexander's Crusade his cult spread in the Greek world and absorbed various local deities like Phallos in Attica or Mutunus in Rome, which he replaced. Primarly coarse formed, red coloured wooden statues were sacrified to him, so-called Hermes columns (a bust on a column). Typically was his position in Lordosis (leaning back) with erected phallos.

In his function as fertlitity god he acted positively aiding as well as saving against harm. In Roman times his role was limited as garden god. But he was the protector of wanderers and in Greece patron of sailors and fishermen too. His sanctuaries were artless and imbedded in the landscape. As heir of the sepulcric Phalloi he was grave guardian too. This directs to a deeper meaning. Occasionally he became even an All God. In Lampsakos donkeys are sacrified to him which leads to mythological explanations, f.e. the proverbial horniness of donkeys. From the graffiti on the walls of his sanctuaries a separate poetic genre developed, the Priapea and the Priapean measure.

Naturally the depiction of Priapos stimulated to sarcasm but Priapos would not have been accepted  if not a serious belief would have been behind him. So even in Christian times there were Priests, Priestresses and whole societies which were addicted to him. He had mysteries too and had a strong support by Dionysos who has attracted and influenced him. Furthermore he is related to Aphrodite, Pan, the Nymphs, Silvanus and Herakles. Myths generating he became not until hellenistic times and this only marginal.

Sources:
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Der kleine Pauly

Best regards

Important thread for lovers of Mythology.
Priapus appears in this coin well represented.
Notas habemus quisque corporis formas:
Phoebus comosus, Hercules lacertosus,
trahit figuram virginis tener Bacchus,
Minerva ravo lumine est, Venus paeto,
in fronte cornua Arcados vides Fauni,
habet decentes nuntius deum plantas,
tutela Lemni dispares movet gressus,
intonsa semper Aesculapio barba est,
nemo est feroci pectorosior Marte:
quod si quis inter hos locus mihi restat,
deus Priapo mentulatior non est.

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on December 21, 2010, 01:26:48 pm
Jochen  .If  I continue browsing your thread,I'll have to change  my system of collecting Roman coins,and concentrate in mythology. I still miss the Muses and two
of Hercules labours. The golden girdle of Hyppolite and the clean up of the Augean stables.
They exist in coins (not too  difficult to get) but are much nicer in medallions. I own one from Gordian III
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-60962                                                                                                                                        and I would like to (eventually) complete the series with this same obverse.
No one ready to sell ?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on December 21, 2010, 01:38:01 pm
This is the pic of the second Gordian medallion.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Robert_Brenchley on December 21, 2010, 02:32:01 pm
Aren't those two the same coin?
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 22, 2010, 01:36:52 pm
The same coins, indeed.

Dear benito!

I have only written articles about coins from my collection. If you miss the Muses and you have a coin with one of them, please feel free to write an article!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on December 22, 2010, 02:58:32 pm
The same coins, indeed.

Dear benito!

I have only written articles about coins from my collection. If you miss the Muses and you have a coin with one of them, please feel free to write an article!

Best regards

So sorry,I didn't realize that (great collection). I thought that the articles were on mythology  in ancient coinage (that's why I missed the Muses and the girdle).
Sooner or later I will come up with them.
As to the pics I sometimes get the threads wrong. In fact there are two ,one in my trays ( the hind)     https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-60962                                                                                                                                      other in an unknown collection ( the girdle, repeated pic).
Offers are welcome for the series.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 10, 2011, 05:13:56 am
Some notes on Aeternitas

After a longer period of rest now a new article.

AR - denarius, 3.33g, 17mm, 135°
       Rome, 119-121
obv. IMP CAESAR TRAIAN HADRIANVS AVG
       so-called heroic bust, slightly draped on l. shoulder, laureate, r.
rev. PM TRP - COS III       
      Aeternitas, in long garment and mantle, stg. frontal, head l., holding in raised hands r. 
      head of Sol and l. head of Luna.
ref. RIC II, 812; C. 1114; BMCR 162
EF, nice details

Aeternitas is the Roman personification of eternity. Her attributs are the globe, the Phoenix, who permanently is resurrecting out of the fire, the snake, suggested as immortal because of its regular skinnning, depicted as biting itself in the tail and so forming an eternal circle, the elephant suggested as long-living animal, and astral bodies like stars or - like on this coin - sun and moon. Usually coins with Aeternitas were struck at the death of the emperor referring to his consecration. Naturally it was not meant that the emperor himself has an eternal life. That idea was not corresponding  to the Roman religious belief. As stellar bodies Sol and Luna  have a more cosmic universal meaning. They refer to the eternity of the (Roman) ordo and the Roman Empire. It's the matter of Aeternitas imperii. A connection with the emperor comes from the East. As pignus imperii, pledge of the Empire, the emperor himself has to be aeternus, eternal. This idea starts under Tiberius, reserved in the first time. But under Nero it was already possible to sacrifice pro aeternitate imperii or directly to Aeternitas imperii. That was not possible under Augustus. Indeed Aeternitas was worshipped as divine and under Augustus a coin from Tarraco in Spain is known with the legend AETERNITAS AVGVSTI but temples or altars couldn't be found.

Curiously enough the term aeternus initially occurs in the Roman law before it obtained its cultic denotation. But gods themselves rarely were called aeternus, most frequently gods which could be identified with the Syrian Ba'alim (like Zeus, Sol or Apollon). A deus Aeternus in inscriptions from the 2nd-3rd c.AD seems to be of Syrian origin (Pauly). This deity was found most often in Dacia probably brought their by Roman soldiers.

Many of the above listed attributs are taken from the East where we know from an old cult of eternity. Originally the Greek Aion means something like 'long space of time, or era'. The Aion-Cult in the East is based on the philosophical extension of this term to 'eternity'. In Hellenenistic Alexandria the idea of Roma Aeterna was already anticipated. And we find the separation of an everlasting, static, so to speek fixed eternity and chronos, the ongoing, moving time. Mathematical interested people are reminded of the two different conceptions of infinity: here the actual infinity and on the other side the potential infinity.
The roots of Aion are manifold - Phoenicians and Zoroaster played an important role - and could infiltrate other religions too (f.e. the cult of Mithras)

On the other side the dynastic reference of this coin is obvious: Sol and Luna can be taken as symbols for the emperor and his wife. And that stands naturally for the continuity of the dynasty, in one sense private-personally by the continued existance of the imperial family over the generations, but then too official-generally by the provided political stability. In this sense we see a close connection to Providentia who comes into play always if a heir to the throne was born. The heir to the throne ensures the continuity of the imperial family and - moreover - the continuity of Rome and the entire Roman Empire. This all in accordance with a cosmic-universal 'providence'. And with that we are back to sun and moon.

At the end of a principate - as we know - always a struggle for the succession was menacing. This could be prevented only if the princeps has already arranged his succession before his death. Only so riot and a civil war could be avoided. This connection of Aeternitas with Providentia occurs already on coins of Tiberius. The Adoptive Emperors didn't know a dynastic successor. Therefore the term Providentia Deorum was used, the providence of the gods. By the clever election of a successor the gods have ensured the stability of the Empire. This aspect of Aeternitas later was expressed by the astral symbolism of the 7 planets.

Sources:
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Wilhelm Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
  (online)
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (online)
- Hildegard Temporini, Die Frauen am Hofe Trajans, 1978
- article about Aion in this thread

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 12, 2011, 01:34:57 pm
Aphrodite Aphrodisias

In March 2011 we were in Turkey visiting several important ancient sites from Troy down to Hierapolis. One of the most impressive sites was Aphrodisias especially because of its museum with so many beautiful statues. It is excavated by a group of Turkish-American archaeologists. In ancient times it has an important school of sculptors. The marble quarries were nearby.

Caria, Aphrodisias, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 30, 14.13g
obv. AV KM AN - GORDIANOC
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. AFROD. - EI[CIE]EWN
       Cult statue of Aphrodite of Aphrodisias, stg. r., in long garment and wearing
       mural crown, head flanked by crescent and star, both hands extended, l. beside her
       the small figure of a priestess std. on a sella, r. beside her a fountain with arched
       cover.
       in l. field number of local year(?)
ref. cf. MacDonald R432; cf. SNG von Aulock 2461; not in Leypold, Keckmann, coll.
      Karl, BMC
rare, F+, some encrustations of sand patina
Pedigree:
ex. Tom Vossen
note: The fountain is often called altar, in error I think.

Aphrodite was the main deity of Aphrodisias and the city was named after her. Aphrodite originally was a local deity with relations to Ishtar and was identified with the Greek Aphrodite later by interpretatio graeca
 
The main sanctum naturally was the famous statue of Aphrodite in the big temple of Aphrodite from the 1st century BC, of which we can still see today a series of impressive columns. Until the invasions of the Goths Aphrodisias has had no city walls because the inhabitants thought that they were guarded by Aphrodite herself. The actual cult statue of the temple was not preserved. The depicted statue, now in the museum of Aphrodisias, was found in a Byzantine wall. It illustrates the reckless handling of ancient art work by the early Christians.

Originally the Carian statue was naturalistic. Later - under Greek influence - the rendering has changed. Now with her ependytes, the sheath-like garment, she recalls other Anatolian cult images, f.e. the Ephesian Artemis. She stands in an upright and stiff position, with her upper arms pressed close to her body and her hands extended forward, as to give and to receive. She is decorated with necklaces and as city-goddess she wears a mural-crown together with a diadem and a wreath of myrtle. She wears a veil which frames her face and reaches down to the bottom. Beneath the upper tunica she wears a long chiton.

Her most distinctive attribute is her heavy overgarment (ependytes) that conceals most of her body. The front of this garment is divided into horizontal zones, each of which is filled with complex figural reliefs in bas-relief whose style and iconography reveal a deliberate design program and attest its Hellenistic date. It is this series of reliefs that distinguishes the Aphrodisian goddess and shows her individual significance. Each motif symbolizes part of the goddess's divine identity and mythological sphere of power; they include the three Graces as her most near attendants, then a maried pair, by Lisa Brody identified as Gaia and Uranos, earth and heaven ruled by the goddess (rather not Zeus and Hera), Helios and Selene, and Erotes, and at least Aphrodite herself, here shown not in her distinctive local guise but in a more traditional Hellenistic mode of presentation: half-nude and seated on a seagoat, accompanied by a dolphin and a triton. Furthermore, the particular division of Aphrodite's ependytes communicates the fundamental conception of Aphrodite as a goddess of earth, heaven, and sea. This interest in the natural divisions of the universe and the use of cosmic iconography are characteristic of the Late Hellenistic era and date the creation of the goddess's image to this time. The celestial aspect is shown on the coin by crescent and star in the upper field. Although the Aphrodite of Aphrodisias certainly had a long history of local worship, the Hellenistic iconography of her remodelled image gave the goddess a new universality by using concepts and motifs familiar throughout the Graeco-Roman world.
(Dr. Lisa Brody, New York University)

I have added 2 pics:
(1) a pic of tthe statue from the museum
(2) a pic of the temple of Aphrodite

Sources:
- Kenan T. Erim, Aphrodisias, 2010
- Lisas Brody, Aphrodite of Aphrodisias
- MacDonald, The Coinage of Aphrodisias

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 17, 2011, 05:50:13 am
Dear members interested in ancient mythology!

Now I have converted the Mythology Thread into a book. Here are the datas:
194 articles, many of them with new pics, in 3 groups: Greek, Roman, Egypt
detailed subjext index
405 pages from which 300 pages are in color
DIN A4
Hardcover
in German

The book is called 'Münzen und antike Mythologie' and is today in pdf-format on CD.  Now I'm in search of a print office. I have added the cover and the first 2 pages of the articles.

Anyone interested? The prize depends on the number of copies.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Will Hooton on May 17, 2011, 07:13:47 am
Congratulations Jochen! I hope you get published, and consider an English version in the future! The thread is fine, but print rules! ;D


I will order a copy in German, but only if signed! ;)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 17, 2011, 08:07:45 am
Thanks! Your are on the list. Of course signed. But what do you mean with 'print rules'?

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: curtislclay on May 17, 2011, 08:22:41 am
I think he means: it's great to have access to a resource online, but that resouce only becomes permanent, and also easier to consult, when it appears in printed form.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Will Hooton on May 17, 2011, 09:19:43 am
I think he means: it's great to have access to a resource online, but that resouce only becomes permanent, and also easier to consult, when it appears in printed form.

Curtis has accurately conveyed my meaning. And thank you Jochen! Looking forward to the book!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Pekka K on May 17, 2011, 12:56:23 pm

Jochen, 1 book for me. Signarure is welcome.

Pekka K
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 18, 2011, 12:30:31 pm
Thanks, Pekka K! Which text do you prefer?  ;D

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Pekka K on May 18, 2011, 01:12:56 pm

Printed version, if You mean between it
and CD.

Pekka K
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 18, 2011, 03:12:14 pm
I was asking for the text of the signature!  ;D

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Pekka K on May 19, 2011, 02:37:37 am
Nothing special, the author's
signature is most important.

Pekka K
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on May 19, 2011, 02:47:25 am
I, too, would love to have it between covers and printed.  Good work!
Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 19, 2011, 05:09:10 am
Sure! And I have it dedicated to you.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on May 19, 2011, 06:30:26 pm
Nothing could ever please, and flatter, and humble me more than that.
Pat
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: vk on May 31, 2011, 04:47:48 pm
A great book, but not sure if I'd go for the German version since I'd be reduced to just looking at the pictures.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on July 12, 2011, 11:25:25 am
Because of a recommendation of moonmoth I have added to each copy of the book a CD with the PDF files. Each CD is handsigned and an unauthorized copy will be regarded as illegal with all its forensic consequences.

Because of capacity overload of the print office the copies will be ready in c. 2 weeks.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: moonmoth on July 12, 2011, 03:03:14 pm
Excellent!  Thanks.

Bill
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 14, 2011, 01:38:10 pm
I think it's time to continue the Mythology Thread. For half a year I was delayed by the book. Now I got the first books from the print office and I think they are beautiful. I have started to send them to the interested persons. But there are more to order. Please feel free!

Thoth, Hermes Trismegistos

The coin
Phoenicia, Tyre, Valerian I., AD 253-260
AE 30, 15.54g, 29.87mm, 180°
obv.: IMP CP LIC VALERIANVS AVG
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev.: COL TV - RO METRo
       Hermes-Thoth in himation stg. l., holding kerykeion in l. arm and in outstretched r. hand 
       papyros roll, at his feet l. Ibis stg. l., r. beside him date palm, above Murex shell.
ref.: BMC 458
scarce, about VF

This coin has catched my eyes because of the unusual roll in the r. hand of Hermes.Then the deciding hint was the Ibis: It is the ibis-headed god Thoth!  About Hermes and Hermanubis we already have articles in this thread. So we can concentrate on Thoth and Hermes Trismegistos.

(1) Thoth:
Thoth is  the Greek name of the Egyptian god Djehuty, Tahuti or Tehuti. His centre of worshipping was Khemnu (Khnum) in the Nord-East marsh of the Nile delta. In Greek-Roman times Khnum got the name Hermopolis because of his connection to Hermes. Thoth was one of the most important deities and presides in the Ogdoad Pantheon of Khnum the eight main gods. He was suggested as heart (mind) and tongue of the sun-god Ra. Höpfner claims that his name is the oldest name for the Ibis, but really convincing his name could not be explained until now. Usually he is depicted as a human being with the head of an Ibis, but directly as Ibis too. In the underworld he played a major role as judge, who weighs the hearts of the deads and  decides about Good and Evil. Because of his role as Psychopompos the Greeks equated him with Hermes. He existed from the beginning of the world, self created and generated by himself. He was the writer of the gods and the invention of writing and the alphabet (here the Hieroglyphs) were ascribed to him. He was responsible for the  movement of the stars and planets, he was the power which holds together the universe. Because of his power he was a rival to Ra and Osiris. On the sun-boat of Ra we find Thoth as vizier.

As god of wisdom the Egyptians suggested him to be the author of all scientific, philisophical and religious books. And so the Greeks too: For them he was the inventor of astronomy, mathematics and geometry, of medicin, botanics and much more. Thoth was not a messsenger like Hermes (that rather was Hermanubis). He was the registrar and was highly venerated by the writers, here often in the shape of a baboon.

In mythology he played an important role. So in several battles between Good and Evil, especially in the struggle between Horus and Seth, where he was a great help for Isis (look at the referring article in this thread). He assembled the parts of Osiris and reanimated Horus after the murder by Seth. He stood for order against chaos, represented by Seth.

He was seen as inventor of the 365 day calendrier (look at the referring article in this thread). Later he became the moon god and with it an aspect of the sun-god Ra. Because the moon played such an important role in the life of the Egyptians he was seen as god of order, measurement and regulation of the time.

He was closely connected to Seshat, the old goddess of wisdom, his daughter, later his wife.

The book of Thoth from the time of the Ptolemies I mention here without discussing it. It is still used today in esoterism.

The Ibis:
We know that the Egyptians have depicted many gods as animals. We know the hawk, the jackal, the fox and much more. But naturally the Egyptians don't have worshipped animals, at least not the educated. It was the characteristic and the power of the animals which were venerated. The animals were the symbols for the divine powers behind them. The centre of the Ibis veneration was of course Khnum, where Millions of mummified Ibisses have been found which were buried in honour of Thoth. There were real Ibis farms. An opinion is that the Ibis was important for the Egyptians because  he killed poison snakes. A bit rationalistic, eh? More probably the characteristic stoking of 'searching' and 'finding' of the Ibis in the mud of the marsh could be the origin (Der Kleine Pauly). Later the bending of the Ibis neck could  be important for identifying him with the moon god. 

(2) Hermes Trismegistos
This title originally occurs from Thoth's title 'Three times great, great'. It is a typical syncretistic melting of Hermes and Thoth. He is known since the time of Ptolemaios IV. Until modern age it was suggested that Hermes Trismegistos has been a real person and the author of the works named after him 'hermetic', especially the Corpus Hermeticum. This work was rediscovered in Renaissance and came in the hands of Cosimo de Medici. These writings were held for age-old secret knowledge of the Egyptians and were dated to the time of Moses. It was 1614 that Isaac Casaubon based on textcritical analysis could show that they can't be written before the 2nd century BC. This melting of Thoth and Hermes doesn't become accepted in Greeks and Romans in contrast to Hermanubis. But he played an important role in gnosticism.
 

(3) Exkursus: The Orphics
We have mentioned the Orphics already several times in ths thread. Now it is time to concentrate on them.
The Orphic is a mystery cult of the Greek religion, which is originated with songs and poems in the 6th century BC under influence of the fictititous singer Orpheus in Thrace and spread to Attica and  South Italy. It was propagated by itinerant preachers. But even in those days the Orphic was fictititous and hardly concrete. For the Greeks, known for its here and now, it was a very unusual movement. Not so for the Thracians with their belief in the afterworld as we have seen several time in this thread. It is a kind of impact of 'dark' elements on the Greek religion.

Dionysos
The Orphic has developed a global world explanation, testified especially by the Neoplatonists. In the centre of the Orphic stands Dionysos, son of Zeus and Persephone, as god of the Underworld named Zagreus. This so-called 1st Dionysos has been disrupted by the Titans during the struggle against Zeus. But Atheno could rescue his heart, brought it to Zeus who devoured it. From this heart originated the 2nd Dionysos, son of Zeus and Semele. The Titans were burnt by Zeus and his thunderbold to ashes. From this ashes Zeus built the human beings.

Referring to this conception man stands between the divine Dionysos and the Titans. Human has parts of both.  The body was seen by the Orphics as prison of the immortal soul.  Here we find the origin of the Body-Soul-Dualism, which however was disclaimed by Christianism. Augustinus rather said 'House of the Soul'. It's now the challenge of the human to free himself from the Titanic parts. This can be done by asceticism, consecrations, purification rituals, avoiding of meat and so on. We all know that. Only so the eternal reincarnation (metempsychosis) can be avoided. After death the vengeance for his deeds occurs.

The Pythagoreans have much adopted from the Orphics, f.e. the reincarnation (so Philolaos of Kroton). And equally the Platonismus seems influenced. The famous word 'Soma Sema', the body a grave, f.e. is from Plato himself. But naturally a important role has played the ethical component we find in the Orphic. And we see parallels to Buddhism and to Christianism (f.e. its eschatology). Orpheus was seen as pre-christian wise man, yes as forerunner of Jesus. The famous picture where Orpheus has gathered the wild animals and meeked them by his musique was widely spread in middle-ages.

I have attached a pic of Thoth with head of Ibis, from a wallpainting of a burial chamber of the New Kingdom (Wikipedia)

Sources:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(3) Karl Kerenyi, Humanistische Seelenforschung (online bei books.google.de)

Online:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) Zeno: Orphiker
(3) Freimaurer-Wiki: Orphiker

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 14, 2011, 01:49:23 pm
The Caduceus (Kerykeion)

Some time before I got a beautiful denarius of Severus Alexander, RIC 192; C. 45; BMC 498. The rev. shows Felicitas with patera and a long Caduceus. The Caduceus usually is the attribute of Mercurius, but Felicitas too and sometimes Pax. Here I have gathered information about the Caduceus hoping that you find something new, even it is an attribute which the collector of Roman coin has already seen so often.

Meaning
The Caduceus (from Latin caduceatur = messenger, herald), Greek Kerykeion (from keryx = herald), is the staff of Hermes (Mercurius), the messenger of the gods. It is the sign of invulnerability, of authority and neutrality. It is the protection of the herald as today the white flag of the negotiator in the case of war. In Homer's Iliad and Odyssee it was a kind of magic wand used by Hermes to open the eyes of deads and to shut them too. So we see a connection to death and to the Underworld. Hermes as Psychopompos was the god who accompanied the dead to the Underworld, see f.e. Orpheus and Eurydike.

Mythology:
Vergil in his Aeneid claims that Apollo has donated the Caduceus to Hermes changing it with the lyra, which was invented by Hermes. Apollo should have the Caduceus from the famous seer Teiresias. And here is the story: Teiresias, the blind seer, once met a pair of copulating serpents. When he was trying to separate them with his blindman's stick, they entwinded his stick and immediately Teiresias changed into a wife and was lasting wife for seven years until he succeeded in reversing this state by a similar event. By the way it is said that Teiresias, now expert for both genders, once should decide a dispute between Zeus and Hera who felt more lust during sexual intercourse, man or wife. Teiresias thought it was the wife and in fact ninetimes more than man! The stick with the two serpents afterwords ended up in the property of Apollo.

Shape:
The shape of the Caduceus has changed in history several times. Originally it could have been a stick with an U or V at top. Then we know depictions with a 8 which was open at top. This is still today the symbol for the planet Mercurius, a circle with 2 horns. Then the 8 was put on a short staff, which could be held in hand. Later it became a long staff set on ground. But there are types too where the staff was extended upwards through the 8.

The serpents were added not before the 5th century BC but remained unusual until Middle Ages and were incorporated not before the begin of Renaissance. Here we find a connection with Hermes Trismegistos, esoterism and alchemy. From here we know the term 'hermetical', meaning something locked and secrete. The wings we sometimes see on the Caduceus were added not before the 4th century BC. That was matching the winged petasos and the winged boots (talaria) of Hermes, signs of his rapidity.

Origin:
There are two explanations: On a Sumerian sacrificial vessel in the Louvre from 3000-4000 BC the Sumerian goddess Ningizzida is depicted already holding a Caduceus. Ningizza is closely connected with Thoth the Egyptian god of wisdom who too holds a Caduceus. And so the Phoenician god Taaut and then the Babylonian goddess Ishtar who is related with the Greek Aphrodite. This theory argues a Sumerian-Babylonian origin.

The other theory claims that originally the Caduceus was a simple shepherd's crook with a split end used by the shepherd f.e. to call to order sheep which have run away. In the Lueneburg Heath in Northern Germany the shepherds have long sticks with a kind of small shovel at the top by which they could throw small chunks of earth on the sheep to drive same back to the flock.

The Snake Staff of Asklepios:
Actually Asklepios' staff is not the subject of this article. But in the United States and at the UNO strangely it is not the staff of Asklepios which has been established as symbol of the medical professions but the Caduceus. So here some words about the staff of Asklepios. The main difference is that here it is only one snake coiled around the staff. And usually the staff is depicted more knotty. It is the attribute of the healer god (demigod) Asklepios, Lat. Aeculapius. There is a scientific explanation for its snake: There is a worm in the East, Dracunculus medinensis, called too Guinea worm or Medina worm, who after a complicated development grows to a 2mm broad but 1m long worm who bores long ducts under the skin of the patients and tantalized his victims. Already in ancients times the physicians have extracted the worm by making a small cut in the skin in front of the worm and then very slowly spooling the worm around the stick. So it should not be a serpent around the staff but the Guinea worm which became the sign of the physicians.

Why in the USA and at the UNO the Caduceus became the symbol of medical professions is not clear because the Caduceus is rather the symbol of trading and commerce. I don't hope that this became the centre of medicines!

I have attached the pic of the denarius Severus Alexander RIC 192 and of the denarius Caracalla RIC 253 var. with the standard depiction of Asklepios.

I hope that there was something new for one or another.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Steve E on August 18, 2011, 03:08:44 am
Dear Jochen,

I do hope you consider publishing an English version of your book!

No disrespect to your native language, but I'm sure there are many non-German readers who would benefit from and greatly enjoy it in English!

Though I have German blood in my ancestery, Alas I don't speak it and am too old, or lazy, at this point in my life to learn.

Thanks for your great efforts and contributions!

Best Regards,
Steve
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 18, 2011, 05:28:01 am
Hi Steve!

Thanks for your reply. In my opinion the style of my English articles is not so good as it should be and full of errors.  For the thread in the Forum this could be tolerated, but a printed book needs a revised version I think.  That's the problem!

After having edited the German book, the first ordered copies I have sent to the buyers, I know how to change the html-Files into Pdf-Files. And I think the layout is not so bad. Altogether 1.8kg full of information.

It's the style of my English text.

Best regards
 
Title: book with cd
Post by: dougsmit on August 18, 2011, 11:16:24 pm
I'm glad to see the inclusion of a CD with the book.  Nine years ago when Victor Failmezger wrote his book Roman Bronze Coins we decided to include a CD not including the book but just the plates.  Each image was clickable so it could be examined in enlarged size and a few special coins were included in the full size that my (now antique) digital camera produced.  I thought that this was a great idea but it went over like a lead balloon.  I doubt very many people even even looked at the disk or bothered to request one (if their book was not packed with one).  I got a very few notes of positive feedback.  

I thought the plates only was a good idea since it did not carry the risk of financial loss to the author from people copying the book but it allowed the coins to be seen in a much better way than possible in the little plates printed on paper.  We encouraged people to copy the disk and give it to people who owned a book without one (bought from the publisher rather than from the author, as I recall, we only made disks for the first run of books).  Without the book, the images were just pictures of ordinary bronzes so bookless people would hardly want one.  

Despite the failure, I still think the correct answer is to print a book with CD images of the coin plates that allow microscopic examination of the coins.  Perhaps we erred in giving them away thus setting the value at zero.  

Those not knowing what I am talking about could read my review of the book first posted in 2002.  

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/vf.html

It included one plate with sample clickable images

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/vfplate01.html

including one of the huge ones which I won't post on this page out of respect for those who pay for their bandwidth by the byte.  Others can see it by clicking on the link "larger" on the above plate.

I believe such a disk would be nice with a book full of beautiful coins of Mythological interest.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on August 19, 2011, 01:27:49 am
For me Failmezger's idea of organization is so disagreeable and difficult that it is the plates and the CD, for enlarging the images, that make the book useful for me.  They serve me as an index!  It is the only way I ever find anything in Failmezger's system,  by far the most idiosyncratic I have ever seen.  It is Doug's contribution and his offering the CD that for me make the book worth owning.
As for German, one can get the fundamental grammar and syntax in a single summer-session course at any respectable college or university.  The vocabulary is easily acquired, since it is basically either numismatic or Greco-Roman.  I trust Jochen will not have vied with Hegel and Nietsche, for example.
Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 19, 2011, 01:46:47 am
Or even more abhorrent: Heidegger!  ;)

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: moonmoth on August 19, 2011, 02:52:21 am
It was I who asked Jochen for a CD.  I think this CD is doubly, if not triply, useful. 

Non-German readers can copy chunks of text and drop them into Google Translate.  This does not begin to compare with Jochen's own English versions on Forum, but it immediately gives you the basic meaning, and you can see from the original text how the sentences were actually put together. 

The coin images are very good.  You can blow them up to 200 per cent without them becoming pixellated. 

And you can search the text.  True, there is a perfectly good table of contents, but that does not pick up all references, and even when going to a main section it is sometimes cumbersome to page through a pdf  file.

Nice work!  Congratulations to Jochen.

Bill
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 19, 2011, 03:50:36 am
Thanks! The English text is often the literal translation of the German text and vice versa.

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: slokind on August 20, 2011, 05:00:15 pm
Thank you both for not rebuking me!  I ought to have made it clearer that I meant only that Jochen has given us so much that it seemed a shame to ask him to translate as well.  And it is true that German is less formidable than many think it is.
Pat L.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Andrew McCabe on August 20, 2011, 05:13:03 pm
As for German, one can get the fundamental grammar and syntax in a single summer-session course at any respectable college or university.  The vocabulary is easily acquired, since it is basically either numismatic or Greco-Roman..

Yes. Verb at the end. Nouns have capital Letters. Pull out all those "and by the way" Clauses and look at them as if separate Sentences. The Umlauts look less forbidding when you realise their Effect is just to add an "e" after the Letter. And those Overlongcompoundnouns make a lot more Sense when you mentally split them into their Components.

Mark Twain wrote a tongue-in-cheek comedy piece which actually explains some useful grammar:

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

It starts with a cross-over into that other recurrent topic on Forvm, Rarity!

"I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, possibly a "unique"; and wanted to add it to his museum."
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 03, 2011, 01:48:25 pm
Crescent and the ash-grey moonlight

The 2nd coin I got this morning and it was the reason to look a bit closer at the strange depiction of its reverse. At the first glance I thought that both coins depict a circle, but please look for yourself:

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 17, 2.74g, 17.44mm, 195°
obv. AV KAI - CEVHROC
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. NEIKOPOLI PROC ICTRO.
      Crescent with closed circle, star left above outside of the circle
ref. a) not in AMNG
     b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
     c) Hristova/Jekov (2011) No. 8.14.48.14 (this coin)
very rare, F+, dirty green patina, partially damaged

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 19, 2.96g, 18.54mm, 225°
obv. AV LC - CEVHROC
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. NEIKOPOLI PROC ICTRO.
      Crescent with closed circle, star left above outside of the circle
ref. a) not in AMNG
      b) not in Varbanov (engl.)
      c) not in Hristova/Jekov:
          rev. No. 8.14.48.14 (same die)
          obv. No. 8.14.47.12 (tripod with snake) (same die)
very rare, F+/about VF, dark green patina

If you look closer at these two coins, then you can see, that there are not common circles depicted but that the lower part is thickened and so looks like a crescent which is closed at top. So these are not the usual crescents but something special! BTW Hristova/Jekov writes 'half-moon and star'.

Explanation:
To understand the depiction on these coins we need a bit astronomy: Earthshine is called the sunlight which is reflected by the earth and thrown at the surface of the moon which is not enlighted by the sun. Thus the dark side of the moon which is turned toward us receives a wan colour which - reflected again - reaches the earth as ash-grey moonlight. This can be seen with the naked eye when the conditions are good. The best time is when the crescent is narrow - a short time before and after new moon - when the angular distance to the dazzling sun is sufficient. This f.e. is true in March (Volkssternwarte Marburg). If the moon is growing the earthshine will be outshined by his light and this phenomenon becomes invisible. 


This phenomenon was already known in ancient times but couldn't be explained correctly. Some meant that the moon itself emits a faint light, others that the moon is transparent so that the sunlight could glimmer through the moon. A poetic paraphrase from that time was the old moon in the arms of the new one. Nice, well? Adding to this idea is the fact that the enlightened crescent appears optically greater than the rest of the moon.

The correct explanation - the secondary light by the residual light (albedo) of earth - was first found by Leonardo da Vinci in his Codex Leicester, AD 1506-1510. Here I have a translation of the important part of his text:
"Some have believed that the moon has some light of its own, but this opinion is false, for they have based it upon that glimmer visible in the middle between the horns of the new moon...this brightness at such a time being derived from our ocean and the other inland seas -- for they are at that time illuminated by the sun, which is then on the point of setting, in such a way that the sea then performs the same office for the dark side of the moon as the moon when at the full does for us when the sun is set...."

And exactly this is depicted on both coins. Hence the depiction on both coins is not only a symbol like the crescents on so many other coins but the illustration of a real astonomical phenomenon!

I have added
(1) the pic from Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester, AD 506-1510 (sometimes ascribed to 
     Michael Mästlin, AD1550-1631)
(2) the photo of a crescent with the ash-grey moonlight, Sept. 1 2005 at 5:24:25 (Wikipedia)

Sources:
(1) Codex Leicester http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/codex/2A2r.html
(2) Wikipedia
(3) website of Volkssternwarte Marburg

I would be glad about any opinion on this theory!

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 07, 2011, 02:57:15 pm
Today I came across the thread about the planets on coins and the discussion about Venus. Here I have an addition to my last article about the ash-grey moonlight. On this type we can see a star outside the mooncircle.  If we take the depiction for an actually astronomical phenomenon, as I do, then this star can well be the Venus! Take a look on the attached pic, which shows moon and Venus on March 1 2011. We see that Venus is not behind the crescent but in a position like depicted on the above coins.

The pic is from http://www.venustransit.de/himmel.htm

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 09, 2011, 06:19:26 am
As promotion for my Mythology Book I have recalled this aphorism of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799):

"Wer zwei Paar Hosen hat, mache eins zu Geld und schaffe sich dies Buch an."

Translated to "Anyone who has two pairs of trousers, should turn one into cash and purchase this book!."  :) :)

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 11, 2011, 06:28:58 am
The Mythology of Tenedos

Preparing a longer article about Janus I came across the old silver coins of Tenedos which show a double head too but a mixed male and female. Here is the background.

The coin:
Troas, Tenedos, 555-470 BC
AR - Obol, 0.51g, 8.29mm, 270°
obv. Janiform head, female l., male, bearded, r.
rev. Labrys (double axe), l. and r. beside the shaft T - E
      all within a square incus
ref. Rosen 536; SNG von Aulock 1587
rare, about VF

Note: The Labrys (Greek Pelekys) was the sign of Tenedos. Its meaning was discussed controversially already in ancient times. Aristoteles writes, that it represents the axe by which adultery was punished on Tenedos. Ridgeway says, that the axe was a kind of pre-monetary currency. But because on later coins the axe was accompanied by a bunch of wine-grapes it is more probably an attribute or cult object of a Dionysos cult who perhaps was worshipped as Dionysos Pelekes like in Pharsa Thessaly (HN). There was an old sanctuary too on Tenedos for Apollo known from the 8th century BC who was mentioned by Homer (Ilias I) as 'Supreme deity of Tenedos'.

Geography:
Tenedos is a small island direct in front of the coast of Troy. Mountainous, water-rich and famous already in ancient times for its wine. Especially because its situation and two natural harbours Tenedos played an important role already in ancient times for the control of the Dardanelles and the access to the Black Sea.  Tenedos  was settled by Aiolians from Lesbos and became Persian after the Ionian Revolt. The coinage of silver coins starts already before the Persian times.
By the Delian League Tenedos had to pay a tribute, and so too by the 2nd League. After the naval victory of Lucullus against Mithradates Tenedos became Roman. The infamous Verres who later was accused by Cicero ('In Verres') looted its treasures. Later it joined Alexandreia/Troas. Aristoteles refers to 'the Politics of the Tenedians'. 'Tenedian' was proverbial for severity, crudeness and falsehood (Pauly). In the beginning Tenedos has the name Leukophrys, Today it is Bozcaada in the Turkish province Canakkale

Mythology:
The double head on the silver coins of Tenedos were often called Hera and Zeus. This is surely true for the later coinage (HN).  But there is another interpretation which I want to present here: It can be Tennes and Hemithea! Calling it Tennes and Philonome which I have read too must be refused if you know the mythology.

Tennes (or Tenes), twin brother of Hemithea, was the son of Apollo or the son of Kyknos, king of Kolonai in Troas, a son of Poseidon, and his wife Prokleia, daughter or grand-daughter of Laomedon of Troy. When Prokleia died Kyknos married Philonome, daughter of Tragasos (or Kragasos). Pholonome fell in love to her stepson Tennes who didn't answer her advances. Deeply offended she accused him at Kyknos for attempted rape. Kyknos believed in her accusation because she had a witness, the flute player Molpos, and in his rage he condemned Tennes to death. He csaged him into a wooden chest together with his twin sister Hemithea, because she didn't want to live without her brother or because she lamented too loud about the death sentence, and let them throw into the sea. But the chest, perhaps by the help of Poseidon, was washed up on the beach of Leukophrys and both twins survived. The inhabitants choosed Tennes for their king and the island was named Tenedos after him.
Later on Kyknos learnt the full truth, killed Molpos and buried his wife Philonome alive. To reconcile with his children he sailed to Tenedos. But Tennes refused any contact with his father took his axe and cut the ropes of the ship. The phrase 'cut with the axe of Tennes' should be originated from this story.  It means something like 'nothing to deal with somebody'.

About the death of Tennes we know several different versions. He has fought with the Trojans against the Greeks and was slain by Achilles though Thetis has warned her son to do that because Apollo surely would take vengeance for the death of his son. Tenedos stood under the special protection of Apollo.
Others tell that Achilles has slain Tennes together with his father Kyknos when he on the voyage to Troy has made an indermediate stop on Tenedos.
Another version reports that Achilles during this intermediate stop has pursued Hemithea and Tennes has tried to stop him.  But Achilles not knowing that Tennes was a son of Apollo has slain him (Plutarch).
It is told too that Poseidon has made his son Kyknos invulnerable so that no sword could wound him. In the Trojan War against the Greeks he was strangled by Achilles. After his death Poseidon has changed him into a swan (Greek kyknos = swan). But there are several heroes named Kyknos too, all connected to the swan.

After their death Tennes and his twin Hemithea were worshipped as divine. Diodorus Siculus reports that the inhabitants of Tenedos has built a sanctuary for Tennes to
celebrate his virtues. It was not allowed for flute players to enter the sanctuary and to pronounce the name of Achilles was prohibited. Hemithea was equated with Leukothea, mother of the sea-god Palaimon and venerated as deity too. It is known that the inhabitants of Tenedos has sacrificed children to the gods until historic times, the rare example of human sacrifices in ancient Greece!

Tennes (or Tenes) is the eponym of Tenedos. But probably it was the other way around: Tennes was named after the island. The reported mythology is dated back to later times. The story with the axe can be explained aetiologically and refers to the double axe on the Tenedian coins. The mythology itself is the well known Potiphar theme (Pauly). But probably we have a mix of several different myths. So we have another myth of king Staphylos from Naxos who too has a daughter Hemithea and we find the motive with the chest thrown into the sea. Hemithea was rescued by Apollo and a big sanctuary was built for her in Kastabos on the Chersonesos (Diodorus Siculus).

Tenedos in the Trojan War:
Later Tenedos played an important role in the Trojan War. When the Greek armada sailed aginst Troy it made a stop on Tenedos to take water and provisions. At a sacrificial meal the famous bowman Philoktetes was bitten by a snake. Probably at the behest of Apollo because of the murder of his son Tennes by Achilles. Philoktetes was brought back to Lemnos but his companions let him alone because they were not able to take the stink from his wound (Kypries). But because the Trojan seer Helenos - captured by Odysseus - forecasted that without Philoktetes and his bow it would be impossible to conquer Troy Diomedes brought him back to Troy.

When the Greeks after 10 years of war realized that they couldn't achieve anything against Troy they tried a trick. On the advice of Odysseus they built a wooden horse in which Odysseus with some companions were hidden, left it on the beach, entered their ships and sailed away. Actually the Greek armada concealed itself behind the island of Tenedos so that the Trojans must believe that they have sailed back to Greece (Vergil, Aeneis). The rest is known: The Trojans pulled the horse into the city and celebrated their victory. In the night the Greek warriors climbed out of the horse, opened the gates of the city for their companions which has been back with their armada.

The two giant snakes which strangled Laokoon and his two sons are said to have come from Tenedos on behest of Apollo because he has married against his command and has get two sons. The Phrygians thought that he was killed because he has thrown a spear against the wooden horse (Pseudo-Hyginus fab. 135; Vergil Aeneis 2.214).

History of Art:
I couldn't find any pic dealing with this myth. The added pic shows a view of Tenedos with a fortress, probably Venetian. In the background you can see the Troic coast.

Sources:
[1] Homer, Odyssee
[2] Vergil, Aeneis
[3] Apollodor, Bibliotheka
[4] Diodorus Siculus
[5] Pausanias, Voyages in Greece

Literature:
[1] Lessing, Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie, 1766
[2] Der kleine Pauly
[3] Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
[4] Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Lexikon der Mythologie

Online-sources:
[1] www.theoi.com/Heros/KyknosKolonaios.html
[2] www.theoi.com/Ouranios/ApotheothenaHemithea.html
[3] Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on September 11, 2011, 06:50:50 am
As usual wonderful information from Jochen. Shows the treachery of the greeks.
Equo ne credite, Teucri / Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Virgil. Aeneid.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 11, 2011, 08:50:38 am
Thanks for your comment. There are some articles more to come!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 15, 2011, 03:30:45 pm
Tyana

The coin:
Cappadocia, Tyana, Trajan, AD 98-117
AE 26, 13.86g, 25.68mm, 0°
struck under legate T. Pomponius Bassus AD 98/99 (year 1)
obv. AVT NEROVAC TRAIAN KAICAR GER (from 1 o'clock)
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
        c/m under chin: triangulare incus
rev. EPI BA - CCOV PRECBEVT - TVANEWN (from 4 o'clock)
       Tyche of Tyana, in long garment and wearing mural-crown, std. l. on cippus,
       holding two grain-ears in outstretched r. hand and resting with l. hand on
       cippus; beneath river-god Lamus swimming r.
       in l. and r. field ET - A (year A)
ref. BMC 3
rare, F/good F
Note: Tyana was situated on a tributary of the river Lamus. Because the river-god sometimes holds a torch it seems to be the river Phoibos (Note of Prof. Nolle in R. Falter, Fluß- und Berggötter in der Antike)

Mythology:
At first - according to Arrian - Tyana was called Thoana after Thoas, king of Thracia, who has persuited Orestes and Pylades so far and then has founded this city. This myth is mentioned by Stephan. Byz. too. In the neighbourhood of Tyana a temple of Jupiter was located with a lake in a swampy plain from which a spring named Asbamaeon and sacred to Jupiter arose, boiling and brimming over, whereas the water of the lake itself was very cold and never overflowed its shores (Philostrat. vit. Apollon; Ammian 23, 6; vgl. Strabo.). After this spring Jupiter here had the surname Asbamaeus. By the way: at the beginning of the 19th century Hamilton (Researches) found this remarkable lake or pool south of Kiz Hissar just so as Ammian and Philostratos have described it.

Background:
Tyana is probably the same city to which the Hittite archives refer under the name Tuwanuwa. Already in the time of the Hittite kings (17th century BC) Tuwanuw was the residence of a royal governor. In the 8th century BC the Luwian Tyana under the rule of king Warpalawa rose to a reginal important center which could hold its position in close contact to the Phrygean Empire.

In Greek myythology it was first called Thoana because the Thracian king Thoas was suggested as its founder (Arrian, Periplus Ponti Euxini, VI). It was situated in Cappadocia at the foot of the Taurus mountains and close to the Cilician Gates (Strabo, XII 537; XIII, 587). It was mentioned by Xenophon in his Anabasis under the name of Dana as a great and flourishing city. The surrounding plain was called Tyanitis after the city. In the Roman imperial time until the end of ancient time Tyana could hold its position most of all because of its geographically favourite position for traffic. Crucially was the position of the city north of the Cilician gates, the most important mountain pass road through the Taurus mountains, connecting the Anatolian high plateau and the Propontis with Cilicia, Syria and the Levante. As a result of the long-lasting wars at the eastern border of the Roman Empire Tyana became one of the most important nodal points of the land-based supplies. The imperial prosperity of the city was caused by this development.

Tyana was the birthplace of the celebrated neo-Pythagorean philosopher (and reviled magician) Apollonius of Tyana in the 1st century AD. He was widely renowned when he has foreseen the death of Nero and Domitian. He was venerated especially by the Severan dynasty. Under Caracalla the city became Roman colony under the name Antoniniana Colonia Tyana.

After having changed sides to queen Zenobia of Palmyra it was conquered in AD 272 by Aurelian. But he didn't allow his army to loot it because Apollonius has appeared in one of his dreams and begged him to save the city. The result of his indulgence was that further cities surrendered without resistance. In AD 371 Valens created a second Cappadocian province 'Cappadocia Secunda' and made Tyana its capital.

Tyana played an important role too as Christian commune. Even though today there are only ancient ruins Tyana is still the official centre of the Roman-Catholic titular archdiocese of the ancient Roman province Cappadocia Prima!
 
The ruins of Tyana are located in the vicinity of present Kimerhisar, 3 miles south of Nigde (in the former Ottoman province of Konya). There are remains of a Roman aquaeduct, of cave cemeteries and burial grottos. Nowadays excavations take place under leadership of the University of Hamburg.

Sources:
(1) Albert Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie, 1844
(2)  Reinhart Falter, Fluß- und Berggötter in der Antike, in: Sieferle/Breuninger (Hg.), Naturbilder-Wahrnehmungen von Natur und Umwelt in de Geschichte, Campus 1999
(3) http://www.uni-hamburg.de/Wiss/FB/09/ArchaeoI/KlassAr/projekte/bergesty.htm
(4)  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Arrian's_Voyage_Round_the_Euxine_Sea_Translated.djvu/10
(5) http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/apollonius/apollonius01.html
(6) Wikipedia
(7) Der kleine Pauly

Best regards  
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 17, 2011, 08:50:44 am
Maron - Eponym of Maroneia

The coin:
Thrace, Maroneia, after 148 BC
AR - Tetradrachm, 16.47g, 32.65mm, 15°
obv. Head of youthful Dionysos r., wreathed with ivy leafs and blossoms, wearing a
        taenia on his forehead
rev. r. DIONYSOS - l. SWTHROS (each from top to bottom)
       Dionysos, nude, stdg. half left, chlamys (nebris?) over l. arm, holding 2 narthex
       sticks in l. arm and bunch of wine-grapes in lowered r. hand
       l. beside monogram, beneath MARWNITW
ref. cf. Schönert-Geiss 995 var.

This coin is a Slavey fake. But Slavey says, that he isn't a faker but an artist! This type can be found from the same dies in the Fakes Reports of Ilya Prokopov in the American Forum https://www.forumancientcoins.com/fakes/displayimage.php?pos=-8290 and at forgerynetwork
Remarkable is the grammatical error you find on the coin: DIONYSOS  is nominative case, whereas SWTHROS is genitive case (nominative case is SWTHR!). Correct it should be DIONYSOY SWTHROS, of Dionysos the Saviour! Such an error is unusual in ancient times but typical for a modern faker who doesn't master Greek very well. Pat Lawrence has written: Interestingly, the "look alike" mistake, common in children beginning to learn the 2nd and 3rd declensions in Latin, is not common on ancient coins, in either Greek or Latin. That is, when I saw sôtêros with Dionysos, as if both ending in -os were agreement, when the usual legend recognizes that sôtêros is genitive case, the possibility of its being a MODERN mistake at once came to mind. Even CNG was cheated by this fake: http://www.acsearch.info/ext-record.html?id=176167

Mythology:
Maron was the son of Euanthes, referring to others of Oenopion or Silenos, whose pupil he was too. He was the grand-son of Dionysos and Ariadne. In the Thracian city of Ismaros he served as priest of Apollo. He was the hero of sweet wine and should have been a companion of Dionysos at his famous journey to India. He is said to have been the equerry of Dionysos. And he should have been together with Dionysos at the famous drinking contest between Herakles and Dionysos (take a look at the related article in this thread). 

He became famous because Homer mentioned him in his Odyssee (9.200). Odysseus reports: "With me I had a goat-skin of the dark, sweet wine, which Maro, son of Euanthes, had given me, the priest of Apollo, the god who used to watch over Ismaros. And he had given it me because we had protected him with his child and wife out of reverence; for he dwelt in a wooded grove of Phoibos Apollo. And he gave me splendid gifts: of well-wrought gold he gave me seven talents, and he gave me a mixing-bowl all of silver; and besides these, wine, wherewith he filled twelve jars in all, wine sweet and unmixed, a drink divine." This was the wine which Odysseus later gave to the Kyklop Polyphem to make him drunken so that he and his companions could flee.

But actually it was the following which happened:
The Kikones lived on the southwestern coast of Thrace. During the Trojan War they fought with Troy against the Greeks. Their leader was Euphemos, who therefore was listed as Trojan Leader. Annother leader was Mentes in whose shape Apollo encouraged Hektor to fight for the arms of the dead Patroklos.

After sacking Troy, Odysseus with 12 ships came to the coast of the Kikones, where he pillaged the city of Ismaros and killed everyone except Maron, the priest of Apollo, son of Euanthes. Euanthes was king of Maroneia, son of Oenopion, who is known for blinding Orion.

The land of the Kikones the Greeks gave themselves to plunder and murder. When they had taken women and treasures, Odysseus said to his men that they ought to be off. But his warriors, enyoyed by the Kikonian wine, kept drinking and butchering animals by the shore, refusing to leave.

In the meantime the Kikones received reinforcements from their neighbours, who were good fighters from chariots and on foot. They attacked the Greeks by the ships and fighting for a whole day they broke the Greek ranks. The Greeks had to flee having suffered heavy losses since more than seventy men of Odysseus'  warriors were killed.

The city of Maroneia was called after Maron who was venerated in a sanctuary.

Background:
Referring to Diodorus Maron came to Thrace together with Osiris (= Dionysos) and stayed there because he was already aged (Pauly). He founded Maroneia and there were cults for him in Maroneia and on Samothrake. Maroneia was famous for its wine. This wine was sweet and rich. It was said that this wine was tasteful even diluted with the twentifold amount of water.
Nonnus emphasizes Maron's connnection to Dionysos. He was described as an old man with tumbling limbs whose power was sufficing only to drink and for songs praising Dionysos. He was the personification of a drunkard. Near the Pompejan gate in Rome there was a statue where he was depicted as a sleeping fountaine figure.

Maron means litterally "the blazing, the shining". The connection to Dionysos probably has its origin in the story of the wine at Homer. Referring to Welcker Maron was primarily the Silenos of Maroneia and his name related to Marsyas, Silenos of Kelainai. The interpretation of the bearded face on the coins of Maroneia as Maron is wrong because the legend is naming Dionysos. But there are coins too on which Maron is mentioned explicitely (Eckhel Doc. num. vet.) V. Hehn has an interesting suggestion: Maron is nothing else but the mythical personification of the city of Ismaros. After omission of the s before m and expanding suffix it is the same as Maroneia!

History of Art:
Pseudo-Kallisthenes mentions a statue showing Maron sitting on a draft animal.

I have attached 3 pics:
[1] The pic of a mosaic from the 3rd century AD, showing Maron and Dionysos.
      Today  in the Miho Museum, Kyoto
[2] The pic of a floor-mosaic, today in the Shahba Museum, Shahba, Syria. Its the
      depiction of the drinking contest between Herakles and Dionysos. The figures in
      the upperline are named: Maron, Ariadne, Pothos, the winged god of desire,
      holding a flaming torch, Dionysos with thyrsos, Herakles laying on the ground with
      a drinking jar at his feet, Eros playing with his club. (theoi.com)
[3] The pic of a Sicilian kalyx-krater of the Maron painter from the midth of the 4th
      century BC, today in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Eoliano of Lipari. It
      depicts the scene of Homer's Odyssee where Odysseus gets the wine by Maron.

Sources:
[1] Homer, Odyssee
[2] Nonnus, Dionysiaca
[3] Diodorus Siculus

Literature:
[1] Der Kleine Pauly
[2] Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (online too)
[3] Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Mythologie (online too!)
[4] Pierre Grimal, The dictionary of classical mythology (online too!)

Online-Sources:
[1] www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Maron.html
[2] www.wikipedia.com
[3] www.theoi.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 17, 2011, 08:54:20 am
The Return of Odysseus

The coin:
Roman Republic, C. Mamilius Limetanus, gens Mamilia
AR - denarius serratus, 20mm, 3.78g, 45°
         Rome, 82 BC
obv. Bust of Mercurius, draped and with winged petasos, r.; caduceus over r.
        shoulder; upper left A (control mark)
rev. left from top to bottom C.MAMIL, right from bottom to top LIMETAN (TA
       ligate)
       Ulixes (Odysseus), bearded, with mantle and pilos, clad as beggar, advancing r.,
       resting with raised l. hand on staff and stretching r. hand to his old dog Argus,
       who stands r. before him looking up to him.
 ref. Crawford 362/1; Sydenham 741; RCV 282; Albert 1253; Mamilia 6
rare, SS

Note:
(1) The gens Mamilia claims her origin from Mamilia, daughter of Telegonos, the son of Circe from Ulixes, who himself was a son of Mercurius: Telegonos is said to be the founder of Tusculum, which was the city of the gens Mamilia
(2) Lat. pilos = Greek pileus, a felt cap, often equated with the  bonnet of liberty worn by the French Jacobins, but in error
 
Mythology:
[1] After the fall of Troy Odysseus has set to return to Ithaka. He has known that his journey would last 10 years due to the merciless hate of Poseidon. Here is not the place to spread out all his countless adventures. But Calypso alone hold him for 7 years on her island of Ogygia. When Poseidon once was absent Zeus sent Hermes to Calypso with the order to release Odysseus. Yet he built a float and sailed away. When Poseidon recognized his escape he sent a heavy storm so that Odysseus could save himself just barely to the beach of the island of Drepane where he exhausted fell asleep. This island belonged to the Phaiakians, known for their hospitality. Nausikaa, the king's daughter, found the beached next morning and took him to the palace of her royal parents, Alkinoos and Arete. He was dressed and hosted friendly. But Odysseus longing for coming home asked them for bringing him back to Ithaca. So Phaiakian companions brought him to Phorkys on Ithaca putting him down gently on the sand of the beach not to disturb his sleep of fatigue.

While Odysseus was twenty years away from Ithaca more than 120 impudent suitors have had gathered in his palace who courted his wife Penelopeia hoping to get his throne. During the whole time they lived and feasted in his palace, drank his wine, butchered his pigs, sheep and cattle, and pleasured themselves with his maidservants. Telemachos, the son of Odysseus, being on search for his father at Menelaos in Sparta, they wanted to kill when he came home.

When Odysseus awoke Athena appeared, transformed him into a beggar and brought him to Eumaios his loyal old swineherd, which didn't recocnized him but hosted him friendly. Athena sent back Telemachos to Ithaca where father and son recognized each other with the help of Athena. Disguised again as beggar Odysseus betake himself to his palace where he met Melantheus, the goatherd, who mocked him and kicked him with his foot. But Odysseus still suspended his avenge. When he entered the court-yard of his palace we come to the scene which is depicted on the coin.

[2] Here is the relevant text from the Odyssey (Book 17):
As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaios seeing it, and said:
"Eumaios, what a noble hound that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?"
"This dog," answered Eumaios, "belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him."
So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had seen his master once more after twenty years.

Note: Naturally Odysseus' dog is the symbol of unconditional loyality, which was
demanded from Sulla too (see 'History'!).

[3] What happened thereafter:
To check the suitors Odysseus paced from one to the other and asked for leftovers. But the suitors were not only greedy but stingy too. The most impudent of them all was Antinoos, who even threw a stool at him. On the next day Penelopeia announced that she was ready to take as spouse the one who was able to shoot an arrow through twelve axe holes, and gave them the bow of Osysseus. But no one of the suitors could even bend the bow. Thereupon Odysseus took the bow, bent the bow easily and shot an arrow through all twelve axe holes. Odysseus announced himself as the true king and killed Antinoos by a shot through his throat. Horror-stricken the suitors jumped up, but Odysseus shot one after the other with his arrows. In the same time Athena in the shape of a swallow flew twittering through the hall, while Odysseus pursued his bloody profession until all were dead. Only Medon the herald and Phemios the singer he spared.

Then he called Eurykleia his old nurse and asked her for the loyality of his maidservants. The twelve guilty ones were brought and had to clean the palace hall from the blood. Then Odysseus hung them one after the other. Thereafter he cut off the limbs of Melantheus the goatherd, nose, ears, hands, feet and genitals and threw them to the dogs.

This excessive avange of Odysseus is described totally unemotionally, and we are terrified by his exorbitance. But how much more terrible is reality!

[4] The end of Odysseus:
Years later Odysseus - according to a prophecy of Teiresias whom he had consulted on his visit of the Underworld - should have introduced the cult of Poseidon at the Thesprotians (in Epiros) to become reconciled with Poseidon. The queen of the Thesprotians fell in love with Odysseus and Odysseus stayed as king with her. Only after her death he returned to Penelopeia. In the meantime Telegonos, his son from Kirke, has grown up and was on search for his father. When once by chance he came to Ithaca and robbed some cattle he met Odysseus. They got into a fight and Odysseus was killed by his own son (Apollodor, Bibliotheka, X 33-36).

History:
The depiction on the reverse of the coin should be an allusion to the return of Sulla to Rome. Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix (138-78 BC), the leader of the patrician party against the populares under Gaius Marius has captured Rome twice: 88 BC at the 1. march on Rome and 82 BC after the battle at the Porta Collina. After that he was appointed dictator legibus scribundis et rei publicae constituendae. Both captures were assiocated with terror, but the terror beginning in 82 BC was excessive. It was a massacre. Some thousands of Samnites were slaughtered on the Campus Martius. His enemies enclosed in Praeneste were killed undiscriminately after they have surrendered. But the most outrageous sanctions were the beginning proscriptions, lists with names of persons who were declared as outlaws. The legal basis was created by the lex Valeria but only afterwards. Everyone could suspect anyone who then was killed without the judgement of the court. Tens of thousands became victims of the proscriptions, not only enemies of Sulla, but all who displeased somebody. A number of 4700 Roman citizens is reported. But we must add the number of entire families together with children and grandchildren. The latifundia of the killed were sold to Sulla's followers or sold by auction. In this way f.e. Crassus became the richest man of his time.

It was the merciless avenge of a man who didn't knew any limits. There is a striking similarity with the blood rage we have seen at Odysseus, when he killed the suitors one after the other and then hung the maidservants with his own hands. At the end he was so full of blood that even his wife Penelopeia could not recognize him. And Sulla we see as man with two faces: the conservative statesman who tried to save the old republican state order, and as brutal dictator who rang the bell for the end of the res publica. But his terror regime could delay the doom of the republic only for a short time. Even Schiller's word about Wallenstein: "Confused by the favour and hate of the parties his character sketch sways in history" doesn't match Sulla. His name stands until today for cruelty and terror.

History of art:
Naturally the adventures of Odysseus already in ancíent times were a rich source for
depictions. In the Vatican Museums we find the part of a group where Odysseus gives Polyphem the cup of wine, 1st century AD. In the museum of Sperlonga we have the same-aged Skylla Group from the cave of Sperlonga. On a hydria from Caere the blinding of Polyphem is depicted lively (Rome, Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, 6th century BC). The killing of the suitors we find on an Attic skyphos from c.450 BC, today in the Antikensammlung, Berlin (attached!). There are scenes with Kirke, the Sirens, with Kalypso and so on. These scenes appear as vase paintings, on coins, as glyptic and as sculptures. When Odysseus is depicted alone then regularely in a thoughtful position, as patient sufferer, as he is called by Homer, always bearded and with the pileus on his head.

In Renaissance these themes were picked up again. P. Tibaldi has created a cycle of paintings in the Palazzo Poggi in Bologna (1554-56), Annibale Caracci in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (1597-1600) and Niccolo d'Abbate (1550-60) in Fontainebleau, destroyed but known from several copies. Max Beckmann has painted Odysseus and Kalypso 1943 (Kunsthalle, Hamburg) and by Kokoschka we have 44 lithographies (1963-65). The total number of depictions can't be overlooked (Aghion). I have choosed the pictures from two skyphoi of the Penelope painter, because they cover our theme, the return of Odysseus.

Poets too were fascinated by the dubious figure of Odysseus. We know tragedies of Sophokles and Euripides. Seneca has written the "Trojan Women" and naturally we find these themes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Dante's "Divina Comedia" Odysseus is banned to the 8th circle of hell as liar and deceptive advisor. In Shakespear's "Troilus and Cressida" too he is depicted as doubtful.
Calderon de la Barca describes 1637 the adventures of Odysseus with Kirke. In the evolution of musique the opera "Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria" of Claudio Monteverdi, 1640, plays an important role. It is one of the highlights of the early opera which was invented only some decades before.

With reference to modern times I mention Jean Gireaudoux' "There will be no Troyan War", 1935, where he points to the conflict between Germany and France and where the prevention of the war fails prophetically. Nikos Kazantzakis has written a spin-off of the Odysseus-Epos  in 33.333 neo-Greek verses. And last not least the phenomenal novel "Ulysses" from the Irishman James Joyce, 1922, must be mentioned. In his work he tells 24 hours of a Dublin citizen, which are based on the chants of the Odyssey.

Ikonography:
Nikomachos von Theben, a painter from the 4th century BC is said to be the first one who has depicted Odysseus with a pileus. This cap was perfect to illustrate the versatility of our hero. At first this cap, used as inner lining of helmets, is a symbol of fighters. Then it was worn in Greece by voyagers, craftsmen - especially artists - and sailors. All of these groups are connected with Odysseus, and just this versatility makes the pileus a special attribute of Odysseus. By this cap he is signed as figure of identification for all Greeks (Niederberger).

I have added 3 pics:
[1] Penelope and Telemachos waiting for Odysseus, Penelope painter, side A of a
      Attic red-figured vase (skyphos) from Chiusi, c.430 BC, high classical
[2] Odysseus and his nurse, washing his feet, as above, side B
[3] Odysseus kills the suitors, Attic red-figured vase (skyphos), Penelope painter,
      c.440 BC, from Tarquinia, now in the Antikenmuseum Berlin (l. and r. part!)

Sources:
[1] Homer, Odyssey
[2] James Joyce, Ulysses

Literature:
[1] Der kleine Pauly
[2] Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (online too)
[3] Wilhelm H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
      Mythologie, 1884-1890  (online too!)
[4] Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
[5] Oliver Primavesi, in 'Die Heimkehr des Odysseus', Beck 2007
[6] Karl Christ, Sulla, Beck 2002
[7] Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in
      der Kunst, 2000
[8] Gerhard Fink, Who's who in der antiken Mythologie, dtv 1993

Online-Sources:
[1] Wikipedia
[2] www.perseus.tufts.edu (pics)
[3] Thomas Niederberger, Das Mützchen des Odysseus
      www.gymipro.de/facharbeiten/odysseus-gut.pdf (Pilos)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 21, 2011, 12:22:39 pm
Excursion: The island of the Phaiakians - Homer's Atlantis?

The article about the return of Odysseus gives me the opportunity to disgress a bit and to write about the island of the Phaiakians. I don't want to speculate here wether the myth of Atlantis has a real background or not or where it eventually was situated. But the similarity of the depiction of Atlantis by Plato and the depiction of the island of the Phaiakians by Homer was mentioned already by ancient authors. Especially Olaf von Rudbeck has written about that (1630-1702).

We recognize that the geographical description is nearly identical:
Both are islands situated in the north of the Okeanos, at the end of the world, as eschatoi. Direct in front of the king's island (Basileia) we find a sharply falling away rocky island. The Basileia is located in the mouth of a big stream, the Eridanos. On the island itself hills and dunes extend to the sea, behind of that a flat, very fruitful plain.

The description of the king's castle are as alike as two peas in a pod: It is surrounded with walls and canals, there are passages for ships and the access to the harbour is so narrow that only one ship could pass. The castle is decorated with gold, silver and copper. Poseidon is the ancestor of the king's family and the Phaiakians and the Atlantides too, who in this way were of divine nature. There was a big temple of Poseidon surrounded by a wall, and to honour Poseidon bulls were sacrificed. Both nations are famous sailors. The climate was optimal. On top of the society there was no autokrat but a council decided about political events. Both nations were known for their sporting matches and gymnastic exercises.

"The accordances are so numerous, that one can think, that Platon have used Homer's depictions as prototype." (Spanuth)

Tacitus in his "Germania" writes "that according to many Odysseus has been cast away to the northern Okeanos". The same is suggested by Claudian, agreed by Procopius. F.G.Welcker has written "The stories of the Phaiakians must be originated from the North Sea region." (1833, 1845)

Interesting are Homer's sailing instructions. They are geographical and astronomical so precise that they probably are originated from a periplous. Eratosthenes has called Homer a liar because he has written that the stream of the island of the Phaiakians has flowed backwards, and Odysseus has thrown the veil of Ino "into the saline waves of the stream". But this is the typical phenomenon of a river in a tidal range, which was unknown by Eratosthenes because the Mediterranean doesn't not have tides. Homer decribes phenomena of the Okeanos where we don't know where he could have the information. Historically they are not known before Pytheas of Marsilia c.380-320 BC.

Apollonios Rhodios in his "Argonautika" equates the Basileia of the Phaiakians with th "sacred island of Elektris", situated near the stream of Eridanos at the sea of Kronos (Norh sea?). He calls the Phaiakians too as Hyperboreans and as collectors of amber, again a match with the Atlantides. Amber is Greek elektron.

R. Hennig (1934) thinks that all these accordances couldn't be accidental, but that Homer and Platon have both taken their stories from the same original source. Except where Platon has copied Homer!

Note: Periplous = description of an ocean route for orientiation in foreign waters. Forerunner of our nautical charts.

I have added the pic of a drawing from the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). It is a fantasy drawing of the "Insula Atlantis" according to the belief of the Egyptians and the descriptions of Platon, made c.1669.

Sources:
[1] Homer, Odyssee
[2] Platon, Timaios
[3] Platon, Kritias
[4] Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautika

Literature:
[1] Jürgen Spanuth, Die Atlanter, Grabow 1989
[2] K. A. Frank, Atlantis war anders, VfS 1978

Online-Sources:
[1] Wikipedia
[2] http://atlantis.haktanir.org/ch3.html (drawing from Kircher)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 21, 2011, 12:24:59 pm
The so-called Tyche of Antioch

Recently I got this nice tetradrachm of Tigranes II. This should be the cause to write an article about the so-called Tyche of Antioch.

1st coin:
Syria, Seleukis and Pieria, Antiochia ad Orontem, Tigranes II, 95-56 BC
AR - tetradrachm, 16.18g, 27mm
obv. Bust of Tigranes II, wearing Armenian tiara, r.; tiara ornamented with eight-pointed star
       between two eagles, decorated with 5 beaded pyramidal points
rev. BASILEWS - TIGRANOY
      Tyche of Antioch in long garment and with veil, wearing mural crown, std. r. on rock,
      resting with r. ellbow on r. knee and holding in r. hand long palmbranch; stg. with r. foot
      on shoulder of rivergod Orontes, who swims below her r; beneath waves
      in r. field and left below on rock a monogram
      all in laurel-wreath
ref. Bedoukian 17
This is one of the first depictions of this famous statue.

2nd coin:
Syria, Seleukis and Pieria, Antiochia ad Orontem, Augustus, 27 BC - AD 14
AR - tetradrachm, 14.99g, 26.51mm, 15°
        2-1 BC. (Year 30 of Actian era)
obv. KAISAROS SE - BASTOY (clockwise, starting upper r.)
       laureate head r.
rev. ETOYS - L - NIKHS (Year 30)
      The depiction is nearly identical with the depiction on the tetradrachm of Tigranes!
      In field one below the other 2 monograms, in front of the upper one IG
ref.: Prieur 555; RPC 4156; Wruck 7
Note: The upper monogramm can be read as VPA = COS, so its meaning is COS XIII
         The lower one could be ANT AVG.

3rd coin:
Justinus I, AD 518-527
AE - AE 5 (pentanummion), 1.46g, 11.73mm, 180°
        Antiochia
obv. [DN IVSTINVS P P AV]
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, pearl-diademed, r.
rev. Tyche of Antioch, wearing mural crown, std. l. in shrine; below her river-god Orontes
       in l. field retrograde E
ref. DOC 57; MIBE 67; BNP 11-17; Berk 100; Hahn 67; Sear 111
This is the last type showing a classic pagane motive. If you consider that this motive was struck for the first time under Tigranes II now 600 years of Hellenistic culture have ended. It's remarkable nevertheless that it was the Antiochene Tyche.

Some general notes on Tyche:
The etymology of Tyche is clear. It belongs to tynchanein = to happen accidently. So its meaning is chance, fortune and misfortune too. Tyche was not known by Homer. She doesn't occur in his epics. And there is little mythology of her. Hesiod claims that she was one of the daughters of Okeanos, other (f.e. Pindar) suggest that Zeus has been her father. But that doesn't matter anything. She was seen as goddess not before the great families of deities have been established. Therefore there is no genealogy. But when the relevance of the old gods was decreasing she was playing an increasing important role. Her character is similar to that of Nemesis or Themis. Originally she was seen as spirit, who ruled the world blindly, because she brought misfortune to good and wise men, and fortune to fools and bad men. This unjust and senseless role was taken up by the Attic comedies. Certainly this must be seen in connection with the unsure times and the depletion of the conservative belief in the old gods. At first she was an ambivalente deity, later she leant towards a better meaning, especially as Tyche Agathos, the good Tyche.
 
In the first time she has had no cults. But in Hellenism her cult spreads, especially in Thebes, Athens, Megara and Megalopolis. Libanios describes the Tychaion of Alexandria as the most gorgeous of the entire Hellenistic world. She was seen too as personal Tyche, who determines the fate of her owner, like Frederic the Great demanded fortune from his generals.

She is depicted holding a rudder as arbiter of the world, with cornucopiae, symbol of wealth or with a sphere as sign of uncertainty. Often she was wearing a mural crown and thereby seen as city-goddess.

In Rome she was seen almost equivalent to Fortuna, where numerous temples were built for her, the first ones by Servius Tullius in the regio I. Famous was the temple in Antium where 2 Fortunae were worshipped simultaneously.

History of Art:
In 1780 a small marble statue was found in Rome on a manor of the Barberini family at the Via Latina outside of the Porta S. Giovanni. This statue was recognized as Tyche and after a first restauration by Paolo Cavaceppi sold in 1781 to the Vatican. I have attached a pic of the statue before the reatauration. The restaurated statue today stands in the Galleria dei Candelabri in the Musei Vaticani. It is dated back to the time of Trajan and its height is 88cm.
 
10 years later, AD 1790, Ennio Quirino Visconto, son of Giambattista Visconto, who was successor of Winckelmann as Papal Supervisor of the Roman antiquities, discovered this statuette in a niche of the Galleria. Based on the mention by Pausanias VI.2, 6 and especially by the depictions on the coinage of Antioch, he identified it as Tyche of Antioch. Thereby he pointed out the legends on coins of Philadelphia TYXH FILADELFEWN.

The two most important ancient sources are
[1] Pausanias, Perihegesis, 6.2, 6:
"...but Timosthenes (was created) by Eutychides from Sikyon, who has learned at Lysippos. This Eutychides has made a cult statue of Tyche too for the Syrians at the Orontes, which was held in high esteem."
Here already Pausanias made the mistake of calling this statue Tyche!
and [2] Malalas, Chronographia 8, 201:
Malalas was a late antique historian, born c. AD 490 in Antioch, later (from AD 530) working in Constantinopolis. He wrote a history of the world in 18 volumes, beginning with the creation of the world until shortly before the death of Justinian (AD 565). In it he describes the erection of statues of Tyche in Antioch by Seleukos I and Trajan. At both occasions a maid should have been sacrificed, today seen as later probably Christian insertions.
"...he (Seleukos I) had erected a bronze statue of the sacrificed maid (Emathia) as Tyche for the city across the river (Orontes) (seated) and made an offering immediately for the maid."
"And the theatre of Antioch, which was uncompleted, he (Trajan) completed by erecting over four columns in the theatre in the centre of the nymphaeum of the proskenion a gilded bronze statue of the sacrificed maid (Kalliope), who is sitting above the river Orontes and is wreathed by the kings Seleukos I and Antiochos I, for the fortune of this city."

The original statue probably was endowed by Seleukos I Nikator shortly after the founding of Antioch in 300 BC and consecrated in 296. Eutychides was a Greek sculptor from Sikyon regarded as scholar of Lysippos. Sadly there is none of his works preserved. Wether there actually have been different statues or groups as Malalas has written is doubtful. Anyway the famous original statue of Eutychides is not preserved, it probably was destroyed by an earth-quake in the 6th century AD. In ancient times transportable bronze miniature copies of the Antiochene statue were popular. They were produced in series by special handicraft businesses with the aid of reproduction copies (M. Meyer).

Description of the Statue:
The original statue probably was made of bronze because of the large movements of the river-god's arms and the assumed colossal size of the figure. The dating into the years direct after the founding of the city corresponds with Plinius, who puts the flourishing time of Eutychides into the 121th Olympiad (296-293 BC). It was a female sitting figure in chiton and mantle, wearing a mural crown, std. r. with crossed legs on a rock.  Her left hand is resting on the rock and with the right hand she is holding grain-ears. Her right foot is placed on the shoulder of the river-god swimming below her. This is the earliest Greek depiction of a mural crown! Originally the mural crown comes from the Asian Astarte and was adopted by the Greek art not before the 4th/3rd century BC.

The copy in the Vatican differs significantly from the recorded description. This is true especially for chiton and mantle, so that Messerschmidt in 2003 has doubted the ascription to Eutychides. But an ancient beholder would have surely recognized the Roman copy as the Tyche of Antioch. Why the copyist has deviated so much is unknown.  

Interpretation:
Marion Meyer has realized that the statue is not Tyche (Fortuna), but the personification of the city of Antioch! Here are her arguments:
We have 3 possible interpretations:
[1] It is the personification of the city, the city-goddess
[2] It is a new kind of deity, a guardian deity for the city, probably because in the early hellenism doubts arose about the power of the established deities.
[3] It is Tyche, the goddess of fortune
A. Furtwängler writes: Because the mural crown comes from the Asian Astarte, this goddess is the Greek answer in her function as guardian of the city.
B.  Fehr however thinks, that there was no melting of Greek and indigene elements in the Seleucid Empire. The focus was more on segregation than integration. The concept could be bilingual, especially by the depicted body language. The Greek could have seen Tyche. The crossed legs, the turned upper body and head would represent the wandering and arbitrary character of Tyche, with a touch of Aphrodite. The local inhabitant in contrast has seen, by the dominating role towards the river-god too, the 'Great Mother'. The mural crown was the symbol for the fortified city for both.

Here is M. Meyer: To take the goddess of fortune in her fickleness as symbol for the city after the founding is not convincing. To be Tyche Agathos the cornucopiae is missing. But one should mention the geography of Antioch: The river-god is by common accord the river Orontes. Antioch was situated on its left bank. The rock on which the deity is seated is Silpios, the city mountain of Antioch. The situation of Antioch was dangerous. Especially at the time of snowmelt when torrents coming down the hills. The foot on the river-god symbolizes that the goddess has everything under control. The land itself is fertile, the harvest is safe, therefore the grain-ears in her hand. The goddess is mistress over the natural forces and in the same moment the beneficiary of nature. So there is every indication that the figure is Antioch itself, the personification of the city!

Thus naming her Tyche of Antioch is equally wrong as naming the bull of Julian II Apis bull!

Soon this statue was copied by Seleukeia. As goddess of fortune with cornucopiae she is found first under Demetrios I. Then under the usurper Alexander Balas and so forth.

I have attached:
[1] A pic of the unrestaurated marble statue of the Vatican, the Roman copy from the time of  
     Trajan. The copy was completed by Paolo Cavaceppi 1781 and by Michele Ilari 1819:
     Head, left hand, right forearm with grain-ears, forward section of right foot, and arms of
     the river-god.
[2] Drawing of Visconti, done after restauration.

The pic of the restaurated statue in the Galleria dei Candelabri of the Musei Vaticani in Rome can be found everywhere in the web.

Sources:
- Pausanias, Perihegesis

Literature:
- E.Q.Visconti, Il museo Pio Clementino III., Milano 1790
- Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Paul Z. Bedoukian, Coinage of the Artaxiads of Armenia, 1978
- Marion Meyer: Personifikation der Stadt Antiochia, in: Bernd Funck, Hellenismus:
   Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politischer Ordnung im
   Hellenismus, 1996, S.243-254 (bei googlebook)
- Marion Meyer, Die Personifikation der Stadt Antiocheia. Ein neues Bild für eine neue
  Gottheit, 2006
- Text und Skulptur: Berühmte Bildhauer und Bronzegießer der Antike in Wort und
   Bild. Ausstellung in der Abguss-Sammlung Antiker Plastik Berlin, Sascha
   Kansteiner, Lauri Lehmann, Bernd Seidensticker
- Wolfgang Messerschmidt, Prosopopoiia, 2003
- Tobias Dohrn, Die Tyche von Antiochia, 1960

Online-Sources:
- Andrea Peine, Agathe Tyche im Spiegel der griechischen und römischen Plastik.
   Untersuchungen klassischer Statuentypen und ihre kaiserzeitliche Rezeption, 1998  
   (Dissertation)
- www.arachne.uni-koeln.de
- www.zeno.org/Meyers-1905 (Zeichung von Visconti)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 09, 2011, 12:54:29 pm
The horrible fate of Tarpeia

If you come to Rome you can find on the Capitoline Hill, somewhat hidden, the small Via di Monte Tarpeo. At this place in ancient times was the so-called Tarpeian Rock of which nowadays nothing is left. From this steep cliff in ancient times delinquents were hurled down to death guilty of special crimes like false oath, fleeing in a battle, deserting to the enemy, incest, crimes of Vestals, and several crimes of serfs like theft or betrayal. The executions were performed by tribunes or consuls. The last one occured in AD 33 under Claudius (Cassius Dio 60, 18, 4).

The coin
Roman Republic, L. Titurius L. f. Sabinus, gens Tituria
AR - denarius, 3.86g, 19mm
        Rome, 89 BC
obv. Head of king Tatius, bearded, r.
       behind SABIN, under chin palmbranch
rev. Tarpeia, stg. frontal, with dissolved hair, covered by shields until waist, both hands 
      raised  to repel 2 soldiers beside her being about to throw their shields upon her.
      in upper field crescent with star
      in ex. L.TITVRI
ref. Crawford 344/2b; Sydenham 699; Tituri 4
VF/about VF, old cabinet toning
note: The mintmaster family Tituria came from the Sabines and traced themselves back to the Sabine king Titius Tatius.

There is another denarius too from P. Petronius Turpilianus, struck under Augustus, depicting the same motive (RIC I, 299)

Mythology
The mythology of this scene leads us back to the origins of Rome into the time of the Sabine Wars from which the last one was the hardest and most dangerous. Referring to one version of the myth Tarpeia was the daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, the commander of  the castle on the Capitoline Hill. At this time the Sabines besieged Rome. She is said to have opened a gate of the castle to the Sabines under the condition that she then obtained what the Sabines are wearing at their arms. But instead of the golden armlets which Tarpeia has meant the Sabines in an exaggerated interpretation of her condition threw their shields on her and so she was killed.

Titius Tatius according to Roman tradition was king of the Sabines who after the rape of the Sabine women fought a war of avenge against Rome. Referring to Livius he bribed Tarpeia, concluded later a foedus with Romulus and was the originator of a joined reign. He introduced common laws and Sabine cults to Rome like the cult of Janus and Volcanus. After him were called the Titienses and the Titii sodales, a college of Roman priests. He was killed when he was old and his grave was on the Aventine Hill.
 
But there is another version of the myth too: Tarpeia was the daugher of Titius Tatius and was killed by him.

The myth of Tarpeia is found already in the first annalists and has well existed already in the 4th or 3rd century BC (Krumme).

The problem is to explain why the Sabines have killed the one who has helped them to conquer Rome. This dilemma was seen already in ancient times.

The most common motive of Tarpeia is her greed. The traitor has been killed as it is known from Caesar: "I love the betrayal but the betrayer I don't praise (proditionem amo, sed proditores non laudo). And she received her punishment in the underworld too. Dante in his "Divina Commedia" mentions the Gate of Tarpeia in Purgatorio, Canto IX; but here in connection with the robbery of the Roman treasury by Julius Caesar. Greed is one of the Seven Capital Sins!

In Hellenism this motive was attenuated by changing it to a love story. Simylos reports that Tarpeia has been fallen in love to Titius Tatius, the hostile military leader. This love motive is depicted by Propertius en detail: Tarpeia, a vestal virgin - so Varro too -, met Tatius when she was going for cultic water, and fell in love to him immediately.
Antigonos of Karystos reports that Tarpeia has been forced to marry Romulus against her will and then took revenge on the hated.

Later the attempt of retrieval of her honour was started. The greed has been argued away and Tarpeia became a tragic heroine. Piso claimes that she has attracted the shields of the Sabines to disarm the enemy. That could explain the fact that at her grave were made sacrifices and that there was a statue of  her in the temple of Jupiter Stator, not of Romulus, but of Q. Caecilius Metellus, 144 BC, at the Circus Flaninius.

At Simylos the story happened later. He made Celts of the Sabines which does match much better the gold motive!

In Greek mythology this motive is well known from several exemples. Aristoteles mentions the myth of Polykrite from Naxos. Another model could have been the story of Demonike, who opened Brennus (with the famous "Vae victis!") out of love the gates of Ephesos and then was suffocated by the gold of the Gauls. In this thread we have the myth of Skylla's betrayal of her hometown Megara out of love for Minos (take a look). Other names for betrayal and death of a maiden are Komaitho, Leukophryne, Pedas and Peisidike.

Background:
What is the reason for this contradictory story? Originally Tarpeia was the tutelary goddess of the castle of Rome, the Capitoline Hill, which was named after her mons Tarpeius. Tarpeius too was an epithet of Juppiter who generally was called Capitolinus. But these epitheta in early days were identical. The statue of Tarpeia has shields at its base. So the myth could well has been originated aitiological from a tropaion, to explain the grave, the statue and the [/i]Tarpeium Saxum[/i], which later was no more understood by the Romans. Because the resulting myth doesn't match correctly the historical relicts, the moral of the story had to be altered several times as I have described above.

History of Art:
The Greek literary motive was known by the Romans but there were no depictions or statues. So the Romans were compelled to go back to battle scenes. We can see that the two soldiers on the coin don't look as to be about to throw their shields on Tarpeia but more like entangled in a struggle.
In the Basilica Aemiliana was found the fragment of a marble frieze which shows just our scene on the coin. Today in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo, Rome. The basilica was restaurated between 54 and 34 BC so that the frieze can be dated to this time. But the motive does match much better the time of Augustus with its glorification of Rome's origins especially because the style has some resemblance to the style of the depictions of the Ara Pacis on the Campus Martius.
In the Stanza con storie dell'antica Roma of the Palazzo Spada in Rome is located e fresco of Giulio Mazzoni (AD 1525-1618) "The Punishment of Tarpeia", AD 1550

If we ask for the meaning of the depiction on our coin we have the following explanations:
(1) The Roman allies in the civil war should be warned about a eventual betrayal by showing
     them quite plainly the consequences of a betrayal.
(2) The depiction shows that Rome despite betrayal and great distress always will be the
     winner!

I have added
(1) a pic of the Via di Monte Tarpeo in Rome
(2) a pic of  the fragment from the Basilica Aemiliana
(3) a pic of Mazzoni's fresco

Sources:
- Cassius Dio, fr. 4, 12
- Livius, Ab urbe condita 1, 11, 5-9
- Ovid, Metamorphosen, 14, 776
- Propertius, Elegien, IV.4: 1-94 (auch online)

Literature:
- Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
  Mythologie, 1924 (online)
- Der Kleine Pauly
- Michael Krumme, Römische Sagen in der antiken Münzprägung, Hitzeroth 1995
- Barbara Kowalewski, Frauengestalten im Geschichtswerk des T. Livius, 2002

Online-Sources:
- de.wikipedia.org
- www.superstock.com (Mazzoni)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 19, 2011, 07:33:38 am
Janus - the God with 2 Faces

I know that we have already an article about Janus in this thread. It is written by Cleisthenes and I want to recommend it here. But the new article is more comprehensive than the old one.

The double head of Janus is well known for numismatists and coin collectors from the Republican asses.

1st coin:
Roman Republic, A. Caecilius, gens Caecilia
AE - As, 22.99g, 33mm
       Rome, 169-158 BC
obv.  Double head of bearded Janus, laureate, above I (value mark)
rev. Prora r.
      above A.CAE (AE ligate), before I (value mark), below ROMA
ref. Crawford 147/1; Sydenham 355; BMC 8112; Caecilia 8; Albert 653
about VF
pedigree:
bought at Kricheldorf/Stuttgart, before 1970
Note: According to some numismatists the prora should be an allusion to Janus' journey from Greece over the sea to Rome.

2nd coin:
The 2nd coin shows the uncommon depiction of Janus as frontal standing deity. Look at the next note.

Geta, AD 209-211
AR - denarius, 19.8mm, 3.02g, 0°
        Rome, AD 209-211
obv. P SEPT GETA PIVS AVG BRIT
       bearded head, laureate, r.
rev. TR P III COS II PP
      Janus(?), in himation, nude to waist, garment over l. arm, stg. frontal, his 2 faces looking
      l. and r., holding thunderbolt in l. arm and resting with raised r. hand on reversed spear.
ref. RIC IV/1, 79; C. 197; BMCR 13 var., pl. 65, 8 (Sceptre)
scarce, VF, slightly toned
Note; The thunderbolt shows that Janus here has some similarity to Juppiter! Cohen even writes: "Janus or Jupiter." Mattingly: "The 'Janus' with thunderbolt and sceptre is certainly a fanciful expression of the  duality of the Empire. The imperial Jupiter is now 'biceps'. It was assuredly a fancy that pleased Geta better than his brother. Caracalla hated the idea of full equality of rule and was always insisting on his own seniority. In the long run he was unwilling to brook a colleague on any terms."

The third coin is an example of the famous series of temples of Janus under Nero:

3rd coin:
Nero, AD 54-68
AE - dupondius, 13.3g, 27mm
        Rome, c. AD 65
obv. NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER PM TRP IMP PP
       radiate head r.
rev. PACE PR TERRA MARIQ PARTA IANVM CLVSIT
      Temple of Janus with trellised windows l. and closed double gate r. decorated with
      garlands
      in l. and r. field big S - C
ref. RIC I, 284; C. 150; BMCR 198 (var. 1, l. side of temple)
VF, dark brown patina with earthen highligths around the devices

Solution of the rev. legend: "After having made peace for the Roman people on land and sea he has closed the temple of Janus"
pace parta terra marique in connection with the closing of the temple of Janus has been mentioned first in texts of the inscriptions of the victory monument at Actium, even though according to App. B.C. 5. 130 this phrase probably has been used already after the victory over Sextus Pompeius 36 BC.
terra marique is a Hellenistic phrase, together with pace parta it appears first under Octavian.
(Source: Carsten Hjort Lange, Res Publica Constituta: Actium, Apollo and the accomplishment of the Triumviral, Brill 2009; cites Momigliano 1941

There is a blant inadequacy between the importance of this god and our knowledge (and the knowledge of the Roman mythologists in antiquity too!). So only one inscription with his name  is found in whole Italy (of 2 slaves in Assisi). Other inscriptions found in Africa or at the lower Donau are rather an interpretatio Romana of indigenous deities (Pauly). The natural consequence was, that these gaps were filled with fanciful stories.

Mythology:
The parents of Janus are said to be Apollo and Kreusa, daughter of king Erechtheus of Athens. Kreusa has given birth to him secretly and then brought to Delphi for education. When she was married to Xipheus it appears that she was unable to get children. Xipheus asked the oracle and got order to adopt the first child which he would meet the next day. And that was the infant Janus. He adopted him as son (Aur. Victor de O.G.R. c.2). But this story can't be true because Janus was much older as Erechtheus and even Apollo (Anna Fabra ad Victor. I.c). Hence others claim that his parents were Uranos and Hekate. Because Uranos was seen also as the East itself they suggest that Janus has come from the East. Others claim that he was the son of Saturn and Entoria.

Anyway after the death of Xipheus he was unsatisfied with his inheritance and with a large armada he moved off to Italy. There he occupied a mountain and founded a town on it which was called after him Ianiculum. It is said that he ruled so piously and kindly that no laws are needed to avoid crimes. He is said to have been the first to erect temples to the gods and to offer sacrifices to them. They have consisted of grain and wine.

He was considered as important inventor. So he gave order to surround the cities with walls and to provide the houses with doors and keys. He is said to have invented the ships and the first money. He has made the barbaric inhabitants of Italy who to civilized humans and has taught them agriculture.  Others said that this was actually Saturn. But it is said that when Saturn was expelled by Jupiter Janus has admitted him hostily and permitted him to built the city of Saturnia close to Ianiculum. Other claim that it was Saturn who first ruled Italy and that Janus was his governor. This was the time which was then recalled by the Romans as 'Aurea Aetas', the Golden Age (not before Ovid)

But because it was impossible that Saturn and Janus have lived contemporarily - which was believed in antiquity - the theory emerged that Saturn actually has been Sterkes, father of Picus, king of Laurentium, who was called Saturn only after his deification.

In later times the importance of Janus has been expanded. After the world was created heaven, earth, sea and anything have been closed and opened at his will. He is said to have been the guardian of the world and to send war and peace. Together with the Horae he has watched the gates of heaven (Ovid, Fasti). Hence he was seen as keeper of housedoors and as god of the year. Finally he should have been identical with Chaos, the primal ground!

At sacrifices the first offerings were brought to Janus. The 1st day of the year was sacred to him.

He is usually depicted as venerable king with two faces of which one was looking forwards, the other sitting at the back of the neck was looking backwards. Additionally he was holding a key in his r. hand by which he could open up the temple and in his left hand a rod. At his feet 12 altars were placed. In the Etruscan city of Phalerae (Faleri) the Romans had discovered a statue of Janus with 4 faces. It is said that this was the reason that later Janus temples in Rome had 4 gates. Sometimes he was depicted with the face of a young man and the face of an old man. Plinius writes, that he has raised a hand and has bent the fingers in a way that - according to an old kind of counting - the number of 365, the number of days of the year, was expressed.

It has believed that Janus was originated from Perrhaibia in Northern Greece. There he has taken his sister Kamese as wife and has become with her father of Aithex and Olisthe. He has come to Italy 150 years before Aeneas and have ruled for 16 years. The 2 faces he has got because he has ruled over two different people or because he has ruled together with Saturn. Plutarch suggests that the two faces mean that Janus has made from a barbaric and cruel people a civilized and decent people, even with the help of Saturn. Others believe that the 2 faces mean begin and end, or rising and setting of the sun. Or one face is the Orient the other the Occident. The 4 faces then should mean the 4 parts of the world. The key he has used to open the heaven for the sun and to close it in the evening. The 12 altars at his feet are the 12 months (Hederich).

By others it is doubted that he has taken his own sister as wife. Augustinus f.e. doesn't know of any moral delict of Janus which was so common among the gods. Even though some think that he has pursued the nymph Karne fallen in love with her.

Excursion:
Ovid (Fast.) tells the story of the nymph Cardea who lived in the grove of Helernus at the river Tiber. She made a bad play with her suitors: Appointed to a rendezvous she sent them ahead to a place between the bushes claiming that she felt ashamed under the open sky. When the suitors lost sight of her she slipped away. But that doesn't work with the double-faced Janus and Cardea had to abandon herself. In gratitude Janus bestowed her the control over thresholds, hinges and doorhandles. But that seems to be a confusuion with the nymph Karne (Carne).

The temple of Janus:
After raping the Sabin women the Romans were in war with the Sabins. In this war the following has happened:
When the Sabins wanted to enter Rome the Romans tried to close the city gate at the Viminialis hill. But they didn't succeed. Everytime the city gate opened again. But when now the Sabins used this gate to enter the city a big stream of boiling water from the temple of Janus gushed over them and beyond the gate so that the Sabins were burned or drowned.

In memory of their victory over the Sabins the Romans opened the Romulus temple of Janus always when they were in war hoping that Janus would help them as back then against the Sabins. But when there was peace in the entire Roman Empire this temple was closed in a ritual ceremony. This happened actually in 700 years only threetimes: first under Numa, then after the first Punic War and finely under Augustus after the battle of Actium. This temple had 2 opposite gates (Plutarch).

But it is said too that Romulus has built this first temple for Janus only after his peace agreement with Titius Tatius (Varro). A second temple for Janus was erected later by C. Duilius at the Forum Holitorium and then a third one by Augustus on the Forum Romanum. The temples of Duilius and Augustus had 4 gates (Serv. ad Virgil). Furthermore an Aedem for Janus was built by Horatius bearing the name of the Curiatic Janus in memory of the victory of Horatius over the Curatii. Look below!

How the temple is described on coins of Nero (Jordan in Roscher):
"On coins of Nero the closed Ianus appears as cubiform building of which front and one side are visible. Those consists of a gate with closed valvae, which are made by two Corinthian columns bearing an arch. Of the similar gate which undoubtless made up the backside the corner column can be seen. The sidewall which connects both gates is square and reaches only 3/4 of the height of the gates. Its open upper quarter is closed by a lattice, on the columns in the front as at the side stay two-part beams; but there is no roof with fastigium. Undoubtless the building is not an aedes but a double ianus whose sidewalls are only plutea."  

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 01, 2011, 01:06:19 pm
(continued)

Background:
Janus is the guardian of public gates and gateways which are called ianus too (but not the private ones! For the private ones Portunus was responsible.) Ianus was too the god of all beginnings and was mentioned in prayers first of all. How the connection between beginning and transition could have come about is unclear. The most famous of all was the Ianus Geminus. It was composed of 2 archways connected at its sides and stood on the northern side of the Forum and made up the gateway to the Argiletum and to the Quirinal hill. The annalist Piso at Varro reports that Numa has decided to close the archway only when there was peace in the entire empire. Until Augustus - who has closed it threetimes - we hear only of a short closing 235 BC after the First Punic War. But this war has ended already in 241 BC so that it is probably a confusion of T. Manlius T.f. Torquatus, cos. 235, with A. Manlius T.f. Torquatus, cos. 241. In his Monumentum Ancyranum (res gestae, 2, 42) Augustus records two closings where he has probably included the closing by Numa. This ritus seems to be very old but first Augustus has reinvented it because of political reasons. But there is the suggestion too that it was Augustus himself who first has introduced this tradition at all! Nero and Vespasian have closed the temple of Janus as well, where Nero has closed the temple after he has lost the campaign in Armenia against the Parthians. This closing is depicted on his coins.

The last emperor who has opened the temple of Janus - according to Eutrop - was Gordian III before going to war against the Parthians, where he suffered death.

The interpretation of the symbolic meaning of this rite is not consistent: Vergil (Aeneis) writes that war will be enclosed, Ovid (Fast.) and Horaz (Epist.) suggest peace will be retained. The myth tells: Here the Sabins were restrained by hot sulfuric springs (Ovid met. 14, 78 ff., and others). That there once were hot springs we hear from Varro too. Roscher thinks, that in event of war the temple was held open to ensure that the soldiers after a successful return could come home at any time and the city was not locked up to them.

Further cult sites connected to Janus:
In Rome was a further cult site, named Tigillum sororium: A bar across a street at the Mons Oppius was attached to two opposite houses. At the sides were located altars of Ianus Curiatus and Iuno Sororia. On 1st of october a sacrifice was offered at this place. H.J.Ross has explained that sororius belongs to sororiare 'to swell' (in particuliar of the mammae, the breasts) and Curiatius is connected to curia. It seems to be a case of transition ritus of puberty when the former important curiae accepted new members. The aetiological myth which connects the names with the struggle of Curatii and Horatius hasn't know that any longer. This myth tells of a yoke  under which Horatius has to go throughout daily because in rage he has killed his sister after his victory over the 3 Curatii. Juno is here the female genius (take a look at the article about Genius in this thread!)

On the Forum Holitorium near the theatre of Marcellus Janus has another temple which was vowed by C. Duilius during the sea battle of Mylae in 260 BC (Tac. Ann. 2, 49). Day of foundation was 17th of August. This temple was restaurated by Augustus and newly consecrated by Tiberius AD 17. The ancient calendars don't know of a feast of Janus, but the Agonium on 9th of January belongs to him. Unprovable and probably wrong is the claim - again and again repeated - that the rex sacrorum was an own priest for Janus and that sacrifices to Janus took place at all calends. Macrobius knows only of 12 altars.

Beside the Ianus Geminus the most known is the Ianus Quadrifons vowed by Domitian on the Forum Transitorium. This was a four-gate sanctuary with a four-faced statue, which was said to be from Falerii (If it was  actually true that this statue came from Falerii it was called Ianus only because of the 4 faces. Its actual meaning is unknown).

Another Ianus Quadrifons - partially preserved even today - stood on the Forum Boarium over the Cloaca maxima, a four-arched marble arch.  But this tetrapylon has nothing to do with Janus at all. The name is a misinterpretation from the time of Renaissance. Probably the entrances to the Forum formerly were formed by Ianus archs. Jordan therefore calls Ianus 'the patron of the marketplace'.
 
In Roman mythology Ianus stands rather isolated. In Greek mythology and in the  pantheon of Greek deities Ianus is unknown.

The double face, known alread from the old Republican as, can well be the adoption of the double-faced Hermes or Apollo. It is said that the bronze statue from the Ianus Geminus should have illustrated with its fingers the number 365. But that is fanciful, because it is the number of days of the solar year and not of the Numan year and could arise only after Ianus was connected to sun and year.

Ianus was not only a personification of entrance but a living numen, on whose workings the fate of humans was depending. Doors and thresholds were sacred. We recall why Romulus has killed his brother Remus. Doorposts have been anoint on weddings, the bride carried over the threshold. By the Ianus archs the Forum was treated as quasi equal to the private atrium (Roscher)

Etymologically Ianus is naturally related to ianua, = door. But the etymology of ianua is unexplained until today. Ciceros has suggested that there is a relation to ire, = to go.

Until 153 BC Ianuarius was the 11th month of the old Roman calendar.
Why the 11th month of the old year was called Ianuarius is unknown, even wether this month is named after this god at all!

The lack of knowledge has misled to far-reaching speculations: Ianus should have been a sky god and via Etruria a Syrian-Hittite god has taken influence. Originally he should have been a god of river-crossings. As god of begining he already in the later republic became creator and inventor. But more realistic is the conception that at the Ianiculum important Italian trade routes were crossing and all new and foreign goods came to Rome here, and that the Romans therefore ascribed all these things to Ianus. He was called pater in honour. But the term deus deorum is totally un-Roman.

Sadly we have no remains of the Roman temple of Janus. But we know the description of the temple of Duilius from Plinius: This temple was the most northern on the Forum Holitorium, the grain market. It was a peripteros without columns at its back. It was standing on a 26m long and 15m broad podium and had 6 columns of Ionic style. Still today we can see some columns and parts of the podium beside the church San Nicola in Carcere. But I must confess that this is not undisputed.

History of Art:
In Fine Arts Ianus was depicted only rarely. A column with the double-faced Ianus appears on the left side of Nicolas Poussin's "Dance of Live", about 1638, an assembly of various  allegories of time. In a similar connection Janus appears as figur with two heads, a youthful and a senile one, in the fresco "Triumph of History over Time" from Anton Raphael Mengs (1772-1773), Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome. Two paintings of Louis de Boullogne, 1681, and Charles Andre van Loo "Auguste faissant fermer le temple de Janus", about 1750, both in the Musee de Beaux-Arts in Amiens/France, have as subject the closing of the temple by Augustus. A more allegorical depiction of the same issue is shown on a painting of Peter Paul Rubens, 1635, today in the Hermitage/St. Petersburg.

I have added
[1] a pic of the remains of the temple of Janus of Duilius on the Forum Holitorium
[2] a pic of Rubens' paintings

Sources:
[1] Augustus, Res gestae (Monumentum Ancyranum)
[2] Vergil, Aeneis
[3] Ovid, Fasti
[4] Ovid, Metamorphoses
[5] Horaz, Epistulae
[6] Tacitus, Annales

Literature:
[1] Der Kleine Pauly
[2] Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (online  too)
[3] Wilhelm JHeinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen  
      Mythologie, 1886 (online too)

Online-sources:
[1] Wikipedia (Temple of Janus)
[2] www.neue-akropolis.de
[3] www.theoi.com
[4] www.stefan-ramseier.ch

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 01, 2011, 01:13:21 pm
Excursion: 'The Mourning Penelope' - An Addentum to 'Tyche'

Recently I have found in a book of my schoolfellow Volker Sinn, Einführung in die klassische Archäologie, an interesting consideration about the depiction of the seated City Tyche, which I want to share.

In AD 1930 during excavations in Persepolis the Greek marble statue of a seated woman with crossed legs was found, supporting her head with the hand. It is only a seated torso but because of style examinations it is certain that the statue was created around 440-430 BC and comes from a studio on the Aegean Islands or the west-coast of Asia Minor. The depiction is known already from depictions of Penelope and Electra from c.470 BC. Today we know 7 copies in bronze and marble from the Roman Imperial Time. But this seems to be the original statue, at least one of them. It is knowwn under the name 'Mourning Penelope'.

This statue was found in the so-called Treasury of Dareios under a layer of debris with a height of some meters and was destroyed 330 BC. And that is remarkable! For usually the Greek have took back to Greece all works which were displaced by the Persians. That was true f.e. for the statue of the 'Tyrannocide' or the 'Apollo Philesios' of Didyme. And taht was true for all Persian booty. But not for our 'Mourning Penelope'! The conclusion must be that the 'Mourning Penelope' can't be booty!

And that leads us to the relation of the Greeks on the Aegean Islands and the west-coast of Asia minor to the Persians. The hostility of the Greeks against the Persians which we know from literary sources is the view of the continental Greeks especially the Athenians. In Asia minor it was very different. Here we had pro-Persian tendencies especially since under the Attic-Delic Sea League the obligatory dues increased and often the independence was lost. So it is understandable that many Greek cities - of course out of opportunity  too  -  turned toward the Persians.

What is the symbolic meaning of Elektra and Penelope in Greek mythology? Penelope as widow according to the ethical conceptions of the nobility society of the early Greek was obligated to remarriage. For 10 years she was exposed to the impudent bedgerings of the suitors who had spread in her palace. Only the hope for the return of Odysseus had make bearable this debasement. By her unbending morale she finally gained the victory over her tormentors. Elektra, daughter of king Agamemnon of Mykene and his wife Klytaimnestra was exposed to most evil humiliations after the murder of Agamamnon by Klytaimnestra and Aigisthos which she had to suffer many years hoping for the return of her brother Orestes and the future revenge. Only then her fate turned to good and by Pylades she returned to deserved emotional security. So we have 2 parallel fortunes which were regarded by the Greeks as symbols of unbended bearing against temptations and hostility. Elektra stands for sense of family, Penelope for loyalty and married love (Sinn). We can understand why their
depictions are so similar.

But their meaning can well be meant politically! First the Thebans used the figure of the invincible mythological women for their city. Then this motiv became the iconography of the City Goddess (Tyche) of several Greek cities. The most famous was the so-called Tyche of Antiocheia. It is imaginable that this image motif was used by Greek cities of Asia minor to symbolize their resistance against subordination under a foreign power. And this was for these cities Athens and the Attic-Delic Sea League! So it is well possible that a statue with the symbolism of Penelope was sent to Persepolis to emphasize a petition for Persian support against Athens. And then we understand why this statue was destroyed by the Greek troops of Alexander the Great in 330 BC. There was no hope for mercy!

I have added 2 pics:
[1] Statue of the 'Mourning Penelope' from the Iran National Museum in Teheran. This is the
     statue found in 1930 in Persepolis. The pic itself is from livius.org
[2] 'Mourning Penelope'. Roman copy from the Bodemuseum in Berlin. Pic from
     commons.wikimedia.org. We see the obvious similarity to the type of the seated Tyche.

Sources:
[1] Volker Sinn, Einführung in die Klassische Archäologie, Beck 2000
[2] http://www.livius.org/pen-pg/persepolis/persepolis_treasury.html
[3] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonnenschein_Trauernde_Penelope.jpg

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 31, 2012, 05:06:40 pm
Phrixos and Helle

The coin
Thessaly, Halos, 400-344 BC
AE 15 (Dichalkon?), 2.33g, 14.57mm, 315°
obv. Head of Zeus Laphystios, diademed, l.
rev. ALE - W[N]
      Phrixos, nude, with waving chlamys behind, on ram flying r., hanging on its horns; below  
      3 waves (outside this flan)
ref. Rogers 240 var.
rare, VF
Note: This type is known too with the depiction of Helle. But she is always draped (HN). On the coins I have seen Helle always std. side saddle. Phrixos and Helle are the main coin motives of Halos.

Mythology:
Father of Phrixos was Athamas, son of Aiolos. He was King in Orchomenos in Boiotia. With his wife Nephele he had 2 children, Phrixos and Helle. Later he devorced Nephele and married Ino, daughter of Kadmos. With Ino he had 2 children too, Learchos and Melikertes. Ino hated the children of Nephele and sent a drougth over the land (or has persuaded the women of the land to roast the seed to make the land infertile). To end this misery a herald was sent to the oracle of Delphi. Ino bribed the herald to falsify the oracle, so that now Phrixos and Helle should be sacrificed to end the drought.

Another variant is that Ino has fallen in love to her stepson Phrixos, but that he spurns her. Thus a great hate arose in Ino and she wished his death (Nat, Com. Mythol. lib.I.VI.c.9). She achieved that he should be sacrificed. That is the classical Potiphar motive.

Hyginus in his Fabulae tells that Phrixos has presented himself as sacrifice. Thus the malice of his stepmother has been detected although Dionysos has tried to protect her. Phrixos and Helle simulated a blinding and got lost in a wood.

Anyhow, their mother Nephele sent Chrysomele to them, a ram with golden fleece, with the order to bring them to Kolchis. This ram, a gift of Hermes, is said to have been a son of Poseidon and was able to speak.

Together with his sister Helle, who want to stay with him, Phrixos mounted the magic animal. When they were just over the sea between the Thracian Chersones and the Sigaian promontory, Helle fell down from the ram into the sea and drowned. According to her this part of the sea was called Hellespont, that means 'Sea of Helle'. Later Helle should have appeared as Sea Nymph to the Argonauts. She is said to have married Poseidon and has become a goddess.

Phrixos luckily arrived in Kolchis. There he sacrificed the ram -  according to some authors on behest of the ram - to Zeus Phrixios and donated the fleece to Aietes, king of Kolchis. He hung it at a tree of the grove of Ares and gave Phrixos his daughter Chalkiope as wife. Apollodor reports that first he has come to Dipsakos, son of Phyllis, where he has sacrificed the ram to Zeus Laphystios. The fleece later played an important role in the myth of the Argonauts. Zeus put the ram as Aries to the sky.

The later fate of Phrixos:
Diodoros Sikolos reports that Phrixos later has left  Kolchis and has returned back to Greece where he has taken the kingdom of his father Athamas. In contrast Hyginus tells that he was killed by Aietes who feared that he strove for the throne.

He is said to have several children with his wife Chalkiope whose names were reported variously: Argos, Phrontis, Melas and Kylindros, or Argos, Melas, Phrontis and Kytiloros, as well as Argos, Melas, Katis and Soros. Only those have left Kolchis and set off for Greece. But underway they were shipwrecked and could rescue themselves on the island of Areteias. There they were found by the Argonauts who took them as guides back to Kolchis (Apollonius).

The fate of Athamas:
Athamas and Ino were chased by Hera. Particulars can be found in the articles about Melikertes and about Ino-Leukothea in this Mythology Thread. Weighed down with blood guilt Athamas fled from Boiotia and came to Thessaly, where he founded the city of Halos and took Themisto, daughter of Hypseus, as his wife. This myth was worked up by Euripides to an intrigues play where by the intrigues of Ino he let kill the children of Themisto by her own mother. This play based on the oral tradition that Athamas from the beginning was king of Halos, situated in the 'Athamantic realms' of the southern Thessaly. According to this myth Athamas himself should have been sacrificed to Zeus and - referring to Herodot - was rescued by the arrival of his grand-child, son of Phrixos, from Kolchis, or - referring to Sophokles - by Herakles. Both plays are lost.

Notes:
(1) Nephele, wife of Athamas, is not Nephele, who by Ixion became the mother of the
     Centaurs. Often they were confused, so by Kerenyi and Hederich.
(2) Nat. Com. Mythol. = Natalis Comitis Mythologiae. Natalis Conti (AD 1520-1582), a
     Venetian scientist, wrote a mythographical work of 10 volumes.
 .
Background:
The first part of the myth plays in Orchomenos in Boiotia where Athamas was king. Here he tried to sacrifice Phrixos and Helle to Zeus Laphystios. Laphystios is the name of a mountain near Orchomenos. After his madness and the death of Ino and Melikertes (take a look at the referring articles in this thread!) he was ordered by the oracle of Delphi to go to Thessaly . where he founded the city of Halos. Halos was already mentioned by Homer as city in the Phthiotis, in the Athamantic plane at the river Othrys, situated at the western shore of the Pagasaian Gulf. Athamas took the veneration of Zeus Laphystios from Orchomenos to Halos, which then became the main centre of the cult of Zeus Laphystios. Zeus Laphystios was an old, dark storm and weather god with archaic rites connected probably to human sacrifices too. Laphystios is 'the Devourer' A sanctuary is mentioned already by Herodot 7, 192, but until now no inscriptions are found (Pauly).

The core of the myth is the aition of the Anamanthic custom. This custom consists in the tradition that in Halos always the oldest descendents of Athamas were sacrificed to Zeus Laphystios when they entered a particular building in the city. Here we find motives of archaic rites which consist in sacrificing the sacral king to preserve the fertility of the land (von Ranke-Graves),

The sacrifice of the ram then can be seen as replacing the human sacrifices by animal offerings. Zeus hated human sacrifices!

Helle is the eponym of the Hellespont. The marriage with Poseidon and the birth of several children are later inventions. At Val. Flaccus she appears to the Argonauts as sea goddes.

Etymology:
Halos meant something like barn flour or court, like in Delphi, where it is a praecinctus, a walled area. That would well match the founding myth. A connection with the Greek word for salt - suggested by Tilos - I can't see. Referring to Ranke-Graves Halos should come from Alos, the name of a female servant!

Palaiphatos:
And again our friend Palaiphatos who - as always - is pouring rationalistic water in our mythological wine, bringing up the following objections:
The ram must have been faster than a ship! And the ram must have carried not only two persons but food and drinking too. Then Phrixos has killed the ram ungratefully, who has just rescued him. He has donated the fleece to Aietes as dowry. Has he held his daughter for so worthless? To mask this incredibility it was said that the fleece was of gold.
Here is the truth:
Krios (Greek = ram) was the administrator of king Athamas of Phthia. When Krios heard that Athamas' 2nd wife intrigued against Phrixos, son of Athamas, he decided to save him. He got a ship, loaded it with valuables, between them a statue, which has been made of gold after Kios (Greek = fleece), mother of Merops and daughter of Helios. Then Phrixos and Helle started to Kolchis. At this voyage Helle became ill and died. But Phrixos came to the river Phasis settled there and married the daughter of Aietes, king of Kolchis. The gold statue he donated as dowry. After the death of Athamas Jason sailed with his ship Argo to Kolchis to get the gold statue of Kios.

The Order of the Golden Fleece:
When we talk about the Golden Fleece the order of the Golden Fleece should be mentioned. This order was founded in AD 1430 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to celebrate his marriage with Isabella of Portugal. The task of this knight's order is the protection of the Church. His sign is the picture of a ram fleece hanging on a chain from the neck. Today we have two lines of the order: The Bourbonic in Spain and the Habsburg in Austria. Famous Grand Masters beside the Burgundic and Spain kings were the Habsburg emperors of the German Empire. Known names are the German emperor Wilhelm II and his uncle Edward VIII from England, Otto von Habsburg and Juan Carlos, the recent king of Spain.

BTW There is another explanation too. There the order goes back to the miracle of Gideon in the Book of Judges in the Old Testament.

History of Art:
The flight of the siblings and the fall of Helle were popular themes in ancient art. Strangely they later were only depicted rarely..
On an amphora from the 3rd quarter of the 5th century BC, today in the National Museum in Naples, Phrixos is chased by Ino with a double axe in her raised hand.
A Melic relief from the middle of the 5th century BC and an Apulic bowl, both from the Antikensammlung in Berlin, show Phrixos high above the sea at the flank of the ram, clasping at horns and fleece. This is very similar to the depiction on the coin.
It could be found too on a pelike (kind of an amphora) as Attic red-figured painting of the Phrixos-Painter, c. 450-400 BC, today in the National Museum Athens.
In Berlin stands the Phrixos-Krater, an Apulic volute krater, c. 340 BC., ascribed to the Dareios-Painter. The obv. shows the scene where the sacrifice of Phrixos and Helle is prepaired.
Both siblings on the ram are found on a krater from Paestum, middle of 4th century, National Museum Naples, and on a Pompejan wall painting, 1st century AD, Naples, National Museum, and on a mosaic in the Villa d'Este, Tivoli, from the 2nd century AD, where Phrixos stretches out his hand to rescue Helle, who sinks in the waves.

From the Early Modern Age I have found only a ceiling painting. It is from the studio of Pinturicchio and was made for the Palazzo of Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena, c.1590, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

I have attached:
(1) a pic of the Phrixos-Krater with the sacrificing scene: In the lower centre, all signed with  
     their names, Phrixos is standing, crowning the ram with a wreath. Left beside stands Ino,  
     on his right side Athamas with raised sacrificial knife. Right beside him an aged scholar
     tells Helle, that not the ram but her brother Phrixos shall be sacrificed. Above a
     conference of gods is looking down. The 2nd from left is Nephele. At her right side
     Hermes apparently tells her that her children will be rescued.
(2) the pic of the Attic pelike of the Phrixos-Painter from the National Museum Athens.
(3) the pic of the Pompejan wall painting from the 1st century AD

Sources:
(1) Herodot
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheka
(3) Apollonius Rhodios, Die Argonautensage
(4) Pausanias, Reisen durch Griechenland
(5) Euripides: Phrixos
(6) Ovid, Metamorphosen
(7) Palaiphatos, Unglaubliche Geschichte (griech./deutsch), Reclam 2002

Secondary Literature:
(1) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, Band II: Die Heroen-Geschichten, dtv 1966
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Mythologie (auch online)
(3) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mytologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (Facsimile)
     (auch online)
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, rororo 2003
(5) Who is who in der Mythologie?
(6) Der Kleine Pauly
(7) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der
     Kunst
(8) Udo Reinhardt, Der Antike Mythos

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) www.theos.com
(3) gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/4908/78
(4) www.antikesboiotien.unimuenchen.de/orte/orchomenos/mythos/Mythische_Koenige/RG-Athamas.htm

Best regards

Will be continued with an excursion about the Dardanelles!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 05, 2012, 03:22:05 pm
Excursion: The Dardanelles

As connection between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea the Dardanelles played an important role already in ancient times. They were the most important transport route for the grain from the present Ukraine of which Greece was dependent. The strait has a length of 65km and connects the Aegean with the Sea of Marmara. The narrowest location at Canakkale has a width of only 1.3km. They are named after the mythic king Dardanos who founded the city of Dardanos in the Troas. Unfortunately they have a very strong surface current from the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean, so that an opportune wind is needed to sail against it. As long as the sailors had not learned to cruise the ships had to wait for the needed winds in the harbour. That adds to the great economical and strategic importance of Troy which in ancient times had an important harbour. Cruising, that means sailing against the wind, has been invented only later. So the Portuguese caravels could sail 'close to the wind', but cruising in the proper sense they couldn't.
  
The Dardanelles were too an important connection between Europe and Asia. In the 2nd Persian war Xerxes with his huge army crossed the Dardanelles in 480 BC on 2 bridges of boats from Abydos to Sestos. This transgression was denominated by Aischylos in his 'Persians' as sacrilege and was seen as reason that the gods intervened on the side of the Greeks against Xerxes.

150 years later, in 334 BC, the 35000 men of Alexander's army crossed the Dardanelles in reversed direction from Sestos to Abydos. Alexander himself crossed separately from Elaios to Ilion. That was the beginning of the conquest of the Persian Empire and the Hellenisation of the world.

It should be mentioned that in 278/277 BC the Galatians (Gauls) crossed the Dardanelles and thereby devastated the cities at the coast.

But all these events were overshadowed by the Battle of the Dardanelles, one of the greatest butcheries of WWI, only comparable with Verdun or the Somme. The idea came from Churchill, at that time First Lord of the Admiralty. After the armies in the West have come to a deadlock he want to try to lever out the Central Powers from the South. His aim was the conquest of Istanbul and the cutoff of the Ottoman Empire. This done the Allies could sent reinforcements to Russia which was in great difficulties. At least Bulgaria would enter the war on the side of the Entente. But this operation became one of the greatest desasters of WWI by the disability and incompetence of its military commanders. Altogether losts of half a million soldiers had to be complained. As result Bulgaria enters the Central Powers and Russia collapsed. Churchill had to pack his bags and go.

The course of events:
1st phase: The attack on Gallipoli began in February 1915 with strong naval forces of British and French warships which cannonaded the Turkish artillery emplacements. But returning they were running in a Turkish minefield and several of the 18 battleships sank or were heavily damaged.

2nd phase: After that the commanders decided to do it with land forces. In April 1915 a great invading army of British, French and Indian troops and especially troops from Australia and New-Zealand was sent to the Dardanelles to conquer the peninsula of Gallipoli and then march aginst Istanbul. They landed at several places of the peninsula but had not taken into account the persistent resistance of the Turks with their moveable guns. They were led by Kemal Pascha, later under the name Atatürk founder of the modern, secular Turkey. He was advised by the German chief of staff Liman von Sanders. They succeeded in occupying the heights of the coastal mountains in time and despite high losses they could hold them until end of the campaign. Thus the allied troops were pinned down more or less on the beaches. Because the strait was mined by the Turks the breakthrough with naval forces was impossible. In January 1916 after 10 month of fight the Allies abandonned the battle and evacuated the rest of the troops.

In this time something like a Australian national feeling emerged. Strangely Liman von Sanders is not embedded in the national memory of the Germans. Surely his Jewish roots are playing a role. But Atatürk too had no interest to diminish his own merits.

I have added
(1) a map of the Dardanelles with the Turkish minefields
(2) a pic of the allied naval forces
(3) a photo showing how the campaign of the Allies stiffened in the same way as the war at
    the Western front
(4) a photo of Liman von Sanders

Literature:
(1) John Keegan, The First World War, Hutchinson/Random House 1998
(2) Geoffrey Regan, Military Blunders, Carlton Book Ltd. 2001 (highly recommended)

Online-Sources:
(1) de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlacht_von_Gallipoli
(2) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_operations_in_the_Dardanelles_Campaign
(3) www.myvideo.de/watch/4091259/Schlacht_von_Gallipoli_TEIL_1
     www.myvideo.de/watch/4091540/Schlacht_von_Gallipoli_TEIL_2
     www.myvideo.de/watch/4091648/Schlacht_von_Gallipoli_TEIL_3

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 05, 2012, 05:29:14 pm
The standing lake-god of Savatra

This coin I have bought because of its strange figure on the rev. The result of my research I want to share. (Moved from Roman Provincial Coins)

Lycaonia, Savatra, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 28, 9.57g
obv. AVT KAIC ADR -  ANTWNINOC - CE
       Head, laureate, r.
rev. CAOV - TREWN
       Bearded water-god, nude, stg. frontal, head l., holding in lowered r. hand grain-ears and
       resting with raised l. hand on long reed; on his r. side a 2nd smaller plant, on his l. side
       a fish l.
ref. SNG von Aulock 5406; Aulock Lykaonien 166; SNG Copenhagen 16; SNG France 2330;
      Rec.Gen. 4797
rare, F+/about VF, green-brown patina

The rev. is really peculiar: We see a bearded male figure looking a bit like Zeus, but with the attributes of a river-god. And he is standing not reclining as usually river-gods do. Who is this deity?

Savatra, near the recent Yaghli-Baiyat, was located north-east of Iconium in the heart of Asia Minor. In the known literature it appears as Soatra (so at Strabo), Sautra, Sauatra, Savatra, Sabatra or Sabatka. We know very little about this city, already demonstrated by its many different names. It is mentioned by Strabo, Ptolemaios and Hierokles. And it is listed in the Tabula Peutingeriana too. So it was located at a Roman street, namely that leading from Laodikeia via Hyde to Koropissos. Beginning with Trajan and until Philip I Savatra issued own coins (HN). For some time it was the seat of a bishop: AD 381 Aristophanes, who was present at the 1st Oecumenical Council in Constantinopolis, and AD 451 Eustathius.

The most outstanding feature of Savatra was its water shortage. For that it was famous (Strabo). A small village which is seen today at its old place is Suvermez which should mean 'no water'. It is a desert-like region. The poor rivers get lost in several country lakes of which the Tatta Lake (today Dusgköl), a salt-lake, is the largest. He is so salty that it was reported that an object thrown in the lake was covered with salt crystals in a moment. Whenever a bird touches the water with its wings the salt was attached to the wings and the bird must sink because of the weight.

Because of his attributes the depicted figure is surely a water-god. But because the region at Savatra was waterless, he can't be a river-god but is probably a deity of one of the salt lakes in the neighbourhood (Hill, BM). Hill suggested the Tatta Lake and he stressed the fact that the figure is standing and doesn't recline as a river-god usually does. Even if the Tatta Lake is about 70km distant of Savatra it is such an impressive phenomenon that the appearance of its tutelary deity on a coin of Savatra is understandable without difficulties - if  the district of Savatra would has reached to its shore. But that seems to be not the case. Hoewever there is an alternative: the salt-lake near Obroklu, which probably was dependent on Savatra (Ramsay). Because usually only that is depicted on coins which is situated on the territory of the city it is probably not the Tatta Lake which is meant by the figure on the rev., but the smaller lake near Obroklu.

Sources:
(1) Ludwig Georgii, Alte Geographie (by books.google)
(2) H. S. Cronin, First Report of a Journey in Pisidia, Lycaonia, and Pamphylia, 1902
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 29, 2012, 04:28:34 pm
BTW I have a 2nd edition of my book 'Münzen und antike Mythologie - Eine Reise in ein fernes Land' to sell. Interested members of the FORVM can send me a PN.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 02, 2012, 06:44:07 am
Zeus Olybrios

This beautiful coin lay for quite some time like lead in my collection.

Coin:
Cilicia, Anazarbos, Commodus, AD 177-192
AE 26, 12.84g, 225°
struck AD 180/81 (year 199)
obv. AVTO K ΛO A - KOMOΔEΩ CEB
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev.:ANAZAPBE - ΩN ETOVC ΘQΠ (= 199)
      Bust of Zeus Olybrios, diademed, with necklace, facing, head r.
ref. SNG Levante Supp. 325 (this coin); SNG Paris 2041 var. (legend, year)
rare, VF, dark green patina, obv. slightly rough
pedigree:
ex CNG electronic auction 134, 2006, lot 156

Anazarbos pros Pyramo, today Anavarza, is a location in Cilicia, situated ad the middle Pyramos, named after a near-by mountain, the sacred mountain of Zarbos, a 220m high offset of the Tauros mountains. Augustus raised Anazarbos to a city and renamed it to Kaisareia pros Anazarbo. In its importance it came close to Tarsos, but has been destroyed in 6th cent. by an earthquake. Justinian rebuilt it as Justinianopolis and it served as a Byzantine border fortess. Today excavations take place under guidance of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

Olybris or Olybrios was the city-god and patron of Anazarbos, probably its founder too. Zeus Olybrios occurs in an inscription on a narrow marble stele of the Esquiline hill in Rome as Cilician god. In an inscription of Ankara he is named Zeus Olybris. In Latin inscriptions he is called Jupiter Olybraeus. They are found in the region of Syria and Palestine, where he was brought probably by Roman soldiers.

The dedicatory inscription (C.I.L. 2823) found on the Esquiline hill in Rome reads as follows:
ΔΙΙ ΟΛΥΒΡΙ[Ω] ΤΟΥ ΚΙΛΙΚΩΝ ΕΘΝΟΥΣ ΤΗΣ Λ(ΑΜΠΡΟΤΑΤΗΣ)  Μ(ΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ) ΑΝΑΖΑΡΒΕΩΝ ΑΥΡ(ΗΛΙΟΣ) ΜΑΡΚΟΣ ΣΤΑΤΩΡ ΕΥΧΗΣ ΧΑΡΙΝ Translated "To Zeus Olybrios of the ethnos of the Cilicians  (and) the most magnificent metropolis of Anazarbos (by) Aurelius Marcus, stator (usher), because of a vow (dedicated)". Here Olybrios is named not only as a Cilician god but as the god of the Cilicians, His name - according to Roscher - is connected with Olymbros.

Olymbros is mentioned by Stephanus Byzantius. He reports Olymbros was one of the elder Titansd, son og Gaia and Uranos, brother of Adanos, founder of Adana in Cilicia, brother of Ostasos, Sandes, Kronos, Iapetos and Rhea.

Dio Prus. 33 (II.p.1.Dind.) says, that the Titans were the actual patron gods of Cilicia. Therefore Olybrios is the patron of the entire Cilician people and Anazarbos was the special location of his worship (Domaszewski).

Both are Cilician gods. Both are founder of cities. Now the Greek mythology has adopted these gods. Referring to Imhoof-Blumer Kronos appears on coins of Mallos already in the 4th century BC. That means that the equalization of Cilician and Greek gods already in these times was common and that the Greeks have created this genealogy when they met foreign peoples.

And it goes on: Salmasius already has supposed Olympos for Olymbros, which M. Mayer, Giganten und Titanen 55, 11 has granted. It is true that the Cilician surname Olybri(os) of Zeus is evident by inscriptions. But it is well possible that Olymbros is the same as the Cretan teacher of Zeus. And he is known in Greek mythology under the name Olympos too!
 
Mythology:
It is common consensus that Zeus is called "the Olympian" because he is the father of the Olympian gods who pursued their carefree live on the top of the Olympos mountain. But surprisingly there are other opinions too:

The mythology narrates of an Olymps (I), a Cretan or son of Kres, whom Kronos has given to Zeus as his teacher and educator. He raised him and instructed him about religion. But when Zeus suspected him of urging the Gigants against his leadership and trying to push him off the throne he has slain him with his thunderbolt. After that Zeus has bitterly regret his deed, and because it was impossible to reanimate Olympos he at least has given him his own name and has written his name even on his grave, just as if the grave of Olympos was the grave of Zeus himself (Ptolem. Nov. Hist.; Prol. Hephaest.I.II p.311).

A second Olympos (II) is in his fatherly role very similar to the first one: Diodorus Siculus tells of reports of the Libyans and of Greek writers, especially Dionysios of Milet, that Dionysos has enthroned the young Zeus as king in Egypt. Because of his youth he has committed him to Olympos. Olympos was a wise man and teached him sciences and raised him to the highest virtues. From this teacher Zeus himself has got the surname Olympos (Diod.Sic.I.III.c.73).

Summary:
We started from Olybrios or Olybris, the city-god and founder of Anazarbos who then appears as god of all Cilicians. According to Roscher his name is connected to Olymbros who in Greek mythology is one of the elder Titans. That matches Dio of Prusa after whom Cilicia was the country of the Titans. Olymbros is regarded as Cretan educator of Zeus. But the teacher of Zeus is known too as Olympos. And so the arc is joining!
 
To round up this article I want to point to an interesting find: Near the vilalge of Areni in Armenia a small altar of the 2nd century AD was found with a Greek inscription of 6 lines. There is named the ΓΗ ΜΗΤΕΡ ΟΛΥΒΡΙΣ ΘΕΑ ΔΕΣΠΟΙΝΑ (Ge Mother Olybris Goddess and Mistress)Herrin). This altar was endowed by a Roman legionary (Vinogradov). Not only the localization is interesting but even more that here a female deity is called Olybris. It is a further evidence that Olybris stands for the whole Cilician people!

Notes:
(1) Claudius Salmasius, French Claude de Saumaise (* 15. April 1588 in 
     Semur-en-Auxois; † 3. September 1653 in Spa), a French classical scholar and
     polymath.
(2) Stephanus Byzantius, grammar in Constantinopolis in 6th century AD, wrote a
     geographical dictionary, Ethnika, which are present as epitome, compiled by Hermolaus
(3) Diodorus Siculus, Greek Historian from the 1st century AD, his work Bibliotheca historica 
     is a world history in 40 volumes, from which only 14 have survived.
(4) Dion von Prusa (Chrysostomos), greek orator and philosopher from the 1st century AD
(5) Ptolemaios Hephaistionis (Chennos), son of the mythographer Hephaistion of
     Alexandria, Greek historian, 2nd half of 1st century AD. By Hederich cited:
     Historia nova ad varium eruditionem. His reliability is discussed.
(6) Hephaestion of Thebes, during the reign of Theodosius, wrote 3 volumes about astrology,
     1st volume with prolegomena, used by Salmasius (Saumaise)

History of Art:
Depictions of Zeus Olybrios are not recorded. We only find him on coins. So I have added
(1) a pic of the coin Anazarbos, Trajan, Ziegler 977 ff. The rev. with the head of Zeus
     Olybrios shows in the background the rocks of the sacred mountain of Zarbos and above
     the acropolis of Anazarbos with 2 buildings. The right one is possibly the temple of Zeus
     Olybrios.
(2) a pic of the triumphal arch from Anazarbos, which later served as south gate. In the
     background the Arnenian mountain fortress.

Sources:
(1) Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica
(2) Stephanus Byzantius, Ethnica, 24.19
(3) Ptolem. Nov. Hist.
(4) Prol. Hephaest.I.II p.311
(5) Dio von Prusa

Secondary literature
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Wörterbuch (online  too]
(2) Wilhelm H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Mythologie (online too)
(3) William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology.
     London.
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Alfred Domaszewski, Zeus Olybrios, in Numismatische Zeitschrift 44 (1911), pp.9-12
(6) Benjamin Isaac, Dedications to Zeus Olybris, in: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und
     Epigraphik 117 (1997), pp.126–128 (auch online)
(7) Vinogradov, J.G., The Goddess Ge Meter Olybris. A New Epigraphic Evidence from
     Armenia, in East and West Y. 1992, vol. 42, No. 1, pp.13-26

Online-Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) www.theoi.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Dino on August 02, 2012, 08:59:49 am
Jochen-

Have you added any of this to Numiswiki?  If not, you should.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 13, 2012, 10:04:44 am
Philoctetes - the Story of a Lonely and Tortured

The Coin:

Thessaly, Lamia, in the name of the Malienses, 400-344 BC
AE 14, 2.19g, 14.34mm, 195°
obv. Head of Athena r., wearing Corinthian helmet and necklace
rev. MALIEWN (in l. field from bottom to top)
      Philoctetes, nude, with sidestep stg. r., shooting his bow; before him, a bird falling on
      the ground below; before him his quiver
ref. SNG Copenhagen 87; Rogers 384, fig. 197; SNG Evelpidis 1540; Moustaka 41;  
      Georgioiu, mint 16; BCD Thessaly II, 125; Lindgren II, 1397
 rare, F+, blackgreen patina with lighter appositions

Note: Lamia was the eastern city of the Malienses in the Phthiotis in Thessaly. The city was situated at the foot of the mountains at the northern end of the plain which is traversed by the river Sperchios (Wikipedia). Today it is Zeitun or Zeituni. Strangely the Kleiner Pauly writes Lamis which I didn't found anywhere elese. Maybe a typo? The eponym of Lamia was Lamos or Lamios, the son of Herakles and Omphale, probably the attempt to trace back the two princely houses to Herakles.

Mythology:
As usual there are several different mythologies for Philoctetes too which even sometimes are contradictory. I will point to them at various places.

His name litterally means something like "someone who loves property". Probably this should express that he was the owner of large herds of cattle.

Philoctetes was the son of king Poias of Meliboia in Thessaly, son of Thaumakos, and his wife Demonassa (Hygin. Fab. 102). It is reported that he was one of the Argonauts when they  were sailing to Kolchis on search for the Golden Fleece. Later on he became one of the closest compagnions of Herakles and was his armour-bearer.
  
Philoktetes and the Apotheosis (Ascension to Heaven) of Herakles
When once Deianeira, wife of Herakles, was jealous he gave Herakles the shirt of the Kentaur Nessos, in the belief that it contains a spell of love and thus Herakles' love to her would wake up again. But the shirt was soaked with the poisonous blood of the Kentaur. When Herakles put on the shirt he was tortured by endless pain and the toxic shirt burnt into his skin. Because nothing was able to help him, he decided to die. He let bring himself on top of the mountain Oita where Hyllos, his favourite, piled up a big pyre. But there was nobody to set fire to the heap. Finely Philoctetes (others say Poias, his father, or Iolaos, compagnion of Herakles) brought himself to undertake this last friendly turn. Gratefully Herakles handed over to him his bow and the poisoned arrows which were dipped into the blood of the Hydra. Philoctetes had to swear the solemn oath never to reveal the place of his death to nobody (Diodor. Sic.). Then under lightning and thunder Herakles was translated to the Olympos(Apollor. Bibliotheka II, 128-167). There is a beautiful picture on an Attic amphora where Herakles, now young again, enters the chariot of Athena, to be driven to heaven.

It is told too, that Philoctes travelled to Sparta where he courted Helena. At this time he must have been somewhat older. When Helena decided to marry Menelaos, king of Mycenae, all other freer had taken a solemn oath to guard Helena forever. This was done on the advice of Odysseus to prevent the freer from struggle. This oath was the reason that Menalos asked Philoctetes to sail to Troy with the Achaean when Helena has run off with Paris  

Philoktetes on Lemnos:
When the Achaeans sailed against Troy Philoctetes led the warriors of Magnesia in Thessaly on seven ships to Troy (Ilias III, 71). Actually Lamia didn't belong to the 4 cities which were mentioned by Homer, but it was close nearby. When they stopped on the way to Troy at the Island of Chryse (referring to others at the Island of Tenedos) to sacrifice at the altar of Apollo Smintheus, which was said to be erected by Iason, leader of the Argonauts, Philoctetes has been bitten on the foot by a snake. The wound wouldn't heal, began to fester  and stunk terribly. Moreover his cries of pain were so loud that they were disturbing the Greeks when they want to sacrifice or to pray. Odysseus began to fear for the fighting morale of the Greeks and persuaded them to abandon Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos. His warriors were committed to Medon.

Why Philoctetes has been bitten? There are different explanations:
(1) The snake was sent by Hera who want to punish him because he has helped her deadly
     enemy Herakles on the pyre.
(2) He has been punished because he has broken the solemn oath never to reveal the
     location of Herakles' death. One version reports that he has done that without speaking
     but only by a movement of his foot. Therefore he has been bitten on his foot.

On Lemnos he lived for 10 years in lonelyness and misery, like Robinson Crusoe but without a Friday. He retired to a cave and lived on birds which he shooted down with his arrows. This too is the theme depicted on the reverse of my coin.

Referring to others he was not alone but was alimented by Phimachos, a herdsman of king Aktor. (Hygin. Fab.). In any case all are agreed that he led a miserable life on Lemnos. And one should not forget, that all the years he was horribly tortured by the incurable wound on his foot! Understandably enough he developed a big grudge against the Greeks, yes, he hated  and cursed them.

In the meantime the Greeks have besieged Troy for 10 years without being able to conquer it. After the death of the Great Ajas and after Paris has killed Achilles the Greeks were discouraged and the opinion grew to abandon the siege. But then they succeeded in capturing Helenos, a son of king Priamos and brother of Kassandra. Helenos like his sister was gifted with visionary abilities too and after some torture by the Greeks he betrayed that the Greeks could capture Troy only if they would perform 3 requirements:
(1) Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, has to come to Troy
(2) In the possession of Troy was the Palladion, a wooden statue of Athena. Owning this
     statue Troy was unvincible.
(3) Troy could be conquered only with the bow and arrows of Philoctetes.

To bring Neoptolemos to Troy was easy. To steal the Palladion Odysseus and Diomedes slunk to Troy one night and brought it into the Greek camp. To get Philoctetes and his bow was considerable more difficult. Agamemnon sent Odysseus and Diomedes (or Neoptolemos, so Sophokles) to Lemnos to persuade Philoctetes to come to Troy. Here too we have several differnt versions which differ by the behaviour of Philoctetes:
(1) They succeeded in persuading Philoctetes to forget his grudge against the Greek and to  
     help his brothers in this situation of heavy distress. This question of conscience is the  
     main theme of the great ancient tragedies.
(2) Odysseus and Diomedes stole bow and arrows when Philoctetes was sleeping in his
     cave.
In any case finely we find him in front of Troy and he was cured by the Greek physician Machaos (or his brother Podaleirios, both sons of Asklepios). Then in a duel he killed Paris with his arrows, and revenged the death of Achilles. The end is well known: Troy was taken.

The further fate of Philoctetes:
It is told that Philoctetes after his return from Troy was expelled from his hometown Meliboia by insurgents and went to Italy where he founded the city of Petilia in Calabria and the city of Krimissa near Kroton. He there established the Bruttii. The bow of Heracles he devoted to Apollo and hung it up in the temple of Apollo in Krimissa. It is said that he died in a regional war against the Pelleni  and was interred at the river Sybaris. There he should have been worshipped as a god (Vergil).

Background:
The myth of Philoctetes seems to be Pre-Homeric. He is mentioned by Homer only briefly in his Iliad in the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. 2, 494-759), and in his Odyssee (3, 190) it is reported that he returned home.

The great Greek tragedians took up the theme. Aischylos, Euripides and Sophokles have written tragedies. The story is told too by Vergil, Pindar, Seneca, Quintilian and Ovid. Sadly the works of Aischylos and Euripides are lost. But Dion of Prusa (orat. 52) has compiled the content of these works and compared with Sophokles which we have completely. So at least we know their intentions. More in the excursion about Sophokles' Philoktetes which will be the next article,

Hederich is holding the bad fate of Philoctetes for a just punishment because he has broken the solemn oath which he had sworn to Herakles. An oath has to be kept even to the dead.

Referring to F. Marx (1904) Philoktetes was at home on Lemnos, and because his fate has similarities with that of Hephaistos - both were expelled and then incorporated into the community again - he suggested that he is a hypostasis of Hephaistos who too is originated from Lemnos.

L. Rademacher sees the bite of the snake and the abandonment as a punishment for invading at the Nymph Chryse and suggests in connection with the name Φιλο - κτητης an old treasure seeker myth.

It is remarkanble that in the present the ancient Philoctetes subject is used for the overcoming of the posttraumatic syndrom of American soldiers, e.g. of returnees from the Iraq or from Afghanistan. Look at Bryan Doerries The Philoctetes Project (New York 2005 und 2008).

History of Art:
Known is an epigram of Glaukos of Nikopolis who celebrates the pic of the Greek painter Parrhasios (about 400 BC) showing Philoctetes. The pic is lost but a silver cup from the Augustan time (now in Copenhagen) seems to be an echo. It shows Philoctetes seated on a rock, the wounded foot extended, and looking at Odysseus who is seated in front of him.
We know an Attic Vase in the Louvre and one in the Metropolitan Museum in New York:
(1) Detail of an Attic red-figured stamnos of Hermonax (c.460 BC), today in the  
     Louvre/Paris: The wounded Philoktetes abandoned by the Greeks
     Note: A stamnos was a big-bellied vase similar to an amphora, A short neck and 2
     horizontal handles. It served for the storage of wine and oil. Created probably in Lakonia
     or Etruria. Typical with lid. Known too as Pelike
(2) Attic red.figured squat Lekythos, c.420 BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:
     Philoktetes at Lemnos
     Note: A lekythos was an ancient Greek vase for the storage of e.g. olove oil. The squat
     lekythos usually has a height not over 20cm, has a domed belly and a plane base.

The motive of Herakles' Apotheosis naturally was suitabele for depictions on graves. In the museum of Carnuntum (Lower Austria) we find a grave relief from the 2nd century AD:  The dying Herakles on the pyre presents his bow to his friend Philoktetes. At his right side Athena is waiting to lead him to heaven (Wikipedia).

In the modern era the theme was taken up again. A short selection:
(1) Painting of J. Barry (1770; Bologna, PN)
(2) Nikolaj Abraham Abildgaard (1743-1809), Philoctetes, 1775, Statens Museum for
     Kunst, Copenhagen: Philoctetes with tortured face kneeling r., holding his hurting foot.
(3) Germain-Jean Drouais (1763-1788), Philoctète dans l'île de Lemnos, 1788, Oil on
     canvas, Chartres, Musée des Beaux-Arts: Philoctetes with face distorted with pain seating
     in his cave, fanning with a big wing cooling to his hurting foot.
(4) Guillaume Guillon-Lethiere (1760-1832), Philoctetes on the Island of Lemnos
     (1798, Louvre/Paris): Philoctetes with bow and quiver over back with tortured face
     climbing on rock chasing birds. This picture I have chosen because it shows the same
     motive as on my coin
(5) P.-P. Proudhon (1807; Ponce, Mus.)
(6) und finally a plaster sculpture of A. v. Hildebrands (1886; Florenz, S. Francesco)

I have added:
(1) the detail from the stamnos from the Louvre
(2) a pic of the lekythos from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
(3) a pic of the grave relief from Carnuntum,
(4) a pic of the painting of  Guillaume Guillon-Lethiere

Literature:
(1) Homer, Ilias 2, 716-725
(2) Homer, Odyssee 3, 190; 8, 219
(3) Hyginus, Fabulae
(4) Apollodor, Bibliotheke, Epitome 3, 14-27, 5, 8, 6, 15b
(5) Sophokles, Philoktetes, 1999 Insel
     (translated by Wolfgang Schadewaldt)
(6) Ovid, Metamorphosen, 13, 46-55

Secondary literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (online too)
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Mythologie, Teubner 1897-1902 (online too)
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Karl Kerenyi, Mythology of the Greek Vol. II
(5) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in de Kunst,  
     Reclam 2000

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 28, 2012, 01:25:39 pm
Midas (and Mida)

The coin

Pisidia, Kremna, Caracalla, AD 198-217
AE 19, 4.97g, 18.72mm, 0°
obv. IM - P C M AV - R ANT PF AV
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. COL.CREM. - MID.DEAE (from upper right)
      Goddess Mida in the kind of Kybele enthroned l., holding patera in extended r. hand
ref. Lindgren&Kovacs 1292 (this coin); obv. from same die as asiaminorcoins #4590
VF, dark green patina
expansion of the legend: COLONIA CREMNENSIVM MIDAE DEAE
Note: This type is known for Marcus Aurelius and Geta too.

Mythology
The earliest mention of Midas dates back to Herodot and is a myth from northern Greece. Here in Macedonia below the mountain of Bermios Silen has been captured, at the Inna fountain, and here grew the famous sixty-leaf wild roses which were famed in the entire ancient world for their incomparable fragrance.

But already Herodot has confused this local Macedonian myth with the Phrygean kings by calling Midas the son of Gordios and Kybele. So the capture of Silen was later relocated to Asia Minor. But originally it is a Macedonian tradition, which took place at the tribe of the Brigean, a name which sounds like Phrygians in Asia minor. And there is a not so well known king Midas in northern Greece, who is said to be slain by Karanos when he conquered Edessa (Justin. 7, 1).

In any case all these mythologies are later relocated to Asia Minor. King Midas has captured Silen probably to get his wisdom. This should have happened among others near Ankyra. About that theme I have written an en detail article about Silen and Dionysos in this thread which I highly recommend. The best-known story is told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses: When Silen has stayed 6 days and nights at king Midas he brought him back to his father Dionysos. Dionysos was highly pleased and promised him to grant a wish. In his blindness Midas wished that all that he touched became gold. When he wanted to eat he recognized his mistake. Tortured by hunger and thurst  he invoked Dionysos for help. The god had mercy on him and told him to take a bath in the Paktolos river. So Midas was saved. The Paktolos however became the most gold-rich river in Asia Minor.

This myth is an allusion to the legendary wealth of Midas. Already in the manger a miracle has happened: Ants - known in ancient times for their miracles - have put grains of wheat in his mouth. This was seen as prophecy for his later wealth (so e.g. Cicero, De divin. 1, 36).

There is another myth too which makes Midas look miserably. Weary of his treasures Midas fled into the woods to serve only Pan. In doing so he came to the Tmolos mountain at the moment where Pan and Apollo were holding a singing contest and the mountain god was the arbitrator. When he proclaimed Apollo as winner Midas contradicted emphatically. Enraged Apollo gave him ass's ears to indicate his foolishness. Since then king Midas used a Tiara to hide them. Only his hair cutter knew his disformity but was condemned to silence. But because he couldn't keep this secret he dug a pit, shouted "king Midas has ass's ears!", and closed the pit. But nearby reed has realized all and moved by the wind the secret of the king has been whispered all over the world.

Background
We have to ask why king Midas became such a ridiculous figure. That could not be originally because Midas was the name of several Phrygian kings. Take a look for the article about Gordios, founder of Gordion, in this thread. Roscher gives as explanation that the long ears were a congenital deformity of the Phrygian kings. Something similar we know from the Merowingian kings with their Ichthyosis. In that way the myth is to see aitiologically. More archaically would be the version in Myth. Vat. 3, 10, 7, where Midas not accidentally came along at the song contest, but has been raised to arbitrator which better corresponds to his rank as king. The entire myth is reminiscent of the tragedy of Marsyas and seems to be Alexandrinian. It is said that Midas has introduced playing flutes at funerals, indeed should have invented the cross flute. He is said to have died by committing suicide by drinking the blood of a bull, when the Kimmerians invaded his kingdom.

Let us bring together what we knew of Midas: The ass's ears are relicts of a theriomorphic formation, similar to the pointed ears of the Silens. Relevant is his life in woods and meadows. Relations to fountains are known too. Xenophon (Anab. 1, 2, 13) mentions a Midas well, also Pausanias and Plutarch, and the bath in the Paktolos river would match that exactly. So we have to see Midas as benedictory nature deity (Roscher). He was the owner of the lush rose gardens of Edessa and he lived at the Inna fountain. The myth of the whispering reed is only a fairytail-like embellishment.

It is said that Midas had have a son named Lityerses. He asked guests for mowing contests and then have whipped the losers, until he was defeated by a stronger opponent, probably Herakles. This was the theme of Euripides' "Theristai (The Reapers)", a lost satyr drama. A similar play is known by Sositheos from Alexandreia Troas. In this play he cut off the head of the loser and threw him in a sheaf in the river Maiandros. This myth seems to have originated from the song of reapers sung at work.

Another son of Midas should have been Anchouros. Once when Phrygia was ravaged by an awful flood an oracle declared that the flood would stop not earlier until the most precious has been thrown into the crevice which has opened near Kelainai (the later Apameia). When all gold and silver has shown up as useless, Anchouros himself jumped into the gorge and the flood stopped (Plutarch).

Midas is an ancient deity of the Brigeans in northern Greece just like of the Phrygians in Asia Minor. He is the origin of the name of a Macedonian ruling dynasty and of the names of Phrygian kings. The Brigeans (= Phrygians) will have brought along their Midas when they came to northern Greece. There they became acquaintance with the Macedonian Silens and Satyrs and assimilated Midas with them. This old and more original Midas then faded away at the Greeks (Roscher) and made place for the Phrygian kings which were famous at the Greeks too. Midas was known by the Assyrians as "Mita of Mushki".

Relicts of the old northern Greek names can be realized in the names of 2 heroines: Midea, a Boeotian and an Argivian, both eponyms of 2 cities called Medeia. But that was not mentioned by the Greeks (Roscher).  

And now to my coin:
The rev. is MID.DEAE, MIDAE DEAE, dedicated to goddess Mida! The explanation we find in the so-called Tomb of Midas in Midas Sehri, the City of Midas. Midas Sehri was beside the capital Gordion the most important city in Phrygia. In Sehri the English explorer William Martin Leake has found the monumental rock facade in AD 1800 and because of its Phrygian inscriptions referred to as Tomb of Midas. Ramsay started his exploration in 1881. This facade is the 16m high and 16.40m wide front of a building with a cult niche in the centre on the ground. In this niche once the statue of Kybele was standing. A acroterion of concentric circles decorates the flat pediment. The facade is decorated with a geometrical ornament, and the frame of the facade with a continuous decor of 4 deepened rhombuses which surround a quadrat. The door in the rock has a double frame. On the facade are inscriptions and graffiti (arachne.uni-koeln.de).

Such facades are a Phrygian speciality and can be found frequently in the vicinity. A further Tomb of Midas, a tumulus, was unearthed in Gordion. It was ascribed to Gordios, father of the historic king Midas.

However there was no room found in Midas Sehri which could serve as sepulchre. So it is rather a cult site of Kybele. And the inscription does not name Midas but Mida, an epistasis of Kybele!

Mida, more exactly Mιδα θεος, was an oath deity of the people wich was governed by king Midas, taken by some for his mother. Plutarch calls her in correct Phrygian  Mιδα μητερ, and equated her as "Mother of Midas" with one of the "Mothers of Dionysos", namely Gynaikeia, Arretos and the Roman Bona Dea. He reports that in her cult the women carry on with other women like in the Orphic Mysteries. Referring to Hygin. (Fab.191) Midas has the dea mater as mother,  according to Fab. 274 the  Phrygian Kybele. Naturally is meant always the old mythological figure which is flowed together with the historic king only in error.

So this mother goddess of the ass-eared, theriomorphic mountain and silvan god is
none other as the great mountain goddess ο-Ρειη, Ιδαιη (from ιδη = wooded mountains), and the female practices, as suggested by Plutarch's mention on occasion of the infamous scandal at the festival of Bona Dea, were obcene.

A. Dieterich, 1894, wants to equate Mida as nominative with Mise and Misme, but concerning the linguistic relations of these names besides the possibility of original equality leaves open rightly the alternative that this Mιδα θεος (Mida now as genitive) actually is only the mother goddess of the Midas cult. And really, this being counts in the text from which Hesychios got his Lemma, as "Goddess of Midas" (Roscher).

History of Art:
I have attached
(1) a pic of the Midas Facade in Midas Sehri
(2) a pic of the Phrygian inscription on this facade (for those who have sufficient
      control of the Phrygian language)
(3) a pic of the Kybele statue of Agoracritus, a scholar of Phidias, which by the
     proliferation of the Kybele cult became the widest spread depiction of Kybele. The
     statue shows Kybele humanized but still enthroned, one hand on a accompanying
     lion the other holding the tympanon. This statue is by the style Hellenistic, but its  
     origin is Latium, mid of the 3rd century AD, today in the Museo Archeologico
     Nazionale in Naples.
(4) a pic of the painting "Midas and Bacchus",  about AD 1624, from Nicolas Poussin
      (1594-1665), today in the Pinakothek in Munich. We see the Phrygian king Midas,
      who leads Silen back to Bacchus and will be rewarded.

Literature
(1) Herodot, Histories
(2) Xenophon, Anabasis
(3) Plutarch, Parallel lifes
(4) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(5) Cicero, De natura deorum
(6) Hesychios of Alexandria (Grammarian), Alexandrini Lexicon (online too)

Secondary literature
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (online too)
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
      Mythologie
(4) Gemoll, Griechisch-Deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch
(5) Dietrich Berndt, Midasstadt, von Zabern 2002

online sources
(1) arachne.uni-koeln.de
(2) wikipedia.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 28, 2012, 01:28:22 pm
Athena Itonia

The coin
Greece, Thessalian League, 196 - 27 BC
AR - Stater, 5.79g, 24.83mm, 0°
       struck under the magistrates (strategoi) Polyxenos and Eukolos, c.44 - 40 BC
obv. Head of Zeus of Dodona wreathed with oak leaves, r.
rev. l. ΘΕΣΣΑ (from bottom), r. ΛΩΝ (from top)
      Athena Itonia stg. r., helmeted, in long girded double chiton and palla, aegis on breast,
      holding with l. hand shield horizontally upwards and in raised r. hand spear ready for  
      hurling
      above the spear [Π]ΟΛV - ΞΕΝ[ΟV]
      in ex. ΕVΚΟΛΟ[Σ]
      without mintmark
ref. SNG Copenhagen 291; BMC Thessaly p. 2, 21; BCD 878.1
about VF, slightly toned
Note: It is remarkable that the name of Polyxenos stands in genitive case, but the name of Eukolos in nominative case. It is suggested that Polyxenos was the strategos, the higher magistrate, whereas Eukolos, may be a tamias, was responsible for the coinage. But that is not undisputed (Nicholas V. Sekunda).

Thessaly is situated in the north of Greece and built by a fertil plain, which is enclosed by mountains which are crossed by very few passes. It is drained by the Peneios river and its tributaries. It was famous for its abundances of horses and its cavalry which took part in Alexander's campaign against the Persians. Among the Romans Thessaly was infamous for its wizards and witches (take a look at Apuleius and his "Golden Ass", or Goethe "Faust II")

The new Thessalian League, which has issued our coin, was founded in 196 BC when the Romans has defeated Philipp V of Makedonia in the 2nd Makedonian War and Thessaly became "free". Metropolis and seat of the synhedrion (council) was Larissa in the Pelasgiotis. The other tetrarchies were Hestiaiotis, Thessaliotis and Phthiotis. At the head of the League stands an archon. The Thessalian League has existed until 146 BC, when Thessaly became a part of the Roman province Macedonia. But there is no evidence, that the League was liquidated by the Romans. Hoard findings prove, that the Thessalian League has issued coins hereafter until the 1st century BC, probably until c.30 BC (Klose).

Mythology
Athena Itonia was (besides  Zeus Eleutherios) the main deity of the Thessalians and appears often on their coins. She was worshipped in several sanctuaries. The most important temple was located in Iton in the Phthiotis. It is reported that king Pyrrhos after his victory over Antigonos and his Gallic mercenaries here has hung up the shields of the killed Gauls and has dedicared them to Athena Itonia. Here festivals were celebrated in her name, called "Itonia", and regarding to Catull it was called incola Itoni. The Itonia actually were Panthessalian games and were celebrated in all Thessalian cities in the month called Itonia by the Thessalians.

The sacral importance of this sanctuary turns out by this example too: When at war in Thessaly once the Boiotians were put to flight by the Spartans and some of them fled into the temple of Itonia. Agesilaos, king of the Spartans, badly wounded himself, thereupon spared the suppliants (Pausan. 3, 9, 13).

At the war of the Phokians against the Thessalians the parole given by the Thessalian military leaders was "Athena Itonia" (Pausan. 10, 1, 10).

Unfortunately we don't know the exact location of this temple. Iton, situated between Pherai and Larissa, is regarded as age-old and was mentioned already by Homer (Il. 2. 696). In this way Athena Itonia would be Athena of Iton.

From Thessaly her cult spread out to Boiotia where she was the main war goddess, but according to Bakchylides the goddess of art and poetry too. She was worshipped in the sanctuary of the Boiotian League in Koroneia. Here the Pamboiotia were celebrated, the pan-Boiotian games. This temple is not excavated until today - except for a trial dig. It was erected by Itonos, the eponym (name giver) of Iton. It is said that Athena has got her epithet from this Itonos (Schol. Apollon. ad I.I.v.551). Her cult appears too in Akesine, Amorgos and in Athens.

The cult of Athena Itonia is connected in some mystical manner with the god of the lower world. Strabo calls him Hades, which by few is supposed to be a misreading for Ares. But because Pausanias calls him Zeus the reading as Hades seems to be correct. Hades to confuse with Zeus is possible, but not with Ares. At least the cult of Athena Itonia had a primitive character. But because she was a goddess, who fostered the growths of the earth, she had some affinity to the Chthonic deities (Lewis Richard Farnell 1896). At Homer (Ilias, 5, 845) Athena puts on the cap of Hades when she was in fight with Ares, probably a cap made from dog fur, and the poet calls her Alalkomenes. The age-old Alalkomenic sanctuary was close to the Itonic. In Athens her statue remarkably does not stand together with Zeus, Hera and Apollo, but next to Hades and Poseidon. In this context the consideration of Furtwängler (Meisterwerke, p. 114) is of interest. See below under "History of Art".

Iodama
Usually Zeus is seen as father of Athena. But there is another mythology too where her father is Itonos, a mythical first king of Thessaly in Iton. He was the son of Amphiktyon and begot with Melanippe, a nymph, Boiotos, who gave the Boiotians their name. He had also two daughters, Athena and Iodama. Iodama got by Zeus Thebe, who later married Ogygios by which Thebens is called Ogygia. When Iodama once was at a weapon game with her sister Athena they came into conflict with each other out of jealousy, and Athena killed her sister.

According to a Boiotian myth Iodama was a priestress of Athena in the temple of Koroneia. Once when she entered the temple at night, the goddess appeared to her in person with the gorgoneion on her breast. Immediately she was turned to stone. Since that time she had an altar in this temple and a fire has to be made everyday and a woman is crying threetimes in Boiotian language: "Iodama lives and demands fire!" (Pausan. 9.34.1)

Historically Iodama originally was the local deity of Koroneia who then was replaced by Athena (Kleiner Pauly).

Background:
The myth of Iodama has many parallels with the myth of Pallas. Pallas was the daughter of Triton. Her death was caused indirectly by Athena when both practized weapon games together. At Apollodoros Pallas is a kind of stepsister of Athena. Both have been raised by Triton, father of Pallas. After her - unintended - death Athena took in honor of her the epithet Pallas. This close sisterly relation between a goddess and a mortal is exceptional. There is nothing similar found between gods and heroes nor for any other goddess (Kerenyi).

This duality is typical for Athena. Often it consists only in the number of two maidenservants of the goddess. 2 maidens were sent from Lokris to Troy as atonement for the crime which Aias had committed against the Palladium.The Trojan men, meanwhile, waited and lay in ambush, and spying the maidens killed them, burned their corpses on the wood of barren trees - a feature which characterizes the dealing with sacrifices to Deities (presumably the Goddess) of the underworld (Kerenyi)

If the Lokrian maiden would have reached the temple of Athena they would have become her priestresses. They had to keep the temple cleaned up, went about barefooted and were allowed to do this only at night. Moreover, they were allowed neither to step in front of the Goddess nor to leave the temple. The sacrifice of at least one virgin is credible. In Laodikeia in Syria, Athena is originally supposed to have received the sacrifice of one virgin each year, later one doe.

This example shows the importance of human sacrifices for Pallas Athena, at least in archaic times. Probably they belonged to initiation rites, when young boys - and maidens, too, as brides - were taken into patriarchal organizations. The victims were chosen as representatives of a group of young people. The shaving of the hair has a similar meaning. Two representatives sacrificed their lifes, all the other only their hair. It could be that the hair sacrifice was the transition of the barbaric-archaic human sacrifices to more civilized rites.

One of the methods of slaying transmitted to us is turning the victim into stone. Athena Itonia, who turned the eternally living, fire-desiring Iodama into stone, is the Goddess of Alalcomena, the neighboring town to Koroneia, and as Alalcomenai she is a Pallas figure.

The wish of Iodama to have fire - asked in the name of Athena - shows also the difference between this Goddess and Hestia: The fire does not glow eternally on the altar of Iodama but must be rekindled daily, just as is naturally the case with a coal pan, an eschara. The sanctuary lay on the river Koralios or Kuralios, presumably so named because the Goddess received the hair offerings of boys and girls there; for this characteristic she bore the epithet Koria or Koresia (Kerenyi)

Iodama (and in another context Aglauros), the sacrified, slain, annihilated - but nevertheless living - represents the one aspect of the Goddess that stands over against the other aspect: Pallas Athena. Both poles in their opposition belong inseparably together. "It is not merely that a martial and a maternal existence are bound together and opposed to each other, but a defensive virginity, keeping at bay hostile aggression by the menace of death, and a virginity that falls victim to attack and death, whereby conception and motherhood come into being." (Kerenyi)

History of Art:
The cult statue of Athena Itonia (and of Zeus Eleutherios too) in Koroneia, a bronze statue, was created by Agorakritos (Pausan. IX 34, 1). Agorakritos, sculptor from Paros, was a scholar of Phidias. His main work is seen in the statue of Nemesis in Rhamnos, which was held in antiquity a long time for the work of Phidias  himself.
Furtwängler (Meisterwerke p. 113 ff.) wants to have recognize a copy of Athena Itonia of this artist in the statue of Pallas Albani with the fur cap. But this is not generally accepted. So until today no statues or other depictions of Athena Itona are found. We are dependent on the depictions of the coins.

I have added
(1) a pic of the restaurated statue of Athena with the fur cap from the Villa Albani in Rome
     (Pallas Albani). This statue is seen by few as copy of the Athena Itonia of Agorakritos
(2) a pic of the Thessalian plain (Wikipedia)

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Pausanias, Voyages
(3) Stephanos Byzantios
(4) Scholiast ad Apoll. Rhod.
(5) Scholiast ad Lykophr.
(6) Strabo, Geographica
(7) Catull, Epithalamion

Secondary literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Mythologie, 1884 (online too)
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Wörterbuch, 1770 (online too)
(3) William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,
     1870 (online too)
(4) Adolf Furtwängler, Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik: Kunstgeschichtliche
     Untersuchungen, Leipzig 1893 (online at digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de)
(5) Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, Oxford 1896 (online at
     books.google.com
(6) Der Kleine Pauly, 1979
(7) Karl Kerenyi,  Die Mythologie der Griechen I, dtv 1966
(8) Karl Kerenyi, Die Jungfrau und Mutter der griechischen Religion, eine Studie über Pallas
     Athene, Rhein Verlag 1952
(9) Denver Graninger: Cult and Koinon in Hellenistic Thessaly, Leiden/Boston/Tokyo: Brill
     Academic Publishers 2011
(10) Dietrich O. A. Klose, “Zur Chronologie der thessalischen Koinonprägungen im 2. und 1.
      Jh. v.Chr.: Ein weiterer Schatzfund aus Südthessalien,” in Ulrike Peter, Stephanos
      nomismatikos: Edith Schönert-Geiss zum 65. Geburtstag, Berlin 1998
(11) Nicholas V.Sekunda, The Kylloi and Eubiotoi of Hypata during the Imperial Period, in:
       Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 118 (1997) 207-226 (online)

Online sources:
(1) wikipedia.org
(2) wikisource.org (Article of the RE)
(3) www.theoi.com/Cult/AthenaCult4.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 17, 2012, 05:00:53 pm
I miss my friend Cleisthenes. Anyone who does know about him?

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 29, 2012, 03:26:50 pm
Herakles and Kerberos

In imperial times Herakleia Pontika has issued several coins showing the works of Herakles. Among them this ex. with a remarkable beautiful rev.

The Coin:
Bithynia, Herakleia Pontika, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 30, 17.23g, 30.09mm, 195°
obv. .AV - T. - K.L.CEP. - CEVHROC P
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. HRAKLHAC - EN PON - TW
       Herakles, nude, holding lion's skin and his club over l. arm, stg. with sidestep r., head l.,
       holding with r. hand three-headed Kerberos at rope who is std. at his feet r. looking up to
       him
ref. SNG von Aulock 378 (obv. same die, rev. different type; for rev. look at Makrinos #379);
      not in SNG Copenhagen, Tübingen, SNG Lewis, Rec. Gen.
extremely rare, about VF, some roughness on obv.
Pedigree:
ex lanznumismatik, E-Bay, 2008(?)
ex coll.  Andreas Kohn

Herakleia Pontika, the recent Eregli/Turkey, was found in 6th century BC by Greeks from Megara and Tanagra. The city developed to an important trading and cultural center at the
southern Black Sea coast. It was said that in its neighbourhood one of the entrances to the Hades could be found, the very entrance which Herakles has used to capture the three-headed Kerberos.

Mythology:
According to the usual canon the story of the capture of Kerberos was the 12th one, the last and the most difficult labour of Herakles. It seems that Erystheus by this challenge has tried to get rid of Herakles for ever.

To prepare for this work Herakles went to Eleusis where he wants to be initiated into the Eleisinian Mysteries. This was possible only for Athenians. So Herakles was adopted by a certain Pylios to become an Athenian. Herakles was inaugurated by Musaios, son of Orpheus, after purification from the killing of some Kentaurs. But Eumolpios denied his initiation into the greater Eleusinian Mysteries. Instead he founded the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries so that Herakles could be initiated.

So prepared and purificated Herakles climbed down to the Underworld at the Spartan Tainaron. He was led by Athena and Hermes. Charon, frightened by his gloomy glance, brought him over the river Styx. As punishment for that Charon was laid by Hades in chains for one year. When Herakles entered the other riverside all souls fled, except Medusa and Meleager. When Herakles saw Medusa he brandished his sword but Hermes stopped him and teached him that all souls of the deceased are only empty images and couldn't be wounded. But with Meleager's soul the hero talked friendly and received greetings for his beloved sister Deianeira. Herakles offered to marry her.

Near the gates of Hades he beheld his friends Theseus and Peirithoos. Both were fixed to gruesome benches. Herakles succeeded in tearing off Theseus, but Pereithoos he has to leave behind because the ground below his feet began to shake.

Next he met Askalaphos who once has revealed that Persephone has eaten from the pomegranates, the reason because she couldn't leave the Hades (see the article about the abduction of Persephone in this thread!). Herakles shifted from his chest the stone which was put there by Demeter in despair about the loss of her daughter. Then Herakles fell into the herds of Pluto and slaughtered one of his cattle to calm down the souls with the gift of warm blood. But the herdsman Menoitos didn't allow that and challenged Herakles for a wrestling match. Herakles clutched around his body and broke some of his ribs. In this moment Persephone came out of her palace, welcomed Herakles like a friend and asked him to spare Menoitos' life.

When Herakles demanded from Hades Kerberos, Hades answered, that he could take Kerberos if he overcome him without his weapons. So Herakles only with his lion's skin went to capture the  beast. He found him chained to the gates of the river Acheron and grasped his throat. Kerberos tried to hit him with his snake tail, but Herakles was defended by his lion's skin. When Kerberos was almost suffocated he surrendered.

With the help of Athena he crossed the river Styx again and came back to surface at Troizen. He went to Mykenai and shows the dog to Erystheus. Now the king saw that it was impossible to get rid of Herakles and dismissed him. Herakles brought the dog back to Hades.

Some additional notes:
It is reported that Herakles was allowed to descend to the Hades not before he has performed an Eleusinian purification ritual because of his killing of some Centaurs. It was Eumolpos, the founder of the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries (or Musaios, son of Orpheus), who has helped him by founding the so-called Lesser Eleusinian Mysteris. But today this initiation is suggested as an Orphic addition, and does not belong to the original mythology.
In contrast the rescue of Theseus is an integral part of Herakles' descent into hell. It is reported that Herakles succeeds in tearing off Theseus from the bench where he was magically bound. The magic was so strong that parts of his hip remains at the bench. Therefore all of his offsprings were born with small hips.

In this article I want to concentrate more on Kerberos. Sadly we have no consistent conception of Kerberos. I will come back to this matter.
 
(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 29, 2012, 03:29:44 pm
(continued)
 
(1) History:
The first time Kerberos appears is in Homer's Odyssee. There he is without a special name called only "dog of Hades". The name "Kerberos" we find first in Hesiod's Theogony. There he was already the guardian of the Underworld. His parents were Typhaon and Echidna, the snake-shaped monster, mother of many other monsters like the Lernaean Hydra, the two-headed dog Orthos of Geryon, the Chimaira or the Sphinx.

(2) Etymology:
There are found several different explanations for his name: The name should be composed of kreas = meat andboros = devourer. Wikipedia says that "Kerberos" means "daimon of the pit". But I think the great doyen Wilamowitz is right who regards the name as onomatopoetic: The name is imitating the ferocious growling of the dog.

(3) Appearance:
The most striking of his shape are the three heads. But just this feature has been established only in the course of years. At Hesiod he has had initially 50 heads, later only one! Pindar writes of 100 heads, and so does Horaz. Sometimes it is said that his fur exists of 100 snakes and he should had have a snake-tail with head which has bitten Herakles. These all are poetical inventions.The description with the 3 heads (triceps, triformis), we are familiar with, is originated from the Greek tragic poets and from Apollodor (2nd cent. BC). We recognize a strange relationship to the triform Hekate who as companions has dogs too!
The connection with snakes can be ascribed to their sepulcral-chthonic character (sepulcral = belonging to the funeral culture)

Already Roscher has stated that the number of heads, generally the entire appearance of the Kerberos, isn't originated from the old popular belief but is literary decoration. On early Corinthian depictions he mostly has one head, on Attic vases he appears mostly dicephalic (with 2 heads).

(4) Tasks:
Initially Kerberos was a companion of Hades, similar to the eagle as companion of Zeus (Aischylos Prom. 1002 calls the eagle "winged dog of Zeus"; look at the dogs of Hekate!). "Dog" in archaic times occurs too in the meaning "servant". The statue of Hades Borghese shows Kerberos peacefully clung to the legs of Hades. Actually Hades as chthonic deity should have snakes as companions. We know of old depictions of Kerberos where he is entwined by snakes which were not joined to him. The honey cake mentioned below is rather an offering for snakes. Here we see an archaic residual of the original conception. Hekataios of Milet says that at the Tanairon, an entrance to Hades, an horrible snake has dwelled which was called "Dog of Hades", because the bitten victim immediately had to die by its poison. This snake was brought to Erystheus by Herakles (Paus. III, 25.3). This story does match most likely the old popular belief. We see, that the Kerberos, as we know him, was not established in the popular belief, and that poets could arrange him in that shape which serves best their interests. The poet looks for effects even if they sometimes are not quite lucky. A tail-wagging hound of hell is a bit "tasteless" (Roscher).
Then from the companion of Hades he developed to the guardian of the underworld. It is said that he has welcomed each visitor more or less friendly, but then has left him no more off the Hades. By terrific growling, loud barking and even biting he has pushed him back. It was said too that he has ripped and devoured him! Dante has set Kerberos into the 3rd circle of the Inferno because of his voracity (Comedia Divina, Canto VI).

5. Outsmarting Kerberos:
But we have some examples where he has been outsmarted. Orpheus succeeded by his chanting when he tried to bring back his wife Eurydike. The sweetness of his singing lulled Kerberos and he fell asleep. Psyche and Aeneas succeeded by feeding him with honey cakes which Kerberos was passionated about. These actually rather an offering for chthonic snakes! Hermes succeeded by his kerykeion or by water from Lethe, the underworld river of oblivion.
In Christian-Byzantine times further visits of Hades are described:
Mazari ("flourishing" c. AD 1415) has written a satire novel: Mazari's Journey to Hades, or, Interviews with dead men about certain officials of the imperial court.
Then the "Timarion": a Pseudo-Lukian satirical dialogue, where Timarion, the protagonist of the novel, is abducted to the Hades where he met Christians who are a sect among others (author perhaps Michael Psellus, 11th cenrury AD).
I want to mention that similar dogs are found in the Indian Vedas and Upanishads too.  But there is no mythological connection to our Kerberos at all.

Doorways to Hades:
In Greek mythology we find several doorways to the underworld, which not only are mythological places but geographical localities. The best-known are
(1) at the Cape Tainaron (Matapan), the most south point of the Peloponnesos
(2) near Hermione (Ermioni) on the southern Peloponnesos
(3) near the city of Herakleia (today Eregli) at the southern coast of the Black Sea and
(4) at the Avernian Lake near the ancient Greek city of Cumae near Naples.

According to a report in the German magazine "Spiegel" no. 3/1964, p.80/81, the doorway to the underworld was found at the Avernian crater lake by the archaeologists  Dr.Paget and Jones, two NATO navy personnel. They have entered the doorway and climbed down to the river Styx, where they have photographed the river. "The most spectacular archaeological discovery of the 20th century!" The doorway consists of volcanic caves which were passed off by priests as entrance to Hades (Official bulletin No. 201 of the NATO Headquarter).

Generally Tainaron is named as place of Herakles' descent to hell. But all reports agree that Herakles has used a different way when he came back.
 
Reemerging from hell:
Several locations are cited for Herakles' reemerging from hell. That's probably because these cities wished to be connected to the labours of Herakles which was seen as special honour (von Ranke-Graves).
(1) Often Troizen is mentioned, at the sanctuary of Artemis Soteira (Pausanias, Apollodor)
(2) then the chthonic area of Hermione where the way to Hades is said to be so short that
     there was no need to give Charon a coin for the passage. This place was seen by the
     great Wilamowitz as the most original!
(3) According to a Boiotian myth the area of the Laphystian Zeus on the mountain
     Laphystios. Here in ancient times was located the statue of Herakles Charops, of
     "Herakles with the glossy eyes" (Pausanias, Ovid)
(4) the Thesprotian Hades region at the river Acheron (most probably euhemeristic).
(5) then Tainaron again.
(6) Especially remarkable is the localization of the reemerging place to Herakleia Pontika
     (today Eregli). Here at the Acherusian Cape (today Cape Baba) an arm of the underworld
     river Acheron is said to come to the surface. Hence the linguistic relation to the Acheron
     and the Acherousian Lake of the Epirotic Thesprotis, which in ancient times was regarded
     as River of the Dead. In a gorge a cave was located leading deep into the inner of the
     earth, called by the inhabitants "Grotto of Hades" and identified as the place where
     Herakles has come back from the underworld with Kerberos. According to Apollonios of
     Rhodos (Argonautika II, 726-749) this place was visited by the Argonaus. Xenophon too
     has visited it 355 BC on his way back to Greece.and was shown the site on the
     Acherousian peninsula where Herakles has entered the Hades. The Acherousian Caves
     were shown still today. They are signposted as "Cehennemagzi Magaralari" and a touristic
     attraction. Here the Byzantine Christians have held Eucharistic celebrations and today
     sometimes concerts take place.

About the selection of Herakleia Pontika as exit from the Hades there is an aitiological myth:
When Kerberos was fetched from the underworld he has sprayed snorting with rage his slobber, and where it dropped down to the ground helmet flower was sprouting, Akoniton (Lat. Aconitum), which appears in large numbers around Herakleia Pontika (Strab. XII 3, 7; Plin. nat. XXVI, 4). The botanical name cames from the cave of Akonai near Mariandyne at the Black Sea coast, or the mountain of Akonitos. Ovid in his Metamorphoses confirms this report, but relocates the work of Herakles to the northern coast of the Black Sea by narrating that Medea has brought Aconitum ab oris Scythicis (Ov. met. VII 406-413).  Aconitum is the most poisonous plant in Europe. It contains Aconitin, an alkaloid and one of the strongest plant toxins at all, stronger than strychnine. Already 3-6mg can kill an adult man. It was used by Thessalian witches as flying ointment. Because it makes hands and feet unfeeling they had the impression of flying. The plant was called Hekateis too because it should have been Hekate who has used it first (Ranke-Graves).

When Erystheus beheld Kerberos brought to the upperworld he fled in a pithos (a kind of a big barrel) as he did before when he saw the Erymanthian boar. It is told that Herakles has brought back the dog to the Hades. According to a myth in the  Oxyrhynchus Papyri the dog has escaped at a fountain near Mykenai, which since then is called Eleutheron Hydor, "Water of Freedom". Or near Argos where the Kynadra spring is named after him (kynos = Hund).

At the end the rationalist Palaiphatos has the word again, who has an entirely different view:
Near the city of Trikarenos Geryon has his herds of cattle and two dogs, Orthos and Kerberos, called the Trikarenian dogs. This later was misunderstood as tree-headed. When Herakles led away the cattle of Geryon he killed Orthos. But Kerberos was following the herd. This dog Molottos, a man from Mykenai, demanded from Erystheus. When Erystheus refused he persuaded one of the herdsmen to bring the dog to a cave near the Spartan Tainaron. Erystheus thereupon commanded Herakles to bring back the dog. After a long quest over the whole Peloponnesos Herakles found the cave, climbed down and brought back the dog. But the people said "Herakles has climbed down to the Hades and brought back the dog."
 
Background:
While fulfilling his works Herakles has obtained threetimes immortality: Of course the successful return from Hades is the overcoming of death. But the initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries too has promised an happy afterlife; the same was said by the oracle of Delphi for the completion of his labours. The same motiv with the same success we find by drinking from Hera's breast and the quest for the apple of the Hesperids. And we remember of Herakles' Ascension to heaven on the pyre.

The descent into hell as overcoming the death we know in Christianity as Harrowing of Hell (Gospel of Thomas). In Middle Ages Herakles was seen as prefiguration of Christ himself, a promise, which then was fulfilled by Christ. Overcoming Kerberos correspondends to overcoming Satan, and like Christ Herakles has two natures: a human and a devine. He appears in the early Christian paintings in the Catacombs as hero, who by his labours and hardship has won the heaven. He is depicted wearing a nimbus. This too a sign of the continuation of antiquity! But not only Herakles and Christ have overcome the death, but a victorious resurrection we know too from Dionysos, Mithras and Osiris.
 
History of Art:
In antiquity we have a vast number of Herakles representations on bowls and vases, and especially on sarcophagi as expression of hope for immortality. The first depiction of the 12 labours of Herakles we find on the metopes of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, completed 456 BC.

In Renaissance his labours are shown e.g. by G. Vasari on the ceiling of the Hercules Room
in the Palazzo Vecchio in Firence. In the Palazzo Farnese in Rom we find a grisaille of Annibale Caracci with Kerberos. Ruben's "Herakles and Kerberos" hangs in the Prado in Madrid. Dante's Commedia Divina was illustrated by Gustav Dore, 1823-1883. There is a picture showing Vergil in front of Kerberos. The drawings of Dore are connected so closely to the Commedia Divina, that today, after 150 years, they define our view.

Literature:
(1) Homer, Odyssee
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Apollonius von Rhodos, Argonautika
(4) Strabo, Geographika
(5) Vergil, Aeneis
(6) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(7) Plinius, Historia naturalis
(8) Palaiphatos, Unglaubliche Geschichten
(9) Dante, Comedia Divina

Secondary Literature:
(1) W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 1894  
     (online too)
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (online too)
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, 1960
(5) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, 1966
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, 2000
(7) Maurice Bloomfield, The History of an Idea, Chicago 1905 (auch online)

Online Sources:
(1) www.kimmerier.de/
(2) www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Cerberus.html
(3) www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/cerberus2.html
(4) www.theoi.com
(5) www.hellenica.de/Griechenland/PaulyRE/Acherusia2.html
(6) www.wikivoyage.org/de/Ere%C4%9Fli
(7) www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-46162751.html

I have added:
(1) the pic of a black-figured hydria from Caere/Etruria, c. 525 BD, ascribed to the Eagle
     Painter, today in the Louvre/Paris. It shows Herakles with Kerberos, who already has
     snakes, in front of Erystheus, who is hidden in his pithos.
(2) the pic of a black-figured Attic Hydria, c 530-520 BC, ascribed to the Karithaios Painter,
     today in the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA.
     This picture is from Baumeister's "Denkmäler des klassischen Alterthums": Herakles with
     raised club leads Kerberos out of the Hades with a chain, drawn through the jaw of one of
     the heads. He is about to lead Kerberos through the gateway indicated by an Ionic pillar.
     On his right Persephone is standing who has come out of her palace and seems to refuse
     him the abduction (sometimes interpreted as greeting). Herakles, turned right, seems to
     threaten the goddess, whereas Hermes at his left hold his protecting or restraining arm
     over him. Athena with averted face is ready to drive away with her protege. She stands
     before 4 horses tied to her chariot. The eagle on her shield promises a successful
     outcome of the undertaking.
(3) the pic from Gustave Dore's illustration of the Commedia Divina.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 29, 2012, 03:43:07 pm
Dear friends of the Mythology Thread!

The last contribution will be the last one for a longer period because of the lack of appropriate coins.

A happy new year, but above all content and health!

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 31, 2013, 03:11:09 pm
El/Kronos of Byblos

Each new coin is always a new adventure. Every time a new universe opens up. You can see this here.

The Coin:
Phoenicia, Byblos, 1st century BC
AE 22, 8.44g, 22.16mm, 315°
obv. Bust of City Goddess (Tyche), draped and veiled, wearing mural crown, r.
rev. El/Kronos, nude, stg. frontal, head (with feathern?) l., with 3 pairs of wings, 2 of them
      spread, the last one lowered, holding sceptre in extended r. hand
ref. BMC 97, 13; SNG Copenhagen 135
rare, F, nearly black patina
pedigree:
ex M&M, Basel, 14.2.1972
Note: This rev. is known too from coins of Antiochos IV Epiphanes (Houghton 696), of Alexander I Balas (Lindgren 1811) and Augustus (RPC 4526). On these coins the rev. legend consists of the ethnicon BYBΛIΩN and the issue year, e.g. on an Augustus coin LΛ (year 30 of the Pompeian city era). I think on my coin a similar rev. legend was present.
 
Byblos:
Byblos, today Jabal in Lebanon, somewhat north of Beirut, is one of the competitors for the title "oldest continuously inhabited city of the world" (another is Jericho). Referring to Phoenician tradition it was founded by El/Kronos, who surrounded it with walls. Even the ancient Phoenicians regarded Byblos as age-old city. Its origins are unknown, but scientists date it back to 5000 BC. The name Byblos, as Phoenicia too, would have been not understood by the ancient people. Since the city was called Gubla and later Gebal and the region at the coast was called Canaan. The recent names Byblos and Phoenicia are Greek from the time from about 1200 BC. Phoenicia because of the purple, Byblos because of the trade with papyrus. Today we understand under Canaan the land in the south-western Syrian region, identical with the recent Palestine. Phoenicia is situated north of it and is the name of a narrow strip of land at the eastern Mediterranean coast. Today Byblos belongs to the World Cultural Heritage.

In inscriptions from Byblos we habve found texts in an old scripture, which is undeciphered until today, the Byblian (not Biblical!) or Proto-Byblian, sometimes called Archaeo-Aegean too. It has some similarity with the scripture on the Diskos of Phaistos. Relations between Byblos and Crete are known.

The figure depicted on the reverse of my coin is often called Kronos. But we see that this deity has 3 pairs of wings. With that ist is surely not a Greek deity. The correct denomination is Phoenician Kronos, and that is El! And El belongs to the Phoenician pantheon. This coin leads us to an interesting intersection of Greek mythology with oriental religion and we will discover a significant cultural-religious turning point. As usually we start with mythology. It is based upon Philon of Byblos, who cites the pre-Trojan Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon. All has passed on to us by Eusebios of Caesarea.

Mythology:
In Byblos were ruling Eliun or Hypsistos and his wife Beruth. Their children were Epigeios or Autochthonos, who was later called Uranos, and Ge, after whom  heaven and earth were named. When Eliun died Uranos took the rulership, and with his sister Ge he begot Elos (El), Baitylos, Dagon and Atlas. But Elos was nobody else than Kronos. When he grow up he revolted against his father Uranos and with the help of Hermes Trismegistos (Thot) he defeated him and made himself king. The secondary wife of Uranos, being pregnant, he gave Dagon as wife, and she gave birth to Demaros. Kronos founded Byblos, the first city in Phoenicia. His brother Atlas he eliminated by sinking him in the deepest earth on the advice of Hermes Trismegistos.

Uranos who has fled, sent out his daughters Astarte, Rhea and Dione, to kill Kronos. But Kronos could capture them and made them his wifes. Astarte bore him the 7 Titanides  and the sons Pothos and Eros, Rhea bore him 7 sons and Dione daughters. Sydyk with one of the Titanides begot Asklepios. Pontos, another son of Kronos, became father of Sidon, the father of Poseidon and inventor of the hymnody. When Kronos has ruled already 32 years, he succeeded in capturing his father Uranos. With a sickle, made by Thot, he emasculated him. Whereupon his soul vanished and his blood poured out into the neighbouring wells and rivers which turned red. The location of this deed is shown still today.

After that Kronos gave his rulership to Astarte, Zeus Demaros and Adodos. From a visiting tour over her countries Astarte brought a stone which was fallen from heaven and whose whorship she introduced on the holy island of Tyros. After ships were invented by the Cabirs Kronos visited the entire inhabited world and gave his daughter Athena the rulership over Attica.

When once a dangerous plague threatened the land Kronos sacrificed his favourite son to Uranos. He introduced the circumcision. Another son, Muth (Pluto), whom he had by Rhea, he deified after his death. Dione he gave Byblos, Poseidon and the Cabirs received Berytos where the Cabirs brought the body of the devinely whorshipped Pontos, and Taautos (Thot), a son of Misor and inventor of writing, received the rulership over Egypt.

Background:
the source of our knowledge of the Canaanite religion previous was only the Old Testament where its faith appears but in a very unfavourable light as manifestation of highest degeneracy and immorality. The worst sort of all gods was the storm god Ba'al Hadad. He was fighted by the Israelites at its most fierce, because he threatened their national god Jahwe most badly.

But when in 1929 and in the years hereafter in Ras Shamra, the ancient Ugarit in Northern Syria, the famous tablets with mythological texts were found and the Ugaritic script was deciphered, our knowledge has changed decisively. The found texts have shown, that El was the name of the highest god of the Ugaritic pantheon, father of a big family of gods. This raises the question of wether the Ugaritic El can be identical with the El of the Israelites.

Yahweh was called El too, and that was not only an apellative with the meaning "god", but a name too, in particular the name of the highest god. El has revealed himself to Abraham who originally came from Ur in Mesopotamia, and he has led Abraham to Canaan, where he was whorshipped not only by Abraham and his family but from the Canaanites too.
 
But in the Ugaritic pantheon not only the family  of El appears, but the family of the young and vigorous storm god Ba'al Hadad too, and his  father Dagan and his sister 'Anat. The Ugaritic mythology describes in detail the hardest conflicts between these two families of gods. The wife of the Ugaritic El was Asherat. In the Old Testament she is found strange enough in connection with the cult of Ba'al.

The texts found in Ras Shamra can be dated to the 1st half of the 14th century BC. But the described myths naturally can be much older, eventually they are from the transition from the 3rd to the 2nd millenium (W.F.Albright).

The revolutionary discoveries from Ugarit now have eliminated all doubts about the belief that the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon is actually of age-old Canaanitic origin. This was long denied by scientists and Sanchuniathon was hold for a figure of pure phantasy.  
 
The genealogy of gods which we have learned by Sanchuniathon shows great similarity with the theogony of Hesiod. It was said that Sanchuniathon has copied from Hesiod. Now we see that the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon is much more similar to the Ugaritic texts than to the Greek mythology. That is true for the names of the gods and their characteristics. It is proved too by the findings by the excavations of the kingly archive of Hattusa, the ancient metropolis of the Hittites (E.O.Forrer), which according to Güterbock go back to Hurrian originals. Here we find the corresponding fightings of gods too with the castration of the older gods by the young storm god.

The origin of this mythology seems to be Sumer where the Hurrian have taken them over and distributed everywhere on their way. On their way to India even the Indo-Arians have taken along the castration myth. The Greek may have heard from it by the mediation of the Phoenicians.

(Will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 31, 2013, 03:15:03 pm
(continued)

(1) Etymology
The name of El, or 'ilu, meaning "god", occurs in all Semitic languages. The root is probably 'wl with the meaning "strength, power". Arabic it is developed to ilah and with article to allah, Hebrew eloh. At the Hebrews el appears often in personal names, e.g. Gabri-el, Micha-el, Samu-el, Isra-el or Isma-el and so on. In the Old Testament happens the fusion with the national god Yahweh, who is called often El too. Later very often named Elohim, pluralis majestatis of El, or as abstractum.

(2) Depiction of El
Winged gods we find already at the Sumerians. Whereas El from the late Bronze Age in Ugarit is without wings, he is depicted in the later Phoenician art and in Hellenistic times with wings. The coins of the Seleucids beginning with Antiochos IV Epiphanes have the winged El. Sanchuniathon describes El as follows: " He has 4 eyes, 2 in front and 2 behind, from which 2 are closed during sleep. On his shoulders are 4 wings, 2 flying and 2 resting. This symbol shows that he is awake during sleep and resting when he flies."

But his virility is mentioned too. In a poem is reported that 2 women once spotted the nude El walking along the beach. They were charmed by the size of his member and the end was that they bore him a son. This attribute of El you can see well on the attached scetch.

From this source the wings of the Seraphim can be originated. They are described having 6 wings: Each of them has six wings. With two of them they cover their face, with two they cover their feet, and with two they were flying. (Jes. 6, 2-39) I don't want to claim the descent of the Seraphim from El/Kronos. But the Seraphim prove, that winged deities were not unknown to the ancient Hebrews. Even Yahweh himself is sometimes described as winged in the Old Testament and we know pictures where Yahweh with wings is riding on a Cherub (look at the attached pic of a stamp seal. Wether this is meant only metaphorical, can well be doubted. Actually these are reminiscents of the archaic image of the El from the time of 1200-600 BC.

(3) Importance of El
In the Canaanite pantheon El was the most powerful god. He seems to have had such great and comprehensive powers, that only rarely one  risked to look at him closer or to anthromorphize him. Only in some texts of Ugarit he is like Zeus characterized as untrue husband (Wikipedia).

El/Il always is a divine being, or the divine itself, but not a personal name. In a concrete sense as the lord of a special location, it is the north-Semitic Ba'al. But El/Il is always abstract, the devine as such. He stands above all gods, he is well-recognized, but scarcely worshipped. We don't know a cult for El/Il nor any temple. A similar role played Allah for Mohammed (Roscher).  

El, in contrast to Ba'al, is not attached to a locality, e.g. a mountain or tribe features. Thus he is especially qualified for the assimilation of universalistic perceptions of a High God. We don't know of a Proto-Semitic monotheism in the Old Testament, but we have indications of a Pre-Mosaic henotheistic El religion of the Israelitic Patriarchs (Pauly). In the mythology of Ugarit he is the father of gods building a family, the head of a polytheistic pantheon. He has features of a benevolent, wise, sometimes unpredictabel too, deus senex. The fusion of Yahweh with the Canaanite main deity has taken some of the asperity from the Israelitic Yahweh and in contrast added the features of El as king of gods and creative demiurgos(Pauly).

In Hellenism El is interpreted as Kronos (interpretatio graeca), because of his depiiction as old wise man with gray hairs and oldest god of all, father of all other gods. This was the role of El too.

(4) The Conflict between El and Ba'al
A central role in the Ugaritic mythology plays the struggle between the family of El and the family of Ba'al, where at the end El is defeated and has to retire as elder statesman. The end of this fight happens on Mount Saphon (= mons Kasios), the seat of the gods. About this fight we hear nothing in Sanchuniathon's "Phoenician History". Here El is to the end the highest god of the pantheon. The explanation is easy: The fight between El and Ba'al reflects a historical-cultural conflict which happens after Sanchuniathon. El was the old god of the Canaanites. Ba'al Hadad was brought to Canaan by the Amorites, first to the north with its fertile plains, at last to the mountainous south. And hence we come to the Israelites.

(5) El = Yahweh
The Israelites settling farther south were worshipping further the Canaanite El. In fact El was defeated and Ba'al took over his reign, but El has not disappeared, but as god of Abraham and his family he became the god of the Israelites. The hostility between the Israelites and the Canaanites is reflected by the conflict of the Israelitic god Yahweh with Ba'al and his priests. Or: Such as Ba'al previous has fight for the hegemony against El so now the fight of Ba'al rages against the Israelitic god. Reasonable because the Israelites penetrated the fertile Canaan and settled there. That couldn't not be peaceful. The Old Testament is full of the most bloody battles. El was taken by the Isrelites and was then changed by Moses and his legislation into Yahweh. That can explain too such strange phenomena like the replacements in names like El-jakim to Jejo-jakim.

Originally the Israelites were desert nomads. When they came to Canaan they brought along their god Yahweh = El. But at this time in Canaan the cult of Ba'al-Hadad has already widespread. As god of fertility, rain and weather he does meet much besser the needs of the agriculture practizing Canaanites than Yahweh which the Israelites have met in the desert. So it happened that the Israelites often assimilated the local cults of Ba'al and his bulls. Thereby they were in great danger to loose their national identity which depends on the belief in Yahweh. Therefore severe conflicts arose especially during the time of the Judges against the proliferation of these cults. They began to isolate their belief increasingly from the Canaanitic. In this time Yahweh became a jealous god. On the Mount Carmel a competition was hold between Elijah and Ba'al priests who of their gods was the actual rain god, and Yahweh was the winner. In this time the Israelitic monotheism may have been developed too..

The rivalry between these two beliefs existed until the reign of king David, who remitted rigid laws for the cult of Yahweh. Nevertheless he took Phoenician craftsmen sent by king Hiram of Tyros to erect the famous temple in Jerusalem. May be because they venerated with El a god close to Yahweh? After the death of Salomon the empire desintegrated into the two small states of Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

By the economical expansion of the Phoenician trade the cult of Ba'al Hadad, who in Tyros was named Melqart, spread widely. The northern Israel came in close neighborhood to Tyros and when the Phoenician princess Jezebel married Ahab, king of Israel, the cult of Ba'al and Asherah was taken over. And despite the revolt of Jehu aginst the royal house of Ahab the cult of Ba'al and Asherah stayed relevant deities in Israel until the Babylonian captivity.

In the southern empire of Judah the Phoenician cult of Ba'al was introduced by the political marriage of Atalja with the Jewish vasal king. When Atalja entered the throne of David a temple for Ba'al was erected even in Jerusalem. Despite the reaction of the highpriest Jojada, who let put Atalja to death, the cult of Ba'al survived in Judah, and we hear of king Manasseh that he erected altars for Ba'al even in the courts of the Yahweh temples! Although king Josiah, probably under the influence of the prophet Jeremiah, purified the temples of Yahweh and destroyed the Ba'al cults in his kingdom, after his death they flourished again and this remains until the Babylonian captivity.

The further story belongs lesser to mythology but rather to history of religion.

Our authors:

Eusebios of Caesarea:
born in Caesarea c.260-265, died. c.339-340, was episcopos of Caesarea since 313. He
worked on the literary remains of Origines and leant towards Areios (Arianismus). He was a close counselor of Constantine I, but voted on the Council of Nikaia AD 325  for the homo-usian confession of faith, because it was the wish of Constantine. Later he defended Areios and demanded the expulsion of Athanasios. He wrote a number of important religious works. For this article I name only the Praeparatio Evangelica where he cited Philon of Byblos. He wrote an apology of Origines, some works against Marcellus of Ankyra or against Porphyrios, the Neoplatonist. He was highly estimated by Constantine, is regarded as father of the church historiography and is counted to the Church Fathers.
 
Philon of Byblos (= Herennios Philon):
born c.64 BC in Byblos, died c.141 AD, was a Phoenician historian at the time of Hadrian, known particularly from the Suda. About his life we know very few.  His most important work is a history of Phoenicia, where he claims that he has translated the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon from the Phoenician to the Greek. His decription is euhemeristic, i.e. he explains the gods as ancient, important humans. He tried to reduce the Greek culture to the ancient Phoenician culture. Roscher called this "ridicolous". He wrote a big work about Hadrian of which only the title is known and 30 volumes "On Cities and their Citizens" of which only fragments are known.

Sanchuniathon:
was a pre-Trojan Phoenician historian from Berytos and lived probably in the 9th century BC. It is said that he has received his knowledge about the Phoenician religion from a priest named Hierombolos and has it written down in a 8 or 9 volume work named "Phoenician History", which is cited by Philon von Byblos.But known are only remains at Eusebios of Caesarea. His work, which partially shall copied from columns in Byblos, contains a cosmogony, a zoogony and reports about replacing generations of gods (Pauly). Formerly he was hold for a mythological figure, invented by Philon von Byblos himself and named after the Phoenician god Sanchon. But today the scientists think that he is a historical figure. Prof. Forbes from Edinburgh could prove that the texts of Sanchuniathon doubtless are related to the texts of Ugarit which were found since 1929 in Ras Shamra (Ugarit), of which the most ancient are written in Akkadian.

Sources:
(1) The Old Testament
     (especially  'Genesis' und 'Exodus')

Secondary Literature:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,  (online too)
(3) Heinrich Wilhelm Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen  
     Mythologie (online too), Leipzig 1884-1937
(4) Otto Eissfeldt, El im ugaritischen Pantheon, Berlin, 1951
(5) W.F.Albright, Specimens of Late Ugaritic Prose, 1958
(6) Ulf Oldenburg, The Conflict between El and Ba'al in Canaanite Religion, Leiden 1969
(7) Finkelstein/Silberman, Keine Posaunen vor Jericho, Beck München 2003
(8) E.O.Forrer, Eine Geschichte des Götterkönigtums aus dem Hatti-Reiche, 1936
(9) Stephen Herbert Langdon. Mythology of All the Races, Semitic. Vol. 5. Boston.
     Archaeological Institute of America, 1931
(10) Forbes, Peter Barr Reid, "Philon of Byblos", New York, Oxford University Press,  
      1991
(11) H.G.Güterbock, 'Kumarbi, Mythen vom churritischen Kronos aus den hethitischen
       Fragmenten zusammengestellt, übersetzt und erklärt, 1946
(12) Wolfgang Röllig, Die Religion Altsyriens, Darmstadt 1973 (auch online)
(13) Martin Klingbeil, Yahweh Fghting From Heaven: God as Warrior and as God of Heaven in
       the Hebrew Psalter and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography, Göttingen 1999
(14) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythologie, Eigenverlag 2011

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) www.WiBiLex.de
     (Stefan Lauber)
(3) www.bibelwissenschaft.de
(4) www.bibleorigins.net
     (Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M. A. Ed.)
(5) www.livius.org

To round up this subject I recommend the following articles in this thread:
- Astarte, or Ba'alat Gebul, the Lady of Byblos
- Baetyl, the sacred stone
- Zeus Kasios
- Kronos - Father of Gods
- Asteria - the Star Goddess
- Atargatis or Dea Syria, the Great Syrian Goddess
- Melqart - Herakles
- Eshmun - The Phoinician Healer God
- Die pre-Islamic goddess Al-Lat
- Shamash - The Babylonian sun-god
- Hadad - Jupiter Heliopolitanus
- Saturn - the old Roman God of Agriculture
 
Attached Pics:
(1) As written above there was no temple for El. Not even in Byblos. Therefore I have attached
     a pic of the temple of Ba'alat Gebul from Byblos, whose last version is from 4 century BC.
(2) A pic of Mt. Saphon seen from Ugarit. This mountain was hold as seat of the gods, first of
     El. after his defeat as seat of Ba'al, who here was named after this mountain Ba'al Sapan
     (www.livius.org).
(3) Fig. 82. Depiction of the coin of Antiochos IV Epiphanes. Sanchuniathon describes the
     deity so: "He has 4 eyes, 2 in front and 2 behind, from which 2 are closed during sleep. On
     his shoulders are 4 wings, 2 flying and 2 resting. This symbol shows that he is awake
     during sleep and resting when he flies. (Langdon)"
(4) MCV-118S. A stamp seal with a depiction which is identified by scientists as winged
     Yahweh on a Cherub, acompanied by a winged goddess, Asherah, flying over a Holy tree
     (Martin Klingbeil, 1999)

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 27, 2013, 05:34:24 pm
Dear friends of the Mythology Thread!

Now I have put the new articles to a book, adding some new articles. It has 80 pages and is full of historical, cultural and other informations which should be of interest for educated collectors. Hardcover, full colour. The price depends on the number of copies.  I hope to hold the price at €32.- The book is in German. Please feel free to ask for a copy (without any obligation!).

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 28, 2013, 10:20:43 am
The book is in German. My English articles which I have posted here are sadly of bad style. If I only could find somebody who can translate my German articles into English!

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Taras on May 29, 2013, 04:03:35 pm
Hi Jochen, my most sincere congratulations for your wonderful work on mythology in Numismatics!

I want to bring to your attention an issue of Mamertines, probably celebrating their conquer of the Adranon area in Sicily.

SICILY, The Mamertinoi. Circa 278-264 BC. Æ Unit (19mm, 5.46 g).
ADRANOU; Helmeted head of Adranon left / Dog standing right; F above, in exergue MAMERTINWN.
CNS 20; SNG ANS 418; SNG Morcom 630.

Adranon was a Sicilian local deity, which was later assimilated to Ares by the Greeks.
The ancient author Aelian (De Natura Animalium, XI 20; Nymphodor) reports that Nymphodor in the III century b.C. wrote about the temple of Adranon, in the Sicilian town of the same name.

Adranon was the local God of war, and his  cult was also linked to the consumption of wine, as confirmed by the archaeological evidences in the area.
Nymphodor wrote, "The temple is inhabited by thousands of dogs... These animals during the day joyfully welcome the visitors going to shrines, and this without making any distinction between foreigners and locals. Their behavior is different during the night, when they accompany with great kindness those already drunk... However they devour those that in drunkenness commit crimes."

Those dogs still exist in Sicily. The breed is called "Cirneco dell'Etna."

Bye :)
Nico
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 30, 2013, 01:19:04 pm
Never heard before. Thanks for your contribution.

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 11, 2014, 04:47:02 pm
Pride!

I have seen on www.worldcat.org that my mythology book is located in

- Bavarian State Library, München
- Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Frankfurt
- Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris

and available in
- Thomas J.Watson Library, Metropoliton Museum of Art,  New York
- Princeton University Library, Princeton
- Library of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

and 1 copy was acquired by Basil C. Demetriadi (BCD), Athens

I think I can be proud!

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: gordian_guy on May 12, 2014, 01:21:25 pm


You should be proud Jochen! It is a wonderful book and the supplement equally so. Thank you so very much!!

c.rhodes
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Akropolis on May 12, 2014, 01:39:32 pm
Yes, indeed! VERY proud!
A splendid contribution, Jochen!
PeteB
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 08, 2014, 02:25:24 pm
Pygmalion

Dear friends of ancient mythology!

After a long time I have a new article for this thread. I hope that it is interesting for others too. But the subject of this article is not only mythology but the kind in which we he have solved the riddle of the presented coin. So I will begin with mythology and then in the second part turn to the coins.

1. Pygmalion I was king in Cyprus, who has fallen in love to an ivory statue of Aphrodite. He treated her as a living woman, laid her in his bed and dealt with her like his spouse. (Philostephanos, after it also Clem. Alex. protr. and Arnobius adv. nationes).

According to Ovid (Met. X., 243ff.) Pygmalion was a sculptor, who, because of bad experiences with women, the so-called Propoetides, has decided to stay unmarried. But when he once has created a beautiful maiden from ivory he felt in love with her and treated her as his lover. He gave her gifts and caressed her. On a feast in honour of Aphrodite he prayed to the gods to give him a consort like this ivory statue. And Aphrodite has heard his prayer. When he came home and kissed his statue he felt that she became warm and alive. The Kleine Pauly is seeing in this invention a prize for the creating artist, who - when he is laying his soul into his creation - comes near to the creative deity or nature.

Religio-historically Pygmalion is probably the Cyprian form of Adonis in whom the vitalizing power of spring is incarnating (Pauly). The name of Galatea was added to his mistress not before the 18th century AD. Pygmalion has with her a daughter (or son) Paphos, who again has a son Kinyras. From Paphos later the whole island of Cypros got its name. Roscher suggests that this is the original myth and that the variant of Philostephanos is only an abbreviation.

Notes:
[1] In Greek mythology the Propoetides are the daughters of Propoetus in the city of Amathus (Ovid, Met. X., 220ff.). They are seen as the first women of antiquity who prostituted themselves publically. When they refused to present offerings to Venus they were punished by the loss of any sense of shame so that soon nobody wanted to be concerned with them. Venus then turned the Propoetides to stones (Wikipedia).

In psychology 2 further terms are used which originate from the mythology of Pygmalion:
[2] Agalmatophilia (Pygmalionism): This is the strong affection (even sexually) to (nude) statues. Also other inanimate human depictions like paintings or (sex-)dolls can serve as fetish.
[3] The Pygmalion effect (= Rosenthal effect) was described in social psychology. By experiments in 1965 the American psychologist Robert Rosenthal detected that the idea which a teacher has of a student has an impact on the IQ of this student. If the teacher takes a student for highly talented this student makes more improvements than if he takes him for less able. This is a kind of  "self-fulfilling prophecy". 

2. Pygmalion II., Phoenician Pu'mayatton, 831-785 BC, son of Belos II (or of Mutto), was king of Tyre.His sister was Elissa, Phoenician meaning "heroine" or "the divine", later called Dido (probably from Phoenician 'didas' = "who moves around'. Because of greed he killed Sychaeus (or Sicharbas), the husband of Elissa and one of the most wealthy Tyrians, to get his treasures. In a dream the dead appeared to Elissa and revealed the crime. Thereupon Elissa took the treasures and with some faithful she fled from Tyre. On her flight she first came to Kypros, where she took a priest of Herakles and 80 virgins. To this connection between Tyre and Kypros we will come later. The further story of Elissa you can read in the proper article about Dido in this thread. By the way, she has had a sister Anna Perenna whose fate is subject of another article in this thread. This story is told by Vergil in his Aeneis, I, 347.

Roscher writes: It is possible that a king with this name has ruled besides Tyre in Kitium too, the Tyrian part of Kypros. Pumay probably is the name of a Phoenician god. Pumaj, the god, was called 'eljon (= geljon), so Pumaj-geljon which was made by the Greeks to Pygmalion. Thus Pygmalion actually is a deity and that fits the concept of breathing life into dead statues. As a  foundation of Pygmalion is seen Karpasia on Cyprus. Adonis sometimes is called Pygmaion too after his grandfather Pygmalion. In turn the name of Pygmalion can be traced back to Pygmaion too. Anyway we have a strong relation to Adonis. And we have found a close interconnection between Pygmalion II and Pygmalion I.
 
Now we come to the coins. Origin of the whole recherche was this coin of Elagabal from Tyre, which has a reverse that has confused me.

Coin No. 1:
Phoenicia, tyre, Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 30, 12.34g, 30.2mm, 180°
obv. IMP CAES M AV AN - TONINVS AV
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from front, laureate, r.
rev. TYRIORVM
       Male figure, nude, cloak (or animal skin) over extended r. arm, advancing l.,
       chlamys around neck waving r., in his raised l. hand holding transverse spear and
       an unknown object (shield?); r. behind him 4 stags leaping r., where he possibly
       is holding the reins; all on a base line.
       in upper field star, beneath stags murex shell
       (Gitler/Bijovsky type I)
ref. Rouvier VII, p. 80, 2388; BMC Phoenicia p. 277, 408; Babelon ("Les Perses 
        Achemenides") 2244; Mionnet V, 657; not in SNG Copenhagen, SNG UK,
        SNG Deutschland, SNG Righetti, Lindgren
very rare (only 6 ex. known), S, porous
pedigree:
ex coll. Adrian W.
ex FAC

Note (FAC): The legend here is TYRIORVM, not COL TYR, because after the revolt of the legio III Gallica and its suppression by Elagabal the status as colonia was transferred to Sidon.

FAC has called the male figure Kadmos, son of the Tyrian king Agenor. But Stephenson (Dictionary of Roman Coins) writes about this type of coins:
Quadriga of Stags - A first brass of Gordian III. exhibits a car, drawn by four stags, and in which a naked male figure stands, holding in his right arm a garment, and in his left hand a wand.  There is a star in the field of the coin and the usual shell-form symbol of Tyre, beneath the fore-legs of the stags.
[Vaillant quotes several passages from Nonnus in support of his opinion that the man in the car is meant for the Tyrian Hercules, who, it seems, was amongst other names called Astrochiton, as if the leader of the stars (Dux Astrorum). The Tyrians furnish the chariot of this god of theirs with stags instead of horses, in allusion to the rapidity of his movements. A stag was the emblem of the sun's velocity; and Hercules and the sun, according to Macrobius, was the same.]

By the way, the garment over the right arm on my coin looks like a lion's skin, so strengthening the interpretation as Herakles. Thereupon I have checked Macrobius' 'Saturnalia' and in book I, XX he says, that Hercules is the sun. And Nonnus.'Dionysiaka', s. 40, 366-410 celebrates him hymnically as Hercules Astrochiton. Bit I have never found a source for his claim that stags are a symbol for his rapidity!

(will be continued!)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 08, 2014, 02:31:19 pm
(continuation)

The solution was found by Charles Rhodes (gordian_guy) of our forum. He has the Tyrian coin of Gordian III, which was described by Stephenson, in his collection.

Coin No.  2:

Phoenicia, Tyre, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 30, 21.48g, 180°
obv. IMP GORDIANVS - PIVS FEL AVG
        Gordian, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. C-O-L TVR MET
       (Description of the seller:) Uncertain male figure stg. r., holding chlamys and
       sceptre, on the right side 4 stags, galloping r., beneath the stags murex snail
ref. cf Rouvier 2434
pedigree:
ex coll. J. S. Wagner

This revers type first appears under Elagabal (Type I) and has been struck for Gordian III, Valerian, Gallienus and Salonina. In contrast to to my coin, the coin of Gordian III (Type II, Phase I) has in the lower field an inscription of Phoenician letters,  , which at first couldn't be explained. This coin type has been published in 1954 by H. Hamburger. The translation from the Phoenician was done by Dr. I Ben Dor and resulted in Bodmelqart. But this translation was incorrect. Robinson in 1997 supposed, that this name should have a reference to king Pygmalion and read PGMLYN. In Gitler/Bijovsky 2002 we finally find the reading PGMLYON! They too have divided these coins in Type I and II, were Type II was further divided in 4 different phases, according to the existence of the Phoenician inscription and the distribution of the attributes on the reverse.

So it is not Herakles-Melqart, but Pygmalion = Pu'mayyaton, king of Tyre (here called Pygmalion II)!

Sadly not all problems of this coin type are solved. Pygmalion II, king of Tyre, actually was not an example that could be glorified on coins. Because of greed he has killed the husband of Elissa and Dante Alighieri in his 'Comedia Divina' has put him into the purgatorium as example for  human greed. A different figure is Pygmalion I, king or sculptor from Cyprus. May be that here both figures are melted, or the Cyprian Pygmalion was transferred to the Tyrian Pygmalion. We know of historical relations between Tyre and Cyprus:
- Elissa (Dido) is said to have landed at Cyprus when she fled to North-Africa. A hint
   that Tyre has turned towards the Western Mediterranean.
- In Kition on Cyprus existed a sanctuary of Melqart, the City God of Tyre. Roscher: It
   is possible that in this Tyrian part of Kypros a king Pygmalion has ruled. At any way
   it is the proof, that the influence of Tyre has reached to Kypros.
This connection between Pygmalion I and Pygmalion II is denied categorically by Schmitz-Evans, but she didn't know these coins.

And then the four stags are unexplained. Actually they are symbols for hunting. But either Pygmalion I nor Pygmalion II are connected to hunting. An attempt we find at Gabriella  Bijovsky in 'More about Pygmalion from Tyre':

In 1950 Hill proposed to identify the male figur with Ousoos the hunter, who, according to Philo of Byblos, was the founder of Tyre. This was affirmed by Mesnik du Buisson in 1965 and Will 1973. Bijovsky refuses this proposal, because Ousoos was indeed a hunter, but above all the founder of Tyre.  But that is not depicted on the coins.

According to Barnett and Seyrig there are enough reasons to believe that Herakles-Melqart, the main deity of Tyre, has been a hunter too. But on these coins his main attributes are missed: the club and the lion's skin around his neck.

The suggestion of Robinson to take the figure just for king Pygmalion of Tyre is not convincing because he was not an appealing figure and he is not known as hunter.

Bijovsky proposes to see Pygmalion in context to a local hunter hero, in Syro-Phoenician tradition. This was mentioned already by Will in 1952 and Seyrig 1963, but was not developed further. We do know that Pygmalion is connected to Adonis, who is known as hunter. Aphrodite has fallen in love with him and has protected him on his hunting expeditions. Nevertheless he was killed by a boar and buried near Byblos in Phoenicia, beside a river, bearing his name. Thus he became a local hero of Byblos. Interestingly he was never depicted on coins. But in this way Adonis as well as Pygmalion were directly connected to Cyprus, which at this time indeed was a colony of Tyre. And additionly Pygmalion was one of the several names of Adonis, under which name he was worshipped in Kypros. Hesychios calls Pygmaion the Adonis of the Cyprians.

So it is well possible that the Greek myth of Adonis is based on a Phoenician figure of a young mythical hunter. This myth existed in several different local manifestations. If this assumption is correct then the male figure on our coins can be Pygmalion, a syncretistic version of Adonis, depicted as hunter, holding his trophies, 4 stags, with reins, and standing beside a river.

History of Literature:
We know of several literary adaptations of the Pygmalion stuff. I list some by chance:
[1] Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), Pygmalion - Eine Romanze, 1767
      By the way, when Goethe in his Tour of Italy enters Rome he speaks of Pygmalion
      and Elise, for sure a confusion with Elissa
[2] George Bernard Shaw (1856- 1950), Pygmalion, 1913/14 (after Ovid)
      Here Pygmalion is Henry Higgins, professor of phonetics, and Elissa is the
      flower girl Eliza Doolittle. Higgins tries to teach Eliza the fine English,so that she
      can pass as duchess on a garden party. He succeeds, but because Eliza for Higgins
      is only his work and not an emancipated human being, she separates from him.
[3] 'My Fair Lady', Musical after Shaw, 1956, Music: Frederic Loewe, Text: Alan Jay
      Lerner. I think, the song "It greens so green when Spain's blossoms bloom", is
      known by all of us.
[4] Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008), ELIZA, A computer program. Look at the
      following excursion!

History of Art:
The story of Pygmalion and Galatea was a favoured subject in paintings and literature.

Of the many pictures I have choosen these two:
[1] Jean Leon Gerome, Pygmalion and Galatea, 1890-1893, private coll. Gerome was
      a representative of the Academic Classicism. For the theme Pygmalion and
      Galatea he created a series of different sculptures and paintings. 1892 he painted a
      marble group he has created which hereafter served as model for different
      paintings. The scenes always are playing in his atelier, so that he is seeing himself
      in the role of Pygmalion.
[2] Paul Delvaux (1897-1994), Pygmalion, 1939, today in the Musees Royaux des Beaux-
     Arts, Brussels. Delvaux was one of the most importat surrealists. This painting is
      remarkable in that we see a change of roles: Here Pygmalion is the sculpture and is kissed
      by Galatea. But in contrast to the ancient myth she will not succeed, then on Pygmalion is
      missed the lower part of his body.

Sources:
  [1] Ovid, Metamorphosen X, 243ff.
  [2] Vergil, Aeneis I, 340-368
  [3] Apollodoros,
  [4] Nonnos, Dionysakia
  [5] Macrobius, Saturnalia
  [6] Dante, Göttliche Komödie, Purgatorium, Canto XX, 103-105
  [7] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Pygmalion
  [8] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Italienische Reise
  [9] G.B.Shaw, Pygmalion, 1913/14
[10] "My Fair Lady", Musical nach Shaw, Music: Frederic Loewe 1956, Text: Alan
        Jay Lerner (1956)

Secondary literature:
[1] Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
[2] Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und
      Römischen Mythologie, 1897-1902
[3] Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
[4] Der Kleine Pauly
[5] Wikipedia, Pygmalion of Tyre
[6] Wikipedia, Pygmalion (mythology)
[7] Monika Schmitz-Emans, Literatur und Mythos (lecture), 8. Pygmalion (und
      Venus)

Numismatical literature:
[1] Jules Rouvier, Numismatique des Villes de la Phenice [8]: Tyr, 1903/1904 
      (Google Books)
[2] Ernest Charles Francois Babelon, Les Perses Achemenides, les satrapes et les
      dynasties tributaries de leur empire, Cypre et Phenicie, Paris, 1893 (Google
      Books)
[3] H. Hamburger, A Hoard of Syrian Tetradrachms and Tyrian Bronze Coins from
      Gush Halav, 1954 (Jstor)
[4] M. Robinson, Phoenician Inscriptions on the Late Roman Bronze Coinage of Tyre,
      Part I - A Coin Depicting Pygmalion, The Numismatic Circular, volume CV, No.
      6, July 1997, pp. 199-201 (not available!)
[5] Gabriela Bijovsky, More About Pygmalion From Tyre, 2000 (academia.edu)
[6] Haim Gitler/Gabriela Bijovsky, The Coins of Pygmalion from Tyre, A
      Chronological Sequence from Elagabal to Gallienus, 2002 (academia.edu)
[7] Alfred Hirt, Bild und Kontext - Eine Annäherung an die tyrische Bronzeprägung
      des 3. Jhs. n.Chr., Hefte des Archäologischen Seminars der Universität, HASB
      21/2009

I want to thank Charles Rhodes (gordian_guy) for solving this intricate riddle!

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 08, 2014, 03:52:36 pm
Excursion: Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA

Joseph Weizenbaum, born in 1923 in Berlin, emigrated with his family to the  USA, where he was professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MITS) and became one of the pioneers of artificiel intelligence (AI). In broad circles he became famous by his computer program ELIZA, named after G.B.Shaws Eliza from his  'Pygmalion'.  In later years he became a strong critic of the unconsidered application of computers, caused too by the abuse of his ELIZA program. A problem that is today more acute than formerly. He died 2008 in Gröben near Berlin.

ELIZA is an early example for using artificial intelligence for human language.  It was written in 1966 in LISP, a typical computer language for artificial intelligence. During a simuilated psychoanalytical session the program imitates a psychoanalyst who is talking with the patient. Weizenbaum has chosen the name ELIZA because Prof. Higgins was a professor of phonetics. His model for the sessions was the method of Carl Rogers.

Carl Ransom Rogers (1902-1987) was an important American psychologist, who has developed the so-called "client-centered  conversational therapy", a therapy which today belongs to the fund of the ordinary talk therapy but to the pedagogical labour too. In this method the leader of the session doesn't intervene in the  trains of thought of the client but causes - by picking up only keywords of the client - the release of more own thoughts. This form of therapy matches perfectly Weizenbaum's programm ELIZA. His program consists  essentially of a list of keywords which then lead to stored sentences, consisting of questions, invitations or simply repetitions. If the client mentions for example his mother, ELIZA answers with the invitation "Tell me more of your mother!". There is naturally no understanding or empathy for the personal problems of the clients. It is only a mechanical analysis of the client's sentences and the clever choice of answers which were stored in advance.

Here I have an example of a typical "talk", where > means ELIZA and * is the input of the client:

> Hello, I'm ELIZA.
* I have problems.
> Don't you ever say Hello?
* Sorry. Hello!
> Apologies are not necessary.
* ok.
> Tell me more...
* I hate my mother.
> I see.
* Why do you can see that?
> We were discussing you, not me.
> *** Are we going to Chat? ***
> I can't help you without a dialog!

And so on and so on.
 
Weizenbaum was shocked when he recognizes that there were psychologists who his program used for the work with their clients,  and clients who were using this program for their own therapy, although they were clarified about the character of ELIZA. This was a further reason for Weizenbaum to change from a renowned specialist of artificial intelligence to one of the main critics of computers, at least insofar that they take over human tasks. In his book "Kurs auf den Eisberg", an allusion to the "Titanic", he writes that nowaday all big computer systems (especially from the governments and military systems) are inscrutable, in particular the mammoth systems which are used to decide about peace and war. Therefore they couldn't be waited like our personal computers.  The end is inevitable the dehumanisation of our society.
 
If you look today on I-Phones and similar devices you can see that Weizenbaum was right with his predictions. In January we went to Berlin by train, a trip of 7 hours. But their was no talk possible with the other passengers! All of them were swiping on their displays. And this is called "social network"? That is ridicule!

Sources:
[1] Joseph Weizenbaum, Die Macht der Computer und die Ohnmacht der Vernunft,
      Suhrkamp 1978
[2] Joseph Weizenbaum, Kurs auf den Eisberg, Piper 1987
[3] Joseph Weizenbaum, Wer erfindet die Computermythen?, Herder 1993
[4] David Ahl, Creative Computing, July/August 1977
      With ELIZA von Steve North in BASIC (MITS 8k), based on one written by Jeff
      Shrager. Originally 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum written in LISP. Based on the
      psychoanalytic techniques of Carl Rogers.
[5] An emulation, where you can simulate a session with ELIZA, you find under  
      http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 09, 2014, 04:06:47 pm
Theseus, the National Hero of the Athenians

Theseus is undoubtless the most famous hero of Athens. As much more it was pitiful that I had no coin of Theseus in my collection. But all of his coins are rare and sought after. Some years before I was outbid on CNG by a sum of which I could only dream. The more happy I am that now I could add a Theseus coin to my collection.

Coin No. 1
Bithynia, Nikaia, Commodus, AD 177-192
AE 17, 3.71g, 16.93mm, 210°
obv. AV.L.KOMODOC - ANTWNINOC
       laureate head r.
rev. QHC - E - A - NIKAIEIC
      Youthful, unbearded head of Theseus r., head covered with lion's scalp, knotted
      under chin
ref. Rec. Gen. I/3, 274, pl. LXXIV, 12; RPC online temp no. 6026 (Paris Bibliotheque Nationale
      no. 630); not in Weise
rare, about VF, sligtly excentric
(Yes, there are more coins of Nikaia than the boring standard types!)

QHCEA NIKAIEIC: QHCEA is accusativus, so it means "the Nikaians (honour) Theseus"

Mythology:
King Aigeus of Athens was unable to get children, although he was married twice. From fear that his brother could take his kingdom he turned to the oracle of Delphi and got - as usually -  a dark answer: "Don't untie the foot of the wineskin until you are in Athens". On the way back he came to Troizen to king Pittheus, the wisest man of his time. And really Pittheus understood the sentence, which says that Aigeus should not drink wine until he came back to Athens. By chance Pittheus was owner of the best Greek wine. He inebriated Aigeus and laid his daughter Aithra to Aigeus into the bed. When Aigeus recognized that Aithra was pregnant, he hid his sword and his shoes under a big rock and told Aithra to lead Theseus - when he was grown up - to this rock that he should raise the rock and take the sword and the shoes. Then she should send him to Athens.

So Theseus was educated in Troizen by his grandfather Pittheus, who propagated that his true father was Poseidon. Already in early years Theseus attracted attention by his courage. Once when Herakles was in Troizen and put down his lion's skin all other children ran away from fear. But Theseus, no more than 7 years old, went straight up to the lion's skin with a weapon suggesting that it was a real lion (Pausanias).

When Theseus was 16 years old his mother led him to the rock which he raised easily. He took sword and shoes and started his way to Athens. His grandfather and his mother recommended to go by ship because the country roads were too dangerous because of the predators. But Theseus wanted to emulate the deeds of Herakles and equally gain honour. First of all he defeated Periphetes near Epidauros, whose iron club he took as his new weapon. On the Isthmus he conquered Sinis, whose daughter Perigone fell in love with him, then the Crommyonian Sow Phaia, at Megara Skiron, then Kerkyron and Prokrustes, father of Sinis (called Damastes sometimes). Thereby he punished all the predators in the same way they have killed their victims (so-called principle of talion):
Periphetes with the iron club he slew with his own club.
Sinis, called Pityokamptes (= he who bends firs), tied his victims to downwards bent firs, so that they were ruptured when the treetops shot up. And exactly the same way he died by the hand of Theseus.
Skiron was pushed off the Skironian Rocks, the steep slopes of the Onia mountains at the Isthmus of Corinth.
Kerkyron, the wrestler, was strangled.
Prokrustes, a giant and son of Poseidon, who made trouble in the vicinity of Eleusis, put travellers on a bed and chopped arms and legs if they were too long, or pulled apart their joints when they are too short. And so died Prokrustes now himself (Diodor).

Then Theseus came to Athens.

At this time his father Aigeus was married with Medeia. In fear that Theseus could challenge her own son for his heir to the throne she sent him against the Marathonian Bull who caused heavy harm to the Athenians. This was the very bull whom Herakles in his seventh labour has brought from Crete. Theseus could conquer him and sacrificed him. When Theseus came well back to Athens, Medeia advised Aigeus to kill the foreign guest by poison. But when Theseus portioned the meat with his sword Aigeus recognized it as his own sword and saw that he was his son Theseus. He was welcomed cordially and a big feast was celebrated. Medeia was sent to exile. But the sons of Pallas, the brother of Aigeus, were in fear for their future reign in Athens and turned against Theseus. In a bloody fight he defeated Pallas and his 50 sons and killed them all.

Athens was tributary to Crete. When Minos claimed once more - as all 9 years - 7 youths and 7 virgins, turmoil occured in Athens because Aigeus alone was unconcerned. But Aigeus was the guilty one for this tributary which was the atonement for the murder of Andregonos, son of Minos and Pasiphae. Theseus decided to go as leader of the young people with them to Crete. He succeeded in killing the Minotaur in his labyrinth, with help by Ariadne, daughter of Minos.  She has fallen in love with Theseus and gave him a ball of wool by which he found his way out off the labyrinth again. So was Athens freed from this terrible tributary. This is probably the most famous story of Theseus.

On his way back he had to leave Ariadne on the island of Naxos where Dionysos attended to her. Theseus stopped at Delos where he donated to Apollo the statue of Venus which he has got from Ariadne thereby deleting the memory of his unhappy love. On Delos he invented with the saved young people a dance in memory of the labyrinth of Knossos. This dance was called Geranos, the dance of the cranes. Some are thinking that this was the dance of Ariadne teached her by Daidalos. This dance was performed in Athens for a long time. In honour of Apollo Theseus invented games, where for the first time a palm branch was donated to the winner as sign for his victory (Plutarch).

Theseus was sailing on to Athens. But in sorrow of the loss of Ariadne he forgot to change the black sail with a white one as sign of the happy outcome, as agreed. So his father Aigeus suggested that Theseus too was perished in Crete and throw himself from a cliff into the sea. In honour the sea was called after him "Aegean Sea". As his successor Theseus became king of Athens.

His political most important success was to unify all over Attica dispersed Athenians in Athens (so-called synoikism). He was founder of the Isthmian Games and was the first who has struck coins, with the depiction of a bull on them. Together with Herakles he undertook a campaign against the Amazons and took home the Amazon Hippolyte as his wife. Then the Amazons subsequently invaded Attica and Theseus had to make peace with them with the mediation of his wife. According to others he destroyed the Amazons at the Areopag where his wife met her death. After that he married Phaidra known by her incestuous love to her step-son Hippolytos. After recognizing that her love was unreturned, she defamed him at Theseus and committed suicide.

Together with Adrastos he went to war against the Thebans and achieved that the fallen of the last war were allowed to bury in honour. At the wedding of his friend Peirithoos, king of the Lapiths, he fought together with him against the Centaurs, and finally made friendship with them. After that he and Peirithoos went to Sparta and robbed the young Helena. The attempt to rob for Perithoos Persephone from the Hades failed. Peirithoos was thrown to Kerberos and Theseus was fixed to a underworld rock. This opportunity was used by the Spartan Dioscuri to free their sister Helena. Herakles later could release Theseus from the Hades.

It is reported that Theseus has participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar and also in the Journey of the Argonauts (Hygin. Fab.; Plutarch)

In the first time Theseus has ruled in Athens as law-abiding king. But later on he began to rule
more abitrary and the Athenians began to hate him. When he was fixed in the Hades they used the opportunity to enthrone Menistheus as new king. When Theseus after his release came to Athens and saw that it was in foreign hands he fled to Lykomedes on the island of Skyros. Now it is possible that he claimed from Lykomedes support against the Athenians, or that Lykomedes feared the courage and strength of Theseus, or that Lylomedes wanted to do Menistheus in Athens a pleasure, in any case he led Theseus on a high mountain and pushed him into the depth. So Theseus died. Some said that Theseus has tried to seduce the wife of Lykomedes. The Athenians have Lykomedes charged with murder and executed.

At this time the Athenians didn't bother much about the fate of Theseus. But then the spirit of Theseus should have been seen at the battle of Marathon, leading the Greek army against the Persians. Thereupon the oracle ordered to bring back his bones from Skyros to Athens. That occured under Kimon about 475 BC. And from then on Theseus was venerated as great hero and on each 8th day of a month offers were made to him, especially in the month of Pyanepsion, which is October/November. A Theseion was built in honour, where the today preserved temple probably is the Hephaisteion.

Nevertheless some argue that he as punishment for the rape of Persephone by Peirithoos had to sit eternally on a glowing rock (Vergil Aen. VI).

Theseus has had several wifes and many love affairs by which he has numerous children. His legal wife was the Amzon Hippolyte (or Antiope). By her he has the son Hippolytos (or Demophoon). After her death he married Phaidra, sister of Ariadne, who bore him Demophoon and Athamas. After her he is said to have married Periboia, mother of Ajax. From Perigone, daughter of Sinis, he has Melanippos, from Ariadne Oenopion and Staphyloos. From Helena, who is said to have been his wife too, he has Iphigenia. Love affairs he has further with Aigle, daughter of Panopeos, and others.

From Hesiod there was a poem about the descent into hell of Theseus. Tragedies existed from Sophokles and Euripides. They all, like the Theseis from Kodros, are lost.

I have added:
(1) The picture of the relief on which Theseus raises the rock under which the sword and the
     sandals of his father are located. Behind him his mother Aithra (Terracotta Campana
     Relief, 100 BC - AD 100; found in Cerveteri, today in the British Museum)
(2) The picture of an extremely rare coin of Commodus from Troizen with the same motive:
     Argolis, Troizen, Commodus, AD 177-192
     AE 22, 8.85g
     obv. M AVR ..KOMODOC..
            laureate head of Commodus r.
     rev. TROIZH - NIWN
           Theseus, nude, stg. r., raising the rock near Troizen, underneath sword and sandals of
            his father Aigeus
     ref. BCD Peloponnesos 1341; Borrell in NC 1844, 3
     pedigree:
     ex coll. BCD
     ex CNG Electronic Auction 81, Lot 2890
(3) A picture of this motive from Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), showing how the Classicistic
     Baroque saw this scene.

(will be continuated)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 09, 2014, 04:11:01 pm
(continuation)

Background:
The mythology of Theseus over the years and centuries was embroidered more and more. Especially many older myths were incorporated so that Theseus could keep pace with the myths of Herakles. Therefore we have many parts which are differing considerably or were inconsistent with one another. But that is true for many Greek mythologies as we have already seen.

The version which I have represented above comes mainly from Plutarch and is therefore a very late version. The mythology itself is much older. Already Homer knows Theseus. In his Ilias appears the Battle of the Centaurs (Il. I, 265) and the rape of Helena (Il., III, 144). The tale of Ariadne and the decent into hell we find in his Odyssee (Od. XI, 321ff., resp. Od. XI, 631), though some suggest that these are later Athenian insertions. Hippolytos was originally a Troizenian demon figure, the battle with Pallas a local form of the Gigantomachia. May be that Theseus was a pan-Hellenic Hero, who possibly is arisen from different hero figures. Since curiously enough the oldest evidence, e.g. shrines, don't come from Athens. The Athenians, who have recognized this too, have explained it so, that Theseus in gratitude for the rescue from hell has leave them to Herakles!

An increase of Theseus depictions occurs actually not before the last century of the 6th century BC. At this time the mythology was enhanced by the deeds of his youth. It is believed that in this time the lost (hypothetical?) Theseis has been originated. It is remarkable that now from the old wild fighter arose the protagonist of the Athenian law. So a large part of his heroic deeds are rather young and comes from the time in which political disturbances dominated Athens, in which tyrants and aristocrats were fighting against another to assume power (Fürstenberg).

The depicted conflicts surely had a political importance. Skiron originally was a Megaritic local hero who scarcely unintentionally was degraded to a common brigand, because the Peisistratids have had a high interest in the Megaris (Herter, in Pauly). Similar was the case of the Eleusinian Kerkyron who was added to the cycle of Theseus not before the death of Hippias. After the fall of the tyrants Theseus rose up to the Athenian national hero. The aristocrats who were ruling now wanted to link to the heroic past of the Mycenaean era. But always Theseus remained the hero of the polis, not the hero of a political party (Parker).

Wether the voyage to Crete and the killing of the Minotaur is a hint to the end of the old Mycenaean supremacy is possible, but should be seen only carefully (Roscher)

Theseus and Herakles
On my coin Theseus is wearing a lion's scalp on his head. It is clear that he should be seen as Athenian Herakles. And so the mythology of Theseus was parallelized too to the mythology of Herakles:
He is wearing a club (from Periphetes).
He defeated several brigands on his way to Athens.
He kills the Krommyonian sow.
He conquered the Marathonian bull.
Together with Herakles he fought against the Amazons.
Together with Herakles he fought against the Centaurs.
He joints like Herakles the Voyage of the Argonauts.
Like Herakles he decends to hell.
There was a canon of the 7 deeds of Theseus as a parallel to the 12 labours of Herakles.

But there are differences too:
Everytime he is depicted much youthfuller than the bearded Herakles. His hairs should have been short anterior and long posterior. This hairstyle was called Theseis. Even his club was narrower and more diminutive. Always Theseus acts much more considered than the choleric Herakles. So he made peace with the Amazons and with the Centaurs. And then he is venerated as founder of the Athenian democracy. Of Herakles we don't know any political activities. Originally Herakles was the divine hero of the Doric Spartans. Theseus in contrast is the Ionic-Attic hero (and was never a god!). The difference between Dorians and Ionians was felt too by the Athenians and emphasised, especially in the Peloponnesian Wars.

Why this coin of Theseus from Nikaia?
Plutarch (Vita Theseus, 26) cites a report from Demosthenes Menekrates in whose History of the City of Nikaia, that Theseus with Antiope on board has stayed with his ship some time in this region, as proof that Nikaia was founded by Theseus. The Nikaians wanted to affirm their Attic-Ionic origin. Waddington in contrast suggests that the singular propagation of a herakleslike Theseus in this case can be explained more easily by the veneration of Herakles by Commodus. So Theseus is not found as ktistes in the long inscription of the gate of Lefke.

History of Art:
While only few is leftover from the epic poetry, the situation in the vase painting is much better. Here the deeds of Theseus are praised manifoldly. We see how Minos throws his ring into the sea to test Theseus. On a bowl of Onesimos Theseus is in the companion with Athene at Amphitrite (495 BC, today in the Louvre/Paris).On an amphora of Taleides he stabs the Minotaur (about 530 BC, Metropolian Museum of Art,New York). On a wall painting in Pompeii is depicted that the saved children were kissing him hands and feet. A wall painting from Herculaneum shows the awakening Ariadne on the beach of Naxos, pointing to Theseus who is sailing away (British Museum). On the famous Francois-Vase of Kleitos the return of the children is celebrated (about 570 BC, Museo Archeologico, Firenze). The entire deeds of Theseus (the whole Theseus canon) is found on the picture inside of the bowl of the Kodros painter (British Museum). And then the deeds of Theseus are depicted on the reliefs of the metopes of the treasury house of the Athenians in Delphi and of the temple of Hephaistos (the so-called Theseion) on the agora in Athens, where they are confronted with the labours of Herakles. Sometimes the famous statue of the Diadumenos from Polykleitos is called Theseus, but in error.

Even in later times Theseus was the subject for artists. It is known that Bocaccio has written an epos about Theseus, which then became a rather sentimal love story (I myself have not read it). Shakespeare's "Midsommer's Night" is about the wedding of Theseus and Ariadne too. Andre Gide has written in 1946 his narration "Thesee" about the possibilities of human self-fulfilment. Paintings with motives from the Theseus myth we know from Carpaccio ("Hippolytos before Theseus", before 1525, Paris), Rubens ("Battle of Amazons", about 1615, München) or Nicolas Poussin "Theseus discovers the weapons of his father", about 1630-35, Chantilly). From Antonio Canova exists a statue "Theseus slays a Centaur", 1804-1819 (today in Wien).

Literature:

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Homer, Odyssee
(3) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(4) Pausanias, Voyage in Greece
(5) Plutarch, Theseus (and Romulus)
(6) Hyginus, Fabulae
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(8) Vergil, Aeneis

Secondary Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Facsimile
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, online
(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, rororo
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Paul Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, Band II: Die Heroen-Geschichten, dtv
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam
(7) Michael Fürstenberg, Theseus als Nationalheld der Athener, Studienarbeit 2003
(8) Hans Herter, Theseus (in Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen
     Altertumswissenschaften, Supplementband XIII)
(9) Robert Parker, Athenian Religion. A History, Oxford 1996
(10) Henry J. Walker, Theseus and Athens, Oxford 1995

Online:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) www.theoi.com:
     www.theoi.com/Text/PlutarchTheseus.html
     www.theoi.com/Ther/Minotauros.html

I have attached:
(1) a pic of the wonderful wall painting from Herculaneum which I have mentioned above
(2) a pic of the so-called temple of Theseus at the agora in Athens, which actually is the 
     Hephaisteion. It is considered as the best preserved Greek ancient temple.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on June 12, 2014, 05:47:26 pm
Rhodope and the Rabbit -  A Beauty from Markianopolis

This article I had added to the mythology supplement. I think it is worth to share it here. This coin is remarkable not only because of its beauty but because of its interesting background too.

The Coin:
Moesia inferior, Markianopolis, Macrinus & Diadumenian, AD 217-218
AE 27, 13.58g, 26.91mm, 45°
struck under governor P. Furius Pontianus
obv. AV K OPPEL CEVH MAKREINOC
        beneath in 3 lines
        KM OPPEL AN / TWNINOC DI / ADOVMH
        Confronting heads of Diadumenian, bare-headed, r., and of Macrinus, laureate, l.
rev. VP PONTIAN - OV MARKIAN / OPOLITWN
       Female figure, in long girded chiton, hairs bound in knot, std. on rock l., holding
       in extended r. hand branch with leaves (or flowers?), resting with l. arm on
       source, from which water flows; r. below a rabbit r.
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 755, pl. XVIII, 8 (1 ex., Bukarest, rabbit not mentioned!)
      b) Varbanov (engl.) 1265 (cites AMNG 755, rabbit not mentioned!)
      c) Hristova/Jekov (2013) No. 6.24.5.3 (this coin)

The reverse has presented several challenges. Who is the depicted female figure? Pick, a knowledgable and precise scientist, who has written the standard work about the coins of Northern Greek (AMNG), writes 1898: mountain goddess,city goddess, Gaia? The great Eckhel discusses Rhodope, a mythological princess after whose the mountain range of the Rhodopes on the Balkans are named. But that should be discarded because the obligate crown is missed.

The coin attached below shows the pic. from Seguin, Sel. Numismata,1684, p.150. It is Antoninus Pius from Philippopolis,Varbanov (engl.) 706. The legend across the field is RODOPI.

After a longer debate in our Forum with numismatists and art historians we have agreed that it is most probably a geographical personification, probably the personification of the province of Moesia, because the same depiction is found in Nikopolis too.

Then I have discovered, that right below at the rock the long ears of a rabbit could be seen, a fact which previously no one has seen. But what has a rabbit to do with Moesia? Nothing at all! But there was a Roman province which has had as symbol a rabbit. That was Spain! Rabbits were so numerous in ancient Spain, that according to Plinius they have even undermined Spanish cities (Stevenson).

Coin:
Hadrian, AD 117-138
AR – Denarius, 3.48g, 225°
         Rome, ca. AD 132
obv. HADRIANVS – AVG COS III PP
       Bare head r.
rev. HISPANIA
      Hispania, draped, leaning l., holding in raised r. hand olive branch and resting with l. arm on
      rock; behind her a rabbit r.
ref. RIC II, 306; C. 834; BMCR 849 var. (laureate bust)

This denarius of Hadrian depicts on the rev. HISPANIA, the personification of the province of Spain. And right below we see the long ears of the rabbit! This rev. could well have been the model of the coin of Markianopolis. The personification std. l. is a standard depiction. We can suggest that the die cutter had a number of submittals which he used to cut his coins. When he needed the personification of a province he pulled out the depiction of HISPANIA without mentioning the rabbit which here was out of place (Curtis Clay).

Because of fairness: Already Pick writes on p.194, note 4, that this type reminds on some depictions of provinces of Hadrian, e.g. of that of HISPANIA.

Now a historical excursion:
When the Phoenicians came to Spain about 1100 BC, they hold the rabbits - which they don't know -  for dassies (rock hyrax) of their homeland. Their name was Phoenician "shaban' and therefore they called Spain after their dassies 'i-shapan', coast of the dassies. From this name the Romans made HISPANIA, from which came Espagna and Spain. So Spain is originally the 'country of the rabbits", actually the 'country of the dassies'!

I have attached a pic of a dassie (Procavia caspensis) from South Africa (from Wikipedia). He looks a bit like a rodent, but is actually a relative of - the elephant!

Pat Lawrence was delighted with my coin. As expression of my reverence I want to add what she has written to this coin:

These coins always remind me of lines from my early
youth:
   And the nymphs of the fountains
   Descend from the mountains
   Like elegant willows
   On their deep barouche pillows

Edith Sitwell, Façade, Waltz (set to music by the very young William Walton)
The classical tradition is so strong in everything we know (my generation at least); Sitwell toured the USA performing Façade in 1950, and everyone in my art school also had the 10" vinyl LP recording of it (still have it).


The painting of Roger Eliot Frey shows the portait of Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), the English avant-garde poetress.

Sources:
(1) Plinius, Naturalis historiae
(2) Pierre Seguin, Selecta Numismata Antiqua, Paris,
      1665
(3) Joseph Hilarius Eckhel,  Doctrina numorum
      veterum,  Wien 1792-98  
(4) Bernhard Pick, AMNG Bd.I
(5) Stevenson, Dictionary of Roman Coins
(6) Wikipedia

The entire discussion you find here:
www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25011.0

The attached pics are:
(1) the coin of Markianopolis
(2) the coin from Seguin
(3) the denarius of Hadrian
(4) the pic of a dassie
(5) the portrait of Edith Sitwell

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 27, 2015, 01:38:23 pm
The Ichthyocentaurs

This coin I have already presented in this thread, but under the wrong determination as Skylla, which I have then adopted from the seller. But now I could correct the attribution (Thanks to benito!). It is actually an ichthyocentaur! I'm deeply ashamed to admit that I have never heard before of these mythological beings. In my estimation it is the sole type of coin depicting it.

The coin:
Bithynia, Nikomedeia, Plautilla, AD 202-211
AE 20, 3.17g, 19.94mm, 225°
obv. FOV PLAV - TILLA CEBA / CTH
        Bust, draped, r.
rev. NEIKOMHDEW - N / DIC NEWKO / RWN
       Female ichthyocentaur, diademed, nude, with forefeet of horse and serpentine-shaped
       fishtail, riding l. over waves; holding rudder over l. shoulder and in extended r. hand
       unknown object (dolphin?)
ref. Gen. Rec. 253 var. (has only CEBA); Lindgren 172
very rare, F/F+, dark, nearly black patina (not green as on the pic!)
note: Gen. Rec. writes "Monstre marin, ayant un corps de femme".

Mythology:
Wikipedia writes of 2 ichthyocentaurs, the twins Aphros and Bythos. But actually they appear in a greater number. And there are not only male, but female ones too, as can be seen on this coin. This is rather rare on the other centaurs. They are sea monsters with a human upper body, a serpent-shaped fishtail and forefeet of a horse. Often they are horned. Usually these horns are lobster claws. Sometimes they are crowned. Or they are winged where the wings sometimes are from seaweed or other sea plants. Whereas the common hippocentaurs, except the wise Cheiron and a few others, are very rowdy guys, usually wearing a club, the ichthyocentaurs are rather peaceable beings, often wearing musical instruments like a lyra or a flute. But like the hippocentaurs who are chasing nymphs they are chasing nereids.

On the other side they are said to place value on family and friends. They are able to breath underwater and couls swim very fast. Their relation to the nereids made possible that they could live hundreds of years because the nereids warned them always against upcoming dangers. Under water they could communicate with all other marine races.

The best-known ichthyocentaurs were the twins Aphros (= sea foam) and Bythos (= sea depth). There parents are said to be the Titan Kronos and the nymph Philyra, a daughter of Okeanos. Kronos approached her in the shape of a horse to hide his infidelity from his wife Rhea, and created Cheiron with her. When Philyra saw her offspring for the first time she was so horrified  by his appearence that she asked Zeus to be changed into a limetree and that happened.

This mythology seems to be transferred to Aphros and Bythos so that they become the brothers of Cheiron. But usually they were called his half-brothers. Here the mythology seems to be confused a bit. But that is well known from other ancient mythologies too. The reason are sometimes changes over time or regional modifications. There was no coherent codex at all.

Pseudo-Hyginus (Fabulae 197) writes that the seacentaurs have been derived from the fish god of the Syrian mythology, sometimes called Dogon (please take a look at the referring article in this thread), who has carried Aphrodite, the later Astarte, after her sea birth to the beach. Little-known is the hypothesis that these twins have been placed as zodiac sign of the fishes (pisces) to the sky.

Etymology of Afrika:
The presennt name of Africa was used first by Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Carthago, and has meant originally only the region around Carthago and Utica where the Libyan people of the Afri were living. The Afri claimed their descent from Aphros, therefore the name Aphroi (Lat. Afri). After the victory over Carthago in 146 BC the name Africa was extended by the Romans under the name Africa proconsularis up to the border of Egypt. The continent itself was called Libya.

According to Georgios Kedrenos, a Byzantine historian of the 11th resp.12th century, who has written in his Concise History of the World about the etymology of the Afri, Aphros was the husband of Astynome, who bore Aphrodite to him. Naturally Aphrodite and Aphros have the same etymology (Gr. aphros = foam). Astonyme herself came from the "island" of Lakeria, which is nothing other than the Thessalian city of Lakereia at Magnesia the home of Cheiron and Philyra too. These all was a explanation remodelled especially for the African etymology (Pauly's Realenzyklopädie). And here seems to be the source of the mythology that Aphros was the son of Kronos and Philyra and thereby the brother of Cheiron.

History of Art:
The first depictions of ichthyocentaurs we find under Skopas (about 420 - about 330 BC), besides Praxiteles probably the most important Greek sculptor. From Skopas on the fine art of the Greeks and the Romans populated the depiction of the sea with this genus of fishcentaurs with many different species like sea-rams, sea-dragons, sea-stags, sea-lions, sea-panthers, sea-horses, sea-bulls and calves, see-elephants and so on (Roscher).
 
At Claudian (about 370 - after 404 AD), court poet under Honorius and Stilich, Venus is riding over the sea on an ichthyocentaur, here called Triton.  But tritons actually don't have animal forefeet and usually are holding big shells and not a lyra or a flute. We see, that already in ancient times these sea monsters are not well distinguished

On a mosaic from Zeugma/Commagene (today in the museum of Gaziantep/Turkey) with the titel "Birth of Aphrodite" the two ichthyocentaurs are lifting the cockle with the goddess from the sea. Here Aphros and Bythos are named directly. It is suggested that Aphros is seen as foster-father of Aphrodite.

A similar motiv "The Birth of Aphrodite Anadyomene" we find on a relief of a sarcophagus in the Villa Borghese from the 3 century AD. 2 ichthyocentaurs are holding a cockle shell in which Aphrodite is crouching with a boy beside her holding a torch. Beneath the shell 2 cupids are playing with a young sea-dragon and a young sea-lion.

Basically we are knowing not much of the ichthyocentaurs, except that what we can conclude from the depictions of fine art and from a short note in the Byzantine Lexicon of the Suda. Here Aphros is called the first king of the Carthaginians who were named Aphroi after him.This is affirmed by a mosaic found in Tunesia near Carthago, today in the Bardo museum in Tunis. We see Poseidon in his chariot accompanied by 2 African sea gods. One of them is Aphros, the other the twin-tailed Triton, the god of the Libyan lake Tritonis.

Both sea gods appear too on a pair of matching sculptures (today in the Louvre and in the Musei Vaticani) which show them carrying satyrs from the companions of the god Dionysos, after his company was driven into the sea by king Lykurgos of Thracia..

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), the great court painter of the Medici (he invented the term "Renaissance") has painted a picture "First fruits of the Earth Offered to Saturn" (1555-1557, Palazzo Vecchio/Firenze), where in a detail 2 ichthyocentaurs are seen amusing themselves with beautiful nereids.

Sources:
- Hesiod, Theogony
- Apollonius of Rhodos, Argonautika
- Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae, online at theoi.com
- Suda, Byzantine Greek Lexikon, online under http://www.stoa.org/sol/
- Joannes Tzetzes, ad Lykophron

Literature:
- William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, online too
- Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen  
  Mythologie, online to

Online-Sources:
- Wikipedia
- theoi.com

I have attached:
[1] A pic of the mosaic from Zeugma/Commagene
[2] A pic of the mosaic from the Bardo museum in Tunis
[3] A pic of the relief from the sarcopgaus in the Villa Borghjese
[4] The detail of the painting of Giorgio Vasari

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: benito on February 27, 2015, 03:49:40 pm
For your files Jochen.
A statue of a icthyocentaur having fun with nereid # 37. Pio-Clementino  museum ( gallery of animals)
Vatican.
http://webfly.es/viajes/images/stories/italia/roma/vaticano/clementino/VPC6-230+Ictiocentauro%20con%20una%20mujer%20y%20dos%20=aaa=ngeles.jpg

Another from Spain ( mosaic found in the baths of a Roman villa near Emerita)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 27, 2015, 03:55:02 pm
Thanks, benito, for the pics. And again for your advice.

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 06, 2016, 12:27:41 pm
Dear friends of the Mythological Thread!

After a long time I want to write today about a coin which in contrast to all other coins in this thread doesn't belong to my collection. This coin have had stimate value of €50.-, but then raised up unexpectedly to €450.-+ fee, a sum significantly higher than my bid.

Otreus and Aineas

The coin:
Phrygia, Otros, Geta as Caesar, AD 193-209
AE - AE 26, 9.41g
         struck under asiarch Alexandros
obv. ΠO.CEΠ - ΓETAC K
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, bare-headed, r.
rev. AΛEΞAN - ΔP - OC OTPOHN - ΩN (in r. field)
       in l. field in 2 lines from bottom up ACIAP / X ANE[Θ?]
       Otreus, nude, except chlamys over l. shoulder, stg. facing, head r., with r. foot stg. on
       prora, holding spear in l. arm and pointing with raised r. hand to the left.
ref. cf. von Aulock Phrygiens I, 829-2; cf. SNG von Aulock 3907; cf. Barclay V. Head,
      Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Phrygia, London 1906, p. 343, 11/12
      Possibly unpublished
Has cleaning capability!
Naumann Numismatik, Auction 47, Lot 340, October 2016 (Wrong description and wrong references!)

Notes:
(1) Otros (lat. Otrus), today Yanikören, was one of the 5 cities of the Phrygian Pentapolis (together with Eukarpia, Hierapolis, Stektorion and Brouzos) on the Eucarpian Plain at Sandikli and could have get its name Otros after an emigration from Otroia at the Ascanian Lake in Bithynia, which according to Strabo (XII, 266) was founded by Otreus, king of Phrygia.

(2) AΛEΞANΔPOC ACIAPXHC ANEΘHKE: This is an established wording meaning "The asiarch Alexandros has bestowed this (to the people of Otros)". This is proof that Alexandros has paid these coins from own resources.

(3) Asiarch: The title asiarch (literally "Ruler of Asia") is known from several cities of the province Asia. An asiarch is known from Mysia (Cyzikos and Pergamon), from Phrygia (Laodikeia and Otros), from Lydia (Hypaipa and Sardeis) and from Ionia (Smyrna, Ephesos and Magnesia). The asiarch was a high official and probably presided over the Provincial State Diet (koinon). He has to arrange the games in honour of the emperor and the gods and to accomplish them at his own account. He was elected by the polis but had to be confirmed by the Roman Proconsul. In science it is discussed wether the asiarch and the achiereus (the highpriest of the province Asia), whose charge too was connected to the imperial cult, were identical. This is affirmed by the traditional opinion (Wikipedia).

(4) The depiction on the rev. is known from coins of Sidon and Tyros, where Kadmos is depicted in the same position. The hero is pointing forward and turns his head back asking his companions to follow him. The assumption that it could be Aineas embarking from Troy was rejected by Head, Imhoof-Blumer, von Aulock and Carrington. They identified the depicted male figure with Otreus. The scene seems to deal with an emigration myth. Ramsey has supposed that one part of the settlers came from Greece, another part from Bithynia (Otreia). Already the ancient Greeks knew that the Thracians and the Phrygians are akin. Von Fritze/Gaebler has a different explanation. He thinks that
the embarking Otreus can be explained by the campaign he undertook with Mygdon against the Amazons which must have been started from the Propontis (See of Marmara).
 
Mythology:
(1) Ancestry:
Ottreus was the son of Dymas, the brother-of-law of Priamos, king of Troy. Dymas himself was king of Phrygia from Sangarios and father of the unfortunate Hekabe, wife of Priamos, and father of Asios (Hom. Il. 16, 717ff.; Apollod. 3, 147: Hyg. Fab. 91; Ov. met. 11, 761). But Sangarios, Kisseus or Bioneus were sometimes too called father of Hekabe.
Father of Dymas was Eioneus, son of Proteus. According to Scholia in Euripidem his wife was Eunoe, daughter of river-god Sangarios, who was a son of Okeanos and Tethys. Homer called the Phrygians "people of Otreus and the godlike Mygdon".

(2) Battle against the Amazons:
These events took place one generation before the Trojan War. At this time Otreus together with Mygdos ruled over the Phrygians. When the Amazons attacked their realm it came to a battle at the river Sangarios. The Sangarios arises in Central Phrygia near Pessinos, flows northwards across the plateau of Central Bithynia and then empties west of Herakleia Pontika into the Black Sea. In this battle the Phrygians got support by king Priamos of Troy and so they succeeded in defeating the Amazons.
Pausanias (10, 27, 1) mentions a grave of Mygdon near the Phrygian Stektorion and bears witness that the Phrygians were called Mygdones by the poets (cf. Hor. c.3, 16, 41)

(3) Support in the Trojan War:
As a reward for the support against the Amazons Koroibos, son of Mygdon, came to help king Priamos in the Trojan War. He was killed by Diomedes when during the sacking after the fall of Troy he tried to defend Kassandra against Ajax the Locrian (Homer Il. 3, 184). Asios, uncle of Hektor, was a hero too in the Trojan War. According to Homer Apollo adopted the shape of Asios to induce Hektor to fight against Patroklos. Following Dictys Cretensis he was killed by Ajas.

(4) Anchises and Aphrodite:
The most interesting mythology however is the descent of Aineas. According to Homer's Hymns Kalykopis, daughter of Otreus, should have been the actual mother of Aineas. Kalykopis was known for her beauty. Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love, was fallen in love with the young Anchises. The beauty of Kalykopis and the hospitality of her father with the Trojans induced Aphrodite to seduce Anchises on the mountain Ida under the name of Kalykopis. She bore him Aineas and brought him up. Later she revealed her secret to Anchises under the seal of strictest secrecy:

Kalykopis was married to Thoas, general of Rhadamantes, from whom he got the island of Lemnos. Thoas was known for his lyra playing and was thus named too Kinyras (from sem. knr = lyra). Clemens Alexandrinus believes that this is why the mother of Aineas and the wife of Thoas were made the same person. With her Dionysos fell in love and was surprised by Thoas during a love meeting. But Dionysos gave him wine and made him king of Byblos and Cypros. So he could appease him. Yes, after that he erected temples for his wife and appointed priests to them (Isaac Newton, Opusc. T.III).

Background:
The tradition of a Phrygian emigration from Europe to Asia minor and then inside Asia minor itself was widespread in Greek literature (Whereas Howgego writes: Otreus was made founder of Otros only because the similarity of their names!). The emissions which were donated by Alexandros (and Nigrinos) in about AD 202 were so enormous that die cutters from 2 different officinas had to be called on. The combination of coins of Aineas and Otreus, who certainly was symmachos of king Priamos, suggests to judge the bronze coins as hint to the alliance going back to mythological times between Otros and Troy, resp. its successor Rome (Lindner). So it is lesser the manifestation of affinity to the Greek cultural sphere as much more the expression of the close political relation to the Romans. Thus the loyalty of the people of Otros to the Romans is projected back to the heroic past and mythological inflated as an eternal alliance (Lindner).

History of Art:
I have added a photo from my travel to Turkey in 2011. It shows a relief from the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, now in the local museum. Depicted are the youthful Anchises and Aphrodite. Aphrodite has a small Eros on her lap as sign for an erotic encounter. It is a nocturnal scene: From the upper left Selene is looking on them. This relief belongs to a series of 3 ones, which describe the myth of Aineas. The next one shows Aineas' escape from Troy, the last one his arrival in Italy.

Sources:
(1) Apollodoros, Bibliotheke
(2) Homer, Ilias
(3) Homer, Hymn in Venerem
(4) Horaz, Carmina
(5) Hyginus, Fabulae
(6) Ovid, Meamorphoses
(7) Pausanias, Periegesis
(8) Dictys Cretensis, Ephemeris belli Troiani
(9) Isaac Newton, Opuscula, Lausanne, 1738

Secundary literature:
(1) Getzel M. Cohen, The Hellenenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands and Asia
      Minor, University of California 1995
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(3) Howgego/Heuchert/Burnett, Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces, Oxford  
      University Press 2006
(4) Ruth Lindner, Mythos und Identität - Studien zur Selbstdarstellung kleinasiatischer      
      Städte in der römischen Kaiserzeit, Stuttgart 1994
(5) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv 1979
(6) W. M. Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, London 1890
(7) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
      Mythologie, Leipzig 1884
(8) Von Fritze/Gaebler, Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der antiken Münzkunde, 1974

Online-Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 06, 2016, 12:36:12 pm
Apollo Karneios - The national god of the Dorians

Dear friends of ancient mythology!

After a longer time I have found a coin again worth to explore its mythology.

The coin:
Magna Graeca, Lukania, Metapontion, ca. 300-250 BC
AE 11, 1.59g, 11.2mm, 0°
obv. Horned head of Apollo r.
rev. META (l. field upward)
       Barley ear with leaf to r.
       in r. field above leaf fly (control mark)
ref.: Johnston Bronze 64; HN Italy 1700; cf. SNG ANS 587 (control mark); SNG  
        Copenhagen 1256 (same); SNG Morcom 287 (same); Macdonald Hunter 67
        (same),
VF, green patina, well centered on tight flan

From Forum Ancient Coins, thanks!

The rev. shows an ear of the six lined barley, Hordeum polystichum pyramidatum, the most important grain of the Greeks, and in Metapontion the symbol of the polis. Barley was eaten only roasted and given to the dead for their voyage to netherworld. This too would be an interesting theme. But here we will concentrate on the obv.: the horned Apollo Karneios.

Mythology:
The origin and the meaning of Karneios was obcure already in ancient times. According to Praxilla of Sikyon, a Greek poetess of the 5th century BC, Karneios was the son of Zeus and Europa, nursed by Leto and Apollo who was fallen in love to him.

For the origin of his name there are different explanations:
(1) An old myth tells, that the Greeks when building the Troian Horse have cut down trees of the cornel cherries at the Ida mountains (Greek κράνεια). They have grown in a sacred  grove of Apollo, and to soften his anger they began to worship him under this name (Pausan. in Lacon.c.13.p.184.; Schol. Callim.ad Hymn, in Apollon v.72.). Today this explanation is obsolete although it is well known that is was strictly forbidden to cut down trees in his sacred groves, to cut off twigs, in fact to carry foliage out of the grove. There were serious punishments: Slaves were whipped, free men were subject of  the judgment of the Council.

(2) Referring to Pausanias (3, 13, 3.4) his name was originally Karnos and he came from Acarnania. He was an Apollonian seer in the army of the Heraclids, but was suspected to be a spy and therefore slain by Hippotes, a great-grandson of Herakles, when the Dorians were crossing over to the Peloponnesos at Naupaktos (Paus., schol. Theokrit). Apollo's anger, who send them a plague, they softened by rendering divine honour to Karnos and bestowing Apollo himself the surname Karneios. Hippotes was exiled for 10 years by a verdict of Delphi. Konon (narr. 26) calls Karneios a phasma Apollinis (spook of Apollo), that was following the army of the Dorians and finally shot by Hippotes. But because it is hardly possible to shoot a spook he was made a seer of Apollo. But this explanation is rather an aitiological legend, which has been invented in the interest of the Spartans.

(3) Today the most probable explanation is the following: Karneios was an old pre-Dorian shepherd and ram god (Greek karnos = ram), who was already found by the Dorians when they invaded the Peloponnesos and whom they melted together with their own Apollo. He is closely related to Apollo Kereates, to Apollo Keraton (Plut. Thes. 21) and to Kertinos (Plut. de soll. anim. 35; Callim. hymn in Apoll. 61).

The cult of Apollo Karneios:
The cult of Apollo Karneios extended mostly to the Peloponnesos and the Dorian colonies. Main places of worshipping Apollo Karneios were Sparta, Sikyon, Thera, Kos and the colonies of Magna Graecia and Kyrene. In Sikyon his priests have had such a high credit that finally they ruled the city instead of the kings (Euseb.). But this is doubted by a number of scientists (Hederich).

Referring to Ferdinand Tönnies he should have been worshipped in the oasis of Shiwa before the cult of Zeus Ammon became prevalent. There were sacred groves (so-called Karnesia) for him in Andania/ Messenia and Megalopolis/Arcadia. Apollo Karneios was the most important common deity of the Dorians. He was something like their national god.
It is remarkable that the cult of the god took place mainly in Western Laconia, in the region of the Taygetos mountains where the Dorian influence never was very great. In contrast the distribution of the Laconian and Messenian cult of Karneios covers that of the ancient Minyae whose residencies were found especially in the regions of the Taygetos mountains. This is a strong hint that the cult of Karneios belongs to a yet older cultural stratum (Roscher).

The Karneia:
The Karneia, the festival in honour of the god, took place in the 1st half of the August and lasted 9 days. Regarding the festival the month was called Karnetos (Greek actually Metageitnion). For the Spartans it was a very importent festival. So it was not allowed during the festival to go to war. This was the reason that the Spartans came too late to the battle of Marathon!

The festival consisted of athletic competitions and of a contest of kithara players. The mayor feature of the festival however was the race of the staphylodromoi. From each phyle were  drawn by lot 5 unmarried young men (Karnetes) for 4 years who have to organize the festival under guidance of a priest (Agetes). A young volunteer, decorated with woollen garlands (the Agetes?), who had made special prayers to the city deities, was hunted by young men, the staphylodromoi (= wine grape runners). If he was caught, it was a good omen for the city, if not it was a bad omen. Probably the staphylodromoi had wine grapes in their hands (hence the name). This race has had the features of vintage, harvesting and expiation rites. May be that the race originally has ended with the killing of the caught ram demon (Pauly).

Then the convivial part started. On 9 locations tents were erected (Skias), in which always 9 men, representing the 3 phyles (or better obes), were eating together under the command of an herald. This appears to be the imitation of war life. Obviously the immigrated Spartians have melted their own Apollo cult with the encountered cult. By this the character of the festival has changed to a warrior festival.  

Of course sacrifices were made to Apollo Karneios, so a ram in Thurioi, or a boar in the Karnesian grove in Messenia.

History of Art:

(1) In Kyrene/Libya, founded by Dorians from Thera, large parts of his temple are found until today. Apollo Karneios was regarded as mythological founder of the city. To honour him a special monument was erected at the end of the 4th century BC. Here too were celebrated Karneias. These were mentioned by Pindar in his Odes (Pythia 5.80)

(2) In the National Archaeological Museum in Taranto/Italy exists a red-figured volute krater from Ceglie del Campo from the 5th century BC, showing dancing girls and youths near a pillar inscribed KARNEIOS. Probably it is the dance of virgins decorated with the Spartian leaf crown for the Karneias (Pauly)

Appendix:

Phyle: Tribe, family group (cult community); had beside religious also social, legal and military relevance and was divided in phratries (sodalities).

Obes (Greek obai), name for the accommodations (Greek Komen) of the Spartan full citizens.

Praxilla was an ancient Greek poetess in the 5th century BC from Sikyon whose works were mostly lost. Survived has only one rhyme in hexameter. It is said that she has written a hymn to Adonis too, as well as wine and drinking poems. At the end of the last century BC the Greek poet Antipater from Thessalonika has made a list of the most important Greek poetesses. On this list she has the first place, before Sappho or Erinna.
Of Erasmus of Rotterdam a proverb is known: "More stupid than the Adonis of Praxilla (Stupidior Praxillae Adonide)". That goes back to a fragment of her hymn to Adonis, quoted by Zenobius, in which Adonis answered to the question, which of all things he was leaving on earth was the most beauty "The sun, the moon, the cucumbers and the apples." This answer seems ridiculous and  stupid to the reader.

Konon was a Greek mythograph living around the Nativity. His work Diegeseis is mostly known by an excerpt by Photios from Byzantine times. It is a collection of narratives, founder myths, aetiologies (myths explaining the origin of things) and love stories, which should entertain the reader.

The Minyae were an ancient Greek tribe in Boiotia around the city of Orchomenos. As their ancestor is seen Minyas. In Mycenean times they were bearer of a highly developed culture. In the Trojan War they manned 30 ships. The mythical Erginos is said to have made Theben tributary. At the end of the 2nd century BC their empire collapsed and the people as a whole disappeared. Even archaeologically it is not identifiable. The claimed connection to the Argonauts ist a post-Homeric construction.

Sources:
(1) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(2) Kallimachos, Hymns to Apoll
(3) Pausanias, Periegesis
(4) Pindar, Odes
(5) Plutarch, Biographies
(6) Herodot, Histories
(7) Theokrit, Poems

Secondary literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und  römischen  
      Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(3) Der Kleine Pauly, Lexikon der Antike

Online sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) www2.warwick.ac.uk
(3) scalarchives.it

I have attached
(1) a pic of the temple of Apollo Karneios in Kyrene (www2.warwick.ac.uk)
(2) a pic of the monument for Karneios in Kyrene (www2.warwick.ac.uk)
(3) a pic of the volute krater of Ceglie (Photo Scala, Florence)

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 09, 2017, 04:47:54 pm
Pallor - Goddess of Paleness and Fear

In the moment I have discovered my love for Republican coins again. And indeed we find interesting and exciting depictions. Here I have an example:

The coin:
Roman Republic, L. Hostilius Saserna, gens Hostilia
AR - Denarius, 3.38g, 18.7mm, 35°
         Rome, 48 BC
obv. Bare head of Pallor, with dishavelled hair, falling down, behind a wind instrument
rev. Cult statue of Diana Ephesus, stg. frontal, laureate, long hair falling down over her        
       shoulders, long floating garment, resting with raised l, hand on spear and holding with r.
       hand stag, stg. l., at antlers
       in l. field SASERNA in a curve upward, r. L.HOSTILIVS downward
ref.:  Crawford 448/3; Sydenham 953; Hostilia 4; Sear Imperators 19; BMCRR Rome 3996;
        SRCV I, 419; Kestner 3541
scarce, well centered, toned, some flat areas
From Forum Ancient Coins, thanks!

The rev. of this coin refers to the conquest of Massilia (Marseille) by Julius Caesar 1 year before at the begin of his war against Pompeius after a siege and a naval battle. Artemis Ephesia was particularly worshipped in Massilia, an ancient Greek foundation, and had its own temple.
 
The obv., the subject of this article, is disputed. Today you often can read that the depicted portraits of the Hostilius coins represent Gallia and Vercingetorix. But that the Romans put on the obv. of their coins the portrait of their enemies would be very unusual. I went into the matter and actually these designations came into vogue not before the end of the 19th century, and of cause in France, when the French national sentiment was at its height. And naturally coins with the name of Vercingetorix are selling much better than without, especially today in the time of Asterix.

L. Hostilius Saserna, the moneyer of this coin, was a follower of Caesar, about whom we sadly know nothing. But it is much more credible that he wants to point out that the genealogy of his family goes back to the mythical king Tullus Hostilius. This kind of propaganda we find often on Republican coins, it was usual and is historically confirmed.

Actually the obv. shows Pallor, the goddess of paleness and fear, depicted with dishavelled hair. A 2nd coin of Hostilius Saserna shows Pavor, the god of dread, depicted with raised hair. Both are attendants of Mars. Their names are given too to the 2 moons of the planet Mars, Phobos the greater one, Deimos the other.

Etymology:
Pallor (m.), paleness (Lat. palleo = to be pale, related to Ahd. falo = German fahl), then metaphorical: fear, fright, dread, the Lat. analog to Greek Deimos. Stevenson calls her: Goddess of Paleness and Fear.

Pavor (m.), fear, fright, horror (Lat. paveo = to tremble, to be frightened), Lat. analog to Greek Phobos. Stevenson calls her Goddess of Consternation and Dread.

Panofka assumes that the name of Hostilius (Lat. hostilis = hostile) is an allusion to Mars, such as Artemis to Diana Hostilina, a kind of Enyo-Bellona, an archaic goddes of war. He calls the head with dishavelled hair Pavor, the head with raised hair Pallor (Creuzer).

History:
The Hostilii were a plebeian gens. Their name can't be explained for sure. It is known at the Veneti, the Illyrians, and the Etruscans too. Its great age is testified by Tullus Hostilius, and by the Curia Hostilia too, the precursor of the Curia Julia, the assembly hall of the Roman Senate. In the 1st century BC all lines of the gens seem to be dead. (Wikipedia)

After Romulus and Numa Pompilius Tullus Hostilius was the 3rd Roman king. He was famous for his militant attitude. When Rome has conquered Alba Longa, the Albans urged the neighboring cities of Veji and Fidena to fight against Rome. During the battle against Veji and Fidena the Albans, allies of Rome, left the battlefield and the Romans came into desperate straits. In this great distress Tullus promised to introduce 12 Salian priests and to erect a temple for Pavor, god of terror, and a temple for Pallor, god of fear. The Romans recovered themselves and caused a crushing defeat to their enemies. Livius writes: There was no Roman battle before which was more horrible than this one (Livius I, 27, 7).

History of Religion:
At first glance it seems to be absurd that Tullus promised temples for deities so contrary to warlike courage. But "pagan superstition" (Jacob Burkhardt) had no scruples to consecrate a temple to impiety or to worship obscenity or to erect a temple to "fever" (Valer. Max. II, 5, 6). So it is not surprising at all to deify trepidation and hedlessness. The Greek were sacrificing to Pavor (and Pallor too) to appease these horrible goddesses at war (Stevenson). In Corinth the Oracle had ordered the introduction of the cult of "Horror (Greek deima)", in Sparta the cult of "Fear". The Spartans built its altar near the Syssition of the Ephores (Plutarch). After the murder of Kylon at the altar in the temple of Athena, c.632 BC, (the so-called "Kylonian Sacrileg", the Athenians consecrated altars for "Outrage" and "Lack of Shyness" for expiation (Jacob Burkhardt).

Wether Tullus has de facto erected the promised temples is not known. We have no further evidence, and because in a parallel report of Dionysios from Halikarnassos they are not mentioned, it seems to be at least doubtful (Wissowa).

History of Literature:
Already at Homer (Il. 4, 440) Demos and Phobos belonged to the demonic entourage of Ares. They accompanied him and harnessed his horses (Il. 15, 119). At Hesiod they appear as sons of Ares and Aphrodite. Antimachos regarded them as the horses of Ares, coming from Thyella (bride of the wind), probably in misunderstanding the scene at Homer. This is true for Valerius Flaccus too in his Argonautika. At Nonnos they both are sons of Enyalios, an epiklesis of Ares. Here they are additionally assistants of Zeus in his combat against the monster Typhon. He has armed them with thunderbolts.
Semos of Delos (FHG 4, 495, frg. 18a) makes Deimos the father of Skylla by the nymph Krataiis. Beside the face of Gorgo Deimos and Phobos are depicted on the aegis of Athena (Hom. Il. 5, 739), and on the shield of Agamemnon (Il. 11, 37). At Quintus of Smyrna they are found on the shield of Achilles beside the war goddess Enyo and Eris.
At Apuleius (met. 10, 31) the personifications Metus (fear) and Terror appear.
In ancient poetry Ovid (Ov. met. 4, 485) calls Luctus (misery), Pavor (horror) and Terror (fear) attendants of Tisiphone, messenger of evil.

Paleness is an usual sign of death. Horaz in his famous carmen (Lib. I.IV) writes: pallida mors aequo pulsat  pede pauperum tabernas / regumque turris (The pale death knocks with equal pace on the huts of the poor and the castles of the kings)  

History of Art:
In classic art both were depicted as inconspicous youths where Phobos sometimes has a lion's head or is given a  leontine mane. Depictions which could destinctly be identified as Deimos are unknown, in contrast to Phobos.

I have added:
(1) A wall painting (fresco) from Pompeij from the House of Mars and Venus, 1st century AD, today in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. It shows Aphrodite leaning backward in the arms of her lover Ares, and the winged love god Eros and Phobos, playing with arms of the god (theoi.com)
(2) A mosaic fom the villa in Orbe-Bosceaz (Waadt/Switzerland) from the 3rd century AD, showing Ares with shield, spear and helmet, accompanied by Phobos and Nike (theoi.com)
(3 A mosaic from Halikarnassos from the 4th century AD, today in the British Museum. It shows Phobos with wide open eyes, mouth opened for a cry and leontine mane (theoi.com)

Explanations:
(1) Ephores: "Supervisors", 5 officials in ancient Sparta, which were elected each year. Eligible was each free citizen. This office probably was introduced as counterweight to the powerful Gerousion (Council of Elders)
(2) Epiklesis: Surname or cult name of a deity, by which a special feature of the deity was invoked.
(3) Syssition: Daily table fellowship of the Ephores. This should strengthen solidarity and the love for the polis.

Note:
There are numismatists too, who see in the portraits depicted on the coins of Hostilius the image of a female captive and on the other ("Vercingetorix") the image of a male captive, without giving them an individual name. Andrew McCabe, our approved specialist for Republican coins in the Forum, has suggested the following: May be all this is true: Pallor/Pavor, a Gallic captive, or Gallia/Vercingetorix. So each Roman could select his favourite conception. Such playing around with different meanings was very popular among the Romans.

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Homer, Ilias
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Nonnos, Dionysiaka
(5) Apuleius, Metamorphoses
(6) Livius, Ab urbe condita
(7) Horaz, Carmina
(8) Plutarch, Kleomenes
(9) Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico

Secondary Literature:
(1) Abhandlungen der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1841  (books.google.de)
(2) Georg Friedrich Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker: besonders der Griechen, 1842
(3) Jacob Burckhardt, Griechische Kulturgeschichte, 1898-1902, Neuausgabe 2014 (books.google.de)
(4) Georg Wissowa, Handbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1902 (books.google.de)
(5) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (online too)
(6) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Literatur, 1886-1937 (online too)
(7) Seth William Stevenson, A Dictionary of Roman Coin, 1889, reprint 1964
(8) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv, 1979
(9) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythologie, Eigenverlag, 2011

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) books.google.de
(3) theoi.com

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 18, 2017, 02:55:55 pm
Some Notes on the Cock

Dear friends of ancient mythology!

This article I have written for the German Forum some time before. But now I found the opportunity to translate it to English. So I want to share it.

First I met the cock on coins as companion of Hermes like on the next coin:

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis, Macrinus, AD 217-218
AE 28, 12.56g, 28.14mm, 0°
struck under governor Marcus Claudius Agrippa
obv. AVT K OPPEL C - EVH MAKRINOC
       Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. VP AGRIPPA NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICT / [RW]
       Hermes, nude, chlamys over l. arm, stg. frontal, looking l., holding kerykeion in l. arm
       and purse in the extended r. hand: at his feet l. the cock stg. l.
 ref. a) not in AMNG:
           cf. AMNG I/1, 1693 (rev. only)
        b) nt in Varbanov
        c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2017) No. 8.23.10.7 (plate coin)
rare, VF/about VF, dark green patina
This rev. is known for Diadumenian too, HrHJ (2017) No. 8.25.10.1. An example for the parallel issues for members of the imperial family.
The obv. is Pat Lawrence's type M, but not listed with this rev.

Recently I was lucky enough to add the following coin to my collection. This coin was the real cause for this article, because I want to know the meaning of this depiction.

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211
AE 16, 3.26g, 15.64mm, 180°
obv. AV KAI CEP - CEVHROC
       Bust draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. NIKOPOLIT - PROC ICT
       Cock advancing r., stepping with l. foot on snake, which is erecting in front of him
ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1416, pl. XX, 7 (1 ex., Bukarest)
      b) not in Varbanov
      c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2017) No. 8.14.10.36 (plate coin)
extremely rare (R9), about SS, dark green patina

The rev. is known for Caracalla too, HrHJ (2017) No. 8.18.10.22. Another example for a parallel issue for members of the imperial family. And one should regard, it is not an eagle fighting with the snake, but a cock! Only on a coin from Apollonia pontica this motive is found.

Etymology:
Please note: I'am referring here to the German word "Hahn" (= cock). The common germanic word Middle High German hana, Old High German hano, Got. hana, Old English hana, Swedish haene is a substantive to the Indogerm. root *kann (= to sing, to sound), cf. Lat. canere (= to sing, to sound) and Greek ει -κανος "Hahn, cock" (really "singing in the early morning"). So the original meaning of Hahn is "the Singer" (Wikipedia)

Mythology:
In Greek mythology I have found only a short refernce for the cock: Alektryon was a favourite of Ares. When Ares met Aphrodite for an erotic tete-a-tete, Alektryon should keep guard at the door. But he fell asleep and so Helios was able to detect the love affair in the morning. He informed Hephaistos, Aphrodites' husband, about his detection, who surprised them still on their bed of love. He captivated them in an elaborated, undestroyable net and presented them to the congregated Olympic gods, who broke out in ringing laughter (so-called "Homeric laughter"). But Ares was so angry that he transformed Alektryon into a cock, who from then on bears this name. And as constant remembrance of this incident he used to crow when the sun is raising (Eustach. ad Hom. Iliad. 1598, 61; Lukian. Gall. 3; Liban. narr.26).

That the cock appears at companion of Hermes is dated to newer times. At Homer this idea was still unknown. Probably the Greeks have borrowed this concept from Asisa minor. Here the cock was known as companion of the Anatolian moon god Men. Surely the cock bears lunar aspects because of his remarkable sickle-shaped tail feathers.

At Mithras in contrast the solar aspects have priority. He died and was reborn like the sun. As god of light he has the attributes of the sun, the purifying fire and the cock announcing the morning.

Attis, favourite of Kybele, lost his life by a boar, but was brought to life again by Kybele, and this event was repeated on every beginning of spring. His companion as herald of daylight and victory over darkness was the cock. We can see in the motive of resurrection of the dead already ideas reminiscent of Christianity.

An important role the cock played in the cult of Asklepios, coming from Pergamon. The cock as symbol of sun was an attribute of Apollo, and cocks were sacrificed to Asklepios, son of Apollo, in large quantities, partly because the cock as herald guided the souls of the dead to the underworld. Furthermore Asklepios was the god who could bring back dead to live again.

Why the cock became an attribute of Hermes is not explained yet convincingly. It is possible that it was the role of Hermes as herald of the gods, who, like the cock is greeting the beginning day, is announcing the arrival of the Olymic gods.

But it is possible too that like the Anatolian deities Mithras, Attis and finally Asklepios have participation in all different levels of the world so Hermes as herald has travelled through all 3 levels of the cosmos and has taken over the cock as symbol of light.

History:
The prototype of all our fowls is the red jungle fowl (Gallus gallus), coming from East Asia (India, Sunda Islands), today threatened with extinction. From its origin it spreads out as cultivated form to China, Bactria, Mesopotamia and Asia minor. In Aristophanes' "The Birds", 414 BC, ist is called "Median Bird". The point of time when it came to Greek can be specified very exactly by its occurence in the Batrachomyomachia, in the works of Pindar and Aischylos, where it is named αλεκτωρ, or as αλεκτρυων at Theognis: It was the end of the 6th century BC. From there it got to Sicily and Lower Italy. That matches well the depictions on coins of Himera/Sicily, 530-482 BC.

The cock was appreciated as guardian and for announcing the time, moreover as fighting cock. He occured in gymnasia, palaces and on public places. Various localities were famous for its breeding. His natural agressiveness was strengthened by feeding him with garlic and onions. Cockfights, introduced possibly by Themistokles following models of Asia minor, were one of the most popular amusements  of the Greeks. Depictions  of such fights you can find on many vases, reliefs and gems (Pauly).
And now we came to the explanation of the motive on the 2nd coin: The cock is depicted as protective and battlesome animal and symbolizes vigilance and battle readiness against threats. So there is no connection of this coin with Hermes!

The Roman regarded the fowl as mantic animal. Plinius writes about its role in the Roman state cult. Grains were scattered on the ground and from acceptance or rejection of the food the will of the gods before big undertakings and wars has been calculated (auspicium ex tripudiis). But it came to manipulations, Caesar laughed at it, and during imperial times it disappeared (Pauly)

Especially because of his distinct reproductive drive the cock was a favoured gift with erotic meaning. There are many gems of Eros together with a cock (Imhoof-Blumer/Keller).

The cock in Christianity:
In Christian interpretations early on we find a connection of the various symbol forms. The best known is his role in the New Testament in the course of Judas' betrayal: "Truly I tell you, That this night, before the cock crow, you shall deny me trice." (Matthew 26:34). Here we have him in his function as guardian. But the cock became too the symbol for Christ's victory over the hostile darkness and the horror of the evil spirits; because Christ in the resurrection has blown the sound of life against the power of death. And he is who once will awake us from the sleep of death!
Exceptional is a mosaic in the Basilica Santa Maria Assunta in Aquileia/Italy from the Early Christianity (4th century). We see the fight between a cock and a turtle. The turtle, usually not belonging to the stock of Christian pictures, symbolizes as reptil on the ground the evil, whereas the cock naturally is the symbol of heaven. I think it is clear who will be the winner!
 
Literature:
(1) New Testament (NT)
(2) Eustach. ad Hom. Iliad.
(3) Lukian. Gall.
(4) Liban. narr.
(5) Aristophanes, The Birds
(6) Plinius, Historia naturalis

Secondary Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
     Literatur, 1884-1937
(3) Der Kleine Pauly, 1979
(4) Imhoof-Blumer/Keller, Tier- und Pflanzenbilder auf Münzen und Gemmen des klassi-
      schen Altertums, 1889

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) Wikimedias Commons
(3) Wildwinds

I have added
(1) The picture of a Red Jungle Fowl (,Edward Neale, Wikimedias Commons)
(2) The picture of the mosaic from Aquileia (testudowelt.de)
(3) The picture of the silver drachm from Himera,, Kraay 135, before c.484 BC.
      The depiction shows a cock stg. l. and a hen stg. r. (Wildwinds)

Best regards

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 02, 2018, 06:40:56 am
Sexism in Mythology

The Manchester Art Gallery has according to a report in the German "Spiegel Online" today taken down the painting "Hylas and the Nymphs" (1896) from John William Waterhouse because it shows a perception of women from the Victorian era which we actually have overcome. It shows the wife either "passive-decorative" or as "femme fatal". Because I have used this painting in my article about Hylas, I want to apologize and at the same time to warn my readers that my articles could content passages  which not always matches their own ideology. Because I can't know their ideologies it is not possible for me to delete these passages (at least as long as the "thought police" does permit it!). So I have to beg them to simply skip these passages. Thank you!

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Molinari on February 02, 2018, 11:26:55 am
What a disgrace- and they call themselves an "art" museum!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Stkp on February 02, 2018, 03:47:45 pm
I've never been to Manchester, but my understanding is that the art gallery is known to have a strong collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art, such as this Waterhouse. It is sad when a major museum cannot contextualize its artwork. If the trend continues, there will soon be little left on the walls of art museums. Stkp
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 26, 2018, 03:24:30 pm
Jupiter Stator

To write an article about Jupiter Stator wass my intention for many years, but there was no matching coin in my collection. But now I got it!

The coin:
Gordian III, AD 238-244
AR - Antoninianus, 4.13g, 22.38mm
         Rome, 4th issue, AD 241-244
obv. IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. IOVI - STATORI  
       Jupiter, nude, stg. frontal, looking r., holding in l. arm thunderbolt and resting
       with raised r. hand on long sceptre
ref. RIC IV, 84; C. 109
about EF, fine die break on obv.

Etymology:
Statori is dative of dedication of Stator, from Lat. stare = to stay. He is who brings the army to halt. It is well possible that a similar cult was known by the Sabines too. Among the Osci there was a Versor, a counterpart to the Roman Stator. All explicable in these warlike times. Originally Stator was its own iconic name, then lost its peculiarity and degenerated to an epitheton of Jupiter (Roscher).  

Mythology:
Literary first mentioned was Stator by Livius in his description of the Sabine wars. The Sabines, living on the Quirinal Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, had captured already the Capitoline Hill by the infamous betrayal of Tarpeia and pressed hard the Romans in the valley, the later Forum Romanum. The Romans began to flee up to the Palatine. In this situation of greatest distress, Romulus, leader of the Romans, invoked Jupiter Stator (translation by B.O. Foster):

“O Jupiter, it was thy omen that directed me when I laid here on the Palatine the first foundations of my City. The fortress is already bought by a crime and in the possession of the Sabines, whence they are come, sword in hand, across the valley to seek us here. But do thou, father of gods and men, keep them back from this spot at least; deliver the Romans from their terror, and stay their shameful flight! I here vow to thee, Jupiter Stator, a temple, to be a memorial to our descendants how the City was saved by thy present help.”

And then he exclaimed as if he has got already the promise: “Here, Romans, Jupiter Optimus Maximus commands us to stand and renew the fight!”

And the Roman army rearranged itself, raised its weapons and withstood the attack. This happened at the Porta Mugionia (called too Porta Mugonia or Porta Palati). We know the follow-up: When the Romans threatened to defeat the Sabine army the Sabine women threw themselves between the two armies and could stop the slaughter. From then on Romans and Sabines formed a joint nation, called "Quirites" according to the Sabine city of Cures (Livius, Ab urbe condita, I, 12).

Romulus has not honoured his promise. In fact he dedicated only a spot (fanum) to Jupiter Stator, directly in front of the Porta Mugionia, but did not built the promised temple. That happened not before 294 BC by Marcus Atlius Regulus (Liv. I, X.37). He was consul in 294 AD and got in desperate straits in the 3rd Samnite War. This is depicted by Livius in the 10th book of his "Ab urbe condita (History of the City of Rome)". He succeeded not before he has promised Jupiter Stator to erect a temple for him. This temple was located at the Via nova of the Palatine Hill. Livius (X, 37) tries to unify these two versions: Romulus has consecrated only a fanum. Jupiter however has honoured his promise even twice!

In this temple M. Tullius Cicero has called together the Senate on November 8th 63 BC and made his famous 1st oration against Catalina ("Quo usque tandem, Catilina, patientia nostra abutere?") in which he revealed his conspiracy against the state which thereafter was suppressed pitilessly.

The Temple of Jupiter Stator:
Sadly the exact place of this temple is not known. The literally sources give some hints like: near or outside of the Porta Mugionia (but nobody knows its location!), at the higher end of the Via sacra or on the Palatine Hill.

Several suggest a place directly beside the Arch of Titus at the Northern slope of the Palatine Hill as possible. When in 1827 a medieval tower was demolished ruins of an ancient building were found below, and these remains often were seen as fundament of the Temple of Jupiter Stator.

This first temple was destroyed by the great fire of Rome under Nero in AD 64. Feast day probably was January 13.

The Italian archeologist Filippo Coarelli in contrast places the temple of Jupiter Stator nearer to the Forum, between the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina and the Basilica of Maxentius, at that place where formerly the so-called "Temple of Romulus" was located. His reason is the old course of the Via sacra before the Basilica of Maxentius was built. Thus the circular building of the so-called "Temple of Romulus" is actually the ancient Temple of Jupiter Stator.

A second temple for Jupiter Stator was consecrated by Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus after his triumphal procession in celebration of his conquest of Macedonia in 146 BC at the Circus Flaminius. This temple was combined with the Temple of Iuno Regina by a columned hall (porticus). The material he has specially brought from Liguria so that this temple was the first made of marble.This temple was gorgeously decorated with statues and effigies which Metellus has robbed from Macedonia. In front of the temple stood 2 equestrians made by Lysippus, court sculptor of Alexander the Great. As dies natalis was held the 5th of September.

Under Augustus this temple was restaurated. The Porticus Metellus was replaced by the Porticus Octaviae after the name of his sister, and the fiest day was rescheduled on September 23, probably because this was the birthday of Augustus. This temple is desribed by Vitruv in detail. Around the Porticus Pope Paul IV. established in 1555 the Jewish Ghetto of Rome. From here 1007 persons were deported by the Germans in 1943. Only 7 of them  returned. Parts of the Porticus can be seen today. I have added a pic.
Note: Despite its ending of -us porticus is grammatically female!

It is suggested that the statue of Jupiter Stator was depicted as seen on the coin of Gordian III. But Iovis Stator on this antoninianus of Gordian III is no longer only the god who can turn the fortune of war. Here he is meant in the sense "who takes  care for the strength of the State" (Cicero, Cat. 1.33: "whom we rightly call the stay of this city and empire") At this time the Empire was under great pressure by the Persian Empire in the East and the coin refers surely to the defensive battles against the Sasanids which reached under Gordian III a new culmination and determined the 2nd half of his reign.

Literature:
(1) Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita, Libri, Teubner, Leipzig 1910
(2) Livius, Römische Frühgeschichte, Goldmann 1962
(3) Catilina, Briefe und Reden, Goldmann 1957
(4) Sueton, Kaiserbiographien, Goldmann 1957
(5) Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte,

Secondary literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770
      (auch online)
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
      römischen Mythologie, Teubner,  Leipzig 1884-1890 (auch online)
(3) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv
(4) Wikipedia

I have added the following pictures:
(1) a pic of the ruins near the Arch of Titus

(2) the pic "Roman Capriccio" made by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765), a well-known painter of vedutas. We see on the right side the 3 columns belonging to the Temple of Jupiter Stator near the Arch of Titus which can be seen behind. In the nackground the Colosseum, on the left side Trajan's Column. These monuments are arranged artistically and don't correspond with their actual locations. Today this pic is located in the Museum of Art in Indianapolis.

(3) a pic from the so-called "Temple of Romulus", which possibly is the place of the 1st Temple of Jupiter Stator.

(4) a pic of the Porticus Octaviae from today (Joris1919). The place before it was renamed in 2002 in "Largo 16 ottobre 1943" in memory of the deportation of the Roman Jews.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Sam on February 26, 2018, 07:00:52 pm
I do not know , if the word Impressive will do you justice , thank you Jochen.
A  reference thread !
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 27, 2018, 02:07:53 pm
Thank you so much, Sam, highly appreciated!

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Sam on February 27, 2018, 04:01:09 pm
If I may, in the   The poet Stesichoros (Tisias)   study of yours , Molinari ( Nick )

Asked:
I have one question: how do we know the person on the coin is Steisichoros?  I ask not having looked at my Calciati copy for his rationale. Is it because of his notoriety in Katane?
I, and I believe , so everyone follows your studies, like to know if you ever searched that.
Could it be an old statue for him, was destroyed or disappeared as some other object on ancient coins?
Thank you, Jochen the Ocean of Knowledge.
I do really enjoy your studies , always something new to learn.  +++


Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 27, 2018, 05:09:09 pm
Dear Sam!

Thank you for your questions. When I saw the coin of Thermai Himeraiai from Forum Ancient Coins I must confess that I have never heard of Stesichoros before. And I have sadly no access to Calciati nor BMC Sicily. But a similar coin was listed by Barclay Head in his Historia Numorum. Therefore I have had no reason to doubt the references of Forum Ancient Coins. Then I found a better preserved coin at  http://ancientcoinage.org/poets-philosophers-astronomers-etc.html where another coin of Stesichoros is listed too.

I kow that this is scientifically not satisfying.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Sam on February 27, 2018, 09:39:35 pm
Thank you So Very Much.
Actually , the question was from Nick , after I read your amazing write up then at that day ( I remember you mentioned the coin from the German Forum) , but I noticed you never mentioned anything in your thread as part of the study about that question of Nick ( before even he asked ) , I told myself , when someone with knowledge in the field as the ocean like Jochen writes a study  that high , will never ever miss an important point  like this if it were known or proven , so I told myself : definitely it seems to have a good reason . ( since as you know I am not in the Provincials , but interested as a coin collector in the first place )

I was checking everyday , to see if there is an answer , so I said I am going to bring attention , and here we go the answer from you.
Your sincere answer is an answer , and it is satisfying ,I also did a humble search try at that day with no answer.
No one can know the unknown, a mystery on the top of a lot of other mysteries maybe one day a discovery will come up and solve it.

I cannot honestly compliment your amazing knowledge 😊 anymore (Honestly, I should not even call it a compliment, it is your right on the reader.), I am afraid members will say he is going too much , but if they read your threads , they will know why I keep on saying so.
The time , the thoughts , the hard work ,  the search , and the  indexes for the reader's convenience , you put in your studies at FORVM ,  are valuable and appreciated yet  impressive valuable  references to collectors and non-collectors . The cup of coffee tastes a lot better with your studies. Everyday I read some. Every study of yours is worthy of the reader time ,it will add something new to the reader 's knowledge , and deserves an honest Thank  +++



We are not greedy 😊  , one thread a month from you  is perfect   +++
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 02, 2018, 11:32:14 am
Talos - The first robot in history

It has been a long time that I have posted a mythological article in this thread. All the more I hope that I can bring with this new article something new to many readers.

The coin:
Crete, Phaistos, 3rd c. BC
AE 17, 3.70g, 17.1mm, 225°
obv. Talos advancing r., hurling stone in raised r. hand, holding another in l. hand
rev. Hound on the scent to r.
        ΦΑΙΣ / ΤΙΩΝ in 2 lines, beginning above, ending in ex.
ref. Svoronos Crète 74; SNG Copenhagen 520; BMC Crete p. 64, 27-28
rare, F, a bit rough

Mythology:
Talos was a bronze man at the island of Crete. As giant he was described only by Orpheus in his Argonautika. He was a gift of Zeus to Europa when he has abducted her from Sidon, together with a bronze dog and other magical things, to protect her. He lived in the cave of Melidoni and it was his task to walk round the shores of the island and keep them free of pirates and invaders. Agressors he killed from a distance by hurling stones. In Crete he was depicted as young man, with wings, probably to show his great velocity.

There is another story too that he was created by Hephaistos in Sardinia (Simonides) and handed over to Minos as a present. Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon were the three children that were born by Europa to Zeus. Later on he has introduced the boy's love in Crete, has been the lover of Rhadamanthys and was together with him a guardian of Justice (Ibykos).

Apollodor, author of the Bibliotheka, suggested, that the bronze nature of Talos shows, that he could have been a survivor of Hesiod's mythical Bronze Age. Lukian, the satirist, has mocked about that.

When the Argonauts under Jason and Medea came to Crete on the voyage to the Golden Fleece came, he was throwing stones on their ship, the Argo, as usual. They can't come ashore until Medea, who has magic forces, as you know, has made him innoxious. Talos owned only a single blood vessel, running from his neck down to his ankles. There the vessel was closed by a bronze nail. On Medea's advice - may be that she has made him mad by her evil glance or has promised him immortality - he removed this nail and his Ιχωρ (Ichor) poured out like melted lead (Apollod.; Apoll. Rhod. ). So Talos died. Other authors report that it was Poias, father of Philoktetes, who has shot an arrow in his heel and he died like Achilles.

Exkursion: Blood Circulation
Ichor was a colourless or golden liquid flowing in the vessels of gods and immortals, the very blood of gods. It was hold as poisonous for mortals so that they die immediately after contact. Homer (Ilias 5) describes it as dark or black. The Giants should have possessed it too (Strabo). It's etymology is unclear. Originally it was synonomical with Αιμα (Haima, Greek blood).

In ancient times the blood circulation was unknown. Because after death normally no blood is found in the arteries, they were hold for channels for the essential pneuma, the breath of life. Arteria is folk-etymological "air vessel". The mighty Aorta was hold for the suspension of the heart. Hippokrates (460-c.370 BC) has described by Aorta the Trachea with the 2 main bronchi, from which the 2 lungs were hanging down. Since Aristoteles (384-322) it was the main artery like today.

It was the British physician and anatomist William Harvey (1578-1657) who published in 1628 his famous work "De Moti Cordis", in which he described the blood circulation and became the founder of physiology. How and in which way the blood comes from the arteries into the veins first the Italian Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) could show with the aid of a microscope by which he discovered the capillaries in 1661.

The bronze dog:
The bronze dog on the reverse of the coin was initially a companion of Talos and helped him to find intruders. After the death of Talos he became the guardian of the sanctuary of Zeus in Crete. But there was a golden dog too, who has guarded Amaltheia, the goat which has brought up the little Zeus, and who became later the guardian of the temple of Zeus. Anyway this dog was stolen by Pandareus. Pandareus was the example of a prankster who was able to cheat even Zeus himself. He took the dog to the mountain of Sipylos and handed him to Tantalos for safekeeping. Whe he wants to take him back Tantalos swore that he never have had a dog. As punishment Zeus throw the Sipylos over him. Pandareos was transformed into a stone.

Etymology:
Ταλως (Talos) is the old name for the Cretan sun god. Αλως (Halos, beginning with digamma) = Ηλιος (Helios, beginning with spiritus asper). This derivation matches the regular intervals of his circuits arround the island, typically for the course of the sun.
Background:
The cult of Talos is known only from coins of Phaistos. Roscher writes: But one should not look at the south of Crete alone. He seems to have been a mountain god and on the highest mountain of the Taygetos the top was sacred to Helios, the sun god. That Talos was throwing stones is known as the most archaic kind of defence and is originated from the times of the heroes.
Referring to Plato, he was the guardian of laws. Three times a year he went through the villages of Crete and proclaimed the laws of Minos, which were laid down on bronze plates. Rhadamanthys was responsible for the cities, Talos for the villages. Three times a year matches the 3 Greek seasons where the autumn was not known.

Altogether the reports about Talos are very vague. More precise details are known only from his death. This confirms the opinion that his mythology belongs to a an older, pre-Greek time. In Attika for instance he has never taken root. And the tradition which connects him with Sardinia doesn't match well his role as guardian in Crete. Possibly it was the attempt to explain the "sardonic laughter" that has made difficulties already to the ancients. Similar can be seen his genealogy which made him the son of Kreas and so the father of Rhadamanthys.

It is reported that he embraced his victims after he has made his body red-hot; dying they (or he?) show the σαρδανικος γελως called distorted grin (Lat. risus sardonicus = sardonic laughter), meaning a painful grin. It is told that in Sardinia (Sardoni = inhabitants of Sardinia) in this way delinquents and old people were killed. Today it is suggested that it was the poison of the hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) by which they were killed and which caused a spasm of the facial muscles. In medicine the risus sardonicus is the typical symptom of tetanus.

The death by a red-hot bronze figure is reported too for Baal and the Canaanite moloch whose cult has spread out to Carthago. That speaks for an originally oriental cult with human sacrifice, a cult that later was replaced by the cult of helios. An equivalent process we know of the anthropophagic cult of Kronos which was replaced by the milder cult of Zeus. Then the bronze nature of Talos is not ascribed to his invulnerability but rather to the bright glance of the bronze. The relation of Talos to Helios is caused not only etymologically but has remained too in Zeus Tallaios, who was venerated in Crete and was nothing else as the Cretan sun god. Orientally is surely the ambiguity ofv the sun, that on one side is responsible for the fertility of the vegetation, but on the other side by its consumptive ardour this vegetation destroyed.

Ranke-Graves writes, that it is too little noted that in Bronze Age each tool, each weapon and each object of utility has been ascibed magical attributes, and that the smith in that time was seen as a kind of magician with magical forces. In that way he was linked to poets and physicians. Often it is told that they were lamed. We know that from Hephaistos or Daidalos. Possibly this was done intentionally to prevent running away, as it is told for Weland the Smith in the Saga of Thidrek.
Pauly writes: Talos seems to be the imagination of a robot which is playing with the possibilities and dangers of bronze casting. I think that is very interesting and leads me relaxed to my next excursion "Man and Machine", which will come soon.

History of art:
There are only few descriptions of Talos in ancient times. Strictly speaking I have found only one! This too is an indication that the mythology of Talos is pre-Greek. I have added:
(1) The red-figured vase painting of the so-called Talos-painter on an Apulian velute krater,
       c.400-390 BC, today in the National Archaeological Museum Jatta in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy.
       The front shows Talos, slain by the magician Medea. The Dioscures are sitting on their
        horses, holding his arms, Poseidon and Amphitrite (upper r. corner) are witnesses.
(2) A picture of Sybil Tawse from the book "Stories of Gods and Heroes", 1920, by Thomas
      Bulfinch. Sybil Tawse (1886-1971) was at that time a famous illustrator of the so-called
      golden age of illustration at the begin of the 20th century.
(3) A pic of the cave of Melidoni, as shown to tourists today. This cave is a national symbol
      too for the resistance of the Greek against Turkish occupation. In 1824 in this cave
      aspyxiated 340 inhabitants and 30 Cretan partisans by fire, laid by the Turks, because
      they denied to surrender.

Literature:
(1) Apollodor, Bibliotheka
(2) Apollonius Rhodios, Argonautika
(3) Hesiod
(4) Hesychios, Lexikon
(5) Homer, Ilias
(6) Lukian
(7) Orpheus, Argonautika (actually published by  J. M. Gesner, Leipzig 1764)
(8) Pausanias, Voyages through Greece
(9) Strabo, Geographika
(10) Suda (Byzantinisches Lexikon)
(11) Thidrekssaga

Secondary literature:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly, Lexikon der Antike in 5 Bänden, dtv 1979
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (Reprint), online too
(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, rororo 2003
(4) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, Band II, Die Heroen-Geschichten, dtv 1966
(5) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
      Literatur, 1884-1890, online too
(6) Voss-Herlinger, Taschenbuch der Anatomie, Gustav Fischer Stuttgart 1963

Internet:
(1) daratheodoraart.com/ (Sybil Tawse)
(2) theoi.com  
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 04, 2018, 04:32:05 pm
Excursion: Man and Machine

Pauly has written: Talos seems to be the imagination of a robot which is playing with the possibilities and dangers of bronze casting. We see that already in ancient times there were people that have had a critical look at the progress. That reminds me immediately of the Chinese story of Zhuangzi (365-290 BC) about the dangers of machines which I want to share.

In his book "Zhuangzi", probably the most important  work of Daoism he writes (translation by myself, be merciful):
When Dsi Gung came through the region north of the Han river he saw a man in his vegetable garden. For watering he had digged ditches. He went down himself into the well and  brought up in his arms a vessel with water that he poured out. He laboured extremely and achieved so little.
Dsi Gung said: "There is a device with that you can water hundred ditches a day. Do you like to use it?"
The gardener stood up and said: "And what should that be?" Dsi Gung said: "You take a wooden lever arm that is weightened behind and light at the front. In this way you can scoop water so that it is bubbling extremely well. It is called a draw well."
There his anger was writ large in his face and he said: "I have heard my teacher saying: If somebody uses a machine he is running all his affairs like a machine; who is running his affairs like a machine will have got a machine heart. But if somebody has a machine heart in his breast he looses the pure simplicity. Who has lost his pure simplicity will be uncertain in his emotions. Uncertainty of emotions does not get along well with the true mind. It is not that I don't know such things but I am ashamed of using them."


You can laugh at that. Especially because it was only about a draw well and the true mind. And where we were today with our civilization (not culture!) if the machine breakers in England at the beginning of the industrialisation would have succeeded, or if the Silesian weavers in 1844 would have stopped the modern weaving looms?

We see that progressophobia has existed all the way. The problem in that times was that the industrial progress was not cushioned socially and has led to pauperism what is not so today, at least in our countries.

But today the problem is not the social cushion of the technical progress but much more: It is the dismissing of dignity of man (Precht). It is the uncritical faith in progress that is threatening not only us but the whole world.

Oneof the first important critics was Joseph Weizenbaum, co-founder and developer of artificial intelligence at the MIT. He writes that the governmental big computers couldn't be serviced today because nobody has the overview after so many years. They are a big black box especially if interconnected with each other. Turning a adjusting screw has effects that can't be foreseen in its entirety. And at the peak of the Cold War these monsters were provided to make the decision between  war and piece automatically, because of the short advance warning time. The human mechnisms of decision making have had beome too long. Thankfully the USA have said goodbye to this horror idea.

Last week German chancellor Angela Merkel had to turn back of her way to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires because the entire electronics of her aeroplane has been fallen out. A speaker of the Bundeswehr (German Army) explained in tv news: "It ws just the classical complete failure of an electronical device that regulary can happen. It occurs in under 2 percent of flights and we have had all under control." I can say only: Great!

But when we speak about self-driving cars we have a dilemma that we didn't have before: How the car shall decide when there is only one alternative: to run somebody over? The little child or the the old lady, or the little child or 5 ladies? I hope you see what I mean. It's a question of ethics. And ethics is not computable. There is no algorithm. All human beings are equally, Nobody is less worthy. The philosopher Precht: To program artificial intelligence how it shall act in ethical borderline cases is an attack against the dignity of man.

Stephen Hawking:  Artificial intelligence can become the worst occurence of mankind.

Videant consules...

Explanations:
(1) Daoism beside Confucianism and Buddhism is one of "The Three Teachings",
      that have shaped China until today. Dao means such as "the right way". Its meaning is
      especially in its ethics.
(2) Dilemma: In logics a kind of syllogism in which the opponent is trapped independently of
      his decision (double mill). In this way too a situation with 2 possibilities which both lead
      to an unwanted outcome. Hopelessness

I have added:
(1) The pic of a draw mill from Kiung valley, Khakassia, Siberia (Autor: Dr. A.Hugentobler)
(2) Käthe Kollwitz "Weberzug", aus "Ein Weberaufstand", 1893/97, Käthe Kollwitz Museum,
     Cologne

Literature:
(1) Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Flug nach Arras
(2) Stephen Hawking, The Dangers of Artificial Intellligence (Internet)
(3) Aldous Huxley, Brave new world
(4) Richard David Precht, Maschinen ohne Moral, Spiegel Nr.48, 24.11.18
(5) Sophokles, Antigone
(6) Joseph Weizenbaum, Die Macht der Computer und die Ohnmacht der Vernunft,
      Suhrkamp 1978
(7) Joseph Weizenbaum, Kurs auf den Eisberg, Piper 1987
(8) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 04, 2018, 04:37:47 pm
The Phrygian Rider-God Sozon

It is recommended to read the legends on coins very carefully. Then you can make surprising discoveries. That happened to me with this coin, that I have bought actually only because of its double-axe.

The coin:
Caria, Aphrodisias, Augustus, 27 BC - AD 14
AE 15, 3.36g, 15.01mm, 180°
late issue, struck 2 BC - AD 14 (MacDonald)
obv. CEBA - CTOC
Laureate head r.
rev. [AΦPO]ΔI - C - I - EΩN CΩ[Z]
in r. field [ΩN]
Double axe, decorated with ribbons
ref. BMC 90 var.; SNG Copenhagen 115 var.; SNG München 130 var.; RPC 2838; MacDonald Type 45, pl. V, 092/R160
rare, about VF, dark-green patina

Aphrodisias:
The name Aphrodisias the city got from its important cult of Aphrodite. In the war against Mithridates VI it sent troups to the Romans and in the civil war after Caesar' death it has decided to join the right side. Therefore it received significant privileges from the Romans. Aphrodisias was a favourite city of Augustus and was heavily promoted by him. So it developed to one of the leading cities in Asia minor. Because of the nearby marble querries Aphrodisias could establish a famous marble industry. Its marble works were sold in the entire Roman empire. One of the most beautiful buildings is the "Tetrapylon", a gate with 4 pillars that was costly restored. Aphrodisias belongs to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage.

Aphrodisias was the birthplace of the philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias, a Peripatetic (school of Aristoteles), who lived at the turn of the 2nd century to the 3rd century AD. He was the most important ancient commentator of Aristoteles. From Aphrodisias to was Chariton of Aphrodisias, author of "Chareias and Kallirrhoe", one of the earliest ancient novels we have in full. Its time of origin today is laid on the end of the 1st century AD.  

Sozon:
But now to Sozon, whose name CΩZΩN is found on the coin. He is an Anatolian, probably not before the Hellenismus characterized god (Roscher). His homeland is Pisidia from where his cult spread to Phrygia, Caria, Pamphylia and Lycia. Only few is known about him. His name is found only on inscriptions and on coins:
(1) Coins from Antiochia ad Maeandrum in Caria
(2) Aphrodisias in Caria: A coin of Augustus, which I have presented here, with the name CΩZΩN on rev.
(3) Coins from Masturia in Lydia: Here the depiction recalls Apollo with branch and lyra. Named sometimes Apollo Tyrimnaios or Hero Mastauros, when he is depicted as Rider-God
(4) Coins from Themisonion in Pamphylia

The name Sozon is certainly Greek, even if his character bears distinct oriental features. So he shows a peculiar combination of Greek mythology and local belief (Roscher). Ramsay has assumed that Sozon is a Greek remodelling of the Thracian-Greek Sabazios. Cumont has recommended this equalization because the worshippers of the Sozon cult have merged with Jewish believers and have identified Sabazios with Zebaoth. This was already thought by Plutarch not least because of the similarity of their ceremonies. Sabazios was a Anatolian deity that was connected by the Greeks with Dionysos and Zagreus. Zebaoth is a attribute of the majesty of God in the combination Jahwe Zebaoth, meaning "Lord of hosts".

On votive tablets he is depicted as horseman with club or double-axe. The insciption sometimes is referring to Apollo or a riding Helios. In the ambit of these perceptions belongs too the Thracian Rider-God who sometimes is called Helios too. Here Sozon converges with Apollo and Helios.

Sozon is known too as epithet of Zeus and means in this context such as Soter (= Redeemer). In this case Zeus is seen as harvest god who on the other side can destroy the harvest by his hailstorm. This dual-sided chsracter is known of Apollo too.

In late antiquity Apollonia in Pisidia was named Sozopolis. It is considered certain that Sozon was the eponym of this city. It is interestíng too, that Apollonia Pontika in late antiquity was named Sozopolis as well" Today it is Sozopol in Bulgaria. It was famous for its sanctuaries of Apollo. The 12m high statue of Apollo made by Kalamis was brought to Rome when Lucullus has conquered the city.

Near by Cap Palos in Spain an anchor has been found with the inscription Zeus Kasios Sozon. Here Zeus is the guardian of seafaring and Sozon means nothing else than Soter (saviour).

Just as Soter has the female counterpart Soteira so Sozon the saviour has a female counterpat in Sozusa, an epiklesis for female deities. It is known for Panakeia, the daughter of Asklepios, for Eileithya, for Isis and even for Aphrodite, because of the inscription on an anchor, found in Spain too, as guardian of the sailors.

It is of interest that the orthodox church has an early martyr in Lykaonia (7th September), who became martyr under Maximianus because he has destroyed an idol in Pompeiopolis. We see that Sozon has penetrated the Christian mythology. That strengthens the conception that there was a connection between Sozon followers and Jewish believers.

Summarizing we can say: Sozon is a Phrygian Rider-God with labrys, related to the Thracian Rider-God Heros, who in Greek times was associated with Zeus, Apollo and Sabazios.

This result is not at all satisfying. Sometimes it is not possible to say more. But to concede this is part of science.

I have added:
(1) A pic of the Tetrapylon in Aphrodisias (own photo from 2011)
(2) A pic of a painting, showing Sanct Sozon with attributes of a shepherd.

Sources:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Mythologie
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 26, 2019, 03:19:08 pm
Astakos and the founder myth of Nikomedeia

The Coin:
Bithynia, Nikomedeia, Severus Alexander, AD 222-235
AE 20, 4.26g, 20.24mm, 30°
obv. M AVP CEVH AΛEZANΔPOC AVΓ
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
rev. TPIC NEΩKOPΩN NIKOMEΔEΩN (ME ligiert)
        Astakos, nude to hips, stg. r., looking back, with l. foot stg. on prow, in l. hand
        holding long sceptre and with r. hand pointing back
ref.: Rec. Gen. p. 557, 319, pl. XCVI, 24
about VF, black green patina

Astakos, eponym of the city, is depicted in the typical position of a city founder who prompted his companions to follow him.

Mythology:
According to Stephanos of Byzanz and Arrian Astakos was the son of Poseidon and the nymph Olbia. In a speech on occasion of the severe destruction of the city by an earthquake 358 BC Libanios tells, that the first city founders has sacrified to the gods at the wrong place. But an eagle and a snake have pointed them to the correct place where they then have built the city. This myth reminds strongly of the 2nd founder myth of Alexandreia Troas depicted on coins where an eagle is carrying the head of a bull.

According to Memnon of Herakleia Astakos was a descendant of the Spartoi (= the Sowed), the ancestors of the Thebans who have grown from the dragon teeth which Kadmos has sown. Astakos was father of Ismaros, Amphidikos, Leades and Melanippos who became famous when they defend their home city against the Seven against Thebens. He is said to have found the city of Astakos in Bithynia (Roscher).

Nonnos wites in his Dionysiaka that at the Gulf of Astakos the first battle was fighted between the army of Dionysos and the Indians. Dionysos has won the battle because he changed the water of the sea into wine and so have made the Indians drunken.
 
The nymph Olbia is said to have found a city named Olbia too, not the Sarmatian Olbia but an Olbia in the neighbourhood of Nikomedeia. Wether this was an independent city or only the surname or an earlier name of another Bithynian city is discussed. The assumption that it could be Astakos is close but there is no ancient evidence (Pauly).

In ancient times Astakos was known for its lobsters which must have lived in huge numbers in the shallow watersides. αστακος (Astakos) is the Greek name for the lobster. So there is some evidence that the founder myth of Astakos was invented according to the occurence of the lobsters. In this way it is an aetiological myth.


Astakos, the City:
Astakos was situated at the Gulf of the same name (today Gulf of Izmit) of the Propontis (today Sea of Marmara) whereby the exact location is not known until today. Therefore the position of Astacus on the attached map is questionable.

Astakos was founded 712/11 BC by colonists from Megara. It was member of the Delian League. After the settlement of Athenian colonists it lost its independence. Under Doidalses Astakos first came under Bithynian supremacy (about 405 BC). Zipoites (356-281 BC), son of the dynast Bas, was the first king of Bithynia. He tried to conquer Astakos but without success. To enlarge his territory he fought among others against strategists of Lysimachos and defeated him finally in the Battle of Kurupedion (281 BC) where Lysimachos lost his live. With this battle the Wars of the Diadochi ended and the Hellenistic world of states was established. During his war against Zipoites 281 Lysimachos had destroyed  Astakos. Some time later Zipoites died and his son Nikomedes I followed him to the throne. In 264 BC he founded the city of Nikomedeia that he called αντικρυ Αστακου (= ancient Astakos) and resettled the inhabitants of the ancient city to the new founded Nikomedeia. After the death of king Nikomedes IV 74 BC Bithynia came by will to the Roman Empire.

I have attached a map of ancient Bithynia (Source: summagallicana,it)

Sources:
(1) Nonnos, Dionysiaka
(2) Stephanos of Byzanz, Ethnika
(3) Libanios, Orationes
(4) Arrian, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrHist)
(5) Memnon, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGrHist)

Literature:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (auch online)
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
      römischen Mythologie (auch online)
(4) Wikipedia

Thanks to Frank Dapsul for important references.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: stevex6 on March 01, 2019, 06:48:08 pm
Wow, this is amazingly extensive work! ... Jochen, this seems to be a very cool way to spend your coin-time (I'm glad to see that you're enjoying your hobby)

Thanks for all of your info/research (you rock)

 +++
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 04, 2019, 01:20:48 pm
Thank you, Steve, for your encouraging words!

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 04, 2019, 01:33:33 pm
Dione and the Oracle of Dodona

Recently I could add this coin to my collection. Here I want to share the results of my research.

The Coin:
Epeiros, Ambrakia, 238-168 BC
AE 18, 4.97g
obv. Head of Dione, veiled and laureate, r.
rev. A - M / B - R
       Obelisk of Apollo Agyieus, pointed, on two-stepped base, all in laurel wreath
ref. SNG Cop 23; SNG München 525; SNG Evelpidis 1770; BMC Thessaly p. 94, 5 
rare, F+, dark green patina, corrosion
     
Note:
Apollo Agyieus (Greek αγυιευς = guardian of the ways) was the the protector of ways and public places. He was worshipped as baetylic, pointed obelisk, that often was placed before house entrances, but never in a temple. The statue was maintained by priestesses (agyatides) and decorated with ribbons and laurel wreaths. These columns were found too on the stages of Greek plays. That Apollo was worshipped as aniconic stone column is known already from the Hittites where such a column was found at the entrance of a temple in Bogazköy with the inscription "apulunas" (= Apollo). In Kolophon we have the baetylic Apollo Klarios.

Dione:
With Dione we are deep in the oldest Greek mythology. Etymologically like Zeus too originated from Greek διος (= divine), she was at first not an own goddess, but as "the divine" rather the female form of Zeus. When the later Greek mythology developed she was removed by Hera. Her ancient position being equal with Zeus she has kept only in Dodona.
 
According to Hesiod she was the daughter of Okeanos and Tethys, an Oceanid. She belonged to the most noble godesses. In the Homeric Hymns for Apollo it is told, that she together with Themis, Rhea and Amphitrite has supported Leto on Delos during the birth of Apollo.

By Zeus she had a daughter, the love goddess Aphrodite, who is called sometimes Dione to, so by Ovid (Fastes). In his Ilias Homer tells us that Aphrodite once fled into the bosom of her mother when she was wounded by Diomedes. Yes, at these times it was possible that mortals could hirt deities! Dione consoled her that she was not the only one and prophesized Diomedes an unlucky return.

In his "History of Phoenicia" Sanchuniathon, who has lived before the Trojan War, tells that Dione was the daughter of Uranos and Gaia and such the sister of Kronos/El. He has given Byblos to her. The real identity of this Dione remains unclear. It is possible that Sanchuniathon has meant the Phoenician goddess Ba'alat Gebal. But the ancestry from Uranos and Gaia, heaven and earth, was taken by the Orphics in their theology.

In Pergmon was found a bronze tablet from the 3rd century AD where Dione, Phoebe and Nyche were named as healer goddesses, probably used als magic device. In Homer's Ilias Dione tells her daughter Aphrodite that she once has healed Plutos the god of Underworld using the plant Paionia, when he was wounded in a struggle by Herakles. In the same way she has healed Ares who was wounded by Diomedes. Because she has supported too Leto at the birth of Apollo she was regarded here as healer goddess and midwife.

Dodona:
Dione can't be thought without Dodona. And this is the reason that coins with the depiction of Dione could be found only in Epeiros. Dodona in Epeiros was the oldest oracle in Greece and one of the biggest, after Delphi the second one. Already about 800 BC a sanctuary of Zeus has been located there. And here Zeus Naios and Dione Naia together were worshipped. Naios just is Greek = dweller and this name is evidence of the old age of this sanctuary. Pyrrhos I later has introduced games called Naia.

The priestesses of her sanctuary were called doves, birds sacred to Aphrodite. In later times they became as Dodonean Nymphs who should have suckled Zeus the nurses of Dionysos. And so we can find Dione too on vase pictures with Bacchanalian scenes.

In the centre of the oracle stood the famous oak of Dodona. The oak spoke by the murmur of its leaves and the curring of its doves. This then was interpreted by the priestesses. The visitors wrote their questions on tablets of lead and throw them in a jug. Therefore many of them are preserved and can be read in the museum of Ioannina. Until now c.4000 of these tablets were found, an inavaluable look into the ancient oracle practice. In 2012 however many of them lay still unevaluated in the Antikensammlung of the museums in Berlin.

The Dodonian Oak has played too a role in the myth of the Argonauts. When the ship Argo was built with the aid of Athena wood of the oak was mounted into the prow. It should warn the Argonauts against dangers by its power of forecasting (Apollonius of Rhodos). In AD 392 the oak was logged by Christian zealots who - as we all know - are responsible for an immense number of destroyed ancient artworks.

Ambrakia:
The mythological founder of Anbrakia was Ambrax, son of Thesprotos (after him this region is called Thesprotia), but according to Dionysos of Halicarnassos he was the son of Dexamenos, son of Herakles. Ovid in his Metamorphoses tells us that he has ruled as king at the time when Aeneas on his flight from Troy came to Epeiros. In this narration he calls the city "embattled in the struggle of the gods". That goes back to the following myth that we know from Antoninus Liberalis who has taken it from older sources: Apollo, Artemis and Herakles quarrelled about the control over the city. Because they couldn't find a solution they called Kragaleus, son of Dryops, a wise old man, who just pastured his herds. He awarded the city to Herakles whereupon Apollo in his rage turned him into a rock. The Ambriakotes have offered sacrifices to him always after the feast of Herakles.

In the 3rd century BC Pyrrhos I made Ambriaka the capital city of his kingdom of Epeiros. Pyrrhos I is known by his statement "Another such victory and we are lost!", that according to Plutarch he should have made after his victories involving heavy losses in his campaigns against the Romans in Lower Italy (Graeca Magna). Hence the phrase "Pyrrhic victory".

History of Art:
Dione is depicted on the east pediment of the Parthenon in Athens. Aphrodite is laying stretched out in the bosom of her mother Dione both infolded by in rich folds falling garments. Probably this depiction shows the scene were Dione consoles her daughter after she was wounded by Diomedes.
Furthermore Dione is found on the frieze of the Pergamon altar (Pergamonmuseum in Berlin), depicting the Gigantomachia. At the place where the north frieze continues the east frieze Aphrodite starts the series of deities. Because the frieze has to be seen continuous she is fighting beside her lover Ares. In the depicted moment she draws a spear out of a killed Giant. Beside her are fighting her mother Dione and her son Eros. Unfortunately only remnants of Dione are left.

I have added:
(1) a photo showing the sanctuary of Dodona, in the background the Tomaros
      mountain
(2) a photo of the east pediment of the Parthenon
(3) a photo of the detail of the Pergamon altar
(4) a photo of the bronze tablet from Pergamon

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Homer, Ilias
(3) Homeric Hymns
(4) Apollodor, Gods and Heros of the Greeks
(5) Apollonios von Rhodos, Argonautika
(6) Ovid, Fastes
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(8) Plutarch, Vitae parallelae
(9) Cicero, De natura deorum
(10) Pausanias, Voyages

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Lexikon der Mythologie, 1770 (online too)
(2) William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology,
      1813-1893 (online too)
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
      römischen Mythologie, 1884-1937 (online too)
(4) Barclay Head, Historia Numorum (HN), 1886 (online too)
(5) Richard Wünsch, Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon, 1905 (google books)
(6) Karl Kerenyi, Die Götter- und Menschengeschichten, 1978
(7) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
(8) Der Kleine Pauly
(9) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 04, 2019, 01:34:45 pm
Themis

These coins have been in my collection for a long time. Now I got myself up to write about them. Because she is an important deity this article will be more detailed.

1st Coin:
Cilicia, Korykos, Valerian I, AD 253-260
AE 32, 22.19g, 32.07mm, 135°
obv. AV K ΠO - ΛIK OVAΛEPIAN / OC (in field)
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r.
rev. [KΩPV (in ex.) - KIΩ TΩ - N AV] NAV[AP]
        in upper field one below the other XI / C
        Decorated prize basket inscribed with ΘEMIA, with palm branch between
        kerykeion and aphlaston, stg. on a table with dolphin-shaped feet, below a bellied
        wine jug with handles and long neck, on the r. side Dionysos stg.l, nude,
        wreathed, with nebris around hips, resting with raised l. hand on ribboned thyrsos
        and holding in lowered r. hand bunch of wine grapes, at his feet l. the panther
        with raised r. paw std. l., looking r.
ref.: BMC 21; SNG Levante 820; SNG Copenhagen 123; SNG Paris 1123; SNG von
         Aulock 5686; Klose & Stumpf 259
about VF/VF

Note:
According to Edith Specht the pumpkin-shaped objects are not crowns nor urns, as one often reads, but prize baskets.

The Themian Games:
The presiding goddess of the Themian Games was Themis, the personification of right and order. Themia too means deposit, usually of money, and the Themian Games were exceptional because the prize for the winner was cash, and not like at the other games wreaths, wine, oil or celery.

From Side in Pamphylia are known a series of coins where a female deity is depicted throwing a pebble in an urn. This goddess is called not only Athena, but Athena-Themis or Themis-Athena too. So I have decided to add this coin to my article. This goddess differs from Athena by holding not a spear but a palm branch in her l. arm. In Anazarbos she is called Themis of the Koinonboulion. Koinoboulon was the assembly of the town councils (Gaebler).

2nd Coin:
Pamphylia, Side, Valerian II. as Caesar, son of Gallienus, AD 256-258
AE 30, 18.04g, 0°
obv. ΠOV ΛIK KOP OVAΛEPIANON KAI CEB
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, bare-headed, r.; beneath eagle with open wings stg.
        r., head l.,; before chin c/m E in circular incus (Howgego 805)
rev. CIΔHTΩN - NEΩKOPΩN
       Themis-Athena, helmeted, in narrow peplos, stg. frontal, head l., palm branch
        over l. shoulder, throwing pebble in urn with 2 handles, r. beside her
        pomegranate on twig
ref. cf. SNG Pfälzer Privatsammlungen 882 (Gallienus); probably unpublished
F/about VF, a bit rough, rev. partially weakly, with distinct traces of smoothing process

Note:
The E of the c/m probably devaluates the coin from 10 units down do 5 units,
Coins of Sif´de regularly show a pomegranate. Cause: Side is Pamphylian the word for pomegranate and so became the symbol of the city.
It is not clear for what the goddess is voting. Gaebler assumes that it the voting after a competition. In each case it is an explicit democratic motive (Pat Lawrence).

Etymology:
The name Themis has the Greek root θη- as in τι-θη-μι (= to set, to prescribe). In this sense Themis is "who sets (laws)". The derivation from Phoenician them (= honest, fair) today is obsolete.

Mythology:
Her parents were Uranos and Gaia, heaven and earth, this evidence too of her great age. So she was older than Zeus and the other Olympean gods. As Titanide she was sister of Tethys, Rhea, Mnemosyne, Phoibe, Dione and Theia (Apollodor). And sister of Kronos. When Zeus wants to take she as wife she fled from him but was caught up at Ichnai in Makedonia, probably because she has left traces (ichnos)

She gave birth to Zeus the three Horae Eunomia, Dike and Eirene (just order, just retribution and peace) and the three Moira (goddesses of fate) Klotho, Lachesis and Atropos (Hesiod. Theog.). In a later mythology the Horai were at first the two seasons Thallo (flourishing, for springtime) and Karpo (maturing, harvesting, for summer). Later on Auxo (growing) joined in. It was told that these goddesses have dressed Aphrodite after her birth from sea foam. According to Herodot Themis was the mother of Prometheus too.

It is told that she as the first has introduced the art of fortune-telling, which is logical, because fortune-telling is only possible if the future is put in order and is unchangeably certain. She as the first has got the oracle of Delphi from her mother Gaia, in the first time together with Poseidon, until Apollo after he has killed Python has taken over the oracle. Another oracle existed in Kephisos in Boiotia which played a role in the myth of Deukalion and Pyrrha (see there). So she was able to warn Zeus and Poseidon against the marriage with Tethys foretelling that their sons would become greater than they were (Pindar).

Sometimes she can be regarded as Parhedros (guardian spirit) of Zeus: She advises him to wear the skin of the goat Amaltheia (Aigis) in the battles of the Gigantomachia and she helps him to find the Giants by pursuing their traces (ichnos).
 
She was involved in the education of the young Zeus, then together with Rhea, Dione and Amphitrite she helped Leto at the birth of Apollo and nourished him with nectar and ambrosia whereby he became immortal. She helped Aphrodite at the birth of Beroe (Nonnos, Dionysiaka). This is the reason that Themis often is seen as assistant of delivering women. Roman mythologists sometimes has identificated her with Carmenta, a Roman goddess, who originally was an assistant of delivering women and known too for her art of fotrune-telling. But some are assuming that this was told only because her connection to Zeus was morally indecent since she was the sister of Kronos, Zeus' father.

After Themis has prevented the marriage of Zeus and Poseidon with Tethys she advised them to give her up to the hero Peleus. As much as Tethys resisted finally she was defeated by Peleus. From this connection emerged Achilleus, the greatest but short living hero from Troy. At their wedding, told by Pindar, Eris threw among the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite a golden apple inscribed “For the most beautiful.”. To settle the dispute that's about to arise the goddesses choosed Paris and his judgement then triggered the Troyan War.

But actually the Troyan War has had a prehistory: Gaia, mother of Themis, has complained to her that she could no longer bear the burden of so many people. Then Themis advised Zeus to start a great war to help her mother. And so it came to the Trojan War, which did not only break out through the theft of Helena, as one thinks, but which Zeus and Themis had planned for a long time. This is told in detail in the Kypria, which describe the time before the Trojan War. Homer will have known them. That is why Raoul Schrott in his newly translated Iliad is also of the opinion that the invocation of the muse at the beginning of the epic means Themis: "Announce resentment, Themis, about Peleus' Son Achilles and his wrath"

Themis also plays an important role in the myth of the Great Deucal Flood. But I would like to deal with that in a separate excursus.

Background:
Themis is the personification of an abstract concept, a higher power that stands above the gods, undisturbed from primeval times, the embodiment of a sacred order. She comes from a time when it was not yet valid to say: "Nothing is more powerful than man" (Sophocles, Antigone). Without her holy order no society can exist. To this order basically belongs marriage and the inherent rule of nature in the interaction of the sexes, to which also belongs modesty (Pindar). Therefore their daughters, the Horai, immediately dressed Aphrodite when she ermerged from the sea. This includes the observance of oaths and treaties. She is the guardian of the right to hospitality and takes care of the protection of the needy. She even protects the murderer at her altar, if he is begging for blood atonement.

Themis takes care of the peace of God that reigns during the Olympic Games, something that no longer exists in our time. She is responsible for the correct functioning of an agon, and therefore we see her for example on the coins of Anazarbos, Tarsos or Side, as on the coin above. She is responsible for convening meetings, the Agora or the Koinoboulion.

Themis punishes the hybris. This is why the deed of Tantalus, who presents his son Pelops as food to the gods, including Themis, is so terrible. This challenges their heaviest revenge. And so she comes into close contact with Nemesis: If Themis is hurt, she will be avenged by Nemesis. Therefore both goddesses are worshipped together in Rhamnous.

Art of History:
Pausanias still knows the golden ivory statue from the Heraion in Olympia and the marble statue from Thebes. In Troizen even several Themides were worshipped! But only a colossal statue from Rhamnous in the north of Attica has survived, which today stands in the National Theatre in Athens.  There she was worshipped together with Nemesis, whereby later Nemesis came to the fore. The cult in Rhamnous was forbidden in 399 AD by a decree of the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius, who ordered the destruction of the remaining "pagan" temples.
She is depicted on the frieze on the Pergamon Altar in Berlin, where sadly only parts of the chiton and the mantle can still be seen.

I have added
(1) a pic of the statue of Themis from Rhamnous, made by Chairestatos, 315 B.C., made of pentelic marble. She is missing the left hand in which she probably Held scales (from the Store norske leksikon, Lars Maehlum)
(2) a pic of the tondo on an attic red figure Kylix, which is attributed to the Kodros painter, ca. 430 BC, highly classical, today in the Antikensammlung Berlin. Depicted is the childless King Aigeus, to whom Themis is currently predicting the birth of a son. The goddess sits on the delphic tripod in the role of Pythia, the prophetess of this oracle. She holds a phiale in one hand and a laurel branch in the other.

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Homer, Ilias
(4) Pindar, Odes
(5) Aischylos, Prometheus Bound
(6) Sophokles, Antigone
(7) Kypria
(8) Nonnos, Dionysiaka

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisxhes Lexikon, 1770 (online too)
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
      römischen Mythologie, ab 1884 (online too)
(3) Karl Kerenyi, Die Götter- und Menschheitsgeschichten, dtv
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, rororo
(5) Der Kleine Pauly
(7) H. Gaebler, Die Losurne in der Agonistik, ZfN 39 (1929)
(8) Edith Specht, Kranz, Krone oder Korb für den Sieger, in "Zeitschrift für klassische
      Archäologie 14/III/2000
(9) Ilias. Neu übertragen von Raoul Schrott. Hanser, München 2008

Online Sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 18, 2019, 03:16:29 pm
Excursus: Deukalion and Pyrrha

The mythology of Deukalion and Pyrrha is so comprehensive that I have decided to remove it from the article about Themis and summarize it in a separate excursus.

Background:
The legend of the Deucal Flood comes from the East, probably from Mesopotamia. There is the mighty Gilgamesh Epos, in which Utnapishtim is saved, and the story of Noah, described in the 1st book of Moses in the Bible. In Greece these flood legends had a rather small meaning and their traditions were so contradictory that finally three large floods were distinguished (Nonnos, Dionysiaka):

1. the flood of Ogygos
2. the Deucal flood, and
3. the flood of Dardanos

The fact that the Flood was caused by the eruption of the Santorini volcano (so-called Minoan eruption 3600 years ago) is not possible because the myths of the Flood are older. The new hypothesis that the Flood describes the breakthrough of the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus into the Black Sea is interesting, but is rejected by most scientists.

The human eras:
The Deucal flood is the middle one. In order to understand it, we must hear something about the history of mankind that Hesiod tells us. According to him, there were four human races who lived in four successive eras.

The first one was the Golden Age. It was under the rule of Kronos. People descended from the gods and lived like the gods themselves, without trouble or worries. It was a kind of Garden of Eden. Age and diseases were unknown to them. They died as if in sleep and then became good spirits, protecting the people.

The second race, the silver one, was created by the Olympians and was inferior to the golden one. Here people lived for a hundred years like small children with their mother, then for a short time they behaved like fools and madmen, did not honor the gods, and perished. But they are still revered by men as blessed.

Then Zeus created a third race: the bronze one. These people were strong and terrible. They built everything out of bronze, because iron did not yet exist. Their houses were made of bronze, their weapons and all their equipment. They fought against each other all the time and so wiped themselves out and came to Hades.

After they had perished by their own hands, a fourth human race came, the iron one, which still exists today. This people made everything out of iron and did not stop working, day and night, and fought against each other without end. The parents did not respect their children any more and the children did not respect their parents. There was no more hospitality and promises were broken at will. Also this race will end badly one day, Aidos (shame) and Nemesis will leave the people, so that mankind will perish defenceless. Dike (justice) had already retreated into the mountains, since the people no longer respected her. When things got worse, she will leave the earth and can be seen on the sky as virgin (Pindar).

The Deucal flood:
Zeus wanted to see for himself whether the people were really so bad and came to Lykaon, the king of Arcadia. Lykaon wanted to test the wisdom of the God and presented him the flesh of a killed, innocent guest. Thereupon Zeus destroyed his house with lightning and turned him into a wolf. And he decided to destroy all the people, not by fire, because it could have lit the heaven, but by a flood of water over Greece, so that all people and animals drowned. Except for two: Deukalion and Pyrrha.

Deukalion, son of Prometheus and Klymene, was king over the Phthiotis in Thessaly (Strabo) and had Pyrrha (the "redhead"), daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, as his wife. These two were the most righteous and pious people on earth. Prometheus advised them to build a wooden box which Deukalion and Pyrrha entered. When the flood ended after 9 days, they landed at the Parnassos mountain (according to other tradition at Othrys). When Zeus saw the rescued, he ended the flood by making a deep hole in which the water ran off. This hole was still visible 1000 years later in the sanctuary of Olympia.

Deukalion came out of the ark and sacrificed to Zeus Phyxios. The latter sent him Hermes and granted him a wish. He asked for people, and in the sanctuary of Themis at the river Kephissos they were instructed by Themis to cover their heads and throw their mother's bones behind them. They realized that Themis had meant Mother Earth by this. So they threw stones behind them, and from the stones of Deukalion emerged men, from the stones of Pyrrha women. Therefore the new people were "a hard race, experienced in tribulation". The ancient Greeks thought that their word for people (λαοι) derived from stone (λαες), as we know today a so-called folk etymology.

Apollodor reports in his Bibliotheke that other people too who had saved themselves on mountains had survived: Megaros, Kerambos and the inhabitants of Parnassos, some of whom emigrated to Arkadia and there revived the terrible customs of Lykaon. So the flood had been of little use.

Deukalion, after his lucky rescue, built the first temple for Zeus in Athens and was buried there after his death (Pausanias). With Pyrrha he had five children, Protogeneia, Hellen, who became the progenitor of the Greeks (Hellenes), Graikos, Thyia and Orestheus, perhaps also Amphiktyon.

History of Art:
The representation of Deukalion and Pyrrha in antiquity is rare. I only found the mention of a stucco relief from Ostia around 120 AD. But in the Renaissance this theme was taken up. There are arrangements of this motive by Schiavone (1563, Galleria Nazionale in Parma), by Tintoretto (around 1541, Modena, GE; 1543/44, Padua, Mus. Civico) and later by Peter Paul Rubens (1636, Prado) and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1655, Denver Art Museum), to name only the most important.

I have chosen
(1) the painting of Rubens and
(2) the painting of Castiglione.
(3) Interesting is also a marble sculpture "Pyrrha or the population" from 1773, which is today in the Louvre. It shows Pyrrha and the people created by her stone throws, here represented by children. It was commissioned by Abbot Terray, the last financial controller of Louis XV and short-term director of the king's buildings before Louis XVI's arrival. Population here is meant as activity, not in the sense of "total number of inhabitants", but of "to populate", as in the peupulation policy of Frederick the Great. This peupulation was an important instrument of population policy in absolutism.

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Pausanias, Voyages
(5) Strabo

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (online too)
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (online too)
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
(5) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, 2000

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 10, 2019, 08:31:44 am
Apollo Lairbenos

Asia Minor is known as home of an infinite number of deities. Here I would like to tell something about the Phrygian Apollo Lairbenos.

1st coin:
Phrygia, Hierapolis, pseudo-autonomous, 2nd-3rd century A.D.
AE 24, 7.34g, 180°
obv. ΛAIP - BHNOC
        Bust of Apollo Lairbenos, draped and laureare, r.
rev. IEPAΠOΛEITΩN / NEΩKOPΩ / N
       Roman she-wolf l., suckling he twins Remus and Romulus, above a star
ref. BMC 95 var.
about VF, dark green patina

Hierapolis:
The name means "holy city" and it is said to have been founded by Apollo. It was famous for its holy hot springs, whose gases were associated with Pluto, the underworld god. Hierapolis had an important Jewish community and is mentioned by Paul in his letters to the Colossians. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The white sinter terraces of Pamukkale are world famous.

In 1889 Ramsay and Hogarth were the first to discover the ruins of a small temple near Badliner near Dionysopolis in Phrygia, dedicated to a native god identified with Apollo. According to the inscriptions found, he was also worshipped in Dionysopolis. in Hierapolis, Motella and Atyochorion. His name is not uniform. In Hierapolis he was called Lairbenos. In the inscriptions, however, also occur: Lairmenos, Larmenos, Larbenos, Leimenos and Luermenos. This epithet of the Asia Minor Apollo is not Greek. In former times some have derived it from Greek labrys (= double axe), others from Hittite labarnas (= "Lord"). But rather a toponym or an ethnicon underlies it. The name can come from the place name Lyrbe near the found inscriptions. It was probably the case that the pronunciation of this Phrygian sound could not be accurately reproduced in Greek. Ramsay assumes that he might have been similar to the German "ö".

In the inscriptions he is often called Apollon Lairbenos or Apollon Helios. Epiphanes (the shining one) and Megas (the great one) are also mentioned, all references to his solar character. He was worshipped together with the maternal goddess Leto, who had an extensive cult in the southern and western Asia minor. Ramsay saw him as her son. A coin from Hierapolis with the legend ΛΗΤΩΕΙΑ.ΠΥΘΙΑ shows that there must have been a common celebration in both honours. Ramsay writes that the couple Leto and Lairbenos Apollo had their equivalent in Kybele and Atys in northern Asia Minor. In the course of time it became a triad through the arrival of Artemis. The priests of their cult also called themselves "Priests of Asklepios Soter", which shows that he additionally had the qualities of a healer god and that he must have been closely related to the god Sozon (Roscher).

Inscriptions in the temple of Badliner show that slaves were released in his name if they placed themselves for some time or forever as hieroi in the service of the deity (as so-called hierodouls, temple servants). But there were also steles which spoke of terrible punishments for those who had sinned against him in the service of God. This could also have been malaria, which was endemic in this valley. As offences that had been punished, are described: A woman had slept with her husband although she was a hiera. A man had not let his wife go, although she was a hiera (actually understandable!). A man had eaten the meat of a goat, which was intended as a sacrificial animal. The purpose of these steles was to warn others.

A building connected to the Apollo-Lairbenos cult was excavated in Hierapolis in 1960. It stands above the Plutonion (an entrance to the underworld), which was a cave filled with poisonous gases, of which Pliny writes that only the priests of the Great Mother (the so-called Galli) could come out of it undamaged. With Great Mother (= Kybele) Leto is meant here with security, who was called also MHTHP LHTΩ. Somehow in this time many deities were mixed with each other
 
On coins Lairbenos is regularly depicted with a crown of rays, which proves his function as sun god. The twins suckled by a she-wolf on the reverse of the coin are deliberately not called Remus and Romulus by Roscher, because exposed children who are raised by an animal are also found in many other myths.

Lairbenos also occurs on a horse riding r., not only on steles, but also on coins:

2nd coin:
Phrygia, Hierapolis, pseudo-autonomous, 3rd century A.D.
AE 24, 8.16g, 0°
obv. BOVΛΗ
        Bust of Boule (= council), draped and laureate, r.
rev. IEPAΠOΛEITΩN
       Apollo Lairbenos trotting on horse r., with l. hand holding the reins, in r. hand
       holding double axe
ref. BMC 240, 77
F+, black-brown patina, flan crack at 7h, perforated at 6h

From Thyatira there are coins on which a figure rides on a horse and holds a double axe (labrys) over the shoulder. For a long time this figure was thought to be an Amazon. Gerhard then realized that it had to be a male deity, but thought it was Men. Only Pick realized that it was Apollo Tyrimnaios. Also here it concerns the Lydo-Phrygian sun god, who appears on the coins of many cities in Lydia and Phrygia in this representation. This god is also depicted on coins of Eumeneia in Phrygia, here standing frontally with a double axe and a raven:

3rd coin:
Phrygia, Eumeneia, Nero as Caesar, 50-54 A.D.
AE 20, 4.60g, 0°
issued under the Archiereus Julius Kleon
obv. NEPΩN - ΣEBAΣTOΣ
       Bust, draped, bareheaded, r.
rev. from right to left, always from top to bottom:
       EVMENEΩN / IOVΛIOΣ / KΛ - EΩN / APXIEPEVΣ AΣIAΣ
       Apollo Tyrimnaios, nude, chlamys over left shoulder, standing frontal, looking l.,
       holding double axe in left arm and in extended r. hand raven
ref. SNG Copenhagen 394; SNG by Aulock 3591; SNG Munich 207; RPC 3149;
       BMC 41
Rare, VF, black, shiny patina

Note:
Julius Kleon was together with his wife Bassa high priest of Asia.

Excursus: The double axe
The double axe (Greek labrys, Latin bipennis) served for craft purposes, but also as a weapon, in Homer's case, however, only for the opponents of the Achaeans, above all for the Amazons. It had its special meaning in the cult. Originally coming from the Near East and then in Asia Minor, especially in Caria, it was the attribute of numerous native gods until the latest time. In Crete it became one of the most important religious symbols. There only goddesses are represented with the labrys. This is seen partly as evidence of a matriarchy, but partly also as an indication of the male partner of the Great Goddess and as insignia of the priest king. Double axes were set up as cult symbols and consecration gifts, partly made of precious material, and carved into the supporting foundation stones of the Cretan palaces as divine protection. In Asia minor, besides Demeter and Kybele, many male deities also carry a labrys, e.g. Zeus as Labraundos, Men and Apollo, as here on the coin. This is often interpreted as a sign of the weather and thunderstorm god, but without sufficient reason.

On the Greek mainland the Labrys passes completely into the hands of male figures. Since the so-called geometrical time the Labrys appears as a sign of holiness, e.g. with Herakles, Theseus, Hephaistos etc. In Italy it plays, except in eastern cults, no big role. The axe in the Fasces bundle has nothing to do with the Labrys. The Kleiner Pauly thinks that the actual character and the ritual use of the labrys needs further clarification.

Unfortunately the esotericism of this device has taken over again. On the Internet you will find the most peculiar explanations, especially from so-called feminists.

I have attached:
(1) a picture of the Plutonion (Mach, Wikipedia)
(2) the picture of a stele with the riding Lairbenos (Wikipedia)

Sources:
(1) W. M. Ramsay, Artemis-Leto and Apollo-Lairbenos, The Journal of Hellenic
      Studies, Vol. 10 (1889) (via jstor.org)
(2) Kevin M. Miller, Apollo Lairbenos, in Numen, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jul., 1985) (via
      jstor.org)
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
      römischen Mythologie, 1895
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 01, 2019, 02:44:37 pm
Sauroktonos revisited

The most important type for Nikopolis ad Istrum is undoubtedly the Apollo Sauroktonos, the "lizard killer", an unique feature of Nikopolis. This type is also available from Philippopolis (but scarce and only later) and 1x from Prusa ad Olympum, but these are probably borrowed from Nikopolis (Pick in AMNG). Therefore it is assumed that Nikopolis possessed at least one copy of this famous statue of Praxiteles. Common to all is the representation of Apollo stg. r. with crossed legs and with his right hand outstretched on a tree stump on which a lizard crawls upwards. It is interesting that Apollo does not hold an arrow in his hand at the first 3 emperors. And even under Severus, where first Apollo appears with arrow, as many types also occur without arrow! An observation that astonished me early on, because it doesn't really fit the lizard killer.

The Apollo Sauroktonos has long been one of my favourite types in art history as well as in numismatics. During my occupation with it I have been able to clear up a rare type for Commodus and have been able to show that a type for Severus actually holds a branch at the hip.

Here are 2 examples of early coins from Nikopolis:

1st coin:
Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 20, 5.85g, 20.28mm, 180°
struck under governor M. Antonius Zenon, c. AD 145 (Pick)
Obv.: AVT AI ADRIA - ANTWNEINOC
          Bare head n.r.
 Rev.: HGE ZHNWNOC - NEIKOPOL
          Apollo Sauroktonos, nude, with crossed legs standing r., with outstretched left  
          hand resting on tree stump on which a lizard is crawling upwards; right hand at
          hip
Ref:: a) AMNG I/1, 1225 var. (head laureate)
         b) Varbanov 2111 var. (= AMNG 1225)
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2018) No 8.6.7.1 (this coin)
         d) RPC online temp no. 4328
Rare, almost SS, black patina

Note:
This is the earliest and most elegant representation of Apollo Sauroktonos on a coin, but without an arrow.

2nd coin:
Commodus, AD 177-192
AE 22, 6.83g, 22.15mm, 105°
Obv.: [M ANTW]NEIN - OC KOMOD[OC]
          Bust, cuirassed, laureate, r.
Rev.: NEIK[OPOLI - PR]OC ICTR.
          Apollo Sauroktonos, nude, with crossed legs standing r., with outstretched left  
          hand resting on tree stump on which a lizard is crawling upwards; right hand at
          hip holding an (olive) branch; left behind him on his bow and quiver
Ref:: a) not in AMNG
         b) not in Varbanov
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2018) No 8.10.7.2 (this coin)
         d) cf. Gorny&Mosch, auction 212, lot 2321 corr. (Heavily tooled and then
             misinterpreted as Artemis!)
Extremely rare (R9, only 2 specimens known!), F+, dark green patina, corroded

Note:
Although corroded, this is a nice and interesting example of the coinage of Nikopolis at the time of Commodus!

The representations for Severus with the arrow in the raised hand do not correspond with the arm position of the traditional statues in the Louvre and the Vatican, nor with the bronze statue of Cleveland, which is claimed to be the original. All of them have the right arm at hip height! Here is the list of the 30 types known from Nikopolis so far:

Sauroktonos types from Nikopolis, after Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2018):
1. Antoninus Pius
--- 8.6.7.1-4 4 Hand at hip, without object
2. Marcus Aurelius
--- 8.7.7.1 1 Hand at hip, without object
3. Commodus
--- 8.10.7.1 1 Hand at hip, without object
--- 8.10.7.2-4 3 Hand at hip with branch
4. Severus
--- 8.14.7.12-13 2 Hand on chest / at hip, without object
--- 8.14.7.14-15 2 Hand raised, with arrow?
--- 8.14.7.16 1 Hand raised with a branch
--- 8.14.7.17 1 Hand at hip with branch
--- 8.14.7.18-20 3 Hand raised with arrow
5. Caracalla
--- 8.18.7.1 1 Hand hanging down with branch
--- 8.18.7.2-3 2-3 2 Hand raised with arrow
--- 8.18.7.4 1 Hand hanging down with branch
6. Plautilla
--- 8.21.7.1 1 Hand raised with arrow
7 Geta
--- 8.22.7.1 1 Hand raised with arrow
--- 8.22.7.2 1 Hand at hip, without object
8. Macrinus
--- 8.23.7.1 1 Hand raised with arrow
--- 8.23.7.2 1 Hand at hip with branch
--- 8.23.7.3 1 ???
9. Diadumenian
--- 8.25.7.1 1 Hand hanging down with branch
10. Elagabal
--- 8.26.7.11 1 Hand hanging down with branch
11th Gordian III
--- -

With the exception of Gordian III, all emperors have issued coins with the depiction of Apollo Sauroktonos, of the empresses only Plautilla. Altogether we have 30 types so far. They are arranged in the following 3 groups according to their arm position::

(1) right hand at hip:
      a. Hand without object 10
      b. with branch in hand 3
      c. with branch to tree stump 1
(2) right hand retracted at shoulder height
      a. with branch in hand 2
      b. with arrow in hand 8
(3) right hand hanging down
      a. with branch in hand 4
(4) unclear 2

Accordingly, all coin representations with raised arm (group 2) and also those with hanging arm down (group 3) are irregular, because they do not correspond with the preserved marble copies. If we omit these, only 14 types remain, not a single one of which shows an arrow. This corresponds well with the preserved marble statues and the bronze statue from Cleveland, which also have no arrow in their hands. The description with the arrow goes back only to Pliny the Elder, who writes: (Nat. Hist. 34, 70): "Fecit et puberem Apollinem subrepenti lacerate comminus sagitta insidiantem quem sauroctonon vocant" (= He also created a juvenile Apollo, which closely pursues a crawling lizard with an arrow; this one is called Sauroktonos, the lizard killer)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), the founder of scientific archaeology and art history, who was appointed overseer of Roman antiquities shortly afterwards (1763), identified the statue described by Pliny in 1756 as Apollo Sauroktonos in the copy belonging to the Borghese Collection at that time. It is now in the Louvre after Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese sold part of the famous collection to his brother-in-law Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807.

But if so many facts, especially the "evidence of the coins (Pat Lawrence)" as shown above, speak against an arrow, then one must also consider that Pliny may have been wrong. In particular, one should consider that the inhabitants of Nikopolis will have known this statue and could have compared it with the coin depictions!

The interpretation of this statue has always caused problems. That the lizard is an allusion to the Python is implausible. It would degrade, even make ridiculous, at best ironic the memorable fight of Apollo against the dragon. The lizard has always caused difficulties. I had already once published an article about the Sauroktonos (Coins and Ancient Mythology, 2011), describing the obvious contrast between the youthful, playful type of Apollo and the merciless murderer of an innocent little animal, a contrast characteristic of Apollo. But now there is a new interpretation that I do not want to withhold from you.

I became aware of them through the article "Apollo Sauroktonos: No Lizards Were killed in the Making of These Coins" by Roman Collector in CoinTalk of September 8, 2019, which goes back to Irving Lavin, "The Fable of Apollo Sauroktonos and the Beauty of Apollo Medicus", which recalls the important work of Renate Preisshofen, "Der Apollon Sauroktonos des Praxiteles, 2002. But if Apollo has no arrow in his hand and doesn't want to kill the lizard, what is it about?

Like snakes, lizards also skin themselves. The ancients believed that the "newborn" lizards were blind after moulting and would only regain their sight through the rays of the sun. And that is where Apollo comes into play. As sun god and as Apollo Medicus only he could renew the sight. Hyginus writes that Apollo, the father of Asklepius, was the first to practice ophthalmology. Apollo doesn't want to kill the lizard, but his bright sunbeams heal it and give it back its sight. And that is why the lizard does not seek a hiding place here, as it would normally do in this situation, but crawls upwards towards the sun. A representation that can even be found in St. Peter's in Rome.

And so Apollo here is not the merciless killer, but the charitable youth. So not Apollo Sauroktonos, the lizard killer, is depicted, but Apollo Medicus, the charitable healer. An interesting thought. And a good possibility to finally break the knot of interpretation, not to cut it, but to loosen it!

I have attached
(1) a picture of the statue of Sauroktonos from the Louvre (Wikipedia)
(2) the detail of a bronze relief by Gianlorenzo Bernini: "Lizard creeps towards the sun" on a column of the canopy in St. Peter, Rome, ca. 1625

Literature:
(1) Pliny the Elder, Naturae Historiae
(2) Hyginus, Fabulae
(3) Behrend Pick, The ancient coins of northern Greece, Vol. 1: Dacien and
      Moesia, 1898
(4) Patricia Lawrence, Apollo Sauroktonos: "The Evidence of the Coins". Online at
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/ayiyoryitika/saurcoins/ayiyoryitika-saurcoins.htm
(5) Renate Preisshofen, Der Apollon Sauroktonos des Praxiteles, in "Antike Plastik 28  
      (2002): 41 115"
(6) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythologie - Reise in ein fernes Land, 2011
(7) Irving Lavin, The Fable of Apollo Sauroktonos and the Beauty of Apollo
       Medicus, Institute for Advanced Study. Online at https://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/LAVINApolloFableBeauty.pdf
(8) Roman Collector, Apollo Sauroktonos: No Lizards Were killed in the Making of  
      These Coins, Cointalk, 8 September 2019

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 01, 2019, 03:01:23 pm
Herakles and the Lernaean Hydra

The coin:
AE 18, 2.77g, 17.56mm, 210°
obv.: TON KTI - CTHN
         Bearded head of Herakles r.
rev.: AΔPIANO - ΠOΛEITΩ[N]
         Herakles, nude, stg. l., has grabbed the Lernaean Hydra with her several heads, entangling already his r. leg, with his l. hand and holding in his raised r. hand his club to slay the Hyda; behind him on the ground the quiver and his bow
ref.: Mionnet Suppl. II, 604
very rare, almost VF, dark green patina, slightly corroded

Note:
From Nikopolis coins are known for Macrinus and his son Diadumenian with almost the same depiction, also with the foot already entangled by the Hydra, so that there are some indications that this is the representation of a statue.

What happened before:
Herakles, the illegitimate son of Zeus and Alkmene, was persecuted from birth by the jealousy of Hera. After marrying Megara, the daughter of King Kreon of Thebes, she struck him with madness amd he killed his children with Megara and threw them into the fire. When he came to his senses again, he banished himself from Thebes and was atoned by King Thespius. Then he turned to the Pythia in Delphi to ask what he should do further. Pythia told him to serve his cousin Orystheus, King of Tiryns, for 12 years.

Mythology:
The killing of the Lernaean Hydra is the 2nd work in the Dodeka catalogue of the 12 works of Herakles. The Hydra, a daughter of Typhon and Echidna, from which other monsters came, was a huge water snake with seven heads, raised by Hera, living in the swamp of Lerna in the Argolis. She covered the land with her deadly breath, devastating the flocks and everything she came to. Herakles, together with Iolaos, climbed his cart and set off. On Athena's advice he chased her out of her cave under a plane tree on the river Amymone with glowing arrows. With effort he overpowered her - she was already wrapping herself around his legs - and struck her heads off with the sword. But each time two new ones grew out of the cut off head. Hera also sent a giant crab to bite Herakles in the foot. Then Heracles called his companion Iolaos for help. He ignited the nearby forest and then burned out the stumps of her neck with fire, so that they could no longer grow back. Finally Herakles cut off her middle head, which was immortal, and buried it under a heavy boulder on the road from Lerna to Elaios. He immersed his arrows in the poisonous blood of the Hydra, making them absolutely deadly.

The Hydra was so poisonous that her breath already killed when someone passed by her, even when she was asleep. The river Anigros in Elis stank unbearably just because once the centaur Chiron, hit by an arrow of Heracles, had bathed his wounds in it. Herakles himself had been bitten by the Hydra during his battle. As a result, he was constantly suffering from incurable ulcers. He asked the oracle in Delphi for help and the oracle advised him to look for a medicinal herb similar to the Hydra in Phoenicia. He found it near the city of Aka, today's Acre in Palestine, which then got its name from the Greek ακεομαι (= I heal, from ακος = healing). Unfortunately it is not handed down which plant it was.

There were problems with Erystheus because he did not want to accept the killing of the Hydra as one of the 12 works. He accused Heracles of using the help of Iolaos. But Herakles replied that he had only called Iolaos when the giant crayfish had helped the Hydra. So the killing of the Lernaean Hydra is considered a valid work of Herakles.

In the end Herakles also died from the poison of the Hydra: The blood of the centaur Nessos, whom he had killed with an arrow, had become so poisonous that he suffered insatiable pain from the blood-soaked nettle shirt that Nessos had given to Deianeira as a gift for him, and in his desperation he sought death by fire.

Background:
Lerna lies about 7km from Argos on the southern Peloponnesos and was notorious for its swamps, which were bounded in the north by the river Pontinos and in the south by the river Amymone. These had a dozen strong sources (Greek: κεφαλαι = heads), which were mythologically personified by the Lernaean Hydra with its numerous heads. There was also the "halcyonic pond", which was regarded as an entrance into the underworld. A holy plane tree grove was consecrated to Demeter Prosymna (a nurse of Hera) and Dionysos Saotes with the mystery cult of the Lernaeai. After Apollodoros Rhodios there was also a Poseidon cult (Pauly).

The number of heads the Hydra is said to have had varies from three to five, seven, nine, up to one hundred. Originally the hydra probably had only one head.
It is said to have been Pisander of Kamiros on Rhodes (about 640 B.C.), who first increased the number of heads to make them even more terrible (Pausanias).

Iolaos:
Iolaos was originally a Heros who was worshipped in Thebes, but was later suppressed by the Herakles cult. As son of Iphikles and Automedusa, he was the nephew of Herakles and became his companion and charioteer. He helped Herakles in various of his works. At Plutarch and Euripides he is the lover of Herakles. He took part in the hunt for the Kalydonean Boar and in the voayage of the Argonauts. He was the first Olympian winner. Herakles gave him Megara, his first wife, as his wife. After the death of Herakles he had built the big burial mound and took care of Herakles' children. In their defense against Erystheus he died. In Thebes the Iolaeia took place in his honour with chariot races and sacrifices.

Palaiphatos the rationalist, writes:

Lernos was the king of Hydra in the Lerna area and an enemy of Eurystheus, the king of Mykenae. Erystheus sent Herakles to devastate the city. But Hydra was strongly fortified and guarded by 50 brave archers. Whenever Herakles met an archer with his arrow, 2 new ones took his place. When the distress by Herakles grew stronger, Lernos recruited a troop of Carians under the leadership of the great Karkinos (Greek cancer). Thereupon Iolaos helped Herakles with an army from Thebes, set Hydra on fire and the city and the enemy army were destroyed. From this the myth was made (Palaiphatos, middle of the 4th century BC).

History of Art:
I have added 2 pictures:
(1) The picture of an Attic black-figured Stamnos, middle of the 5th century B.C. It shows "Herakles, Iolaos and the Hydra" and is today in the Louvre in Paris. It is attributed to the Princeton painter. On the left you can see Athena, who helps Herakles.

(2) A picture by Antonio del Pollaiuolo "Herakles and the Hydra of Lerna", ca.1480, today in the Uffizi/Florence
This is a pair of paintings to which the painting "Hercules kills Antaeus" belongs too. It is often difficult to decide which of the two brothers Antonio or Piero is the artist. But these two works are attributed to Antonio Pollaiuolo. They show scenes of Greek mythology in the light of Christian philosophy. They were probably commissioned by the Medici. In 1609 they were first mentioned in the inventory of Palazzo Gondi, where they hung as a diptych. In the 2nd World War they were lost and were only rediscovered in Los Angeles in 1963 and returned in 1991. This success was due to Rodolfo Siviero (1911-1983), an Italian secret agent, historian and intellectual who was dedicated to retrieving the artworks stolen by the Nazis.

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Apollonius Rhodios, Argonautika
(4) Pausanias, Travel in Greece
(5) Palaiphatos, Incredible Stories, 38

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mxthologie, 1884-1900
(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology, 1984
(4) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks, Volume II: The Heroic Stories, 1966
(5) Der Kleine Pauly, 1979
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, Reclam 2000

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 03, 2019, 09:15:45 am
Excursion: The Hydra as Allegory of the Enemy

Today, the Hydra has become an allegory of the enemy, especially of an insidious and dangerous one who is constantly growing up. Here are a few examples:

(1) First, the infamous commemorative medal of St. Bartholomew's Night, struck under the French king Charles IX. (1550-1574):
AE - Bronze, 51mm, 60g
         struck 1572, medalist Alexandre Olivier (restrike from 1880)
Obv.: CAROLVS.IX.D.G.FRANCOR.REX.
          Bust in armour and sash, laureate, r.
Rev.: NE FERRVM TEMNAT SIMVL IGNIBs OBSTO
         in ex. 1572
         Hercules, nude, in lion's fur and with lion's scalp on his head, stg. r.
         holding in his raised r. hand the club and in his extended l. hanf a burning torch
         towards the Hydra, which is a scale monster with claws and 3 heads on the right
         in the front of him; in the background a landscape
Ref: Armand III, 286, 1; Jones I, 108; Mazer Roll II, 168

1572 was the year of the terrible St. Bartholomew's Night. Hercules represents Charles IX, who with fire and sword exstirpates the Hydra of heresy. The motto on the back translated reads: "If he does not fear the sword, I will also meet him with fire", that meant the 3 million Protestants (Huguenots).
(2) Commemorative coin on the battle of Millesimo and the battle at Dego as an example of the defamation of the military opponent as Hydra:
Italy, Napoleon Bonaparte, 1796
AE - Bronze, 43mm   
       minted 1796, medallion by Lavy   
Obv.: BATAILLE DE MILLESIMO . BATAILLE DE DEGO
         Napoleon in the shape of Hercules stands to the left, fights with club
         seven-headed hydra
Rev.: LOI DU 6. FLOREAL AN 4 M.E DE LA REP.
         in the field: LE / PEUPLE / FRANCAIS / A / L'ARMEE / D'ITALI
         (legend in 6 lines)
Ref:: ECR Julius 494, Hennin 733

The so-called Battle of Millesimo, rather the loss-making siege of Cosseria Castle on April 13, 1796, and the Battle of Dego on April 14, 1796 were part of several small battles of Napoleon Bonpartes' Italian campaign in the 1st Coalition War (1792-1797) between the revolutionary army of France and the allied armies of Austria and Sardinia-Piedmont in northern Italy, which Napoleon was able to end victoriously.
According to the republican calendar introduced after the French Revolution, the Floreal was a month from April 20 to May 19.

(3) Medal from Germany from the 1st World War:
AE - Iron medal, 85mm, one-sided
Obv.: .VIEL FEIND - VIEL EHR!
           in the field RJA (Medailleur)
           The German Michel as Hercules fights against the hydra of his war opponents

The saying 'VIEL FEIND - VIEL EHR!' = 'Much enemy, much honour' is attributed to Georg von Frundsberg (1473-1528), the lansquenet leader of the Habsburgs. In 1513 he surprisingly defeated a numerically superior army of Venetians at La Motta in Northern Italy.

Today the terror network of the Islamic state is regularly referred to as Hydra, but also the daily terror in the social networks, which is so difficult to deal with.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 03, 2019, 09:17:35 am
Sobek - the Egyptian crocodile god

This coin has been in my collection for 10 years. I always thought it was a crocodile on the back. But now Broucheion from CoinTalk has made me aware that the crocodile has a sun disk on its head. So it's not a simple crocodile, it's Sobek, the crocodile god! I had overlooked the sun disk, but I'm not alone: Förschner doesn't mention it either!

So now naturally follows an article about Sobek - the Egyptian crocodile god.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Arsinoites Nome, Hadrian, AD 117-138
AE - Dichalcum, 2.01g, 12.87mm, 30°, 2.01g
         struck in Alexandria AD 126/127 (year 11)
Obv.: laureated head n.r.
Rev.: Crocodile with sun disk above the head, r. (Crocodile God Sobek)
          in the upper field LIA (year 11)   >
          in ex. APC (for Arsinoites)
Ref.: Milne -; Dattari 6212; Geissen 3383f.; SNG Copenhagen 1085; Förschner 1344
          (Sun disk not mentioned!)
Not common, SS, light green patina

This coin is a so-called Nome coin. In the Old Kingdom Egypt was divided into 32 districts (Greek: Nomoi), which had emerged from the principalities of the Neolithic (Wikipedia). At their head stood a ruler (Strategos), who was relatively independent of the central power of the Pharaoh. Each district (Nomos) was assigned a deity who was especially worshipped. Many of these local gods did not have their own name, but were named after their main place of worship. The goddess of the city Bast in the Nile delta, the famous cat goddess, was simply called "Bastet = the goddess of Bast".

This coin was struck in Alexandria (like all Nome coins) for the Arsinoites district. This had been added to the ancient districts  in Greek-Roman times as the 21st district Noret-Pehet and belonged to Upper Egypt.

Arsinoites was located on the Fajum at the confluence of a contributary to the Nile and the ancient Fajum Lake. The Fajum was an extensive marshland, an ideal hunting ground, which was largely drained only under Ptolemaios II to settle his Greek mercenaries there.

The crocodiles living there since ancient times instilled admiration and fear in the people. So it is understandable that they were worshipped there in the shape of the crocodile god Sobek (Egyptian "sbk"). The Greeks called the city Krokodeilopolis because of this worship of the crocodile. Sobek was called Souchos. Sobek was also considered the ruler of water and the god of fertility. He was worshipped as a protector, but was also regarded as evil in part. In the New Kingdom he appears in the underworld books. In the late period he was even regarded as the creator god.

Sobek was depicted as a god with a human body and crocodile head. As a national emblem he carries the Was. scepter in the left and the Ankh in the right. In the New Kingdom around 1400 B.C. Sobek additionally received the sun disk, because he was considered at this time a revelation of the sun god Re and was known as Sobek-Re. We therefore have reason to believe that Sobek-Re is also meant on this coin.

Its importance was so great at that time that a number of pharaohs took its name as an addition, e.g. Queen Nofrusobek or Pharaoh Chankre Sobekhotep, which translated means "Sobek is satisfied".

To the crocodile god Sobek were consecrated numerous temples with ponds for the holy animals. Besides Krokodeilopolis, the most important were found at Kom Ombo in Upper Egypt and at Tebtunis. The ancient Egyptians knew two different crocodile species: the larger Nile crocodile and the smaller West African crocodile. The West African crocodile was usually used for religious purposes, probably because it was less dangerous. The crocodiles who died in this temple were embalmed like humans and buried as mummies. At Kom-Ombo and in the caves of the crocodile necropolis of El-Maabdeh thousands of these crocodile mummies were found, especially young animals.

The Romans renamed Krokodeilopolis to Arsinoites, the city of the Arsinoites. Besides Memphis, Pelusium and Alexandria, it was the court of the governor. Numerous papyri in Greek, Coptic and Arabic script came from there. Today it is Al-Fayum, a large city with over 475000 inhabitants.

I have added
(1) A drawing of the crocodile god Sobek, and
(2) a pic of the front of the Temple of Sobek-Re (Roland Unger, Wikipedia), Qasr Qarun, at Al-Fayum

Note:
(1) Old Kingdom ca. 2707 - 2216 B.C. (3rd to 6th Dynasty)
(2) New Kingdom ca. 1550 - 1070 B.C. (18th to 20th Dynasty)

Sources;
(1) Wikipedia
(2) Gisela Förschner, Die Münzen der römischen Kaiser in Alexandria - Historisches Museum in Frankfurt, 1987
(3) Der Kleine Pauly

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 04, 2019, 05:36:30 pm
Eirene - the Greek goddess of peace

The Coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Vespasian, 69-79
AE - Tetradrachm, 12.89g, 24mm
         struck 69/70 (RY 2)
Obv.: AVTOK KAIΣ ΣEBA OVEΣΠAΣIANOV
          Laureate head r.
          under the chin LB (year 2)
Rev.: EI - PH - NH
         Eirene in long robe standing frontal, holding kerykeion in her left arm and
         in raised l. hand grain-ears
Ref: Milne 388; Dattari 357; SNG Copenhagen 165f.; Cologne 274f: Förschner 188

Mythology:
Eirene was the Greek goddess of peace. As Hora she was a daughter of Zeus and Themis and therefore a sister of Eunomia (good order) and Dike (justice). Originally they were the deities of growing, blooming and maturing in nature. The word Eirene is etymologically connected with the Greek word ear = spring. It is fitting that in ancient Greece spring was the time when warlike ventures were resumed and peace was in great danger (Wikipedia). Pauly writes that the origin of the name is probably pre-Greek. 

Later the Horai, especially Eirene, were raised to the moral-political level. She stood for the fact that disputes were settled by negotiations and not by weapons. In 371 B.C. she was at the centre of the Peace of Sparta between Athens and Sparta, which ended the Peloponnesian War. With the participation of Dionysus I of Syracuse and the Persian Great King, a general peace (koinh eirene) was agreed upon for the entire eastern Mediterranean region. Already in 465 B.C. the Athenians are said to have built an altar for Eirene after Kimon had defeated the Persians at Eurymedon in Pamphylia (Plutarch). The feast of Eirene was celebrated on 15-16 Hekatombaion (July/August), the mythical day of Synoikia, on which Theseus had united the Attic small states.

Poetry:
Eirene is at the centre of Aristophanes' comedy "The Peace", with which he had won the 2nd place of the  Dionysia in 421 B.C.: The Attic winegrower Trygaios was fed up with the eternal war and went to heaven to reach the end of the war from Zeus. But the gods had left their castle out of anger against the Greeks and had given everything to Ares, the god of war. He had locked Eirene in a cave and was about to crush the Greek cities in a huge mortar. Only the pestle, the Athenian commander Kleon and the Spartan Brisidas were still missing: they had been lost in Thrace, both had fallen. So Trygaios had time to call the Greeks together and unite them. And together they could free Eirene and peace and prosperity reigned in Greece again. Only the manufacturers of weapons and war material were ruined.

History of art:
(1) Detail of the 3 Horai of a red figured Attic Kylix of the Sosias painter,
from the late archaic period, ca. 500 B.C. Each Hora bears an attribute of her season. Eirene, the middle one, carries a branch with spring flowers. Today in the Antikensammlung Berlin

(2) The most famous and significant statue of the Eirene is that of Kephisodotos (around 400-370 B.C.), the father of Praxiteles. It shows Eirene with the infant Plutos and a cornucopiae in her left arm. The symbolism is clear: the little Plutos, which stands for economic prosperity, can only thrive in the security of divine peace. This statue has been handed down in numerous Roman marble copies. The Greek original was made of bronze and was probably erected on the Agora in Athens on the occasion of the peace of Sparta in 371 BC. This image comes from the Glyptothek in Munich.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 13, 2020, 06:31:47 am
Pax - the Roman goddess of peace

Pax, the Roman goddess of peace, is not an ancient goddess of the Romans, this warlike people. She was adopted, like so many other things, of the Greeks. She does not appear on coins until 44 BC, after the end of the civil war. The Pax cult was introduced to Rome by Augustus in 10 B.C. (Dio Cassius). In 9 B.C. the Ara Pacis was erected on the Mars field to celebrate the return of the emperor from his campaigns in Hispania and Gaul.

In 71 under Vespasian a magnificent Temple of Peace was erected on the Peace Forum (Forum Pacis) north of the Basilica Aemiliana. It was a miracle, full of the most important works of art of Greece (Roscher). It celebrated the victory over the Jews. Under Commodus it was destroyed by fire in 191, but rebuilt by Severus.

The Romans probably only knew the victory peace. Not for nothing a Roman proverb says "Si vis pacem, para bellum (= If you want peace, prepare for war)". On coins, the pax is therefore usually decorated with attributes of the Victoria, the Fides, the Honor or the Virtus.

Here is a series of illustrations of the Pax on Roman coins:

1st coin:
Claudius, 41-54
AU - Aureus, 7.71g, 18mm, 180
         Rome, 46/47
Av.: TI CLAUD CAESAR.AVG.P.M.TR.P.VI.IMP.XI
       Laureate head r.
Left to right: PACI AVGVSTAE
        Winged Pax-Nemesis, in long robe, Walking r., holding in left hand
        winged caduceus, pointing to a snake that is coiling r.,
        with the right hand pulling the tip of its garment in front of its chin
Ref: RIC I, 38; C. 57 (Lyon 45!); BMC 39; v. Känel 628
Pedigree:
ex Glendining&Co, Auction, London 3.12.1929, No. 666
ex Adolph E. Cahn auction no. 68, Frankfurt, 26.11.1930, lot 232
(coll. Moritz Simon, banker in Berlin)
ex Münzen und Medaillen AG, Basel
ex Classical Coins, Dr Brandt, February 2002

Nemesis is the goddess of just compensation. This representation wants to show that peace and balancing justice provide prosperity.

2nd coin:
Philip I. Arabs, 244-249
AR - Antoninian, 5.10g, 22mm, 180
        Antioch, 244, before the elevation of Philipp II to Caesar
Av.: IMP C M IVL PHILIPPVS P F AVG P M
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiated, r.
Rv.: PAX FVND - ATA CVM PERSIS
        Pax, in long robe and diademed, Standing l., holding in left Hand  
        transversal sceptre and in the right hand olive branch.
Ref: RIC IV/3, 69; C. 113
Philip's first great task was to end the war in the East. To this end he bought a peace treaty from the Persians under King Shapur for 50 Millions of sestertii and probably an annual tribute as well. Here one could truly not speak of a victory.

3rd coin:
Carus, 282-283
AR - Antoninian, 3.84g, 21mm, 0
         Ticinum, 1st Office
Av.: IMP CARVS P F AVG
        Bust with breastplate, radiate, r.
Rv.: PAX EXERCITI
       Pax in long robe standing l., holding with left hand standard and in the
       extended r. hand olive branch.
Ref: RIC V/2, 75; C, 56
The olive branch is the standard attribute of Pax and stands for economic well-being. The legend and the standard are rather an indication that the peace between the emperor and his army is meant here. After all, Carus is one of the few soldier emperors who was not killed by his soldiers. He died by a lightning strike near Ktesiphon.

4th coin:
Moesia superior, Viminacium, Trajan Decius, 249-251
AE - Sesterz, 19.19g, 29.14mm, 15°
Av.: IMP CAES C MES DECIVS P F AVG
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
Rv.: P M S C - OL VIM
        Moesia-Pax, standing l. in long robe between bull and lion, Holding in r. hand
        an olive branch and in the left arm a sceptre, on which is a
        little Victoria with a wreath and palm branch floating towards her.
Ref.: AMNG I/1, 123, pl. I, 12; Varbanov 174 corr.; Jekov/ Hristova No. 46 (R6)
This type celebrates the restoration of peace on the lower Danube (Pick). In fact Decius did not succeed in stopping the Goths, but together with his son Herennius he fell in the battle of Abrittus in 251.

(will be contued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 13, 2020, 06:35:23 am
(continuation)

Cities of peace:
Augustus had the idea to found so-called peace cities. They were to celebrate the Pax Augusta, which he had proclaimed in the entire empire. Among them was Pax Iulia in Lusitania (Portugal), today Beja, and the Colonia Pacensis (or Forum Iulia Pacatum) at today's Frejus in the province of Gallia Narbonensis.

This custom was taken up again by Nero after he had proclaimed general peace and closed the temple of Janus in 64 AD. These included Eirenopolis-Neronias in Cilicia and Sepphoris/Diocaesarea in Galilaia, both of which were given the name Eirenopolis under Nero.

5th coin:
Nero, 54-68
AE - Dupondius, 13.3g, 27mm, 210
         Rome, about 65
Av.: NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG GER P M TR P IMP P
       Radiate head r.
Rv: PACE P R TERRA MARIQ PARTA IANVM CLVSIT
        Temple of Janus Geminus with barred window left and closed
         double door on the right with a garland hanging over it:
         in left and right field large S - C
Ref: RIC I, 284; C. 150; BMC 198 (Var. #1)
With this piece Nero wanted to show that he had achieved peace for his time.

6th coin:
Cilicia, Eirenopolis-Neronias, Domitian, 81-96
AE - AE 19, 3.7g, 45
       struck 93/94 (year 42 of the era of Eirenopolis)
Av.: KAICAR - DOMITIANOC
       Laureate head r.
Rv.: Pax/Nemesis, winged, naked to the hip, Walking r., holding in lowered l. hand
        kerykeion and pulling with right hand the tail of the garment in front
        of the chin; in front of her the wheel.
        [in right field BM (= year 42)]
Ref: RPC 1765; SNG Levante 1602; Karbach in JNG 42/43 (1992/93)
This piece is taking up Claudius' motive again!

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Aristophanes, Peace
(3) Plutarch, Kimon
(4 ) Pliny, Historia Naturae
(5) Sueton, Vespasian
(6) Pausanias, travel in Greece

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Detailed Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Thorough mythological dictionary
(3) The little Pauly
(4) The Great Ploetz

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 13, 2020, 06:36:57 am
Selene - the Greek goddess of the moon

In the last weeks I have been studying the mythology of Selene. Here are some results.

First coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Commodus, AD 177-192
AE - BI Tetradrachm, 12.44g, 26.5mm
         Alexandria, 189/90 (RY 30 of Marcus Aurelius)
Obv.: M A KOM ANTΩ - CEB EVCEB
          Laureate head r.
Rev.: Bust of Selene, diademed, l., crescent on her head, l. large crescent
         in the right field L Λ (year 30)
Ref:: Milne 2686; Cologne 2252; Dattari 3889; Emmet 2558.30; BMC 1404; SNG
         Copenhagen 582; SNG Munich 101; SNG Oxford 2686; Demetrio 2286;
         Förschner 785

Etymology:
It was already known in antiquity that the name Selene was derived from Greek. Σελας (= shine, glow).

Mythology:
Since the beginning of time the change of day and night has determined the life of the people. So it is understandable that there were deities for it. According to Hesiod, Apollodor and others the parents of Selene were Hyperion and Theia, but also Hyperion and Euryphaessa (Homeric hymns). Hyperion was also the father of Helios and Eos and hence Helios and Selene were brother and sister, which fits well with our two main stars. Theia was a daughter of Uranos and Gaia. So all of them are Titanids. Thus they belong to the ancient dynasty of gods from the time before the Olympians, which is appropriate to their importance.

Euryphaessa is another name of Theia and means "the shining one", so she is closely related to the moon. Theia had a sad fate. She demanded her share of the Titan rulership and was punished for it: Hyperion was killed and Helios drowned in Eridanos, whereupon Selene threw herself to death. Theia, however, fainted deeply, where Helios appeared to her and announced that he under the new Oöympian gods would walk across the sky as  sun and Selene would shine as the moon. Then Theia awoke again, went through the land with drums and cymbals and disappeared in a storm when they tried to seize her (Kerenyi).

The trinity of the siblings Helios, Selene and Eos ruled the day, the night and the early morning. An equal trinity results if we look at the phases of the moon: waxing moon, full moon, waning moon. So change is the characteristic of the moon.
She is usually depicted with the crescent moon on her head. Since the "horns" of the crescent moon resemble the horns of a bull, she is often depicted in a bull league or even riding on a bull.

Later on Artemis, Diana and Hecate came to the fore, all of whom have a reference to the moon. This is a sign that the old gods had now been replaced by the new Olympic gods.

For Selene, there are only few cult testimonies, in contrast to the moon god Men, who was widely worshipped in Asia minor. It is interesting, of course, that there was a male moon god! See the article in this thread "Men - the Anatolian moon god".

Virgil tells us that Pan, who is known to have often persecuted the nymphs, harassed the moon goddess with special love. But Selene rejected him. So Pan hid his hairy and goat-like figure under a white sheepskin. She didn't recognize him, so he was able to lure his beloved to him. She rode on his back and he could do with her what he wanted. Ranke-Graves writes that the seduction of Selene refers to the moonlight orgy on the eve of the May Day celebrations, when the young May Queen rode into the woods on the back of her chosen one to celebrate the forest wedding.

But her most famous love story is about her love for Endymion. Endymion was a handsome young man who lived as a shepherd in Caria. His parents were Aethlios (or Zeus himself) and Kalyke. Because of his justice (Ibykos) Zeus loved him and granted him a request. And Endymion asked for immortality and eternal youth. So Zeus put him into everlasting sleep. During her nocturnal journeys across the sky, Selene saw the sleeping youth and fell in love with him and placed him in a cave on Mount Latmos in Caria. There she visited him every night and always kissed him shyly without waking him up. This myth of Endymion is so beautiful because it is so pure and the delicate image of a slumbering man kissed by the moonbeam is covered with such sweet magic of the gods.

And this brings to mind one of my favourite poets, the tragic Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) , who writes in his poem "When I was a boy":
"And as you delight the heart / Of plants, / When they stretch out their tender arms against you, / So you have delighted my heart Father Helios! and, like Endymion, / I was your favourite, / Holy Luna!"

But others say that Selene fathered 50 daughters with him.

Pausanias writes that Endymion was king of Elis and that he and his wife Asterodia (or Chromia, daughter of Iton) had the sons Aitolos, Paion and Epeios. In order to arrange his succession, he had a race between them in Olympia, which was won by Epeios. Paion then emigrated and founded Paionia. Aitolos, on the other hand, was banished due to a self-inflicted accident with fatal outcome and went to Kuretia. A daughter of Eurykyda had begotten a son Eleios with the sea god Poseidon, who after the flight of his uncle Aitolos had become his successor as king of Elis.

But this mythology does not fit at all to the Selene-Endymion myth, so that I believe that this Endymion must be a different figure. This is already mentioned by Hederich. He should be called Endymion(2), unlike the Endymion(1) of the Selene myth.

History of Art:
Hellenistic art did not actually deal with the mythology of Selene and Endymion. Only the Romans took up this topic. In Pompeii the first wall paintings are found. On sarcophagi it was understandably a popular motif because of the eternal sleep and eternal youth.

I have added the following pictures:
(1) Selene, Attic red-figured Kylix, early classical, c. 500-450 B.C., attributed to the Brygos painter, now in the Berlin Collection of Classical Antiquities. On a tondo we see the moon goddess Selene in a biga, drawn by 2 winged horses. The goddess wears a nightcap and is crowned with the moon disk.

(2) Selene and Endymion, Apulian red-figured volute crater, late classical-early Hellenistic, ca. 4th century B.C., attributed to the underworld painter, today in the Museum of Art, Dallas, USA. The upper panel of the vase shows the shepherd Endymion, who leads Selene, the goddess of the moon, down from heaven. The goddess stands in a quadriga and is crowned with the crescent moon and a radiant aureole.

(3) Selene and Endymion, sarcophagus, Roman, 3rd quarter of the 3rd century AD, sarcophagus relief in Parian marble, found in Saint-Medard-d'Eyrans, Gironde, France. Today in the Musee du Louvre, Paris.

(4) The motif of Diana and Endymion was very popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods and there are countless paintings with this theme. I have chosen this one: Diana y Endimion, 1780, by Domingo Alvarez Enciso (1737-1800), now in the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes in Cadiz, Spain.

(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 16, 2020, 04:57:23 am
(continuation)

In ancient times Selene appeared too as an epithet of two queens from the house of the Ptolomeans. Cleopatra II Selene, daughter of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III was Queen of Syria from 82-69 B.C. She was married to Antiochos VIII, Antiochos IX and Antiochos X and was a symbol for the continuity of the Seleucid rule until its end.

The famous Cleopatra VII. (69-30 B.C.) had 3 children with Marcus Aurelius. Ptolemy Philadelphos and the twins Akexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, born 40 B.C., thus "sun" and "moon". You can see the high standards she had!
Cleopatra Selene was married to Juba II of Mauritania, who both grew up in the household of Octavia in Rome. There they founded a flourishing community which served as a Roman client state.

Second coin:
Mauritania, Juba II, 25 BC - 23 AD.
AR - Drachm, 3.24g, 17.83mm, 18
         struck AD 11 (?)
Obv.: REX IVBA
          Head of Juba, diademed, r.
Rev.: BACIΛ - ICC - A KΛEO[ΠA]TPA.
         Isis crown with ears of grain, below crescent
Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 574
Pedigree:
ex Harlan J. Berk.

The French name Celine (e.g. Ferdinand Celine, Celine Dion) is said to come from Selene.

Sources:
(1) Hesiod, Theogony
(2) Pseudo-Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Pausanias, travel in Greece
(4) Vergil, Georgica

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Lexikon der griechichen und römischen Mythologie
(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek mythology
(4) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks
(5) Drr Kleine Pauly
(6) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Coins and Ancient Mythology, 2017
(7) Echtermeyer/von Wiese, German poems

Online sources:
(1) https://www.theoi.com/Titan/Selene.html
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 16, 2020, 04:59:02 am
Pelops and Hippodameia

The occasion for this article is this beautiful coin, which I could add to my collection. There is already an article about Pelops in this thread under "Pelops and the Curse of the Atrides". But here I will focus a bit more on Hippodameia.

The Coin:
Ionia, Smyrna, Antoninus Pius, 138-161
AE 35, 25.20g, 34.91mm, 0°
struck under the Strategos Theidianos, ca.147 AD
Obv.: [AV KAI T]I AI.AΔPI - ANTΩNEINOC
          Laureate head r.
Rev.: ΘEV [ΔIANOC] CTPA [ANEΘHKE] CMVP - NAIOIC
          Hippodameia, in long robe and veiled, standing r., lifting fold of her robe on the
          left shoulder, holding with the right hand the right hand of Pelops, who ist
          standing frontally beside her, naked except for chlamys over left shoulder, head
          turned left, with his raised left hand resting on a long sceptre, both stg. in biga
          driving r.
          in the upper right field ΠEΛO [Ψ]
Ref:: BMC Ionia, 342; SNG von Aulock 2213; Mionnet 3, p.230, nr. 1289; Klose
         Series A (sixes)
S+, stripped

Note:
(1) The coin shows the moment when Pelops and Hippodameia get into the car to start the race with Oinomaos. This coin type is already mentioned by Roscher, Volume I, p.2670, 1884, and according to A. von Sallet refers to the celebration of the Olympic Games in Smyrna (Ztschr. f. N. 14, 1887). This motif appears on numerous representations.
(2) ANEΘHKE is a standard formula: Theudianos gave it to the people of Smyrna.

Mythology
Hippodameia (Greek = mistress of horses) was the beautiful and much sought-after daughter of Oinomaos, king of Pisa at Elis, a fertile landscape in the west of the Peloponnesos, and the Pleiad Sterope (or the Danaid Eurythoe). Oinomaos himself was a son of Ares and Harpina, daughter of the river god Asopos. He was a great lover of horses. So he forbade his subjects to mate horses with donkeys, on pain of cursing. Oinomaos had been prophesied by the oracle that he would be killed by his son-in-law. It is also said that he was in love with his daughter and had an unseemly relationship with her (Hyginus). In any case, he did not want to give her to any suitor unless he was defested by him in a chariot race. Otherwise he would pay for it with his life.

The goal of the race was the Altar of Poseidon at the Isthmos of Corinth, and it was not only about Hippodameia, but about the whole country through which the track passed. The suitor had to take Hippodameia with him in his carriage, of course, to divert his attention from the carriage. Oinomaos, however, gave him an advantage of half an hour, as he sacrificed a ram to Zeus Areios (after others to Ares or Hephaistos) before the race. But he had been given two horses by his father Ares, Psylla, the flea, and Harpinna, the plucker, which we must imagine winged. These were faster than the north wind and were steered by the skilful Myrtilos, so that no suitor had a chance against him. He caught up with them and pierced them from behind with a spear he had also received from Ares. 12 (some say 13) suitors had already paid their application with death. He nailed their heads over the gates of his palace.

When Pelops, who came from his homeland, Mount Sipylos in Lydia, landed at Elis, he asked his lover Poseidon to give him the fastest car in the world for his advertisement to Hippodameia. Poseidon provided him with a winged chariot pulled by two immortal winged horses. There are two different versions:

(1) Pelops had fallen in love with Hippodameia and came to court her. He brought Myrtilus, the charioteer of the Oinomaus, on his side by promising him a night with Hippodameia. Myrtilos was a son of Hermes and Cleobule. He too had fallen in love with Hippodameia, but did not dare to take part in a chariot race. Or Hippodameia had fallen in love with Pelops at the first sight of him and persuaded Myrtilos to help her by promising him a night with her.
(2) The other version: Pelops came to Elis actually to win the kingdom of Oinomaos. Then Hippodameia would have been only a nice sideline, so to speak. It fits to this version that he is said to have promised Myrtilos half of the empire.
In any case, Myrtilos manipulated the wheels on Oinomaos' chariot by replacing the nails on the axle with wax nails. When Oinomaos had just caught up with Pelops on Isthmos, the wheels flew off the chariot, Oinomaos got entangled in the reins and was dragged to death. But before that he cursed Myrtilos and prayed to the gods that he would be killed by Pelops. But Pelops received Hippodameia and the kingdom of Elis by this deceit. He became one of the greatest founding fathers of the Greeks and gave the "Peloponnesos" (= Island of Pelops) its name. By the way, in the Middle Ages the Peloponnesos was also called Morea (mulberry) after its shape!

On the return journey, Myrtilos tried to approach Hippodameia as promised. But she defended herself and Myrtilos was pushed into the sea by Pelops at the Geraist promontory, which is called the Myrtoic sea after him.
But there is also the Phaidra motif: Hippodameia had feigned thirst and sent Pelops for water. So she could seduce Myrtilos in his absence. When Myrtilos rejected her,
she accused him of rape at Pelops and Pelops pushed him into the sea. But before his death, Myrtilos cursed the family of Pelops. This is the real Curse of the Atrides! So it did not help that Pelops erected a cenotaph in Olympia to atone for him. Hermes remained a bitter enemy of his family.

At first, her happiness with Pelops was so great that she donated special games to Hera in Olympia, the Hereia, which took place every 5 years and where young girls competed against each other. Pelops sired with Hippodmeia among others the Hippalkos, the Atreus and the Thyestes.

But Pelops had another son, the handsome Chrysippos (= the one with the golden horses) of Danais, who was his favourite son. Laios, the son of Labdakos and later father of Oidipous, had escaped from Thebes and was taken in as a guest by Pelops. Here he was entrusted with the education of Chrysippos. So he taught him e.g. how to drive a chariot. He fell in love with Chrysippos and abducted him to Thebes when he was allowed to return. But Atreus and Thyestes were able to bring him and Laios back. Pelops forgave him when he saw how much Laios loved Chrysippos. Euripides calls him in his "Chrysippos" the inventor of boy love.

But Hippodameia hated Chrysippos above all else, because she feared that he would deprive her children of their inheritance. So she tried to persuade Atreus and Thyestes to kill him. When they refused, she took action herself. At night she went to the sleeping chamber of Laios, where he slept with Chrysippos. She took the sword of Laios and plunged it in his body. Of course, Laios was suspected of murder, but with his last breath Chrysippos could name Hippodameia as the murderer. Pelops banished her and she fled to Midea in the Argolis (Pausanias). There she died or killed herself. Pausanias tells that Pelops had her bones brought back by order of the oracle and buried her in Olympia. There she already had a sanctuary, the Hippodameion, which the women were allowed to enter once a year.

Background:
There are indications in this mythology that this race must have taken place somewhere else than it is told in the myth. The distance from Pisa in Elis to the Isthmus of Corinth alone is too long for a chariot race. The description of the horses of the Oinomaos as well as the horses of Pelops as winged rather fit for a race over the sea. Thus it is described how Pelops tries his horses before the race, in which he drives from Sipylos to Greece (rather flies!), so fast that the horses' hooves do not touch the water and his charioteer Kylas dies. In Euripides' "Orestes" Myrtilos is thrown out of the chariot into the sea. This happened at the geraistic promontory and this is in the south of the island Euboea. In Scholion C and already at Pherekydes of Syros Oinomaos was king of Lesbos. That fits well also geographically; because the Geraistos lies in the air-line distance between Lesbos and the Isthmus of Corinth. Here the distance does not matter, because it was a flying competition with winged horses. The motive of the father's love for his daughter fits culturally more to Lesbos than to Elis. Kylas, the charioteer of Pelops, is written by Theopompos of Chios as Killas and he is the eponymous hero of the Lesbian town of Killa, where he had a burial mound that Pelops is said to have built for him. Therefore there is the opinion that the mythology of the abduction of Hippodameia originally comes from Asia Minor and was only transplanted to Greece with the migration of the Pelopids to Greece.

Tragedies:
The Hippodameia myth was treated dramatically by Sophokles in his "Pelops or Hippodameia", which is lost, and by Euripides in his "Oinomaos", which is preserved in fragments, and in the play of the same name by Lucius Accius (c. 170 B.C.- c. 90 B.C.)

History of Art:
I have added the following pics:
(1) Pelops and Hippodameia in a quadriga r.. Attic red-figured amphora, around 410 B.C., today in the Museo Archaeologico in Arezzo/Italy
(2) Pelops and Hippodameia in a biga r.; terracotta tablet with relief, Roman, Augustan or Julian-Claudian, 27 B.C.-68 A.D., today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(3) The race and the accident in which Oinomaos lost his life was often depicted on Roman sarcophagi. This one is Roman, ca. 230-240 AD, 1615 in the Villa Borghese/Rome, since 1808 in the Louvre in Paris. This detail shows the death of king Oinomaos. The king lies with his knees drawn up under the horse and holds the reins with his left hand.

Sources:
(1) Apollodor, Epitomes 2, 3-10
(2) Apollonios Rhodios, Argonautica
(3) Hyginus, Fabulae
(4) Pausanias, Periegesis
(5) Pindar, Olympic Odes

Secondary literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(2 ) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechoschen und römischen Mythologie
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks
(5) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek mythology

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 24, 2020, 05:30:26 am
Elagabal - The sun god of Emesa

The Roman emperor Elagabal (218-222) was actually called Varius Avitus Bassianus and was given the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus as emperor. Elagabal or Heliogabal he was called much later. But Elagabal was actually the name of the god he worshipped, the sun god of Emesa, today's Homs in Syria. To distinguish these two, I will always call the emperor Antoninus here. So Elagabal always means the sun god!

In this article I would like to show where Elagabal comes from and into which cultural landscape he is to be classified.

1st coin:  The Holy Stone of Emesa
Syria, Emesa, Antoninus Pius, 138-161
AE 23, 10.19g, 180
struck 138/9 (RY 1)
Obv.: [AVT KAI TI] AIΛ A [NTO - NEINOC CEB EVC] Awarded head n.r.
Rev.: EMI - [C]HNΩN
Eagle with closed wings standing r. on the Holy Stone of Emesa, head with wreath in beak turned.l., [stone decorated with a star in the middle at the top and a pellet on the left and right].
in right field A (RY 1)
Ref.: BMC 1; SNG Copenhagen 307; RPC IV online temp 5782
Abaut VF, black-green patina with light green highlights

Notes:
This is the only pre-Severan coin with the Sacred Stone of Emesa. The stone itself was brought to Rome by Antoninus and returned to Emesa after his death. That this is the stone in the Kaaba in Mecca is only a rumour.

Etymology:
The name Elagabal is composed of the Aramaic word 'LH = ilaha (god) and GBL = gabal (mountain), which means "god mountain", not "god of the mountain", because ilaha is in the status emphaticus and not in the status constructus (Jean Starcky). This is a subtle but not insignificant difference. The word for mountain is also known to us from Arabic, e.g. in Djabal al-Tariq, (mountain of Tarik), the name for Gibraltar. However, the mountain at Emesa was only about 30m high!

Mythology:
Elagabal was first a local mountain god of Emesa on the Orontes, as there were so many in the Near East. But very early on he had a claim to universality due to his solar character, as was characteristic of the Semitic Baalim.

Elagabal formed a triad with two female astral deities. Such triads were not unusual in Syria and Mesopotamia. His female consorts were Juno Caelestis and Pallas. Juno Caelestis=Tannit=Urania introduced the goddess of the moon and Pallas as Aphrodite=Astarte=Atargatis as the Venusian star the Arab Al-Uzza. As Athena Allath she was also the Arabian goddess of the moon.

Elagabal had the solar character together with the East Semitic sun god Shamash from Mesopotamia, who was also depicted on Severan coins in Emesa. The cult of Elagabal also later came under his influence.

Elagabal was not worshipped anthropomorphically (in human form), as it was common in the western religions, but aniconically in the shape of a black stone in conical form, a baetyl (from Semitic bet el = house of God), which probably was a meteorite. Mountain gods were already known in Anatolia, Syria and Palestine since the times of the Hittites. It was adorned on top, as we know from coins, with an eagle, as a sign of the highest god, as was the case with Jupiter.

Many things point to Arabia. For example, it has the baetyllic format of its black stone together with the likewise solar Dusares of Petra. The priestly princes of Emesa have Arabic names: Azisos, Soaemus, Samsigeramus (Strabo), as well as later the female members of the Severan dynasty Maesa, Soaemias and Mammaea.

According to Herodian, the worship of Elagabal was not only a local phenomenon in Emesa, but was also known from other places in Syria. Sacrifices were brought to Emesa by all the inhabitants of the surrounding areas, which became richer and richer. It is believed that the cult of Elagabal was the main cult of Syria and that Emesa was its religious centre. It is interesting to note that the cult of Elagabal was already widespread in the Roman Empire long before Antoninus. For example, a stele from 196 B.C. was found in Augsburg in what was then Raetia, dedicated to the sun god Elagabal, and another for the sun god Elagabal and Minerva in Woerden/Netherlands, the then Laurium in Germania inferior, i.e. from the other end of the world. This one is from the time of Antoninus Pius, which fits well with our coin.

There is nothing left of the temples on the mountain near Emesa today. And the city itself, today's Homs, a UNESCO world heritage site. has been almost completely destroyed by the long civil war in Syria.

Elagabal in Rome
After Antoninus had been elevated to emperor by his soldiers in May 2018, he set off for Rome after his victory over Macrinus. He used the land route, spent the winter in Nicomedia and carried the Holy Stone with him. In late summer 219 he reached Rome. Since he was already murdered in March 222, he was only in Rome for 2 1/2 years. From his magnificent entry into Rome we know descriptions The Sacred Stone of Elagabal was pulled on a chariot by horses. Antoninus in white priestly garb walked backwards in front of them so that he did not lose sight of his God. An unusual sight for the Romans.

As soon as he arrived, he made Elagabal the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. He had two temples built for Elagabal. One, the Elagabalium, on the Palatine in the area of the imperial gardens, of which remains can still be seen today, and a second outside the city in what is now Trastevere. To decorate his new temple, the most sacred relics of the Roman religion were transferred from their original sites to the Elagabalium, the statue of the Great Mother, the fire of Vesta, the shields of the Salians and the Palladium. There should be no cult outside the priesthood of the Elagabal, all other deities were only the servants of his God. Herodian writes that Antoninus forced the senators to watch him while he danced around the altar of Elagabal to the sound of drums and cymbals.

2nd coin:  Antoninus sacrificing
Antoninus, 218 - 220
AR - Denar, 3.51g, 18mm
Rome 220 - 222
Av.: IMP ANTONINVS PIVS AVG
Bust, draped, laureate, r., with "horn" on the forehead
Rv.: INVICTVS SACERDOS AVG
Antoninus in Syrian priest clothes stg. l., holding in his outstretched right hand  
patera over burning altar and club in the left arm; behind the altar a lying bull
in upper left field a star
Ref.: RIC IV, 88; C. 61
almost EF

Note:
Antoninus wears here parthian trousers and a long-sleeved short tunic with a decorative cast buckle in front of the belly, in addition chlamys and imperial diadem. Because of this costume he is called "the Assyrian" by Dio! But all in all this was more of an approximation to Roman customs. His clothing is different from Syrian and is not known there. Dirven thinks that this is an approximation to Caracalla's Germanic dress and the attempt to make himself more familiar to the troops and to profit from his father's military victories. Also the bull is not unusual
The star in the field is probably intended to indicate the divine status of Antoninus and his belonging to the domus divina. Curtis Clay: Let it be a sign of the mint of Rome
Since an upper ray of the star is much longer, it is also interpreted as Halley's comet, which must have been visible in Rome in 220.
Elke Krengel interprets the "horn" as a dried bull penis as a sign of power and strength. However, this interpretation is not undisputed. At the beginning of 222 the "horn" disappears from the coins again, probably because the soldiers started to grumble.

At the summer solstice he had a big festival celebrated, which was very popular with the masses, for example because food was generously distributed. During this festival Elagabal was put on a chariot, decorated with gold and jewels, and taken across the city in a pompous procession to the suburban temple outside the city. Presents were thrown into the crowd. Antoninus walked backwards in front of the chariot as usual. Several officers took care that he did not stumble. Then, from towers he had erected, vessels of gold and silver, clothes and cloths were thrown at the mob. The actual purpose of this procession has not been clarified to this day. Perhaps one reason was that many Syrian citizens lived in these districts.

I have added:
(1) Pic of coin #1: The Holy Stone
(2) Photo of the stele in Augsburg
(3) Photo of the relics of the Elagabalium on todays Vigna Barberini/Rome
(4) Pic of coin #2: Antoninus sacrificing


(will be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 25, 2020, 07:09:09 am
(continuation)

The Holy Weddings
The Holy Wedding ('ιερος γαμος) was widespread in oriental religions. With the actions of Antoninus in Rome one should know that these were mirrored events in his pantheon. This means that when Antoninus married a Vesta priestess, it was actually about the marriage of his sun god Elagabal to the Roman goddess Vesta. But he himself was never the incarnation of his god. These weddings were very unusual events for the Romans.

First Antoninus married Julia Paula. This probably went back to the clan of Emesa under his mother Julia Maesa and is seen as an attempt to connect him with the Roman aristocracy. However, he rejected her because she had a physical mark, which was not compatible with his idea of divinity. He also had his own ideas about marriage, which were intended to spread his faith.

And this led him to Aquila Severa, the chief Vesta priestess. By marrying her he wanted to establish a connection between his Elagabal cult and that of Vesta, the holiest cult of Rome. Moreover, divine children were to emerge from this marriage, with whom Antoninus wanted to found a divine dynasty. This marriage took place parallel to the marriage of Elagabal to Athena, which according to Halsberghe, however, arose from the misunderstanding that Antoninus considered the palladium to be Vesta because it was kept in the Vesta temple. His marriage with the supreme vestal virgin caused great unrest in Rome, as the vestal virgins were considered untouchable, so that Julia Maesa convinced him to break his connection and that of Elagabal.

He then married Annia Faustina, a descendant of Marcus Aurelius. This had the advantage of creating a real connection between the Severans and the Antonines and especially with the popular philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius. Children from this marriage would have had a strong dynastic claim to the throne. Parallel to this marriage he married Elagabal to Urania, whom he had brought from Carthage and who, as goddess of the moon, was to be an expression of divine harmony together with Elagabal as sun god.

But Annia Faustina did not match his ambitions. He divorced her and brought back Aquilia Severa. His religious convictions had won!

Summary
Antoninus was lucky to have ruled in a rather peaceful time. There were no warlike entanglements and the officials of the empire worked as usual with routine in the administration of the empire and the maintenance of the infrastructure. He was never actually active as emperor. He saw himself as the high priest of his god Elagabal, to whom he wanted to gain global recognition as the supreme god. A local Syrian cult was to become a comprehensive world religion. But this was not a monotheism, as some wrongly assume (e.g. Gaston Halsberghe). Other deities also existed under Elagabal, just as a kind of servant and under him. So he is not a forerunner of Christianity.

In March 222 Antoninus was murdered by his Praetorians after he had tried to hide in a latrine. His cousin and adopted son Severus Alexander became his successor. Immediately after his elevation, Alexander restored the old circumstances. The relics of the Elagabalium were returned to their old locations and the temple was rededicated to Jupiter Ultor, the Avenger. A convincing name! He had the Sacred Stone of Elagabal brought back to Emesa. With that the haunting was over. One can see where religious fanaticism can lead!
 
It is reported that after his victory over Zenobia of Palmyra (272), Aurelian offered sacrifices to the Elagabal at the altar of the sun god. This homage, however, was not so much to the black stone but to his own idea of a universal and supranational Sol invictus (Pauly).

I have added the picture of a tetradrachm with the image of Aphrodite Urania: Sicolopunian, 320-313 BC, Jenkins III, 271; Künker. €180.000.-
 
Sources:
(1) Cassius Dio, Roman history
(2) Herodian, History of the Empire from the Death of Marcus
(3) Historia Augusta

Secondary literature:
(1) RIC
(2) BMCR
(3) Artaud, A., Heliogabale ou l'anarchiste couronne, 1943
(4) Dirven, L., The emperor's new clothes: a note on Elagabalus' priestley dress, 2007
(5 ) Halsberghe, G.H., The Cult of Sol Invictus, 1972
(6) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythologie, 2011
(7) Martin Icks, The Crimes of Elagabalus, I.B.Tsuris 2013
(8) Der Kleine Pauly
(9) Dietmar Kienast, Roman Imperial Tables, 1990
(10) Elke Krengel, The so-called "Horn" of the Elagabal - The tip of a bull penis. A reinterpretation as a result of interdisciplinary research, 1997

Online sources:
(1) Livius.org
(2) Halley's Comet: A Visual Record on Coins of Elagabalus, 2020 https://nnpsymposium.org/exhibit-hall/f/halleys-comet-a-visual-record-on-coins-of-elagabalus
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 25, 2020, 07:13:51 am
Demeter

Demeter was one of the most important goddesses of ancient Greece. And so she is understandably one of the deities most frequently depicted on coins. Her depiction has interested me for a long time.

Her standard attributes always include the ears of grain in her hand, often together with a head of a poppy, and a burning torch, sometimes two torches. The torch may be surrounded by a snake. More rarely it is accompanied by an additional cista mystica from which a snake rises. But there are also pictures of her riding a biga with torches in her hand, pulled by winged snakes. She is often veiled, as befits one of the most venerable goddesses. Sometimes she wears a Kalathos, but not always.

Coin #1:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Diadumenian, AD 217-218
AE 27, 13.88g, 0°
struck under governor Statius Longinus
Obv.: M OΠEΛ ΔIAΔOV - MENIANOC K
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from front, bare-headed, r.
Rev.: VΠ CTA ΛONΓINOV NIKOΠOΛITΩN ΠPOC / IC
        Demeter, in long robe and mantle, veiled, standing frontal, looking l., resting          
         with raised left hand on a long, burning torch, around which a snake is coiling
          and holding ears of grain in her extended right hand over a cista mystica with
         open lid, from which a second snake rises.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG:
            Rev.  AMNG I/1, 1836
         b) Varbanov 3722
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2020) No. 8.25.5.4 (same dies)
rare, almost VF, dark green patina  

Etymology:
Even the ancient world recognised a composite in its name, the second part of which is μητερ (Greek = mother). The first element has not been unanimously clarified until today. Of course γη- = earth (especially the Orphicists) is discussed, so that she would then be the earth mother (Pauly). It is possible that Demeter already appears in Linear A as da-ma-te.

Mythology:
Demeter was the daughter of Uranos and his sister Rhea. Like all his children, she was eaten by Uranos after her birth, but spat out again when Metis gave him an emetic. She was considered the goddess of the field and of fruits, especially of grain. At first the grain grew among the other grasses and herbs and was unknown to man. She taught them how to collect and store it, sow it and bake bread with it. Before that, people had fed only on acorns (Virgil, Georgica). According to some, this was done in Egypt, according to others by the Athenians or in Sicily. Egypt was considered by the Greeks to be the oldest country in the world and the source of all knowledge, Sicily was an important supplier of grain in ancient times

In the Orphic Hymns it is said that she also invented ploughing with oxen. According to Kallimachos and Diodoros Siculus, she is said to have been the inventor of the laws and to have urged people to respect the property of others. That is why in Greek she was called thesmophoros = bearer of the laws.

Because of her beauty her brother Zeus fell in love with her and sired Persephone with her. Her brother Poseidon also desired her. She tried to escape him by turning into a horse and joining the herd of horses of king Onkios in Arcadia. But she was not successful. Poseidon recognised her anyway, turned into a horse as well and sired the famous black-maned stallion Areion and a daughter with her. Their name is sometimes called Despoina or Hera. But her real name could not be mentioned outside the mysteries (Apollodor; Pausanias).

This misdeed grieved her so much that she wrapped herself in black clothes, avoided the other gods, and finally retreated into a cave. She no longer cared for the grain, everything withered away, and man and cattle began to suffer and die of hunger. No one knew where she was until Pan, who roamed everywhere, discovered her in Arcadia and reported this to Zeus. Zeus sent the Parzes to her and they succeeded in persuading Demeter to change her mind.

Demeter herself, on the other hand, loved Jasion above all, a son of Zeus and Elektra. To him she gave birth to Pluto, the god of wealth and prosperity. But Zeus' jealousy was so great that he killed Jasion with a bolt of lightning.

I have already told the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades in detail. Among the other known mythologies of the Demeter is the story of Triptolemos, the oldest son of Keleus in Eleusis, to whom she gave her snake biga so that he could spread the use of grain throughout the world. To this story belongs the following coin (both stories are, by the way, in my first volume of mythology from 2017).

Coin #2
Cilicia, Kelenderis, Elagabal, 218-222
AE 22, 6.16g, 330°
Av.: M(?) AVP AN - TΩNINOC (both N's retrograde)
       Awarded head n.r.
Rv.: K - E - [ΛE]NΔEPITΩN (both N's retrograde)
      Demeter holding torch in her raised right hand diving r. in a biga, which is drawn by two winged  
    
Ref.: SNG Levante 548 (same dies); SNG von Aulock 5650
rare, good SS, extraordinary style
Pedigree:
ex Hirsch auction 168 (1990), lot 729
ex Gorny & Mosch auction 108 (2001), lot 1525
ex. Münzen und Medaillen 20 (2006), lot 233

Note:
Here Demeter drives the snake biga, which she later gave to Triptolemos.

If someone had helped her find Persephone, he was rewarded by Demeter. In gratitude she gave Phytalos the branch of a fig tree and taught him how to plant and cultivate it. She gave  Pandareios the gift of eating as much as he wanted without harming him. On the other hand, she took revenge on those who had not helped her. To Ascalabos, who had mocked her when she drank thirstily from a bowl, she poured the rest of the barley-filled water (kykeon) into his face, turning him into a spotted lizard (Greek: askalabotes). Lynkos, king of the Scythians, who wanted to execute Triptolemos, she turned into a lynx (Greek lynkos). Erysichthon, who who cut down a forest sacred to her she gave insatiable hunger, so that he finally ate himself. Acheron, who had revealed that Persephone had eaten some pomegranate seeds, so she had to stay in the underworld, she turned  into a night owl. According to others, she had hung an enormous stone around his neck.

Background:
According to Pauly she was a special form of the earth goddess with a strong emphasis on the agricultural aspect. Hiding in a cave, the abduction of her daughter into the underworld and the snakes tied to her show that there was a connection to the chthonic gods. But unlike the underworld gods, she was rather peaceful and not threatening.

She was a harvest goddess with wheat blond hair (Iliad). The farmers prayed to her for good harvests. In Crete "harvest" even meant "to pay homage to Demeter". The origin of her complex form was probably Thessaly with a connection to the pelasgian Dos = Pheraia. Their connection to Iasion and Plutos also speaks for this. These were not grain demons, but chthonic healers (Pauly).

According to some, she was once a queen in Sicily whose daughter was kidnapped by a pirate who took her to Pluto. In Sicily, the granary of antiquity, there was a true Demeter religion, which, like the mother in Persephone/Kore, lamented the disappearance of the plant world. With the gathering of Core flowers in the meadows, hopes of immortality were attached to the rebirth of nature in spring. This was also expressed in the balance between the chthonic and epichthonic nature of the corn. and underworld goddess Demeter herself. From the Christian side, such as Augustinus, the idea of a cyclical process of creation associated with Demeter was vehemently rejected, as it was contrary to her eschatological idea that history should be directed towards one goal.

The mystical seeds of Demeter as the guide to rebirth did not only include the grains of the field, but also the flocks of the dead! Thus not only did her Eleusinian retinue include agricultural demons such as Dysaules and cultural heroes such as Triptolemos, but also infernal beings such as Baubo and Daeira. In the theology of Orphism, she is fused with the Magna Mater, which also includes Kabiren and Idaean dactyls.

Festivals of Demeter:
The most important place of worship for Demeter was in Eleusis, which is said to have been an entrance to the underworld. The Eleusinian Mysteries were held every year in their honour. But with the spread of Christianity, the cult of Eleusis lost its importance. After an attempt by Emperor Julian II. Apostata to revive the mysteries, Emperor Theodosius I had the temple closed in 392. Four years later the Temple of Eleusis was finally destroyed by the Visigoths under Alaric I.

Coin #3
Thrace, Anchialos, Gordian III, 238-244
AE 25, 9.8g, 24.74mm, 225
the so-called "Dreier (= value of Three)"
Av.: AVT K M ANT ΓOPΔIANOC AVΓ
       Laureate head.r.
Rv.: AΓXIAΛ - EΩN
        Demeter, richly draped and veiled, sitting on a basket (cista mystica), holding in her
        outstretched right hand ears of grain and poppy and in her raised left hand long
        torch.
Ref: AMNG II, 641 var. (3 ex., 1, 2 in Berlin, 3 in Sofia), Av. (3) Sofia
rare, almost VF

Note:
Here Demeter is depicted sitting as in Knidos (see below), but on a cista mystica, and thus has a relationship with the Eleusinian Mysteries.

In Greece there was the Thesmophoria, a 10-day festival in honour of Demeter. Only women were allowed to participate in this festival. In his comedy "Thesmophoriazusai", 411 B.C., Aristophanes mocks the festival: He has Euripides and his brother-in-law dressed in women's clothes mingle with the celebrants, which gives the opportunity for rough jokes. It is known that Alkibiades, together with his comrades, had imitated this festival a few years earlier, in 415. He had disguised himself as the high priest, another one had played the torchbearer. This led to the famous trial against him and to his deposition as commander-in-chief of the campaign to Sicily (the so-called Hermen Crimes).

History of Art:
A popular theme in antiquity was the abduction of Persephone by Hades, pictures of her stay in the underworld and her return. Triptolemos are also frequently found. But motifs from other Demeter mythology are rarely found. Here is one of these rarer depictions:

Demeter sitting on a throne stretches out her hand to Metaneira, who sits before her and hands her three ears of wheat. Detail of an Apulian red-figured hydria, c. 340 BC, attributed to the Varese painter. Today in the Old Museum of the National Museum in Berlin. Metaneira, the mother of Triptolemos, had given Demeter a warm welcome when she came to Attica.

Reliefs with triptolemos and statues of Demeter are known from ancient times, such as the sitting statue of Knidos. Here Demeter is depicted in a serene, timeless posture, underlining her maternal role in the pantheon of the 12 Olympic Gods. In Knidos she was worshipped together with Hades and other underworld gods and her daughter Persephone.  The marble statue dates from 350 BC and is now in the British Museum in London.
 
Mythological representations of Demeter, on the other hand, as already mentioned, are only few in antiquity. This changed in modern times. As an example: the ceiling painting by Giovanni the Udine from the Villa Farnesina in Rome (1511/12) shows Venus, Hera and Demeter.

Demeter/Ceres is often depicted in a triumphal chariot to celebrate happiness and prosperity. She was painted by Rubens with Pan and nymphs. The motto of Terenz "Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus" (= without fruit and wine Venus freezes) also served as a model for emblems and paintings.

Sources:
(1) Homer,  Ilias
(2) Hesiod,  Theogony
(3) Vergil,  Georgica
(4) Ovid,  Ars amatoria
(5) Kallimachos,   Hymnes
(6) Apollodoros,  Bibliotheke
(7) Diodorus  Siculus,  Bibliotheke
(8) Pausanias,  Voyages in Greece  

Secondary Lietrature:
(1) Benjamin  Hederich, Gründliches  mythologisches  Lexikon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Röscher, Lexikon der Mythologie
(3) Karl  Kerenyi,  Die  Mythologie  der  Griechen
(4) Robert  von  Ranke-Graves,  Griechische Mythologie
(5) Der  Kleine  Pauly
(6) Reclams  Lexikon  der  antiken  Götter  und  Heroen  in  der  Kunst  
(7) Hans-Joachim  Hoeft,  Münzen  und  antike  Mythologie  -  Reise  in  ein  fernes  Land,  2017
      
Online Sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demeter_of_Knidos
(3) sammlung.theologie.uni-halle.de/demeter/
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 07, 2020, 05:43:04 am
The rest of the pictures

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 07, 2020, 05:49:00 am
Excursion: The procession of the Kalathos of Demeter

The following coin is an essential part of the great Demeter theme:

The Coin:
Titus, 79-81 AD
AR - Denar, 3.22g, 18.14mm, 180
        Rome, January - June 79 (as Caesar)
Obv.: T CAESAR IMP VESPASIANUS (from lower rigtht counterclockwise)
         Laureate bust r.
Rev: TRP VIII COS VII
        slow quadriga l., on top of it high, garlands-decorated basket with grain ears
Ref:: RIC II, (Vepasian) 206var (Quadriga r.); CBN (Vespasian) 226-7 and pl. XXXIV; C.336; BMC 256
scarce, good VF, old cabinet tint
Pedigree:
ex coll. Lawrence M. Woolslayer, certificate of David Sear, 13.12.2005

"The quadriga with the basket of corn-ears shows the procession of the calathus of Ceres, sung by Callimachus in his hymn; it already had appeared on coins of the moneyers of Augustus in 17 BC. It is unmistakenly derived from Alexandria, and suggests the importance of Egypt as the granary of Rome, even besides any endeavours of the Emperor to revive Italian agriculture."
(Mattingly, BMCR II, p. xIii)

The hymn of Kallimachos:
"[Begin singing], virgins, and sing the chorus, mothers: 'Demeter, cordially welcome, you much nourishing, you many bushelful! And just as the light-haired mares bring the holy basket, four in number, so will the great Goddess come to us, reigning far and wide, bringing a glorious spring, a bright summer and winter, and the autumn, year after year she will shield us.
(Kallimachos, Hymnos VI, 118th translation by me, Kallimachos, Works, 2004 WBG)

Note:
Kallimachos of Cyrene (305-240 B.C.,) was a significant Hellenistic poet and scholar.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 07, 2020, 05:51:25 am
Ahura Mazda - The Wise Lord

I have wanted to write an article on Ahura Mazda for a long time, but have always shied away from it because it seemed like too extensive an undertaking. Now, during my Corona leave, I have decided to finally start. For this article, the subtitle of my mythology book applies especially: "Journey to a distant land"! I have 3 coins in my collection that refer to Ahura Mazda, and they are closely related, as we will see. The coin that is at the beginning of the article I have already presented once in an article about Hormisdas. But that was about the Sassanid Great King. The Sassanid Empire was the second Persian empire after the Achaemenid Empire and declined in the 7th century AD due to the expansion of the Islamic Arabs.

Coin #1
Sassanid Empire, Hormizd II, 309-309 AD.
AR - Drachm, 3.48g, 27.2mm, 90°.
Av.: Legend in Pahlevi, abbreviated and corrupted:
       ly. .KLM n . KLM [ydzmrhw'] y gb n s d [y?]z m
       (= "The worshipper of Mazdah, the divine Hor-.
       mizd, the king of the kings of Iran, who descended from 
      the gods")   
      Bearded bust n.r., crown with eagle r.,
      carrying a pearl in its beak, above Corymbos
       (Göbl crown type I)
Rv.: garlanded fire altar, in the flames of the altar the bearded
       bust of Ahura Mazda l., on the left Hormizd with eagle crown and
       Korymbos r. and on the right a bearded priest with muralcrown             
       standing l., both with harem pants and holding a sword in both              
        hands (Göbl reverse 1a); behind the figures in Pahlevi 'Fire of Hor-   
         mizd', on the base of the altar 3 globuli.
Ref.: cf. Göbl 83; cf. Mitchener
        ACW 867; cf. Paruck 176 (all have only one globule)
almost VF, thin flan break on rev.

Note:
The Korymbos (not the globe!) was a typical hair dress of the Sassanid kings. It consisted of a spherical summary of the hair on the head, which was surrounded with a silk scarf. Each Sassanid king had his own crown, which is how you can tell them apart on coins. Thanks to T.K.Mallon (1956-2014) from grifterrec.com for translating the Pahlevi legend

Coin #2:
Nezak Huns, Napki Malka, 475-576
AE 27 (drachm), 3.8g, 27.31mm, 90°
Kapisa (Kabul), so-called Bull crown type
Av.: Bust with winged helmet and buffalo protome, draped
       and with earrings
       r. 'NPK MLK, l. A (all in Pahlevi)
Rv.: altar of fire with one highly stylised servant right
       and left, above each a sun wheel
Ref.: Göbl type 198; Mtchener 1510-12
VF/F+, with pretty green patina, perfectly centred

Notes:
The Nezak Huns, not to be confused with the White Huns (Hephthalites), were the last of the 5 Hun peoples in the Hindu Kush and ousted the Alchon Huns from Kapisa, today's Kabul. After the defeat of the Sassanid king Peroz I against the Hephthalites in 474, they established an empire in northern Afghanistan until they themselves perished by the hands of the Islamic Arabs. They excelled in extensive coinage. This coin imitates the Sassanidian coins. Some think that Napki Malka, the legend on the obv, is not the name of a king but a title.

Unlike the Sassanid coin, the bust of Ahura Mazda does not appear in the flames of the altar. Perhaps this was a difference to the survanist variant of Zorastrianism of the Sassanids?

The next one is the oldest of the 3 coins. The Sassanids had extended their empire to the Indus. Bactria in what is now northern Afghanistan was also under their control. There they appointed governors, the Kushan Sassanids, who ruled the country for them. They too perished due to the expansion of Islam.

Coin #3:
Kushan-Sassanid, Hormizd I, "Kushanshah", ca. 265-295 AD,
AE 16 (drachm)
Av.: Legend in Pahlevi
         Bearded bust with lion headdress r., above segmented globe;
         behind long ribbons flying from the hair
Rv.: Legend in Pahlevi
        Garland-decorated altar, from which Ahura Mazda
         ascends, in left hand sceptre, in right hand wreath with long ribbons. 
Ref.: Mitchiner ACW 1280-87
F/FF, dark green patina

Note:
The figure rising from the altar is regularly called Ahura Mazda. rifterrec.com, however, calls her "Anahita(?)", an ancient Iranian goddess of water and fertility who later merged with the Semitic Ishtar.

Etymology:
In the 8th century, the name Ahura first appeared in Media, related to the Vedic word "asura" for "Lord". Mazda is related to the Vedic word "medh" for "mind, wisdom". Both terms thus originate from Proto-Indo-Iranian. At first they were used separately, e.g. also under Zarathustra. Only under the Achaemenid Darius I (522-486 BC) were they united to Ahura Mazda, which then means "Wise Lord". This is evident from the Behistun inscription in a large rock relief near Kermanshah. This inscription played a similarly outstanding role for the decipherment of the cuneiform script as the Rosetta Stone did for the decipherment of the hieroglyphs). One can see here how closely etymology is also linked to political history.

Mythology:
When the nomadic culture merged with the farming culture in connection with the settling down, a new religion was also formed. Zoroastrianism probably originated in Bactria (in what is now northern Afghanistan) and had close ties to ancient Indian ideas. Ahura Mazda itself is already known pre-Zoroastrian.

It split into Mazdaism and Parsism, all of which existed side by side in the Achaemenid Empire. In the Sassanid Empire, a Survanist variant also developed. In this form it had a great influence on Judaism, which during the Babylonian captivity adopted from it, for example, the concept of the end times and hell, which was later also adopted by Christianity.

(1) Zarathustra:
Zarathustra (Greek: Zoroaster), 2nd-1st century B.C., was a philosopher and founder of religion in Northeast Iran. His teachings are written down in the Avesta, the holy book of Zoroastrianism, of which only copies still exist, and in commentaries, the Zend. These were written during the Sassanid period. The oldest parts, the Gathas, are said to have been written by Zarathustra himself. When Islam overran the Persian Empire, the Parsees fled to India with the holy books. In 1907, copies were acquired by Sir Aurel Stein and thus made accessible to Western scholarship. 

Under Darius I, the first ruler of the Achaemenids, Zoroastrianism became the state religion. The creator god Ahura Mazda (therefore often called Mazdaism) or Ormuzd, also the creator of the moral order, whose focus was on truth, was at the centre. Subordinate to him were the two dualistic spirit beings Spenta Manju (high-bringing god) and Angra Manju (evil spirit), called Ahriman in Middle Persian texts. Among the Sassanids, the variant of Survanism developed, in which Survan, the personification of time, was the father of the two. This gave rise to the dualistic idea of the eternal struggle of good against evil. This actually contradicted the doctrine of Ahura Mazda, which was monotheistic at its core. But under the Sassanids, all religious variants coexisted peacefully. According to the teachings of Mazdaism and Parsism, Ahura Mazda destroys Ahriman at the end of time. A world judgement takes place, the wicked are punished and the good are rewarded with eternal life in the realm of Ahura Mazda. Basically, this religion is not dualistic at the end, as is often claimed.

(2) Mani
Mani (216-276) was a Persian founder of religion under the Sassanids who invented the syncretic religion of Manichaeism as a religion of revelation. It was composed of oriental, Hellenistic and Christian elements, and in particular of gnosis. It was now completely focused on the eternal struggle of the 2 dualistic powers Ormuzd (of good) and Ahriman (of evil). Man has a share in both.  He can only be redeemed by bringing his light parts into the kingdom of light, while the dark, material parts are abandoned to darkness. At the end of time, evil perishes by fire (ekpyrosis, which was already known to Heraclitus). Mani was opposed by the Zoroastrian priests, who succeeded in having him thrown into prison under Bahram I, where he died. Manichaeism was vehemently opposed by Christianity because of its duality, but also had great influence on it, e.g. on Augustine with his doctrine of the two kingdoms.

Zoroastrianism today:
There are still followers of Zoroastrianism today. 150,000 Zoroastrians live in India, Iran, the USA and Canada, of which 10,000 live in the Iranian desert city of Yazd alone, but they all differ considerably.

Famous followers were the Achaemenid 'Xerxes I (519-465 BC) and the Sassanid Shapur I the Great (died around 270 BC). Zoroastrians in the present day were, for example, Feroze Gandhi, the husband of Indira Ganhi, and the rock musician Freddie Mercury of the Queens.

History of Art:
(1) Ahura Mazda was a spiritual entity rather than a physical god, unlike, for example, Mithras, Thus, according to Herodotus, there were no images of him in ancient Iran. His symbol was fire. Thus the well-known Faravahar does not represent Ahura Mazda either! He is a symbol for the 3 Zoroastrian principles of Good Thinking, Good Speaking and Good Doing. Because of its great significance, it became a national emblem in the Achaemenid Empire, carved into palaces and monuments. The picture shows the Faravahar relief in Persepolis.

(2) After iconoclasm under the Parthians, Ahura Mazda was allowed to be depicted again under the Sassanids. The relief from Naqsh-e Rajab, 3rd century AD, shows Ahura Mazda presenting the ring of power (Cydaris) to Ardashir I, the founder of the Sassanid dynasty. However, this scene is also interpreted differently: Ardashir I, receives the ruling ring from the spirit of Darius I of the Achaemenid dynasty. Under Ardashir's horse lies Artabanus, the last Parthian king, and under Darius I's horse lies the magician Gautama, a usurper.

Literature:
(1)  Regenbogen/Meyer,  Wörterbuch  der  philosophischen  Begriffe,  WBG  1998
(2)  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  Also  sprach  Zarathustra
(3)  Wikipedia
(4)  http://grifterrec.rasmir.com/coins.html

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 18, 2020, 05:19:06 pm
Excursion: Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra

Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" absolutely belongs in this context. This powerful work by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was unfortunately misused by the Nazis. And this shadow still hovers over Nietzsche, but especially over this work. But first it must be said that Nietzsche's Zarathustra has nothing in common with the historical Zarathustra from the previous article, apart from the name.

Content:
After living as a hermit for 10 years, Zarathustra decides to preach his acquired wisdom to the people. In a village whose inhabitants are waiting for a tightrope walker to perform, he begins to preach about the "Übermench (Beyond-man)": "Man is something that is to be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?"

Rebuffed by the derisive laughter of the villagers, he decides to no longer speak to the people, but only to outstanding personalities. He continues his journey and begins a long series of sermons, chants and lyrical soliloquies with which he reveals his teachings to the reader. No area of life is left without criticism: church, state, science and the arts. His rhetoric is powerful, he uses all stylistic elements and means of expression. The eternal return of the same ends in nihilism. Only the will to power can overcome it. The decadent perish, only the truly strong accept their fate (amor fati). Thus, the strength of man can only be measured by his apostasy from the traditional and his love of existence.

Zarathustra constantly vacillates between his desire for hermitism, which could give him the opportunity for fulfilling thought, and his sense of mission. But when he sees his disciples spreading his doctrine of the superman, he retreats to his cave.

In the end, he is haunted there by a final seduction. "Higher men", who know about the decadence of the world, ask him for pity, as they lack the strength to overcome it. Zarathustra, however, recognises their temptation in compassion, rejects it and thus takes the last step towards the perfection of the Übermensch. Zarsthustra's "great noon" has come. He leaves his cave "glowing and strong, like a morning sun coming out of dark mountains."

Nietzsche and the Nazis
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" was laid down next to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" in the burial vault of the Tannenberg monument. Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in particular had an affinity with the Nazis. Hitler himself appeared at the funeral service at her burial. And of course the "Übermensch" was understood as the "Herrenmensch" in the Nazi sense. But even among the Nazis, opinion was not unanimous. In part, his philosophy was seen as incompatible with National Socialism. Thus Nietzsche had been an opponent of socialism, an opponent of nationalism and an opponent of racial thought. If he had abandoned these ideas, an article in one newspaper said, he might have become a good National Socialist. He was also reproached for his friendliness towards Jews and for never having had any understanding of the workers' question. So there was a clear contradiction between the Nazi institutions' veneration of Nietzsche and the individual reception of his philosophy.

In today's research, it was especially Marxists and left-liberals who consider Nietzsche to be partly responsible for National Socialism. Some conservatives also hold this view. The Germans as a whole had a hard time with Nietzsche after 1945. In France and Italy, on the other hand, he was rehabilitated. Important philosophers, e.g. Deleuze or Montinari, made a strong case for him and saw a falsification by National Socialism (Wikipedia)

Meanwhile, he is the philosopher on whom most works are published today.  Current Nietzsche research in Germany now also assumes almost unanimously that Nietzsche was abused. An abuse that continues with today's right-wing extremists!

I have added a pic of the painting Edvard Munnch, Friedrich Nietzsche, 1906

Literature:
(1) Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra
(2) www.zeit.de
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 18, 2020, 05:22:05 pm
The Family of Maiandros

Coin #1:
Phrygia, Apameia, pseudo-autonomous, 2nd-3rd century BC
AE 15, 3.76g, 14.6mm, 180°
Obv.: AΠAME - ΩN
         Bust of Athena, wearing Corinthian helmet, draped and with aegis, r.
Rev.: AΠAME - ΩN
         River god in hip dress leaning l., holding in extended right hand long waterplant
         and in l. arm cornucopiae; resting with l. elbow on overturned vase from which
         water is flowing l.
Ref.: BMC 116; Imhoof Phrygia 115; Prowe III, 1643; SNG München 132-133; not in
         Falter
Rare, VF, remains of sand patina

Apameia, also called Apameia Kibotos in contrast to other cities with the same name, was founded by the Seleucid king Antiochos I Soter (324-261 BC) on the site of the older residence Kelainai, and named after his mother Apame. Apameia was situated at the sources of the Maiandros and the Marsyas.

Mythology of Maiandros
Maiandros as river god was already known by Hesiod. Like all great rivers, he was considered the son of Okeanos and Thetys. There was a multifaceted family mythology around him. One of his daughters, the Naiads, was the nymph Kyanee, and Kalamos (Nonn. Dion.) and Marsyas are mentioned as his sons.

Kyanee:
Kyanee, the daughter of Maiandros, was the nymph of a spring or well near Miletos. She was the wife of Miletos, the founder of the city of Miletos. Miletos was a son of Apollo and Aireia in Crete. Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon had fallen in love with him and fought over him. When he chose Sarpedon, he was driven out of Crete by Minos, sailed with Sarpedon to Karia and founded the city of Miletos (Apollodor) there. Kyanee gave birth to the twins Byblis and Kaunos.

Byblis and Kaunos:
The story of Byblis is the story of her incestuous love for her twin brother Kaunos. There are different versions of this mythology:

(1) The beautiful Byblis was desired by many noble Carians. But she rejected them all and began to love her twin brother Kaunos. But she kept this a secret, which weighed so heavily on her that in her hopeless love she decided to kill herself to shorten her suffering, and she threw herself from a high cliff. But the nymphs took pity on her and caught her. Then they sank her into a deep sleep and made her one of their companions as a hamadryad (tree nymph) and immortal (Nicander).

(2) Ovid tells us that she actually confessed her forbidden love to her brother through a messenger. Horrified, he fled from her into a foreign land, where he founded the city of Kaunos.  Byblis then set off in search of him and wandered through Caria, Lycia and other countries as if out of her mind, until she finally fell to the ground exhausted and no nymphs could help her. She dissolved into tears and was transformed into a fountain (Ovid. Metam. IX, v.452). This fountain bore her name and was known for a long time at the foot of an oak tree in Miletos (Strabon).

(3) Others say that after her brother fled from her to the land of the Lelegen (neighbours of the Carians), she hanged herself in despair from an oak tree with a belt. From her tears, however, the Byblis fountain was formed (Aristokritos).

(4) There is also the version that Kaunos fell in love with her, but since this love was impossible, he fled her and went far away in despair. Byblis, however, set out to look for him. When she could not find him, she hanged herself from a walnut tree (Conon. Narr.).

The Byblis myth is probably related to the traditions of the cult of Aphrodite near Miletos and was genealogically linked to Minos by the Cretan colonists of this city (Roscher). According to Stephanos of Byzantium, the city of Byblos in Phoenicia is said to have been named after Byblis.

Kalamos:
Kalamos, the son of Maiandros, had a companion Karpos, a son of Zephyr and a Hore (goddess of Season), whom he loved above all things. When he was thrown back by a vicious gust during a swimming race in the Maiandros and drowned, he no longer wanted to live and begged Zeus to allow him to die too, so that he could be reunited with his beloved. Zeus took pity on him and transformed him into a reed (calamus). It is said that the sound of the rustling reed was the lamentation of Kalamus over the death of his beloved. Karpos became a crop. This story is told by Eros to Dionysus to comfort him over the loss of his lover Ampelos (Nonn. Dion.).

Geography:
The Maiandros (Meander, also Great Meander), today Büyük Menderes, is the longest river in southwestern Asia Minor. It rises near Kelainai and after a short course takes in the Marsyas. In a strongly winding course it flows into the Icarian Sea in ancient times near Priene through a wide alluvial plain. The Μαιανδρου Πεδιον , the valley through which the Maiandros flows, was famous for its fertility. There is also the Small Meander (Kücük Menderes), which was called Kaystros in ancient times. It should not be confused with the Mainandros. The Maiandros was known early on. Homer already mentions it in his Iliad (II, 869), when he reports at the end of the catalogue of ships that Nastes led the Carians, a people of barbarian dialect, who inhabited Miletos and the floods of the Maiandros.

The most striking feature of the Maiandros is its meandering course, which has given the name meandering to the similar behaviour of other rivers. In the case of the river loops, a distinction is made between the impinging slope and the sliding slope, whereby over time the impinging slopes of two loops come closer and closer together until a breakthrough occurs. Then the river takes the shorter path and the old loop becomes an oxbow lake or silts up completely. If there was an elevation in the middle of the loop, a circulating hill was formed, popular as a site for a castle.

Art history:
The meander pattern has been known since the Neolithic period. It was used as an ornament in the borders of garments, on clay vessels, as a relief or frieze in architecture. The meander also exists rounded as a so-called running dog or as a double meander consisting of 2 meanders running in opposite directions, e.g. in the Pompeian wall painting of the Villa dei Misteri.

Originally, however, it is a characteristic of Greek art. In antiquity it stood for the attainment of eternity through repetition. It is an allusion to the eternally young god Eros and the eternally renewing cosmos. The meander pattern was the distinguishing feature of several cities on the Meander. Thus it is often found as an ethnicon on coins.

Coin #2:
Phrygia, Apameia, cs. 88-40 BC.
AE 25, 7.88g, 180°.
struck under the magistrate Andronikos, son of Alkios
Av.: Bust of Athena with Corinthian helmet, draped and wearing aegis, .r.
Rv.: above AΠAMEΩ[N].
        below in 2 lines ANΔPONIKO[V] / AΛKIOV.
        Eagle rising from a meandering pattern r., behind its head an 8-pointed
        star, on both sides the pileus of a dioscuri with an 8-pointed star above
Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 163; SNG Tübingen 3955-2956; SNG Munich 109; SNG
         Lewis 1010; Weber 7024; Hunter 3; Walcher 2474; BMC 37-39; HGC 7, 670;
VF, de-patinated

Note: These coins are among the first to have been struck in brass (Tatjana N. Smekalova, 2009).

Authors cited by Hederich:
(1) Aristokritos, from Milet(?), 1st century BC (at least before Parthenios from Nikaia, d. 73 BC), wrote a book "Peri Miletou".

(2) Konon, around 30 BC, wrote "Diegeseis", 50 mythological tales, known only through Photius' "Myriobiblon".

(3) Nikander from Kolophon, 197-133 B.C. 2 didactic poems on remedies and poisons have survived. Not preserved are his "Metamorphoses", which Ovid used, and the "Georgika", which Virgil used.
 
(4) Stephanos of Byzantium, a late ancient Greek grammarian from the early period of Justinian I, worked at the University of Constantinople. Wrote 50-60 books of "Ethnika". The quality of his works is rather variable, nevertheless his excerpts represent a not unimportant source (Wikipedia).

I have added the following Pictures:
(1) Byblis. Painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905).

(2) Map of river Maiandros in ancient times
 
(3)The photo shows the circulating hill at the Neckarburg/Germany in the upper Neckar valley. The Neckar once flowed in the flat loop around the hill. Now it takes a shortcut in the background of the photo.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Hesiod, Theogonia
(4) Strabon, Geographika
(5) Nonnos, Dionysiaka
(6) Plinius, Naturalis historiae
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und    
      römischen Mythologie
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Römische Mythologie
(5) Westermanns Atlas zur Weltgeschichte

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 27, 2021, 07:01:25 am
Artemis Anaitis

We know that Phrygia in particular was exposed to the influences of Eastern cults. Artemis Anaitis is an excellent example of this.

Coin #1:
Phrygia, Apameia, 88-40 BC.
AE 22, 7.52g, 21.59mm, 0°
struck under the magistrate Heraklei Eglo
Av.: laureate head of Zeus n.r.
Rv.: r. from top to bottom AΠAM[E]
        l. in 2 lines from top to bottom HPAKΛEI / EΓΛO
        Cult statue of Artemis Anaitis wearing floor-length veil and polos
        standing frontal
Ref: SNG by Aulock 3470; BMC 67-71; Weber 7028; SNG Copenhagen 183;
         Mionnet VII, 127; SNG Munich 123; HGC 772
60.-, SS+, fine sand patina
Mionne writes "Junon Pronuba!"

Note:
Eglo(...) probably stands for Eklogistes, the title of the municipal financial supervisor.

Anaitis is the Greek translation of Anahita, the name of an Iranian goddess. So if we want to get at the meaning of Anaitis, we have to start with Anahita.

(1) Origin and meaning
The worship of Anahita goes back to the 4th millenium BC. Chr. In an Avestic Yasht she is called Ardvi Sur Anahita. This name seems to be compound and originally meant 2 different deities. Ardvi Sura is the Iranian name for the celestial river goddess of fertile water, called Sarasvati in the Rigveda. This is the Indus, the world river from which everything originates. But it is also said of her that she "flows mightily from Mount Hukarya to Lake Vorukasha" and that she "has a thousand arms and a thousand channels" (Roscher), a description that only fits the Pamir Mountains and the Oxus (today Amudarya) (Geiger). In any case, it is the immense mountains and the waters flowing from them that became the origin of these nature deities,

The other deity is Anahita. Her cult was particularly widespread in north-eastern Persia, but her origin is uncertain. Her name means "untouched, pure", both in the moral and physical sense. In the yashts, she is portrayed in detail, especially with regard to her clothing and jewellery, as if there had been a cult of dress. The emphasis on dressing in beaver fur is unusual. In any case, each of their places of worship included a water source. Thus, for a long time, their largest temple was considered to be the one in Kangavar in Kermanshah province. However, this is now questionable as, among other things, there is no water basin, which would be mandatory for an anahita temple.

Note:
The 21 Yashts form the 3rd section of the Avestas, the sacred scripture of the Zoroastrians. They contain hymns to ancient Iranian deities and found their way into the work of the Persian poet Firdausi (940-ca. 1020 AD). The 5th Yasht (Aban Yasht) consists of hymns to water and Anahita.

(2) Reformed by Zoroastrianism:

Zoroastrianism was a very abstract religion, without images or statues. Of all the pre-Zoroastrian deities, only Anahita survived the religious reforms of Zoroaster (c. 1500-1000 BC), but as an emanation of Ahura Mazda rather than the goddess she had been before. But she was also passed off as his daughter. This is evidence that in the religious, believers also want a sensual experience and not just the bloodless theory. This is also known, for example, from Christianity, especially Catholicism with its cult of Mary and the many saints.

(3) Spread by the Achaemenids
It is known that the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II (404-358 B.C.), after conquering Babylonia, made sure that she spread throughout the Persian Empire. He had many images of her produced and distributed throughout the empire (Berosus). Important
temples were built in Susa, Ekbatana and Babylon. There will have been borrowings from the Mesopotamian Ishtar and there will also have been relations with the Sumerian Inanna. Ishtar and Anahita had similarities: Ishtar was the protector of the palace and Anahita was closely associated with kingship, especially in the post-Achaemenid period.

Note:
Berosus, also Berossos, (c. 290 BC), was a Chaldean priest of Bel in Babylon who wrote 3 books in Greek on the history and culture of Babylon and dedicated them to Antiochos I (324-261 BC). They were important for the knowledge of the Greeks about the origins of Babylon and were used e.g. by Eusebius of Caesarea or Josephus.

(4) The Parthians and the Sassanids
Under the Parthians, the character of Anahita changed. From a goddess of fertility, water and wisdom, she became a goddess of war, to whom sacrifices were made before the beginning of a war campaign. Since the Parthians did not rule their empire as strictly centralised as the Achaemenids, she became the goddess who symbolised the unity of the empire instead of a central power..She then played this role under the Sassanids as well.

Coin #2:
Kushan-Sassanid, Hormizd I Kushanah, ca, 265-295 AD.
AE 15, 1.85g, 15.15mm
Mint of Harid
Obv.: Crowned bust.r., with lion scalp on head, crescent moon in upper l. field
Rev.: Hormizd standing r., holding coronation wreath in r. hand over altar and
          has raised his left hand in a gesture of blessing to Anahita, who is rising to the l.
        from the throne, the coronation wreath in her raised right hand and the sceptre in her left hand (so-called investiture scene).
Ref.: Carter 10; Cribb 23; Mitchiner ACW 1269; Göbl KM 1044, Zeno #30921
rare, VF+

Note:
The Kushano-Sassanids were Sassanid princes who ruled the ancient Kushan country in Bactria, the Kabul Valley and Gandhara, as Sassanid vassals. For a time these Kushan shahs were more or less independent, such as this ruler, Hormizd I Kushanshah, who ruled c. 295-325 AD (or 270-295 according to Cribb). The mint will have been the Kabul Valley. The depiction on the reverse shows the close connection of Anahita to royalty and the Shah.

Ref.:
(1) M. L. Carter; "A numismatic reconstruction of Kushano-Sasanian history", 1985 (2) Joe Cribb; "Numismatic evidence for Kushano-Sasanian chronology".

(5) Spread in the West
Due to the expansion of the Persian Empire, the cult of Anahita spread further west. Numerous temples and places of worship were built, especially in Phrygia, Lydia, Pontus and Armenia. It should be noted that the development of her cult was subject to strong local influences. In Lydia and Cappadocia she was equated with Artemis Tauropolis, through which the Taurobolium came to Europe. In Philadelphia and Hypaipa, her cult was associated with games. The notorious temple prostitution, unknown in Persia, is described only for Armenia. Strabo tells: "If the girls had devoted themselves to her service for a time in the temple of the goddess, they would be married, and no one would think it shameful to choose such a girl, who for years had given herself up to anyone, as a wife."

When the Greeks met Anahita, they tried, as was customary, to identify her with a goddess of their own pantheon. This does not seem to have been easy. There are designations such as Aphrodite Anaitis, which indicates that she must have borne characteristics of Ishtar or the Phoenician Astarte. Mionnet calls her Junon Pronuba. Tacitus (Annals 62) refers to the syncretic goddess simply as "Persian Diana" who had a temple in Lydia "dedicated during the reign of Cyrus" (probably Cyrus the Great).

Finally she became Artemis. Her character as a virginal and warlike goddess had prevailed over the erotic fertility goddess. The depictions on the Greek coins are obviously modelled on Artemis Ephesia. That is why the lower sections of her floor-length veil often look like the supports of Ephesia. The interpretation as a moon goddess is thus also ruled out. However, she has never experienced the importance and spread as Mithras.

I have attached
(1) A picture of the so-called Anahita temple in Kangavar.
(2) A picture of the head of Aphrodite Anahita from a bronze cult statue from Satala, Armenia minor, Hellenistic, c. 200- 100 BC, now in the British Museum in London. It was found in a Roman legionary camp near Satala in Armenia minor, but probably came from Artaxata, the capital. She is depicted here in the figure of Aphrodite. This shows that in Armenia the (erotic/sexual) reference to the fertility goddess was predominant.

Sources:
(1) Tacitus, Annales
(2) Strabon, Geographia
(3) Pausanias, Periegesis
(4) Plutarch, Parallel lives
(5) Plinius, Naturalis Historiae

Literature:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Vollmer's Mythologie aller Völker
(3) Realenzyklopädie
(4) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(5) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Vollständiges Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(6) Wilhelm Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum, 1882
(7) Payam Nabarz, Anahita: Ancient Persian Goddess and Zoroastrian Yazata, 2013
(8) Manya Saadi-nejad, Anahita: Transformations of an Iranian Goddess, Dissertation 2019

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Andy Q on July 13, 2021, 08:33:34 am
Hephaistos

Please note that the coins which I use as entrance for an article in this thread are in principle from my collection. Because of that there are unfortunately themes which I could not deal with. But the following coin I could catch in my net. I hope that there is something new for you in this contribution.

Ionia, Magnesia ad Maeandrum, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 34, 26.53g
struck under magistrate Dioskourides Gratos
obv. T AILIOC KAICAR - ANTWNEINOC
Head, laureate, r.
rev. EPI DIOCKOVRIDOV GRATOV MHTR MAGNHTWN
Hephaistos, nude to hips, holding hammer, std. l., and holding shield set on narrow cippus inscribed with ..N/..N/OC; dog or lion at r. side
ref. cf. Schultz 100 (only obv., same die); unpublished
very rare, about VF, impressive rev.

There is a great probability that the animal on the r. side of the rev. is a dog (and f.e. not a lion), because the dog was invented by Hephaistos and therefore in the Greek mythology, f.e. at Homer, had a privileged position compared to other animals. If it is a lion then he should have some relations to the shield or the inscription on it.

Anyone who is able to decipher the inscription on the shield or has at least some suggestions?

Mythology:
It is said that Hephaistos was the son of Zeus and Hera, but another version says that he was the son of Hera alone who has conceived him without Zeus by the aid of a herb. He was the god of fire as it appears as subterranean natural power in vulcanos, but also of the fire which is used by men in handicraft and artistry. So he was the god of forgers too.

When he was born he was so ugly that his mother in disgust threw him down from the Olympos. The sea goddesses Thetis and Eurynome are said to have catched him. Then he lived for nine years in a concealed sea cave and made precious jewelry for them. He made a wondrous throne too from which nobody was able to get up without his permission. This throne he sent to his mother Hera as a gift to punish her for her iniquity. When she was fixed to the throne no-one could induce Hephaistos to let her free. It was Dionysos who made him drunken with wine and then led him from his cave back to the Olympos. Hephaistos freed Hera but never stopped to be cross with her. Another version reports that it was Zeus who has thrown Hephaistos down from heaven. When once again Zeus was at strife with Hera Hephaistos has taken Hera's part until Zeus caught him by the foot and threw him off the Olympos.He is said to have fallen down on the island of Lemnos where he has lacerated his foot. He was taken by the Sintians who nursed him. Another myth tells that he was lame from birth.

Referring to Homer he has a self-built workshop on the Olympos, where he has built domiciles for the other gods too, and made there the most wonderfull works. Later he was told to have his workshops deep in fire-spitting mountains like the Aetna or on Lemnos, and his attendants were the Cyclops Brontes, Steropes and Pyrakmon. According to the Ilias his wife was Charis, one of the Graces, according to the Odyssee it was Aphrodite, who betrayed him with Ares. This love affair has been detected by Helios and he brought the news to Hephaistos. Hephaistos made an artful invisible net, threw it over the deceptive pair and called the Olympians as wittnesses of this infamous deed.

He was a kunstsinniger (with sense for art) and an ingenious god, and like Athena he taught the humans handicraft and art. The Athenians erected statues for him together with Athena and festivals occured for both deities together where torch runnings were executed.

According to Homer Hephaistos had no descendants. But in later times he was given several children from different mothers: Eros, Erichthonios, Periphetes, Palaimon, Rhadamanthys, Olenos, the nymph Thalia and the Cabires.

Here I have list of some of his well-known works and deeds:
1) He has helped to give birth to Athena when he cleft the head of Zeus so that she could rise out of his head in full suit of armour. Her wonderful helmet too was made by him, and the Aegis, the magic shield of Zeus.
2) One of his most famous works are the shield of Achilles and his weapons, which he has forged for Thetis after they were lost by Patroklos' death at Troy.
3) Less known is Talos, the Bronzeman. He, quasi a predecessor of the robots of today, was made by Hephaistos and walked as guardian threetimes a day round Crete. He has made much trouble to the Argonauts.
4) The metallic rattle came from Hephaistos with which Herakles has scared the Stymphalian Birds so that he could kill them with his arrows.
5) It was Hephaistos who forged Prometheus in order of Zeus to a rock of the Caucasus Mountains because he had stolen the fire from the gods.
6) In order of Zeus he formed from clay the first wife, who then got the name Pandora by Hermes. She too should revenge the fire-rape. Therefore he gave her a vessel full of evil and maladies and sent her to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus. Although he was warned by Prometheus never to take gifts from Zeus, Pandora opened the vessel for him and all evil spread over the world. Before hope, elpis, could escape too, she shut the vessel, but then let her free too. But the Golden Age was lost forever employee monitoring (https://www.worktime.com/employee-monitoring) .
7) Then Hephaistos with the help of Athena chained Ixion to the eternal fire wheel in the Tartaros. Ixion, king of the Lapiths, once - drunken by wine - has tried to rape Hera. But Zeus has formed a figure shaped like Hera from a cloud, called Nephele, who then was raped by Ixion and has born the Kentauros.
This list is not nearly complete!

Background:
The name Hephaistos is unexplained until today. His apparent origin from Lemnos, known for its tectonic gas-fires, where he probably was genuine, speaks for the earthboundness of his elementary function. His local hypostases, Kedalion the dwarf forger and the bad smelling cripple Philoktetes, point to a numen resident in the subterranean sphere. That not only was active creatively and artisticly but curatively too. This type of goblin-shaped, magically and artfully working earth-demon had his firm position in the pre-Hellenic world. This is shown too by the Rhodian Telchines, the Lemnian Cabires and the Idaean Daktyles (look at the related article in this thread!). They all were strongly related to Hephaistos.

The treatment of ore evidently began in Asia Minor and the Pontic-Caucasic region. This art was partly connected to religion and like viniculture and breeding of mules it was a present of the Anatolic-Eastmediterranean culture. The passing on the Greek world is reflected in the myth of the Return of Hephaistos, who was brought back drunken on the back of a donkey to the Olympos by the wine-god Dionysos who has close relations to fire too.

The depiction of the ugly, lame and smutty god shows at first a clear arrogance against the banausos, the handicraftsman (who works with his hands), the technical specialist, the inventive mechanist, who despite of all his abilities remains socially of second rank. At Homer in contrast predominates the aspect of the fairy tales forger, who can made magic devices and as representative of a superior metal-art finally becomes equal-ranking with Athena and together with her becomes the guardian of arts and crafts.

With the diadochs Hephaistos came to India (Kaniska, Kushan), and in the West he
made himself the master of the Liparic volcanos. He replaced the Sicilian fire-demon Adranos and became the father of the Palikoi. Secondary he was equated with the Roman Volcanus.The Egypts identified him syncretistically with the Memphic creator-god Ptah, who has a similar shape and appearance, and so he became the Primal King, philosopher and protos eurethes (first inventor), yes, finally, the Megas Theos Hephaistos, the Great God Hephaistos.

History of Art:
We have ancient depictions of most of Hephaistos' deeds on bowls, vessels or metopes of temples. The favourite depiction was the return of the drunken Hephaistos to the Olympos by Dionysos, especially in the archaic art.

In Renaissance the depiction of the forge was liked, f.e. 'The forge of Vulcan' by Tintoretto, 1576, now in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Here comes Thetis, mother of Achilles, to beg for new arms for her son. Or here comes Aphrodite, begging the same for her son Aineias (f.e. Louis Le Nain, 1641, Reims, Musee St.Denis). The Netherlander M. van Heemskerck has 1540 dedicated a triptychon to the love-affair of Ares and Aphrodite. The right table (today in the Kunstmuseum in Vienne) shows in the foreground Hephaistos from back, the caught pair in the net, and right above the Olympians being convulsed with laughter.

Ich have added
1) A scene on a Attic red-figured Skyphos, c.430-40 BC, ascribed to the Kleophon painter. The scene depicts Hephaistos with hammer and tongue riding on the back of a donkey, led by Dionysos holding thyrsos. On the r. side Hera is seated fixed on the throne she had gotten by Hephaistos.
2) A pic of the painting of  Marten van Heemskerck.

Sources:
Homer, Ilias
Homer, Odyssee
Der Kleine Pauly
Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K7.2.html
http://thanasis.com/hepha.htm
http://www.webwinds.com/myth/hephaestus2.htm
Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst

Best regards

This is the first time I hear this story, it's very interesting.
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2021, 05:41:57 pm
Apollo and the Hyperboreans

The Hyberboreans and their relationship with Apollo has always interested me. It's time to get to grips with it. Most coins on this subject show the head of Apollo on the obverse and a swan on the reverse. The coin I took as a starting point is something special: it shows Apollo riding a swan! There are also coins, e.g. from Alexandria, on which he rides on a griffin, which also has a connection to the Hyperboreans. But these representations date from Hellenism, that is, from a much later period than that of Apollo and the swans.

1st coin:
Bithynia, Chalcedon, Tranquillina, 238-244.
AE 26, 7.30g, 26.28mm
Av.: CAB TPA - NKVΛΛEINAC.
       Bust, draped and wearing stephane, r.
Rv: KAΛXAΔO / NIΩN.
        Apollo, nude, head supported in r. hand, holding his lyre in l. hand, seated on the
        on the back of a swan, which carries him along in flight to l.
Ref.: Rec. Gen. 115; SNG Copenhagen 368; Corsten 42
Rare, near VF, green patina, patina damage especially on the rev.

Note:
Chalcedon, also Kalchedon, was a port city just opposite Byzantium at the entrance from the Sea of Marmara to the Bosporus.  The name comes from the Phoenician qart-hadasht, New City, just as at Carthage. It is known that Kalchedon had an Apol-lo temple with an oracle.

That Apollo is not a uniform god is assumed to be known. There is no other way to understand that he, as Delphios in the succession of Pytho, proclaimed predictions from the gases of a fissure in the earth, and on the other hand appears as the radiant sun god Phoibos. He was probably originally a god of the Dorians, whom they brought with them on their migrations from the north to Greece. This is also evident from his many epic readings, which were initially independent deities, such as Smintheus in the Troad, with whom he then merged. The connection with the swans and the Hyperboreans belongs to the Delic Apollo with the myths of the Letoids, i.e. of Leto and her twins.

Etymology:
The Hyperboreans were the inhabitants of Hyperborea. a legendary land at the very north of the inhabited world. The best known explanation for the name Hyperborea is its origin from the Greek hyper boreas. Boreas was the wintry north wind in Greek mythology. He was the son of the Titan Astraios and the goddess Eos. His homeland was Thrace, where he was cultically worshipped. He is already mentioned in Homer. Hyper Boreas therefore means "north of Thrace" in the narrowest sense.  However, this derivation is not scientifically proven. Another explanation comes from the northern Greek boris, mountain, which then means "beyond the mountains".  These are the Rihpaeans, a legendary mountain range between Europe and Asia.  Some scholars prefer a derivation from hyperphero (to deliver).  This refers to the story that the Hyperboreans had brought gifts to Delos since time immemorial and were therefore "bearers".

The Riphaeans:
The Riphaeans are a legendary mountain range of antiquity. It plays an important role as a border to the Hyperboreans. It was considered cold and snowy.  The Greek riphe means "stormy north wind".  At first it was located north of the Scythians. It was said to be the source of all large rivers, e.g. the Tanais (today's Don), but also the Ister, the Danube. Geographically, it meant either the Waldai Heights or, according to Ptolemy, where it also appears, the Northern Urals. But it was also identified with the Hercynian Forest or the Alpes. As the knowledge of the Greeks increased, its position shifted more and more to the north. It was said that north of the Riphaean Mountains the sun moved from west to east at night so that it could rise again in the east in the morning. This meant that the land of the Hyperboreans was very sunny and warm and could produce several harvests a year.

Mythology:
The swan is a symbol connected with the Hyperborean legend, sacred to Apollo since ancient times. Apollo is drawn to the Helicon on swans (Pindar) and in the Hyperborean legend he travels north on a swan chariot.

(1) Kyknos and the swans:
Various Greek mythologies tell of a Kyknos (Greek = swan). But only one of them mentions Eridanos and thus belongs to the hyperborean mythological circle. This Kyknos (Latin Cygnus), son of Sthenelos, was king of the Ligurians (therefore also called Kyknos Ligurios) and friend (or lover) of Phaeton, the son of the sun god. When Phaeton crashes his father's chariot and sinks burning in the Eridanos, Kyknos jumps into the river to save his friend. But in vain. Helios then transfers his faithful friend to the starry sky as a swan. The sisters of Phaeton, the Heliads, are said to have lingered a long time at Eridanos to weep for their dead brother. Their tears turned to amber, fell into the river and were washed up on the beach. But they themselves were turned into poplars. All this took place in the holy land of the Hyperboreans (Apoll. Rhod.).

Another version tells that Kyknos commemorated his dead friend with sad songs in a poplar grove on the banks of the Eridanos, until the gods, out of pity, transferred him to the starry sky as a swan. Since that time, the song of the swan has been associated with Kyknos and the death song has been called the swan song.

2nd Coin:
Ionia, Leukai, 350-300 BC.
AE 14, 3.01g
struck under magistrate Metrodoros
Obv.: head of Apollo n. l.
Rev.: li. MΗTROΔ, below ΛEO.
        preening swan standing n. l.
Ref.: BMC 2ff. var.; SNG Copenhagen 799 var.; Coll. Klein 395f.
Rare, F-VF, black patina.

Note:
Leukai, opposite Klazomenai, was founded in 352 BC by the Persian admiral Tachos and shortly afterwards fell into the hands of the Klazomenians. The swan motif bears witness to their influence. Metrodoros seems to have been a magistrate from Klazomenai.

The Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus) breeds high in the European and Asian north and then spends the winter on inland waters further south or on the British and German seacoasts. If the swan plays a role in Greek mythology, its image as a bird not originally native to Greece must have been imported by immigrants.

The Eridanos is a legendary river. If it is identical with an earthly river, the legend points again to the European north: Amber is only found in northern Europe. It is not impossible that the German Eider river is meant by the Eridanos. Ovid speaks of the Tritonian pool as a bituminous swamp into which the Hyperboreans plunged, only to rise from it as swans. This is presumably the mythical swamp of Eridanos, and if we recall that Ovid mistakenly identifies Eridanos with the Po, it does sound strongly like the Wadden Sea.

(2) Leto and the twins
Leto was the daughter of the Titans Koios and Phoebe. According to Diodorus, Leto (lat. Latona) came from Hyperborea.  Zeus fell in love with her, transformed himself and her into quails and begat Apollo and Artemis with her. The jealous Hera sent the serpent Python to devour her, which Zeus was able to prevent. Thereupon she took from the earth the oath that she would not give the pregnant Leto a place to live that was ever illuminated by the sun. Then Poseidon caused the floating island of Delos to emerge from the water, where Hermes brought Leto by order of Zeus. After bribing Eileithya, the goddess of childbirth, Leto was able to give birth first to Artemis and then, with her help, to Apollo. The Kuretes struck their shields with their swords and made such a noise that Hera heard nothing. The swans, however, flew seven times around the island of Delos singing after his birth.

Leto was originally a goddess of Asia Minor in Lykia. Her name is related to Leda, which means "woman", and as the mother of twins she is an ancient fertility goddess. As her cult expanded, it came into contact with the Hyperborean Apollo cult of Delos. Thus the mythology of Leto also arose from two different sources, which can still be easily seen. The Romans adopted Leto as Lato from the southern Italian Dorians and made her Latona.

I have attached
(1) A Map of the world according to Herodotus, the Hyperboreans at the top right.

(2) This Renaissance map of Eastern Europe after Ptolemy's Geographia shows the Riphaean and Hyperborean mountains at the far upper right (Bernardo Silvano, Venice, 1511).

(will be continued)

Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2021, 05:59:06 pm
(continuation)

(3) Ancient contacts with the Hyperboreans
Not only Athens, but especially Delos had good contacts with the Hyperboreans. Herodotus tells that on the first occasion two girls named Hyperoche and Laodike, accompanied by an escort of five men, brought consecration gifts from the Hyperboreans to Delos. But these never returned. To avoid this, the Hyperboreans used a different method from then on: they brought the gifts to their border and then asked the neighbours to bring them to the next country and so on until they arrived in Delos. And so, wrapped in straw(!), they were passed from tribe to tribe until they reached Dodona and from there to other Greek peoples until they finally reached the temple of Apollo in Delos.

Herodotus also tells of two other girls, Arge and Opis, who had come once before from Hyperborea to Delos to thank the goddess Eileithyia for the ease of childbearing. They had cult images of Apollo and Artemis with them. The virgins were highly honoured in Delos and the women sang hymns to them.  However, Orion is said to have tried to rape Opis, whereupon he was killed by Artemis (Apollodorus). When Opis died, her tomb was worshipped cultically.

(4) Visits of heroes to Hyperborea:
But great heroes also visited Hyperborea:

(a) According to Apollodorus, the garden of the Hesperides with the golden apples is said to have been in Hyperborea and Atlas is also said to have carried the celestial globe there, near the northern pole.
Herakles is said to have brought the olive tree to Olympia from the land of the Hyperboreans. Only since then have the victors in Olympia received their wreaths from the branches of the olive tree.

(b) According to Pindar, Perseus took part in the festivals of the Hyperboreans and received from them as a gift for his fight against the Gorgons winged sandals, a bag which was always as big as what was put into it, and a cloak which made invisible.

(c) Apollonius of Rhodes tells us that the Argonauts got as far as the sacred Amber Island, near the mouth of the Eridanos. In my edition, according to H. Fränkel, the Eridanos is drawn as the Po in northern Italy. What a misunderstanding: there was no sacred amber island there!

(5) Art history:

(1) The following picture shows a detail of the Attic red-figure crater depicting the "Contest between Apollo and Marsyas", attributed to the Meleager painter, Late Classical, c. 400-380 BC, now in the British Museum in London. It shows Apollo riding on the back of a large swan. He holds a lyre and is garlanded with a laurel wreath. Below him squats a hare and in front of him stands a palm tree (theoi.com).


(2) The next picture shows a votive chariot made of clay and decorated with an anthropomorphic deity from the Bronze Age (2000-600 BC). It was found in the 1930s near Dupljaja in Vojvodina in Serbia, today in the National Museum in Belgrade.

The water bird was a central element of the urn field symbolism. As it disappears with the frost each autumn and returns with the spring each year, it reflects the life cycle of an agricultural society. Its most common form was the "bird sun barque". This scene is usually associated with the myth of Apollo, who dwells 6 months of the year in the land of the Hyperboreans, far to the north in a misty region, and the other 6 months in the sunny Greek world (Bilic). According to Bilic, the land of the Hyperboreans could incidentally be found in Pannonia and the lower Danube region. According to Hikataios of Abdera, it is in southern England in the land of the Celts.

Sources:
(1) Herodot
(2) Diodoros, Bibliotheke
(3) Apollonios von Rhodos, Argonautika
(4) Plinius, Historia naturalis
(5) Strabo
(6) Ovid, Metamorphosen
(7) Claudius Ptolemaios
(8) Cicero, De natura deorum
(9) Hekataios von Abdera, Über die Hyperboreer (Fragmente)

Literature:
(1) Pauly, Realenzyklopädie
(2) Der Kleine Pauly
(3) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
(4) Jürgen Spanuth, Die Atlanter
(5) Tomislav Bilic, The swan chariot of a solar deity, Documenta Praehistorica XLIII (2016)

Online Sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2021, 06:46:40 pm
Hyperborea and the Nazis

We have heard that in Mycenaean times there was close contact between the Greeks and the Hperboreans. Girls brought gifts wrapped in wheat straw. But one must know that Thrace and even northern Greece was an unknown land far to the north for the Athenians. The greater the geographical knowledge grew, the more Hyperborea slid northwards. First behind the Ryphaean mountains (the Alps?), then, according to the report of Hikataios, to the south of England. But it was always connected with amber. And this is where Helgoland comes into play. Our Baltic amber only became known later. When the Romans conquered and got to know Britain, it migrated to Thule, which was assumed to be on Iceland or Greenland. It is a Utopia and the further north it was moved, the more it became a place of the blessed. But as a conclusion one must state with Pindar: "Neither by land nor by sea will you find your way to the Hyperboreans." 

Rousseau's notion of the "noble savage" also existed among the Greeks. Although Alexander wanted to grace the entire world to the farthest ocean with the achievements of Greek culture, science, technology, art and education, there was also a feeling among them that they had lost touch with natural life. There was already an ancient critique of cvilisation. And the Hyperboreans served them as a counter-image to their highly developed city culture (the polis). They were perhaps also identic with Plato's Atlanteans. But there was also the fear of not being a match for their youthful strength.

In the Renaissance and especially in the Enlightenment, the Hyperboreans were rediscovered. They served the tragic Weckherlin (1739-1792) as a model for an enlightened, peaceful and just world. But that soon changed.

After the French Revolution had promised the prospect of freedom, equality and fraternity, the lack of reform led the German bourgeoisie to turn away from politics and towards apolitical inwardness. Two different empires were formed (Schiller): The realm of reality and and the realm of imagination. In German Romanticism, the North became the myth par excellence. Only from there could come a light and clear reason, as represented by the Hyperborean Apollo.  This is where the Nordic racial ideology of National Socialism was later able to pick up seamlessly.

While the Hyperboreans were only a beautiful image for Nietzsche, a metaphor that helped him to accept the intolerability of existence, esoteric crackpots took up the Hyperboreans.

The most important representatives were the Theosophists, headed by the occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), who swore by seven root races. From the second root race, the Hyperboreans, the Atlanteans developed via the Lemurians. After the fall of Atlantis, some were able to save themselves, from whom the divine 7th root race would emerge in the future, the Aryans.

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of anthroposophy, also drew his anthropology from this. Both are anti-civilisational and anti-scientific. Their theories stem from an inner vision, a kind of revelation that cannot be discussed rationally.
The Hyperborean, he writes, was a strange figure. As a sun-man, he stood on his head and the light shone on his head. On this level the plant had stopped. Only in the Atlantean epoch did it straighten up into the vertical. These Atlanteans could even fly through the organic seed power of the plant. But they succumbed to their arrogance and had to perish. Only the original Semites survived. The real future race, however, would be the whites.

Were they both racists? One must affirm that (Strohmeyer).  And that is what made them so interesting for the Ariosophs. They adopted from them the principle of leadership, the consciousness of belonging to a higher elite, racism and even racism itself. They adopted from them the principle of the leader, the consciousness of belonging to a higher elite, racism and even the swastika, the symbol of ancient spirituality among the Theosophists.

In Vienna, it was Guido von List (1848-1919) and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (1874-1954) who were united in their rejection of Western civilisation and wanted to replace rationalism and science with "hereditary memory". They celebrated the cult of the Aryan race and the Hyperboreans were their "Aryan ancestors". Here we find abundantly clear similarities with the SS state that Himmler had in mind. Liebenfels already called for the deportation, forced labour and extermination of mixed-race people and Jews. Lebensborn plans also already existed. Hitler probably read the "Ostara" booklets he published.

In the sphere of Blavatsky's ideas, folkish secret societies and lodges were formed which opposed every form of rationalism and enlightenment, liberalism, socialism and democracy, but especially the Jews, who for them represented all-destroying progress. The most important among them was the anti-Semitic Teutonic Order, from which the "Thule Society" emerged, which acted as its cover organisation. The name Thule was its programme (Strohmeyer). As the capital of the Hyperboreans, it was the original home of the blond, blue-eyed Aryans. The "Führer's" deputy Rudolf Hess was a member, the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and Dietrich Eckart, the man who had "made" Hitler, frequented it. Hans Frank, the later notorious governor-general of Poland, also belonged to their circle,

Alfred Rosenberg ("The Myth of the 20th Century"), the Nazi ideologist of the regime, whom even members of the Nazi elite ridiculed, also drew his racial philosophy from "hyperborean depths". His ideal image was the Doric Apollo, who stood in contrast to the Near Eastern bastard Dionysos.

It is known that Himmler, in his obsession with Aryans, supported diving expeditions near Helgoland and in 1937 sent two expeditions to Tibet to find the last people of Atlantis, whose direct descendants were the Germans. But these delusions did not remain theory. In the war in the East, they became brutal reality. In the orgies of violence there, especially in Belarus, about 1.7 million people were killed: prisoners of war, Jews, partisans, entire village populations. The Hyperboreans: here they are the executioners of the Nazi murder machinery. Finally, everything ended in Auschwitz.

Of course, National Socialism was not an esoteric movement. Its political, economic and social social roots were too important.  But it can be seen that he possessed a clear esoteric component, which was expressed in the rejection of the "decadent" Western civilisation and its rationalism. This also included the rejection of scientific medicine, which was defamed as "school medicine" and as "Jewish", and the turn to the "völkisch" medicine of the alternative practitioners. All those who still use the term "school medicine" today should take note of this. The alarmingly high number of opponents of the Corona vaccine must also be classified in this group.

In 1945 Karl Jaspers said: "Unscientificness is the ground of inhumanity. And: "It was the spirit of unscientificness that opened the door to National Socialism."

Robert Charroux, for whom the Hyperboreans are of extraterrestrial origin, proves that these perverse ideologies have not died out today. Apollo is their supreme astronaut and their blond descendants - Charroux is French - are now the Celts. And then everything returns there that was already wafting before the 1st World War, but now in a modernised form, enriched with nuclear energy and guided rays.

Above the temple in Delphi, the temple of the Hyperborean Apollo, were the words: "Nothin in excess" and "Know thyself". Nothing could be further from the brown rabble than this demand for self-modesty! 

"The world of the Greek gods has long since slipped away from us. Olympus has become empty. What remains is the eternally young Apollo as the perfect image of Greekness. And wherever he came from, his wisdom - the spirit that creates order and the measure that sets boundaries, both of which come from harmony with nature and the cosmos - is needed more than ever in our time." (Arn Strohmeyer, Red Rock and Brown Myth, Epilogue)

Literature:
(1) Hekateios, On the Hyperboreans (Fragments).
(2) Plato, Timaios, Kritias
(3) Günther Kehnscherper, Trails of the North and Sea Peoples, 1969
(4) Pär Sandin, Scythia or Elysium? The Land of the Hyperboreans in Early Greek Literature,
(5) Jürgen Spanuth, Die Atlanter, Volk aus dem Bernsteinland, Grabert Verlag 1989
(6) Arn Strohmeyer, Roter Fels und Brauner Mythos - A German Journey to Atlantis, R.G.Fischer 1990
(7) Arn Strohmeyer, From Hyperborea to Auschwitz - Paths of an Ancient Myth, PapyRossa 2005
(8) Wikipedia

I have attached the photo "Helgoland during a storm" by  Schensky (own collection)

Note:
Franz Schensky (1871 - 1957) from Helgoland is one of the pioneers of black and white photography and has a firm place in the history of German photography. In 2003, 1400 of his glass negatives, thought to have been lost, were found in a cellar on Helgoland and have since been processed and digitised. The photo shown is probably his most famous.

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 04, 2022, 07:12:03 am
Eros und the club of Herakles

The occasion for this article was this coin from Hadrianopolis. In the course of my research, however, it has slowly developed into a larger overview of the relationship between Eros and Herakles, so that the old title is actually too narrow. Nevertheless, I have decided to keep it.

Coin #1:
Thrace, Hadrianopolis, pseudo-autonomous, time of Commodus, ca. 181-192.
AE - AE 19, 2.92g, 18.92mm, 210°.
Obv.: TON KT-I-CTHN
          Bust of Herakles, bearded, r.
Rev.: AΔPIANO-ΠO-ΛEIT-ΩN.
         Eros standing l., holding club of Herakles, supported by a second Eros,
         bent right
Ref.: Jurukova Hadrianopolis, 711 (V299/R669); not in SNG Copenhagen.
rare, F+, green patina

The obverse shows the portrait of the adult Herakles, who is considered the founder (ktistes) of Hadrianopolis. The legend here is in the rare Accusativus in the sense of "(We honour) the Ktistes".

More interesting, however, is the depiction on the reverse. It shows 2 small Erotes playing with the club of Herakles, for them a huge object. This scene fits seamlessly into a series of pictures in which Eros or several Erotes occupy themselves with attributes of Heracles, play with them or even steal and appropriate them. What's behind it?

This typography was developed in Hellenism and the Roman period. But Eros was not the first to appropriate attributes of Herakles. Already in mythological prehistory, there were small creatures that stole from Herakles, for example the Kerkopes.

Mythology:
(1) The Kerkopes, sons of Theia and Okeanos, were small, ape-like creatures who assisted Zeus against the Titans.  They lived as thieves and swindlers. But their mother had warned them, "My little white butts, you must first meet the big black butt!". Once they came across Herakles sleeping under a tree and immediately tried to steal his armour. Herakles, however, caught the thieves and, to punish them, he carried them over his shoulder on a branch from which they hung down headfirst. As he did so, they could see his black and hairy buttocks and made fun of them. Herakles also had to laugh and finally he let them go. This happened at the time when he was a slave to Omphale.

(2) At the end of the archaic period satyrs appeared on the scene. There is even an opinion that the first satyr play was about the theft of Herakles' weapons; for this seems to be depicted on a krater of 510/500 BC.

In later depictions, the satyrs are not only shown stealing Herakles' equipment, but also disguising themselves as Herakles in possession of it. The fatigue and exhaustion of Herakles is often emphasised, which is not a consequence of his hard works, but of his gluttony and drunkenness.

Art history:
In the 5th century BC, Eros is shown with objects that do not belong to him. The most impressive was probably the shield of Alkibiades, which was adorned with an Eros carrying Zeus' bundle of lightning. This was of course meant as a provocation. The lightning bundle of the highest and most powerful god was of course not made for the delicate hands of this youthful god. The fact that an image could embody a logical contradiction was a great discovery at the time (Susan Woodford). This opened up a way for artists to reveal even previously hidden truths. In time, the novelty of it disappeared and such images became commonplace and simply decorative motifs. But in the 5th and 4th centuries they were still fresh and impressive.

The sculptor Lysipp was a very innovative artist who was known for seeing old motifs in a new way. Two poems in the Greek Anthology of Hellenistic Epigrams describe a statue of Herakles in which Lysipp is said to have depicted the hero sadly, without his lion skin, club and quiver. These had all been stolen from him by Eros.

Lukian writes that in the 4th century B.C. the painter Aetion designed a group of small Erotes playing with Alexander's weapons in his painting "The Marriage of Alexander and Roxane", two of them carrying his spear while two others drag his shield by the handles. This motif was taken up again in the Renaissance, for example by Giovanni Antonio Bazzo, called Sodoma (1477-1549) in his fresco of around 1511/18 in the Villa Farnesina in Rome.

Eros steals the weapons of Herakles
This theme is further developed in Pompeian wall paintings depicting Herakles and Omphale. The appearance of Omphale, whom Herakles had to serve as a slave, shows that the mightiest hero could be conquered by delicate deities as well as by a woman. Some erotes seem to be carrying the stolen weapons to an altar, and A. Greifenhagen (1965) thinks that they want to consecrate the weapons to Aphrodite, so that the paintings celebrate the triumph of love.

A third painting in the Casa del Sirico in Pompeii shows the seated figure of Dionysos above: the power of wine together with the power of love can disarm the hero and thus show us that even Herakles is not armed against the temptations of the flesh.

All 3 images show Herakles youthful, beardless, clothed and together with Omphale. But there is a third type of picture in which Herakles is deprived: There Herakles is older, bearded, naked and alone with the little robbers. In the oldest example from the 3rd -1st century BC Herakles is asleep, in the others he has woken up, sometimes trying to grab an Erot. As in the pictures with Omphale, contrasts are played with here: old and young, passive and active, big and small.

Eros with the weapons of Herakles
Over time, 3 main variants have developed:
(1) Several small Eros are dragging away or tampering with the armour of Herakles, alone or in the presence of the hero. Our 1st coin belongs to this type!

(2) Eros as an infant sleeping on the lion skin of Herakles with the club beside him, also torch! To this type belongs our next coin:

Coin #2:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Commodus, 177-192.
AE 17, 3.89g
Obv.: AV M AVPH - KOMODOC
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: NEIKOΠOΛI / ΠPOC-I / CTPON
        Eros, lying crossed-legged on lion's skin l., resting his head in the
         l. hand; in front of him the torch.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG
         b) not in Varbanov
         c) not in Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2020):
             Rev. not listed
             Obv. e.g. No. 8.10.14.4
        probably unpublished
extremely rare, VF, dark green patina   
Pedigree:
ex Gorny&Mosch Auction 265, Lot 726
ex coll. Erwin Link (Stuttgart)

(3) The childlike Eros standing dressed in lion skin and holding the club, a type that also exists without wings and represents a child-Herakles in a non-mythological form. As an example, I show here the terracotta statuette from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA): Eros, winged, has disguised himself as Herakles. It dates from the Hellenistic or Imperial period, 1st century BC, - 1st century AD, and was found in Myrina, Turkey, in 1892.
This playful representation of Eros refers to a Hellenistic epigram describing a statue of Herakles by Lysipp (see above). Here Eros holds his hands behind his back like the famous Herakles Farnese with the apples of the Hesperides.

Of course, images of Eros with the attributes of Herakles can simply be playfulness, but on a deeper level they serve to bring to mind that Eros' all-dominating power is only masked by his small size and tender age. Terence: Omnia vicit amor!

I have attached:
(1) A photo of the fresco of Giovanni Antonio Bazzo, called Sodoma (1477-1549)
(2) A photo of the terracotta statuette from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA)

Sources:
(1) Nonnus, Dionysiaka
(2) Lukian

Literature:
(1) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis ad Istrum, 2020
(2) Francis Jarman, Eros in Coinage
(2) Susan Woodford, Herakles' Attributes and their appropriation by Eros, The Journal
      of Hellenistic Studies, Vol. 109, November 1989
(3) Adolf Kaegi, Kurzgefasste griechische Schulgrammatik, 1957
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 09, 2022, 03:26:03 pm
The Holy City Council

The Coin:
Caria, Trapezopolis, pseudo-autonomous, AD 150-250
AE 18, 3.29g, 18.44mm, 180°.
Obv.: IEPA - BOVΛH.
         Bust of Boule, draped and veiled, r.
Rev.: TPAΠE - ZOΠOΛI.
         Kybele, in girdled double chiton, wearing kalathos, standing frontal, holding
         outward-turned hands over 2 lions, seated r. and l. beside her with raised paws
         outward.
Ref.: SNG Tübingen 3505; Martin 12; Mionnet Supp.6, 554; RPC IV.2 online, 9243
rare, VF, brown-green patina

Our coin comes from Trapezopolis in Caria in the present province of Denizli in Turkey On the reverse the goddess Kybele is depicted with 2 lions at her side. What interests us here, however, is the front, which shows the female bust of Boule, draped and veiled to the right. The veil is the expression of her honour. The legend IEPA - BOVΛH translates as the "Holy City Council". Yes, those were the days when the local council was still holy! True, even today it often behaves as if it is sacrosanct and unassailable, but fortunately those days are gone. And one should remember that as a counterpart to the sacred city council there was also the IEPOΣ ΔHMOΣ, the sacred people of the state or the sacred community of citizens, from which our concept of democracy derives.

The Boule originated in Athens and belongs to the beginning of Attic democracy. At first it was exclusively for nobles, but then every unbowed citizen was allowed to become a member. It decided on the budget, the fleet and impeachments. In Roman times, the principle of oligarchy prevailed again, membership was only possible for a circle of wealthy citizens. And their powers were limited to local tasks. The meeting of the Boule took place in a special building, the Bouleuterion, a richly decorated building usually near the Agora, the market place and centre of the city.

In inscriptions, the Boule is always mentioned first, where it says, for example, "The Boule and the Demos have issued the following decree". But it is striking that on coins the Boule is always depicted on the smaller denominations than the Demos. Since nothing was random in this period, as is so often the case today, this can only mean that the Demos, the people, was above the Boule, the council assembly, in the hierarchy, which is actually understandable, since the latter consisted of only a part of the city people.

The coin depicted comes from Asia Minor at the time of the Roman Empire. The depictions of the Boule, the Demos and other institutions of the Greek polis were intended to convey the message that these late Hellenised (Martin) cities were also part of the great tradition of Greek history and, despite being part of the Roman provincial administration, did not need to hide from the famous classical cities.

The coin does not show the image of an emperor and is therefore called "pseudo-autonomous". It reflects an autonomy that had in fact long since ceased to exist. The terms "holy city council" or "holy community of citizens" still recall the old traditions, but in fact the rights of the cities and their institutions were severely curtailed. We know that today, too. There, the city council cannot decide for itself how wide a planned road can be, or whether or not cars may overtake each other on the road to the next town. Times do not seem to have changed after all. All the more reason for today's local councillors to take care that they fulfil their task of controlling the administration and do not degrade themselves to insignificance. I had this article published as a letter to the editor in view of the current situation, since our local council is known for its uncritical approval of all proposals from the administration.

I have attached the photo of the Bouleuterion of Aphrodisias in Caria (own photo from 2011)

Literature:
(1) Der  Kleine  Pauly
(2) Katharina Martin, Demos.Boule.Gerousia: Personifikationen  städtischer  Institutionen auf  kaiserzeitlichen  Münzen  aus  Kleinasien,  Münster  2013
     (The standard reference!)
(3) Katharina Martin, Demos und Boule auf Münzen phrygischer Städte. Überlegungen zu Ikonographie  und  Funktion  von  Münzbildern
(4)  Wikipedia

Best regarss
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 09, 2022, 03:50:13 pm
Gerusia - the Council of Elders

The Coin:
Caria, Antiocheia ad Maeandrum, pseudo-autonomous, 3rd century AD.
AE 20, 4.93g, 19.68mm, 180°.
Obv.: IEPA Γ[E - POVCIA]
        Bust of Gerusia, draped, r.
Rev.: ANTIO - XEΩN.
        Athena in double chiton and helmet standing  l., holding in left arm shield and spear and in outstretched right hand patera.
Ref.: BMC 18; not in RPC
very rare, VF-

The Gerusia, the Council of Elders, originated in Sparta. It consisted of 28 citizens of Sparta, the gerontes (from Greek γέρων = old man), who had to be at least 60 years old. Thus it roughly corresponded to the Roman Senate (from Latin senex = old man). The two kings always belonged to it. In the 7th century, the Gerusia was made one of the central organs of state, along with the Ephores and the People's Assembly. The text of the oldest Greek constitution is attributed to Lycurgus and has been handed down to us by Plutarch. According to him, it was an oracle saying from Delphi that was presented to Lycurgus. Plutarch himself held a priesthood at the temple of Apollo in Delphi from 95. According to current research, Lykurg is probably not a historical but a mythical person.

In fact, however, it was not a single act, but developed gradually. As a result of the Messenian wars, the Spartan territory had expanded to such an extent that it required a new ruling and administrative structure. At the same time, it was intended to counteract a concentration of power in the hands of a few. The gerontes were elected for life. They decided which motions were submitted to the People's Assembly and which were not. They had the right to revoke or prevent decisions of the People's Assembly. Thus they formed an important political interface in the Spartan state. However, it is historically known that they were corruptible.

In the classical period, however, the Gerusia did not appear frequently. Through democratic developments, which also touched Sparta, their function became less and less important politically. Aristotle criticised the Spartan Gerusia in the strongest terms, in particular the much too high age of its members and the "childish" selection procedure (Wikipedia). This consisted of shouting as loud as possible! A procedure that was easy to manipulate.

The personification of Gerusia has no predecessor in Classical and Hellenistic art. Coins depicting her did not appear until the time of the Flavians, whereby these representations show a greater variety than those of the Boule (Martin). While on our coin Gerusia appears as an elderly matron, on other coins she is a youth. This also exists in Aphrodisias. It is possible that this different representation also denotes different institutions. In Ephesus, for example, a C. Vibius Saltutaris at the time of the Antonines consecrated a silver statue to the holy Gerusia, by whom he understood the Boule of the city (Martin).

I have attached a picture of the oil painting "Lycurgus of Sparta", 1791, by Jacques-Louis David (748-1825), Musee des Beaux-Arts de Blois (Wikidata).

Literature:
(1) Plutarch, Life of Lykurg
(2) Katharina Martin, Boule.Demos.Gerousia, Münster 2013
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 20, 2022, 05:24:58 am
The turtle

The turtle is the characteristic image on the ancient coins of Aigina/Attica. But there are also others. For example, the following:

Coin #1:
Cilicia, Mallos, 440-380 BC.
AR - Obol, 0.73g
Obv.: turtle from above
Rev.: androkephalic bull protome n. l. in square incus
Ref.: not listed in the standard works
         Obv.:  cf. SNG Levant 186
         Rev.:  cf. SNG Ashmolean 1735; cf. Rauch 96, 2014, lot 107; CNG e-Sale 380, 2016, lot 272
Very rare, VF, some horn silver plating.

Mythology:
Chelone was a nymph who lived on the banks of a river at Mount Chelydorea in Arcadia in southern Greece. For his wedding with Hera, Zeus had Hermes invite all the gods, men and animals. All accepted this invitation except Chelone, who scoffed at the wedding. When Hermes noticed this, he went back to earth and threw her together with her house into the river, thus transforming her into a turtle that had to carry her shell on its back. Because of her mockery she was condemned to eternal muteness (Servius, Commentary on Virgil, Aeneid). The turtle was a symbol of silence in Greece.
Aesop knows more details in his fables: Zeus did not know why she was not present and asked Chelone the reason. She replied: "Be it ever so humble, there is no place like one's home".

Meanwhile feminists have also taken up this issue. Their explanation: Chelone saw through the fact that this marriage was meant to serve the patriarchal purpose of the mainland Greeks, and that it was meant to severely curtail the rights and importance of the all-embracing and ancient mother goddess Hera. Well, well. 

Hermes invents the lyre
Chelydorea was the name in ancient times for a 1759m high mountain range in Arcadia and in the Achaean Pellene, a part of the Kyllene mountain range that advanced to the north. The name means "de-shelter of the turtle". It was known for its abundance of tortoises (Pausanias). On it, the legend has Hermes inventing the lyre.

Hermes was born of Maja, who had been seduced by Jupiter, in a cave in the Kyllene Mountains. Already on the day of his birth he stole the tools of several gods, even Zeus' sceptre. He sneaked out of the cradle and drove away the cattle Apollo was tending. So that they would not make any noise, he put shoes on them. He slaughtered and ate two of them. On the way back to Kyllene he found a turtle, cleaned its shell and stretched the sinews of the slaughtered cattle over it as strings. Apollo searched for his cattle and learned that Hermes had been the thief. When Hermes, supported by Maja, denied the crime, Apollo brought him before Zeus, where he admitted nothing. Zeus then returned the cattle to Apollo. When Apollo heard Hermes play the lyre he had just invented, he liked it so much that he gave him his cattle in exchange for the lyre. Later Apollo gave the lyre to his son Orpheus. In Hellenism, the lyre was a symbol of poets and thinkers, from which the term lyricism later developed.

An ancient riddle read:
κριον εχω γενεθρα, τεκεν δε με τωδε γελωνη; τικτομενη δ'αμφω πεφνον ερνους γονεας.
Father to me is the ram, the tortoise is my mother, but at birth I gave death to both.
Answer: Of course this is Lyra, also called Chelys in Greek, which is poet. the turtle;  It is also the lyre made from the shell of the turtle. Its arms were often made of rams' horns. It is often difficult to distinguish from the cithara, but the latter, unlike the lyre, has a foot.

Coin #2
Syria, Antiochia ad Orontem, pseudo-autonomous, 54-68 (time of Nero).
AE 16, 4.55g, 0°
struck 59/60 (year 108 of the Caesarian era)
Obv.: Head of Apollo, wearing diadem and necklace, r., in pearl circle
Rev.: ANTIOXE - ET HP (year 108)
        Chelys
Ref.: BMC 88; RPC 4293; SNG Copenhagen 108; SNG Munich 679; SNG Righetti 1899 
VF+, sand encrustations on black patina

We have seen that Hermes is closely associated with the tortoise. Therefore, it is no wonder that he is often depicted together with her. A famous statue of Lysipp (around 330 BC) is the so-called "sandal-binder", a copy of which was found in the Villa Adriana in Tivoli. In the meantime, thanks to von Mosch, we know that it is not a "sandal-binder" but a "sandal-solver". He is depicted on large bronzes from Markianopolis.

Coin #3:
Moesia inferior, Markianopolis, Philip II as Caesar & Serapis, 244-247.
AE 27, 13.94g, 26.96mm, 30°
struck under governor Prastina Messalinus
Obv.: M I[OVΛIOC] ΦIΛIΠΠOC KAI / CAP AVΓ
         Facing busts of Philip II, draped and cuirassed,  r., and Serapis, draped, with kalathos, l.
Rev.:  VΠ ΠPACT MECCAΛEI[NOV MAPK]IANOΠOΛITΩN
        Hermes, nude,  standing left bent forward and facing front, the r. foot placed on
        a  ram's head, the left arm covered with the chlamys resting on the right knee;
        on the ground between his feet a turtle. l., behind him a tree stump with a kerykeion 
        before and a second indistinct object
        in the left field E (for Pentassarion)
Ref.: a) AMNG I/1, 1209, pl. XVI, 25  (2 ex., Philippopel, Sophia Tacchella revue num. 1893, 73, 23)
          b) Varbanov 2107
          c) Hristova/Jekov (2014) No. 6.44.10.3.
rare, almost SS, shiny, dark green patina.
Pedigree:
ex CNG electronic auction 215, lot 390
ex coll. J.P.Righetti, No. 10008

In the statue of Lysipp, the ram's head and the turtle are not present. Here the artist has thankfully added both!

The tortoise in the military:
The Greek chelone was a siege engine with a roof on top for protection against shelling. It was also used by the Romans.

The best known, however, is the Roman turtle formation (Latin testudo = "tortoise"), which was developed during the time of Gaius Iulius Caesar. It consisted of a square formation of soldiers with angular shields (scutum). The first row held their shields forward, the following ones high above their heads so that they overlapped. This allowed the formation to move forward even under heavy fire, but only slowly because it was very cumbersome. The testudo could only be exercised by carefully trained soldiers and, above all, had to be broken up again in good time; otherwise it would have become a helpless victim of the enemy in close combat. The picture is from Trajan's Column (Wikipedia, Cristian Chirita)

The Death of Aischylos
An unfortunate role was played by a tortoise in the death of Aischylos in 456 BC, according to Valerius Maximus.Aischylos (525 - 456 BC) was the oldest of the great Greek tragedian poets.  Unfortunately, most of his works have been lost. But his last ones (e.g. "The Eumenides") are dramas of world literature hardly surpassed in their tragedy and depth of thought. Because he had been prophesied to die by falling objects, he stayed in the fields near Gela on his last trip to Sicily. There he was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle. The bird had mistaken Aischylos' head for a rock and used it to break open the tortoise's shell.

Sources:
(1) Pausanias, Travels in Greece.
(2) Aesop, Fables
(3) Pliny, Naturalis Historia

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770.
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Extensive Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology
(3) Hristova/Jekov, Marcianopolis (2014).
(4 Christian von Mosch, The Hermes of Lysipp(?) on the coins of Trapezous, Amastris and Marcianopolis, in Jahrbuch für Numismatik und Geldgeschichte 63, 2013.
(5)  K. Ohlert, Rätsel und Rätselspiele der alten Griechen, Berlin 1912.
(6)  Gemoll, Griechisch-Deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch, 1954
(7) The Kleiner Pauly
(8)  theoi.com
(9) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 20, 2022, 05:29:49 am
Excursus: The race between Achilles and the tortoise

Probably the best-known paradoxon from antiquity is the race between Achilles and the tortoise, known as "Achilles". This paradoxon  originates from Zeno of Elea (ca. 490 - ca. 430 BC), the founder of dialectics, and has been handed down to us by Aristotle in his "Physics".

Achilles was known as the fastest runner in antiquity. When he entered a race with the tortoise, he gave the tortoise a fair head start. He should not have done so, for Zenon could prove that he could then never catch up with the tortoise, let alone overtake it. For if he wanted to overtake the tortoise, he would first have to reach the place where the tortoise had been before. But every time Achilles reached the tortoise's place, the tortoise had crawled a little further. Although the turtle's lead became smaller and smaller, it always remained. This obviously contradicts our observation. But where is the error in Zeno's chain of evidence?

Now you can read in any better mathematics book how to calculate when and where Achill will catch up with the turtle with the help of series expansions or limit value considerations. But that misses the real problem. It is about logic! What is wrong with the logic that Achilles must always - and I mean always - first reach the point where the tortoise was before? This raises the question of whether space is infinitely divisible. In logic as a thought experiment it is, but not in reality. There is Planck's constant, which sets limits to reality. And this shows that this paradoxon  is not located in reality, but in mental space. And that is why it must be solved there.

In recent times, a number of philosophers have dealt with the "Achilles" and have achieved astonishing results. The British philosopher James Thomson (1921-1984) developed the theory of "supertasks" in 1954. For this purpose, he invented various "machines", which are of course only thought experiments. One of them is "Thomson's lamp": A burning lamp is switched off after a time t, then switched on again after a time t/2, switched off again after t/4 and immediately. We know that mathematically the lamp enters its final state after a finite time. (see "Achilles"). But we do not know what state it is in then.

Another thought led to the "Pi machine." A thought machine calculates the infinite number of decimal places of pi one after the other. In the process, it needs only half as much time for each additional digit as for the digit before it. We know that mathematically this machine must stop after a finite time. The paradox then consists in the last digit of pi, which mathematically cannot exist. That is quite exciting!

The French-American philosopher Paul Benacerraf refuted Thomson's considerations in 1962, which led to new interest in infinity-related problems.

In the meantime, it has turned out that this problem is not only philosophical, but also plays a role in the real world. This was demonstrated in 1994 by measurements at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, which confirmed this paradox for measurements in the quantum world: the motion of a quantum system was shown to be brought to a standstill by a sequence of dense measurements alone, which led to the theoretical modelling of the quantum Zeno effect (Wikipedia)

Zeno's paradoxes challenged our notion of motion, time and space; the path to an answer was full of surprises.

The picture is taken from "Meinstein, school subjects simply explained". 

Sources:
(1) Hermann Diels, The Fragments of the Presocratics, Rowohlts Klassiker 1957.
(2) The Presocratics, edited by Wilhelm Capelle, Kröner 1968.

Literature:
(1) Adolf Grünbaum, Modern Science and Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion, in "Zeno's Paradoxes", edited by Wesley C. Salmon, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
(2) William I. Laughlin, A Solution to Zeno's Paradoxes, Spektrum der Wissenschaft, January 1995.
(3) Nick Huggett, Zeno's Paradoxes, 2004, in "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy".
(4) Nicholas Falletta, Zenos Paradoxien, Hugendubel 1985
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 28, 2022, 12:36:08 pm
Homonoia

One of the most frequently depicted deities on provincial coins is Homonoia, which alone proves its great importance.

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal, AD 218-222
AE 28, 14.32g, 26.97mm, 30°
struck under governor Novius Rufus
Obv.: AVT M AVP - [A]NTΩNEINOC
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: VΠ NOBIOV POVΦOV NI - KOΠOLITΩN ΠPOC ICTPW
         Homonoia, in long robe and mantle, wearing alathos, standing frontal, looking  l.,
         holding  cornucopiae in left arm and patera in her outstretched right arm.
Ref.: a) Not in AMNG:
            Obv. not in AMNG I/1
             Rev. AMNG I/1, 1913 var. (legend, other legend break)
                    AMNG I/1, 1968 (depiction)
         b) cf. Varbanov 4037 (cites AMNG 1968)
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) No. 8.26.36.3 (this coin)
rare, VF+, black-green patina, portrait!

Notes:
(1) Cornucopiae = horn of plenty, symbol of abundance. On coins from Alexandria it is also sometimes depicted with double cornucopiae. But Egypt was also the granary of Rome.
(2) Kalathos: Originally a woven basket with fruits of the field, symbol of well-being and abundance.
(3) The patera here has an elevation in the middle. It is therefore a phiale mesomphalos, as it was used in sacrifice.

2nd coin:
Thrace, Tomis, pseudo-autonomous, 2nd century, Antonine(?) period.
AE 17, 2.71g, 16.81mm, 225°.
Obv.: EYETHPIA - OMONOIA
         Busts of Eueteria and Homonoia, behind each other,  r., both draped and with topknot
Rev.: TO / MI - TW / N
         Cornucopiae with grapes and fruits
Ref.: AMNG I/2, 2576 corr., pl. VI, 19 (legend not legible); RPC I 1823; Moushmov 1786
rare, F+

Notes:
(1) Regling (AMNG I/2) took the bust at the back for Augustus and therefore placed this coin to Augustus(?). Since his description was not correct, the chronological attribution to Augustus is of course also incorrect.This coin belongs to Group V. Coins of the Roman period without emperor's heads, probably to "b) Antonine period". 

(2) Eueteria an abstract term formed from Greek "ευ = good" and "ετος = year", and literally means "the property of being a good year" (in German you can say in one word "Gutjährigkeit"), thus as much as "good, blessed year" or "abundance of food". Thus "Eueteria" has a similar meaning as "Eubosia", the "good harvest". The meaning is, of course, that there is prosperity only through unity. This puts it in line with the famous statue of Kephisodotos the Elder, the father of Praxiteles, "Eirene with the young Plutos on her arm", whose marble copy is now in the Glyptothek in Munich. 

This legend exists only one other time on a Seleucid tetradrachm, BMC 1, 126-125 BC, where Cleopatra Thea herself is called Eueteria.

Mythology:
Homonoia, from Greek "ομος = equal" and  "νους = sense, reason", was not a goddess in the proper sense, but the personification of concord and like-mindedness. Therefore, as is often the case with personifications, her mythology appears somewhat artificial. Our sources are the Orphic Hymns and the Suda, this great Byzantine work that sought to record all the knowledge of the time without much judgement. However, there are also traces in Aischylos. Here, then, are the complicated family relationships of Homonoia:

According to this, Homonoia was the daughter of Praxidike and Soter, her brother. Her siblings were Ktesios, protector of property, and Arete, virtue.

Her mother Praxidike, the enforcer of justice, was the daughter of Ogygos.  Ogygos was an ancient king of Boiotia and the founder of Thebes. The first great flood occurred under him. Originally he was probably a god and the father of the Praxidikai, the Boiotian oath-keepers. This oath was administered in the open air at Haliartos (Pausanias). Through this lineage, Homonoia was closely connected to the Theban Harmonia, the wife of Kadmos, who as the "unifier" was the patron goddess of the citizens' association (Plutarch).

According to Mnaseas, all three siblings together were named Praxidikai after their mother. In the Orphic hymns, Praxidike was identified with Persephone and the Praxidikai with the Erinyes, the goddesses of vengeance.

Menelaus, after his return from Troy, had erected a statue of Praxidike at Gutheion in Lakonia, where Paris and Helen, before they left for Troy, had spent their first night, but otherwise she was worshipped only in the form of a head (Mnaseas, Europa).

Her father was Soter, the personification of safety and salvation, later adopted by Dionysos and Christ as Saviour. According to Aischylos ("Seven against Thebes") he had another daughter Eupraxia, success by Peitharchia, obedience.  Soter, but also Ktesios, his son, were epicleses of Zeus. Epicleses are cult names under which a god was also invoked.

Notes:
(1) The Orphic Hymns are a collection of 87 religious poems composed in either the late Hellenistic or early Roman periods. They are based on the beliefs of Orphism, a mystery cult or religious philosophy based on the mythical singer Orpheus.

(2) The Suda, written around 970 AD, is the most comprehensive Byzantine encyclopaedia. It is arranged alphabetically and contains 30000 lemmata (entries). It was compiled by various authors.

(3) Mnaseas of Patara was a Greek historian and geographer of the late 3rd century B.C. He was a student of Eratosthenes in Alexandria. His geographical works ("Periegeseis") were arranged according to landscapes.

Homonoia as a political concept:
The concept of homonoia was an ancient Greek concept that was traditionally not applied beyond their own culture. This was in line with Aristotle's view.

In a short time, Alexander had conquered an empire that encompassed most of the then known world with a myriad of different peoples. If one asks what Alexander's relationship was to these Asian peoples, one must look at Alexander's concept of the unity of mankind, homonoia, and how he tried to realise this through the organisation of his empire.

The Greeks of the classical period divided humanity roughly into two classes: Greeks and non-Greeks; the latter called  barbarians and considered them inferior human beings, although occasionally someone like Herodotus or Xenophon noted that some barbarians possessed qualities worthy of consideration, such as the wisdom of the Egyptians or the courage of the Persians. Aristotle also held this view.

But in the 3rd century, new ideas emerged: All people were equal and should be brothers. This gave rise to the idea of homonoia. At first, however, this only applied to the factional struggles within the Greek cities.

Isocrates extended this concept to the entire Greek world, which should make wars among the Greeks impossible. He presented this concept to Philipp II, who adopted it for a holy war of the Greeks against the Persians. After Philipp's death, the influence of Aristotle grew again, who advised Alexander to treat Greeks as friends, but barbarians like animals. Alexander, however, was wiser than his teacher and preferred to divide people into good and bad without considering their race. He probably realised that it would be easier to deal with the problems of administration if he treated the inhabitants of the conquered countries not as slaves but as free people. And he wanted to spread the ideas of Greekism throughout the known world. Thus he subjected his actions entirely to the goal of homonoia. This was reinforced by his conviction that God had given him the task of harmonising humanity.

"Alexander was called the Great because of the things he did, but the greatest thing about him was this idea", Tarn writes at the end of his biography of Alexander.

His empire was to be "Greek-Oriental" in its essence, and as far as possible a joint enterprise. Thus he retained the Persian satrapies and filled them with Iraqis. The newly formed offices of taxation and finance, however, he filled with Macedonians. Of course, Macedonians were also at the head of the military units. But Persians and Macedonians served together in the same units.

His call to the Macedonians to marry native women he understood as an important step towards unity. In 324, there was a mass wedding of his officers in Susa, who took Persian women as wives. He himself married the beautiful Roxane, a Bactrian princess.

All this increased the discontent of his Macedonians, who could not see that they should be put on an equal footing with a conquered people. The climax, however, was when Alexander introduced proskynesis at his court, which by now resembled the court of the Great King. This refers to the Persian custom of prostrating oneself before the ruler in order to honour him. According to Greek opinion, only a god was entitled to do this.

In the sense of homonoia, the Greeks were to be introduced to Persian customs and the Persians to Greek customs. In fact, however, this "assimilation" amounted to the Persians being overrun by Greek culture, its art and literature and its science. The impact of Greek culture can still be seen hundreds of years after the collapse of Alexander's empire in Oriental architecture, which still reflects Greek influence.

In the end, his concept failed. But it was adopted and continued by the great world religions of Christianity and Islam. In the end, it is a utopian and - I believe - inhuman idea. Just think of the attempts of Bolshevism, the Mao era or the Pol Pot regime to "educate" people to equality and happiness. Freedom and equality are opposites. To demand both at the same time was the great mistake of the French Revolution, on which all later revolutions were based and which all ended in a bloodbath.

In Asia Minor under Roman rule, Homonoia played an important role as a symbol for settling inner-city tensions and for connecting with other poleis. Coins were struck with the legend "Homonoia" to proclaim regional alliances and to place them under the protection of local deities. They probably did not have great political significance. Here I have a nice example from my collection of the so-called Homonoia Coinage which was issued in Asia Minor for two joint cities as expression for their entente cordiale. This one was struck in Ephesos joint with Alexandria in Egypt. For more information for these interesting issues look at Franke/Nolle, Die Homonoia-Münzen Kleinasiens und der thrakischen Randgebiete.

3rd Coin:
Ionia, Ephesos, Gordian III, AD 238-244
AE 29, 8.47g
obv. AVT K.M.AN - T.GORDIANOC.
        Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
rev. EΦECIΩN / TYXH / KAI A - ΛEΞ - ANΔPEΩN
       City goddess (Tyche), wearing high kalathos, leaning l., holding cornucopiae in
       l. arm and cult-statue of Artemis Ephesia in outstretched r. hand
Ref.: BMC 245, Nolle Homonoia 450 (only 1 ex.!)
very rare (possibly 2nd known!), VF, blue-green patina

Homonoia played a role in the 38th speech of Dion Chrystostomos (after 40 - before 120 AD). There was an old dispute between the cities of Nicomedia and Nikaia in Bithynia  which of them was the metropolis. In his speech, Dion tried to settle the dispute by establishing Homonoia.

Homonoia is said to have had a temple in Olympia (Pausanias).

Sources:
(1)  Aischylos,  Seven against Thebes
(2)  Orphic  Hymnes
(3)  Isokrates, Panegyrikos
(4)  Suda
(5)  Pausanias, Periegeseis
(6)  Dion Chrysostomos, Discourses

Secondary literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechisxhen und römishen Mythologie
(3) Henry M. de Mauriax, Alexander the Great and the Politics  of  "Homonoia",  1949
(4) William  Woodthorpe  Tarn, Alexander  the  Great, 1948 
(5) Der  Kleine  Pauly
(6) Gemoll,  Griechisch-Deutsches  Schul-  und  Handwörterbuch

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) acsearch.info
(3) Wikipedia

Best regards
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on January 28, 2022, 04:30:08 pm
Jochen,
I always enjoy these entries.
Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 28, 2022, 05:27:09 pm
Dear Virgil!

I write these articles mainly for members like you.

Thanks
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on January 28, 2022, 06:06:43 pm
You should think about putting some of these together into a book. It would make a fascinating book with cross over appeal outside the numismatic community.

Regards,
Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Norbert on January 29, 2022, 02:16:16 pm
Hello Virgil,

The book was self-published by Jochen and it is absolutely marvellous.
You can find Jochens Book via ABEBooks or sometimes on Amazon - look for: 'Münzen und antike Mythologie" , more than 400 pages, German language.

Price varies, cheapest I find right now ist 140 € (around 160 USD) 

Best regards
Norbert
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on January 29, 2022, 06:03:45 pm
Thank you for that info, Norbert. I didn't know. I can usually deal with reading German, at least up to a point where I can get some use out of it, I used to be able to speak it a bit, never fluent, but I could get by most of the time.

Regards,
Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: SC on January 30, 2022, 09:17:01 am
Maybe we can all lobby for an English version......

SC
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on January 30, 2022, 06:04:55 pm
I agree on English version especially since the two German copies I found for sale would require me to mortgage my home. Seriously, I would be willing to help with layout, etc. I have done this for a couple books in the past. A book like this would be of interest beyond coin collectors. Anyway, just thinking aloud.

Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 10, 2022, 05:44:23 am
The Roman Concordia

After the article on Homonoia, now the article on its counterpart, the Roman Concordia.

Concordia is an ancient Roman concept of virtue, like Fides, Spes, Iustitia, Pax or Libertas, which was personified by the Romans. Originally, these deities were not worshipped in images or statues. The Romans first adopted the idea of gods in human form from the Greeks and Etruscans.

Concordia is the personification of concord and thus corresponds to the Greek Homonoia. She promotes and maintains the harmony and unity of the Roman citizens. Unlike the Greek Homonoia, however, the Roman Concordia always has a close connection to the Res publica.

The first temple (Aedes) is said to have been erected in 367 BC by M. Furius Camillus at the clivus Capitolinus and to symbolise the end of the class struggles between patricians and plebeians. The reconciliation was completed in 367 BC with the laws of Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextus Lateranus, the so-called Licinian laws (leges Liciniae Sextiae). They established the broad political equality of both estates. Camillus had recognised the need for unification and contributed decisively to these laws.

Camillus, the first historically comprehensible figure in Roman history, was the most important personality in 4th century Rome. Because of his successes against Veji, the Faliscans and the Gauls, he was considered the "second founder of Rome". However, many things were attributed to him that were not historically true. Some of this was already doubted in antiquity (Livius). It is certain that he organised the Roman army in such a way that Rome was able to achieve supremacy in central Italy. But the construction of the 1st Temple of Concordia unfortunately belongs to the unproven narratives. Structural remains from this phase have not been preserved.

A second temple was vowed by Praetor L. Manlius Vulso in 218 BC during a mutiny of the army in the war against the Boians, built in arce (the castle) after the rebellion was settled and consecrated on 5.2.216 (Livius).

After the bloody persecution of the Gracchi, which ended with their murder, a temple of Concordia was built by L. Opimius near the sanctuary donated by Camillus. This temple building is often called a renewal of the temple of Camillus. But according to the sources it can only be a new temple.

It was richly furnished with numerous art treasures and the Senate met here at times. Cicero delivered his 4th speech against Catilina here.
The feast of Concordia was celebrated on 16 January. This was considered the foundation day of the 1st temple. Today, nothing remains of this temple except the podium. Even the podium is partly hidden under a staircase leading up to the Capitol (photo attached).

All these temples stood near the place where Romulus and Titus Tatius joined forces when the Romans and Sabines allied.  A Republican denarius of L. Mussidius Longus from 42 BC shows the shrine of Venus Cloacina (from Latin cluere = to purify). The cult of Cloacina played an important role in the reconciliation of the Sabines with the Romans. On the obverse the Concordia is depicted still veiled. Thus the political Concordia appears here as a secondary form of that covenant goddess, who for her part is nothing other than a form of Venus (Roscher). (Pic attached)

Later, the usually veiled Concordia joins the Venus Victrix. A denarius of L. Vinicius (Vinicia 1a), ca. 54 BC, with Venus Victrix on the reverse, shows her already wearing a laurel wreath. (Pic attaxched. The image comes from wildwinds.com)

It is reported that in 164 BC the Censor Q. Marcius had a statue of Concordia erected in public. This was brought to the Curia in 154 by the Censor C. Cassius. But when he wanted to dedicate the Curia to Concordia at the same time, the Pontifices prevented the dedication. 

After Iulius Caesar's victory over Pompeius, the Senate 44 vowed a temple to the Concordia Nova. Whether this temple was actually realised is uncertain.

In imperial times, the cult of Concordia was one of the most prestigious of all. Augustus erected an altar in 9 BC, on which sacrifices were made to Ianus, Salus, Concordia and Pax on 30 March. Livia dedicated a shrine to Concordia in the porticus Livia 7 BC on 11 June in honour of her marriage to Augustus (Ovid). Tiberius vowed in the same year to renew the sanctuary founded by Camillus and consecrated it on 16 Jan. 12 AD on the occasion of his triumph over the Pannonians and Dalmatians, but as a temple to Concordia Augusta. The image of the goddess in this temple wore a laurel wreath. Still in later times, the Senate restored the temple

After the discovery of the conspiracy of M. Libo in 16 AD, Concordia also received rich gifts along with other gods.

Concordia is mainly the patron goddess of imperial marriage and the imperial house in the imperial period. The connection of two cornucopias in the arm of the goddess seems to refer to the union of the two members of the imperial house and the blessing of children resulting from the marriage (Roscher). Especially in the arm of Concordia, the double cornucopiae has become a standing symbol. The hope placed in marriage is expressed by a statue of Spes accompanying Concordia, on which she sometimes places her left arm. (Pic of Sabina, RIC III, (Hadrian) 398 attached)
 
The emperors especially often praise the Concordia exercitum and the Concordia militum on the coins, this extraordinarily often on coins of the later imperial period. This was a time when emperors depended on the goodwill of their soldiers. Their fate depended on their armies. These deposed emperors and raised others to their shields. So this was more a wish than a description of facts. It is not for nothing that these legends are found particularly frequently among the soldier-emperors.

The standard depiction was Concordia Militum with a field sign in each hand. This is an Antoninian of Probus (276-282), RIC V/2, 480 (attached).

The next coin was minted by Aureolus under Emperor Postumus. Aureolus was dux equitum under Valerian, later attacked Postumus and took the imperial dignity himself in 268 AD. The legend Concordia Equitum says nothing other than that he was dependent on his cavalry and hoped for a good relationship with them. Significantly, Fortuna on the reverse was also supposed to be favourably disposed towards him. At the end of this year he was killed by his own praetorian guard. Aureolus under Postumus, RIC V/2, 373 (Pic attched)

According to a conjecture by Hübner, the expression Concordia Augusti expresses the concord of the emperor with the people. In the following solidus of Honorius with the legend Concordia Avggg, however, the promise or the wish for harmony among the emperors resonates. This was not self-evident even among brothers, as we know from the time of Constantine. I have attached the pic of Honorius, RIC X, (Arcadius 24)

Outside Rome, Concordia was mainly used in Spain, Africa and Gallia cisalpina (Pauly).

Because I can't add the pictures to the text I have attached the following pictures:
(1) Remains of the Temple of Concord. The three columns on the left belong to the Temple of Vespasian. Of the Temple of Concordia, only the podium remains on the left behind these columns
(2) The republican denarius Mussidia 6b
(3) The republican denarius Vinicia 1a
(4) Aquilia Severa, RIC IV/2, 226
(5) Sabina, RIC III, (Hadrian) 398
(6) Probus, RIC V/2, 480
(7) Aureolus under Postumus, RIC V/2, 373
(8) Honorius, RIC X, (Arcadius) 24


Sources:
(1) Plutarch
(2) Sallust, Historiae
(3) Livius, Ab urbe condita
(4) Sueton, Kaiserviten
(5) Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte
(6) Ovid, Fasti

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 12, 2022, 08:12:31 am
The peacock in antiquity

The peacock was an attribute of Hera in antiquity.

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211.
AE 27, 11.61g, 26.69mm, 210°
struck under governor Aurelius Gallus
Obv.: AV.K.L.CEP.  - CEVHROC - P
         Laureate head  r.
Rev.: VP.AVR.GALLOV.NIKOPOLITWN / .PROC I.
         Hera , in long, girded double chiton, veiled, standing frontal, head l., resting with raised left
         hand on long sceptre and holding patera in outstretched right hand; peacock standing l. at
         her feet.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG
        b) not in Varbanov
        c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) No. 8.14.3.19 (this coin)
rare, EF, dark green patina

The reverse was also struck for Caracalla. An example of parallel coinage for members of the imperial family,
Most spectacular is when Hera rides in a peacock biga, as here on a coin of Antoninus Pius from Kos: Image from Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

Etymology:
In West Germanic the name is attested in Old-High-German as phao (9th century), Middle-High-German as phawe, pha, in Early Germanin as  pfaw(e), phow(e), New-High-German Pfae, Pfauw (until the 17th century). In Old-Saxon pao, Middle-Low-German as pawe, pauwe, as in English pawa, pea, English (older) pea (today folk-etymological peacock). These are all borrowed from Latin pavo, pavonis, which comes from an unknown, probably oriental language.

Mythology:
The peacock leads us to the mythology of Argos. Argos (from Greek "argos = the shimmering one") was a huge monster with 100 or more eyes all over his body (or around his head) so that he could see in all directions. That is why he was also called Panoptes (Greek = all-seer). Of the eyes, only one pair slept at a time, while the others were awake.

One myth tells that he was the son of Inachos, the first king of Argos and progenitor of the kings of Argolis, and of unusual strength. Thus he once slew an un-beastly ox that ravaged Arcadia. Afterwards he wore its hide as clothing. He also executed a satyr who plagued Arcadia. He even surprised Echidna, the daughter of Tartaros and Gaia, a terrible serpent and mother of many monsters, such as the hellhound Kerberos, the Hydra, the Chimaira, the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion, in her sleep and killed her. He should therefore know that sleep could be dangerous!
Argos had a son named Iasos, who became king of Argos.

It happened that Zeus fell in love with Io, a priestess of Hera, and seduced her. When his jealous wife Hera discovered this, Zeus turned Io into a white cow. But Hera saw through this and demanded the cow as a gift, which Zeus dared not refuse her. And she commissioned Argos to guard the cow. He tied her to an olive tree in the Mycenaean forests. When he drove her to pasture during the day, he sat on a high mountain to keep an eye on her.
Zeus, however, could not forget Io. He gave Hermes the order to kidnap the cow, even by force. Hermes went to Argos in the guise of a shepherd and played so sweetly for him on the pan flute that he made him sit down beside him. Through the conversation and the flute playing he finally put Argos to sleep. He then cut off his head and threw it down the rock. Since then Hermes has been nicknamed Argiphontes, the Argos slayer. Io, however, was able to escape. Afterwards, Hera sent her a gadfly that drove her around the world. But that is another story.

To honour her faithful servant Argos and to commemorate his treacherous murder, Hera planted his hundred eyes in the plumage of the peacock, her favourite animal.
The peacock is also in the starry sky. But it did not receive this honour in antiquity; for the constellation of the peacock lies so far south that it cannot be seen from the Mediterranean.  It is one of the constellations introduced at the end of the 16th century by the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. Johann Bayer adopted it in his celestial atlas Uranometria, published in 1603.

In Homer's Odyssey, Argos is also the name of Odysseus' hunting dog, who waited 20 years for his master to return. When Odysseus returns home, he is too weak to rise from the dung heap on which he is lying. He just wags his tail and dies. Whether this dog was named after the giant because of his vigilance is not clear.

The peacock in Aesop:
In the fables of Aesop (6th century BC, a rather legendary figure) the peacock is mentioned a few times. In the fable of the peacock and the jackdaw, the peacock boasted about the shine and colour of its feathers. The jackdaw admitted all this, but noticed that all this beauty was not good for the main thing, flying, and flew away. At that time, the peacock was already a symbol of ostentation and vanity.
In the 25th fable, the peacock complains to Juno that he cannot sing as beautifully as the nightingale and is ridiculed because of his voice. Juno replies that all animals have a special gift. His was the beautiful plumage. And he must be content with that, for that is what the gods have given him.

The peacock in religion:
Hera was the patron goddess of marriage. If a wheel-beating peacock is depicted on this coin, then Hera is meant. And just as the emperor with the eagle on the coins wants to show his connection to Zeus, so here the empress's connection to Hera is meant.
The peacock played an important role as a symbol of Hera in the consecratio of the empress. While emperors entered the world of the gods after their death through the eagle of Zeus (or Zeus himself), empresses (or their souls) were elevated to the gods at the apotheosis through the peacock of Hera. The apotheosis was usually approved in a kind of senate resolution.

2nd coin:
Mariniana, wife of Valerian I, died before AD 253
AR - Antoninian, 3.49g, 20mm
       Rome 254
Obv.: DIVAE MARINIANAE
         Veiled bust r., behind shoulders crescent moon
Rev.: CONSECRATIO
         Peacock flying r., carrying seated figure of empress on back, r. hand raised, sceptre in left hand
Ref.: RIC V/1, 6, Pl. I, 12; C. 16

In Christianity, the beauty and splendour of the peacock was a symbol of the coming paradise (first in the Catacomb of Callist) and the joys of the afterlife. Augustine (de. civit. Dei 21, 4) wrote that the flesh of the peacock was incorruptible, thus making it a symbol of immortality. Since the peacock loses its feathers during the moulting season in late summer and regains them in the spring, it stands for resurrection and renewal. This is why we often find the peacock on ancient Christian tombs.

It thus resembles the phoenix, which is always reborn. The peacock symbolism also represented the "all-seeing" church and the holiness associated with it.

However, this idea changed in the Middle Ages, when the peacock became a symbol of arrogance and vanity because of its beauty and courtship behaviour.

History:
The peacock is already mentioned in the Old Testament. In 1 Kings 10:22 it says of King Solomon:

"The king had tarsis ships that sailed the sea together with the ships of Hiram. These came once in three years, bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes and peacocks."

So Solomon had peacocks, among other things, imported from other countries for his pleasure. It is not clear which place was meant by Tarsis, but it is usually identified with the Phoenician trading city of Tartessos in the Guadalquivir estuary in southern Spain. The name "Tarsis" is probably Iberian or "Tartessic". The Hebrew word for peacock "tukkiyyi" is very similar to "tokei", the native name for the peacock in Sri Lanka, which suggests that the peacocks came from their original homeland.

Probably in the 7th/6th century, the peacock reached Samos via Iraq and the Near East, where it was a sacred animal in the Heraion (Pauly). In the 5th century, peacocks were a precious rarity and were shown in Athens in the breeding yard of Pyrilampes and Demos at new moon for an entrance fee (Plutarch). The Romans, however, were not so scrupulous. For them, the peacock, introduced by Q. Hortensius, became the epitome of table luxury, surpassed only by peacock brains (Suetonius) and - next to nightingale tongues - by peacock tongues (HA, Heliogabal), the degenerate pinnacle of luxury. Here, it was not the taste but the difficulty of obtaining it that determined the value of a meal (Demandt).

Art history:
The story of Argos is not rarely depicted in art. I have chosen the following works:

(1) The oil painting "Juno and Argus" by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), which was painted around 1611 and is now in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. Juno sets the eyes of Argus in the tail feathers of the peacock.

(2) By Antonio Belluci (1654-1726) "Juno orders Argus to guard Io". I have chosen this picture because a dog is lying next to Argus, a clear allusion to Argos, the faithful dog of Odysseus.

I have added the pictures of
(1) Antonius Pius, Kos,
(1) Severus, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov 8.14.3.18
(2) Christian sarcophagus (detail)

Sources:
(1) The Old Testament
(2) Suetonius, Biographies of the Emperors
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Aesop, Fables
(5) Homer, Odyssey
(6) Apollodorus
(5) Herodotus, Histories
(8) Plutarch, Parallel Biographies

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (Detailed Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology).
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(3) Seth William Stevenson, Dictionary of Roman Coins
(4) Alexander Demandt, The Private Lives of the Roman Emperors, 1997
(5) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Blagoevgrad 2021
(6) Der Kleine Pauly

Online sources:
(1) The Bible Dictionary
(2) The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database
(3) theoi.com
(4) Wikipedia


Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 20, 2022, 02:00:35 pm
Bonus Eventus

From Nikopolis ad Istrum we know of a series of coins on which Apollo is depicted offering with a patera over an altar. In his lowered left hand he has a branch. This is a standard depiction and Pick (in AMNG) usually writes "Apollo (Bonus Evenus)". We have adopted this designation in Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis ad Istrum, as well. While looking through my coins, paying attention to details, I stumbled upon the following coin:

1st coin:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal , 218-222
AE 27, 13.16g, 27.27mm, 0°
struck under the governor Novius Rufus
Obv.: AVT M AVR - ANTWNINOC (NO ligate!)
          Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from front, laureate, r.
Rev.: VP NOBIOV ROVFOV.NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICTRON
          Apollo (Bonus Eventus), nude, standing l., holding in his lowered left hand
          branches of field crops and in right outstretched patera over burning altar
          decorated with taenia.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG
         b) not in Varbanov
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) No. 8.26.7.10 corr.
             (same dies, but ligate NO not mentioned)
scarce, about VF, dark green patina

On closer inspection Apollo is not holding a laurel branch as usual but a bouquet of field fruits. Among other things, a poppy head and 2 large ears of grain are visible. This is completely untypical for Apollo and speaks clearly for Bonus Eventus. Therefore, the depicted deity should correctly be called Bonus Eventus, at least "Bonus Eventus (Apollo?)". In this time, when syncretistic deities were common (see Aequitas/Nemesis etc.), it could also be an Apollo/Bonus Eventus.

The first image of Bonus Eventus is found on a Republican denarius of L. Scribonius Libo from 62 BC.

2nd coin:
L. Scribonius Libo, gens Scribonia
AR - Denarius, 3.83g, 19.62mm, 120°
         Rome, 62 BC
Obv.: Head of Bonus Eventus, with broad taenia r.
          in front BON.EVENT, behind LIBO
Rev.: Puteal of Scribonius, decorated with garlands and a lyre on left and right; on the
          base a hammer.
          above PVTEAL, below SCRIBON
Ref.: Crawford 416/1a; Sydenham 928; Scribonia 8a

The puteal was a well enclosure or the site of a lightning strike. This was sacred to Jupiter if the strike occurred during the day, the nocturnal strike to a deity Summanus. The hammer is probably an allusion to Vulcanus as the smith of lightning.
The Puteal Scribonianum stood on the Forum and had been consecrated in 204 BC (or 149 BC). L. Scribonius Libo had renovated it.

The Romans loved to personify each virtue as a deity, thus holding the basic idea that the virtues were not inventions of man but of higher origin. They were the imprint of a divine being in the human soul.

The name Bonus Eventus comes from Latin "evenire" = to come forth, where "evenire" and "eventus" were expressions for the happy emergence and flourishing of crops (Cato).  He was a god of the Roman age of agriculture and originally purely agrarian. Varro lists him as one of the 12 gods who are the leaders of the farmers. Sometimes he was identified with Triptolemos. With the decline of the importance of agriculture, his significance expanded already in Republican times to the general conditions of life and he became the god of all happy success (Apuleius).

In imperial times, there was a temple to Bonus Eventus from an unknown time on the Campus Martius near the Baths of Agrippa (Ammian). There were also temples to him in the Roman provinces, for example at Mogontiacum, today's Mainz.

Pliny describes two famous statues to him on the Capitol, which would have shown a youth with a bowl, ears of grain and poppies in his hand. One is said to have been a marble statue of Praxiteles, which showed him together with Bona Fortuna. Adolf Furtwängler (1853-1907) concludes that it must have been Agathos Daimon. Winckelmann describes him "with a mirror in his right hand and a wreath of ears of corn in his left."
The other was a bronze statue of Euphranor. Both statues were probably Greek statues that had been renamed. The one of Euphranor was perhaps a Triptolemos.

Notes:
(1) Praxiteles (c. 390 BC - c. 320 BC) is considered one of the most important sculptors of Greek antiquity. He worked in the stylistic epoch of the Late Classical period. He overcame the sublime austerity of Phidias and from him came the youthful ideals of the gods that we all know and love.
(2) Euphranor was a Greek artist of the 4th century BC. Many works have been attributed to him, but only the incomplete statue of Apollo Patroos in Athens has survived. He was also a painter and wrote theoretical treatises on symmetry and colour theory.

3rd coin:
Septimius Severus, 193-211
AR - Denarius, 3.55g, 18.20mm
         Emesa, 194-195
Obv.: IMP CAE L SEP SE - V PERT AVG COS II
          Laureate head r.
Rev.: BONI - EVENTVS
Bonus Eventus in long girded double chiton, standing l., holding 2 ears of grain in his lowered left hand and a bowl of fruit in his outstretched right hand.
Ref.: RIC IV/1, (Emesa) 369; C. 68; BMCR 343 var. (different legend break)
Rare, VF

This coin had caused me problems because Bonus Eventus is depicted here as a female deity. But at that time it was not common for deities to change their gender as they wished, as is common today in the queer community. What is striking is that the deity is depicted as it is customary for Fides. We find this representation on coins of the Flavians and the adopted emperors. With the legend FIDES they are found on Commodus, Caracalla and even on Severus (here without the legend). And that the legend does not always designate the deity depicted can be seen on coins of Gallienus or Claudius Gothicus, on which despite the legend FIDES AVG Hermes is depicted. Thus the reverse on coin #3 also depicts Fides and not Bonus Eventus!

Fides means "trust, faithfulness, belief". She is depicted as a female figure with a bowl or basket of fruit in one hand and ears of grain in the other. Fides is a prerequisite of the Bonus Eventus. Without trust and faithfulness there can be no good fortune. Thus the two deities are closely linked.

Art History:
I found the image of a statuette of Bonus Eventus at Bertolami Fine Arts. At the 32nd auction (lot 58) a bronze statuette from the 1st-2nd century AD was sold. It depicts a naked youth with a chlamys over his left shoulder, standing on a pedestal and holding a patera. On his left hand he had ears of grain and poppy heads, which are no longer present. This statuette certainly came from a private Roman house.

Agathodaimon
Agathodaimon, from Greek ἀγαθός = "good, noble" and δαίμων = "demon, spirit" is often referred to as the Greek counterpart of the Roman Bonus Eventus. But this is not correct. Although he also protected agriculture and viticulture, he was more related to the Roman genii. Pausauias even counted his name only as an epithet of Zeus. He was popular in Greek folk religion. Thus it was customary at a symposion or banquet to drink or spill a few drops of unmixed wine in his honour. In Aristophanes' comedy "Peace" (421 BC), the god of war Polemos had imprisoned Eirene, the goddess of peace, in a cave. When Hermes came to help her, he said: ""Now, O Greeks, is the moment when, freed from strife and fighting, we should rescue sweet Eirene and pull her out of this pit.... This is the moment to empty a cup in honour of Agathos Daimon."

On the road from Megalopolis to Mainalos in Arcadia there was a temple to him (Pausanias).

Agathos Daimon was the companion of Tyche Agatha (Latin Fortuna Bona).  "Tyche we know at Lebadeia as the wife of the Agathos Daimon, the Good or Rich Spirit".

In the syncretic period of late antiquity, he was associated with the Egyptian Agathodaimon. The latter was regarded as the patron god for a happy future and was worshipped in the form of a serpent. Thus one sometimes finds the name "Agathodaimon" in error in the description of the Glycon snake on northern Greek coins.

Around 1760, a headless marble statue of an Apollo (130-138 AD) was found in the Tiber River in Rome, which was completed with a head of Antinous found nearby. This statue was acquired by Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi in 1760. It was formerly exhibited in the Neues Palais in Potsdam and is now in the Altes Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin... From the snake coiling around the tree trunk, one can see the proximity to the Egyptian Agathodaimon.

I have added:
(1) A photo of he statue of Bonus Eventus of Bertolami Fine Arts
(2) A picture of the statue of Apollo with snake coiling around a tree stump.

Sources:
(1) Varro, De re rustica
(2) Pliny, Historia Naturae 
(3) Cato, De agri cultura
(4) Apuleius, Metamorphoses
(5) Ammian, Res gestae
(6) Pausanias, Perigeisis
(7) Aeschylus, Eirene

Literature:
(1) Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, 1764
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexíkon, Leipzig 1770
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Extensive Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology
(4) Seth W. Stevenson, Dictionary of Roman Coins
(5) The Kleiner Pauly
(6) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis (2021), Blagoevgrad

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 20, 2022, 05:48:19 pm
Histiaia and her family

Here I want to tell something about the nymph Histiaia. Because there is only few to tell about Histiaia herself I have enlarged the topos to "Histiaia and her family":

1st Coin:
Euboia, Histiaia, 196-146 BC.
AR - Tetrobol, 2.3g, 13.37mm, 315°.
Obv.: Bust of Histiaia, draped, with necklace and ear-ring, hair rolled up in sphendone, wreathed with vine leaves and grapes.
Rev.: [IΣTI] - AIEΩN
The nymph Histiaia, in long dress, seated r. on the stern of a ship decorated with wings, leaning back with right hand and holding stylis in left hand.
Below ME(?) and trident.
Ref.: BMC 128, 30ff; BCD Euboia 382; SNG 517 var.
VF, old dark toning, rev. somewhat off-centre.

2nd Coin:
Euboia, Histiaia, 196-146 BC.
AR - Tetrobol, 1.32g, 13.91mm, 315°.
Ref,: BMC 128, 30ff; SNG 517var.
Small, irregular flan

Notes:
The stylis is a freestanding hasta with a transverse bar on the stern of ancient ships. It can be found on coins of Histiaia and others since 340 BC. Its origin is Phoenician and it is marked as a sacred standard in place of statues of gods at the stern (Pauly).
For this reason it cannot be a Prora. Earlier publications, even Mionnet and the great Eckhel, erroneously had Histiaia sitting on the front of the ship and mistook the aphlaston for a swelling sail. 

Problem of dating:
This coin type has been struck in different periods The first issue are thought to have begun around 340 BC to commemorate the expulsion of the pro-Macedonian tyrant Philistides. A second issue probably existed between 313 BC and 265 BC, thus beginning at the time when Euboia had declared itself independent.

The last period was from 196 to 146 BC, beginning before the Roman victory over Perseus in 168 BC. There are also a large number of Macedonian imitations from this period. These are of coarse style and easily recognisable and go under the name of Histiaika or Argyria Histiaika (Head).

In Pat Lawrence's opinion, my first coin does not date from the 4th century because of its style. Rather, it bears resemblance to the "Invitation to the Dance" group from the later Hellenistic period, the so-called "Hellenistic Rococo".

The second coin is probably one of the Macedonian imitations.

Mythology:
Histiaia was the daughter of Hyrieos. The city of Histiaia in northern Euboia is said to have been named after her. Hyrieos was a son of Poseidon and Alkyone and king of Hyria in Boiotia. He was married to the nymph Klonia, by whom he had the sons Nykteos, Lykos and Orion (Apollodor; Hygin. Fab.).

There is a mythology of the treasure-house of Hyrieos told by Pausanias: Agamedes and Trophonios, the sons of Erginos, king of Orchomenos, were architects and were considered specialists in the construction of temples and palaces. When King Hyrieos commissioned them to build a treasure house, they added a stone to the walls which they could remove without anyone noticing. Through this opening they kept crawling and stealing Hyrieos' treasures. The king saw his treasure getting smaller and smaller, even though the door locks were not broken. So he set traps to catch the thief. Agamedes got caught in these traps and, to prevent discovery, Trophonios cut off his head. But he himself was swallowed up by the earth at the same moment. 

Close to Histiaia was the village of Oreos, which was united with Histiaia in 445 BC. Oreos is said to have received its name from Orion, who was raised here (Strabo). For this reason, August Baumeister, for example, assumes that Hyrieos, the father of Histiaia, is Orion himself. But Histiaia and Orion, the representatives of the two sister cities, could also have been siblings, both children of Hyrieos.

Orion, the presumed brother of Histaia, is the well-known giant hunter of Greek mythology from Boiotia, who was placed in the sky as a constellation after his death. Palaiphatos gives an account of his conception, which I will quote here: his name comes from ουρησις, from piss, and he was initially called Ourion because he was created through urine. But since this name was a bit too indecent, they made an O out of the Ou and called him Orion.  And that's how it all happened:

Once Zeus, Poseidon and Hermes were visiting King Hyrieos. In gratitude for his hospitality, they allowed him to make a request. Thereupon the childless Hyrieos wished for a son. The gods took the skin of the ox sacrificed to them, let all their urine into it, ordered him to bury it in the earth and only take it out after 10 months. This he did and found Orion in it.

Roscher writes on this "an ugly fairy tale has arisen about its creation through etymological wit."

History:
Histiaia is situated on the northern coast of Euboia, the second largest island in Greece, and was founded as an Attic colony. It is already named in Homer's Iliad and described as πολυσταφυλος = rich in wine. Thus the vine leaves on the head of Histaia are easily explained. The ancient and modern name Εὔβοια is derived from εὖ 'good' and βοῦς 'cattle' and means. 'land of well-fed cattle'.

After the departure of the Attic colonists it united with the neighbouring town of Oreos, and so it was afterwards generally called by writers. They were given a common wall, 2 acropoleis and a common harbour. The territory of Histiaia included the whole north, a quarter of the whole island. It was occupied by the Persians in the Xerxes campaign. Afterwards it joined the 1st Attic League. In 446 B.C. there was an uprising because of the tribute payments, which was put down by the Athenians. The inhabitants were expelled and Attic colonists settled there. In 404 the inhabitants were allowed to return. In the Corinthian War it stood with the whole of Euboia against Sparta and came under Spartan occupation until its liberation in 377. Afterwards it was a member of the 2nd Attic League, interrupted only in 343-341 by the tyranny of Philistides, who was supported by Philip. In the Hellenistic period it was mostly under Macedonian rule until the conquest by the Romans and Attalus of Pergamon. It was declared free in 197 BC.

Its widespread coin finds testify to its great commercial importance in Hellenistic times.
Pliny already mentions it as an abandoned place in the 1st century AD. Today there are only a few archaeological remains, some walls and temple foundations (Pauly). Modern Oreoi lies slightly to the west of ancient Oreos.

I have added a photo of modern  Oreoi (Geotag  Aeroview,  Wikipedia)

Sources:
(1)  Homer, Ilias
(2)  Eustath. Ad  Homer
(3)  Palaiphatos, Unglaubliche  Geschichten
(4)  Strabon, Geographie
(5)  Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(6)  Hyginus, Fabulae
(7)  Plinius, Naturalis  historia

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon  der  griechischen  und  römischen  Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (Facsimile)
(3) August Baumeister, Topographische Skizze der Insel  Euboia,  1864  (Reprint)
(3) Der  Kleine  Pauly
(4) Barclay V. Head, Historia Numorum (Ed Snible, online)

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Tracy Aiello on March 20, 2022, 07:28:10 pm
Thank you Jochen. That made for a great early evening read.

Tracy
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 28, 2022, 05:33:32 am
Ops and Consus

Ops is a very rarely depicted deity. Because my coin is too poorly preserved, I have chosen a coin from Wildwinds here.

1st coin:
Antoninus Pius, 138-161
AE - Sestertius, 22.76 g, 33 mm
Obv.: ANTONINVS AVG PI - VS P P TR P COS III
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: OPI - AVG
         in ex. S C
        Ops enthroned l., left foot on footstool, holding long sceptre with right hand across right 
        shoulder and pulls the fold of her robe upwards from the shoulder with the left hand; left
        elbow bent and resting on the throne.
Ref.: RIC 612, pl.V, 105; C. 569; BMCR 1258; Sear 4197
rare, VF, brown patina

Pedigree:
ex Roma Numismatics Auction XII, Sept. 2016.

Finding out the true character of Ops turned out to be unexpectedly difficult. The reason was that her original meaning is obscured and that she was later connected to the Greek Rhea. I have therefore omitted all mythological references to Rhea.

Iconography:
Here Ops is correctly depicted seated, as befits a chthonic deity.

Etymology:
The Latin ops, opis (f.) is related to the Old Indian "apnas" = yield, belongings, and the Greek "ομπνη" = crops.  It means:
in the singular:  1. power, strength, fortune, 2. help, assistance, and in the plural: 1. means, fortune, wealth, 2. troop power, armed forces

Mythology:
Ops, with full name Ops Mater (Varro), is an ancient Roman deity of the oldest religious order. Her cult is said to have been introduced into Rome under Titus Tatius, the co-king of Romulus, and to be of Sabinic origin. She is a personification of the rich abundance of harvest blessings and is therefore cultically connected with the harvest god Consus.

This connection is, however, obscured by the fact that the ancient authors already transferred the Greek ideas of Kronos and Rhea to Ops and associated her with Saturnus. This was supported by the idea that the temple of Saturn on the Forum was dedicated to both deities. But today the inscription Opi(s) et Saturni has turned out to be a forgery.

The affiliation of Ops and Consus is proven by the fact that Consiva, the epithet of Ops, refers to her as Consus' comrade. Even if this epiclesis does not come directly from Consus, it is derived from the Latin condere (= to store, to save). Thus it is clear that Ops does not belong to the seed god Saturnus, but to the harvest god Consus. This is also proven by the position of her two festivals in the old Roman calendar. While the feasts of Consus fall on 21 August, the end of the harvest, and 15 December, the end of threshing, they are followed by the feasts of Ops, on 25 August Opiconsivia and on 19 December Opalia, both only 4 days apart.

A third feast day on 10 August was added to the festival calendar in 7 AD to commemorate the foundation of altars to Ceres mater and Ops augusta. The epithet augusta is only found on weight inscriptions (see below), on an inscription from Theveste in Numidia and on coins of Antoninus Pius.

Coins of Pertinax depict her as a seated woman with ears of corn in her hand and bear the legend Opi divin(ae), probably as a designation of the harvest wealth sent by the gods, if it is understood as "divine help". These very coins have given rise to a number of forged writings with the consecration Opi divinae (Roscher).

2nd coin:
Pertinax, 193 AD.
AE - Sestertius, 28.21g
Obv.: IMP CAES P HELV - PERTINAX AVG
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: OPI DIVIN - TR P COS II
         in left and right field S - C
         Ops enthroned l., holding ears of grain in her right hand and supporting
         himself on the throne with his left hand.
Ref.: RIC 20; Cohen 34; BMC 42; Sear 6054
Extremely rare

Pedigree:
ex Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 51, Lot 341, March 2009.

In the Roman provinces we know of only two places with the cult of Ops. Theveste, already mentioned, and Lambaesis, also in Numidia. Here, however, Ops Regina, just like Saturnus Dominus, is only the Latin name for a native Punic deity.

The unification of Saturnus and Ops into a pair of gods, which is not founded in Roman religion but is common in literature, dates only from the time when the Roman cult experienced a complete Hellenisation, from the beginning of the 2nd Punic War. After Saturnus had been identified with Kronos, it was obvious to equate Rhea with Ops. The December festivals of Saturnus and Ops were close to each other and Rhea was also an earth goddess.

The phrase Ops terra est (Ops is the earth) is found several times and means that Ops is called Terra because all human works are produced by the earth. Therefore Saturnus and Ops were regarded as principes dei, as heaven and earth, and Ops was also equated with other earth goddesses, especially with Bona Dea. The equation with Rhea, however, is as old as Roman literature.

Other interpretations, such as that she, as earth, belonged to the deities of the newborn, have nothing to do with actual religious practice. Also, that Ops was the actual patron goddess of Rome, whose name was kept secret, is only a learned construction based on the mystery surrounding the worship of Ops in the Sacrarium of the Regia.

Consus
Etymologically, Consus comes from Latin. condere (= to hide, and, as in German, to conceal). He is therefore not a god of sowing, but a god who hides the harvested crops in the barns.

Consus was an ancient Italian chthonic earth and seed god whose altar lay underground in Rome's Circus maximus and was only uncovered on his main festivals celebrated by shepherds and peasants, the Consualia, on 20 Aug (after the harvest) and 15 Dec (after the end of threshing!). On the former feast, the robbery of the Sabine women is said to have taken place (Livius); on the latter, the draught animals, horses and mules, also celebrated with the people. Their heads were wreathed and the pontifices held races in the circus, especially of mules. This is why Roman authors mistakenly equated Consus with the Greek horse god Poseidon. This is also the case with Livius, who speaks of a festival of Neptune in connection with the robbery of the Sabine women. He was even sometimes called Neptunus Equestris (Greek Poseidon Hippios).

According to the legend, Consus was the god who gave Romulus the advice to rob the Sabine women. Therefore he was considered the god of secret plots. But this is only one of the many misinterpretations. The Roman authors have mistakenly combined the name Consus with the Latin consilium = advice (so Servius).

The temples of Ops
There must have been at least 3 temples of ops in Rome:

(1) In the older times the only place of worship of the Ops was the Sacrarium of the Regia.  In ancient Rome the Regia was a building on the east side of the Forum Romanum next to the temple of Vesta. It originally belonged to the property of the kings, then around 509 BC, when the monarchy was abolished, it became the seat of the Rex sacrorum, who had taken over the sacral functions of the king, and then of the Pontifex Maximus. It was thus the site of the Collegium, the assembly of the pontifices.

According to tradition, the Regia was built under Numa Pompilius, the legendary second king of Rome. Today's remains come from a restoration in 36 BC. At that time, the Regia was a five-sided house. It burned down several times, but was always rebuilt.

Inside was a sanctuary of Mars in which the twelve lances and shields of the Salians (from Latin salire = "to leap") were kept. In addition, the Regia also contained a sanctuary of the Ops Consivia, which was so sacred that only the pontifex and the vestal virgins were allowed to enter. In honour of the goddess, a harvest thanksgiving festival was held every year on 23 August on the Capitol. The annals of the city were also stored here.

Photo:
Square of the former Regia on the Forum, Wikipedia (at the end of the article)

(2) Only later did the goddess receive a temple on the Capitol. It stood in the square in front of the temple of Iuppiter Optimus Maximus next to the temple of Fides. This temple was first mentioned in 186 BC as aedes in Capitolio in connection with a lightning strike (Livius). It collapsed several times and was rebuilt. According to a remark by Cicero, the statue of Scipio Africanus stood here.

Gaius Iulius Caesar deposited the state treasure of 700 million sesterces in the Temple of Ops on the Capitol. Marcus Antonius is said to have appropriated this treasure after Caesar's death. Georg Ürodgi 1978 wanted to disprove this by purely technical considerations.

During the secular celebrations (ludi saeculares) in 17 BC, the matronae gathered in the temple, and in 80 AD, the Arval brothers. On the walls of the temple hung civic awards to soldiers, and inside were kept the standard weights of the State, including a bronze weight with the inscription templ(um) Opis aug(ustae) (Roscher). This proves that the goddess worshipped here assumed the epithet augusta in the course of the imperial period.

The day of inauguration fell on the feast of Opiconsivia on 25 August. It was still in use during the 4th century and was finally closed during the persecution of the pagans by the Christian emperors in the late Roman Empire.

Remains found near the church of Sant'Omobono (along with column remains, remains of a podium and a large female marble head, probably from an acroterion) had previously been identified as parts of the Temple of the Ops. Now it is believed that they are more likely to be from the temple of Fides, as a bilingual inscription in Greek and Latin has been found next to it and parts of a contract between Asia minor and the Roman Senate - and Fides was the goddess of diplomatic relations.

Photo:
Aedes Opis in Capitolio, Wikipedia (at the end of the article)

(3) In addition, there must have been a third temple of Ops; for Pliny, in an account of L. Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus, who was elected pontifex maximus between 123 and 114 BC, writes of an aedes Opiferae. This is also evident from a note in the lists of the Fasti for 19 December: Opal(ia); feriae Opi . Opi ad Forum. Ops on the Capitol, however, was never called Opifera. Therefore this temple must have stood on the Forum.

Ops opifera is otherwise only mentioned once again at the Volcanalia (to ward off the conflagrations) appointed by Augustus on 23 August, when sacrifices are made to her on the Forum. This is understandable because a fire is especially feared when the harvest is already stored. Afterwards, the foundation day of the older temple on the Capitol with the Opiconsivia was combined with that of the younger temple of the Ops opifera [in foro] with the Opalia.

Nothing more is known about the festive customs for Ops. We only learn that the sacrarium of the Ops Consiva, located in the Regia, could only be entered by the vestal virgins and the pontifex maximus. Their cult was secretive and closed and had a parallel in that the altar of Consus, located at the Circus maximus, lay underground and was only uncovered at festival time. All typical characteristics for chthonic deities.

The statement that vows were made to Ops while sitting and touching the earth, however, probably refers not to the Roman goddess but to Rhea, who was later equated with her.

Art History:
I have added the following illustrations (both from Wikipedia):
(1) An image of the marble statue of Livia Drusilla as Ops, with sheaf of grain and cornucopiae, Roman, 1st century AD, now in the Louvre. Since Ops is depicted standing, it is not the old, original deity.  Here it has clear echoes of Abundantia.

(2) This is also the case with the following oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), "Abundantia", ca. 1630, today in the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, in which the putti are enjoying the fruits from the cornucopia. Under the right foot a purse. This painting is probably the preparatory study for a tapestry.

Sources:
(1) Livius, Ab urbe condita
(2) Macrobius, Saturnalia
(3) Cicero, de Natura deorum
(4) Cicero, Letters to Atticus
(5) Pliny, Naturae Historia
(6) Sextus Pompeius Festus, On the Meaning of Words.

Literature:
(1) The Kleiner Pauly
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (online too)
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (online too)
(4) Theodor Mommsen, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL)
(5) Georg Ürodgi, Caesar, Marcus Antonius and the Public Money Stored in the Temple of Ops, 1978.
(6) Der KleineStowasser, Lateinisches Schulwörterbuch,1960
(7) Gemoll, Griechisches Schul- und Handwörterbuch

Online sources:
(1) zeno.org
(2) theoi.com
(3) wildwinds.com
(4) nabkal.de/romtag.html
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 31, 2022, 09:40:10 am
Diktys and Danae 

I have already written about Perseus. Here is a rare coin showing him together with Diktys, who saved him and his mother Danae. This gives me the opportunity to write about this not so well known part of the mythology of Perseus, and about his mother, the beautiful Danae.

1st coin:
Cilicia, Tarsos, Caracalla, 198-217
AE 34, 18.3g, 33.64mm
Av.: AVT KAI M CEVHPOC ANTΩNEINOC CEB
        in left and right field Γ- B
        in r. field one below the other AM / K 
     Perseus stg. r., holding harpa in lowered right hand and statuette of Apollo Lykeios
     with 2 wolves in his raised left hand, greeting fisherman Diktys, who is walking r. and looking back to the left, carrying with both hands a long pole with a fish hanging from the lower end and a basket from the upper end.
Ref.: Cox Adana Museum 189 in ANS NNM 92, 189 (from where I have taken the legends)
F+, extremely rare, only 1 ex. listed in Ancient Coin Search, sold in 2011 at CNG Auction 88, lot 1009, for $4000!

Notes:
(1) Demiurge office: the Demiurge was one of the most important officials of the city in Tarsos. His main duty was to manage the financial affairs of the city. Caracalla held this office on an honorary basis on the occasion of a large grain donation in 216, because his troop deployments to the east had also placed a heavy burden on the provincial capital of Tarsos.
(2) Tarsos was probably the city that advertised its titles the most. Thus it received the additional designations
AΔPIANOC under Hadrian, CEVHPIANOC under Septimius Severus and ANTΩNEINIANOC under Caracalla. On coins even the name ANTΩNEINOΠOLIC appears!
(3) AM / K stand for the Greek A = ΠPΩTH (the first), M = MEΓICTH (the greatest) and K = KAΛΛICTH (the most beautiful).
(4) Γ B are the Greek numerical values 3 and 2 and mean: the 3 administrative districts of Cilicia, Isauria and Lycaonia which belonged to Tarsos, and the 2 tempels of the imperial cult which Tarsos possessed. 

The mythological background is clearly clarified by the image of Perseus. However, there are other coins of a fisherman, with exactly the same fishing gear.

2nd coin:
Cilicia, Anazarbos, Gordian III, 238-244.
AE 31, 17.94g, 201°.
struck 242/3 (year AXC = 261)
Obv.: AVT K M ANTΩNINOC ΓOPΔIANOC CE
          Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r. 
Rev.: ANAZAPBO - V ENDOΞ MHTPO
          Fisherman, in working clothes and wearing Phrygian cap, seated on rock l.,
          head  turned r., supporting himself with left hand and holding fishing gear in '
          raised right hand.
          in l. and r. field Γ - B
          in ex. ET AΞC
Ref.: SNG of Aulock 8668; SNG Levante 1486; SNG Paris II, 2108; Lindgren 1441; BMC Lycaonia etc. 37, no.31
extremely rare, F+/ almost VF, attractive contrasting patina.
Legends taken from Ziegler, Coins of Cilicia from Smaller German Collections, p.143, no.1114/5 (same die!).
Without a mythological reference, this is a rare depiction of an ancient craft.

Danae:
Danae (Greek = the Danae) was the daughter of the Argive king Akrisios and Eurydike (Apollodor) or Aganippe (Hyginus). Since Akrisios wanted a son, but was already of advanced age, he consulted the Delphic Oracle. The oracle warned him against a male offspring: Danae would bear a son who would kill him. Thereupon he locked Danae in an iron room under the earth and had her closely guarded. This was to be seen for a long time in Argos, until the tyrant Perilaos had it destroyed (Pausanias). But Zeus, who had fallen in love with her, came to her through the roof as golden rain and seduced her, and she bore him Perseus.

When Akrisios once heard the voice of the boy Perseus playing from the Thalamos and thus learned that his daughter had nevertheless given birth, he killed the nurse, but carried the daughter with her son to the altar of Zeus, where she was to swear the truth about her father. He did not believe his daughter's statement that it was Zeus. He suspected his brother Proitos, with whom he had already quarrelled in the womb. Not wanting to kill his daughter, he had her and Perseus locked in a wooden box and thrown into the sea. But Zeus held his hand over them.

Diktys:
Diktys (Greek = the net) was a fisherman and brother of King Polydektes (Greek = the all-grabber) on the small Cycladic island of Seriphos in the Aegean Sea. Both were sons of Magnes with a naiad, Naias Seriphia, an unnamed spring nymph on Seriphos (perhaps a daughter of the river god Peneios in Thessaly). She had fled Magnesia in Thessaly together with her two sons. Through the water she brought with her, she made the island habitable for humans (Apollodor). According to others, Diktys and Polydektes were descendants of Poseidon with Kerebria (Joannes Tzetzes ad Lykophron) or of Peristhenes, the grandson of Nauplios, with Androthoe, the daughter of Perikastor (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod.).

One day the sea washed a large box onto the beach. Diktys covered it with his net and when he opened it, he found Danae and her son Perseus safe and sound. He brought them both into his house and treated them like his relatives. Perseus he brought up as his own son and took care of Danae.

Their further fate:
There are several variants of the further story, for example by Hyginus. This is the version of Apollodor. 
But now Polydektes fell in love with Danae and tried to force her to marry him. Since Perseus stood in his way, he tried to get rid of him. He pretended to want to marry Hippodameia, for whom he still needed a wedding gift. Each guest was to donate a horse to him. Since Perseus had no horse, he promised to fetch him the head of Medusa, which was known to petrify all who saw it.

When Perseus happily returned to Seriphos sooner than expected with the head of Medusa and his wife Andromeda, who had been won in Ethiopia, he found Danae and Perseus begging for protection at the altars where they had had to flee from the violence and lust of Polydektes. Perseus freed them by showing the head of Medusa to Polydektes and his friends, who were sitting at a feast, and turned them all into stone. Since then, Seriphos has been one of the rockiest islands in the Cyclades. Afterwards, Diktys was installed as king of the island by Perseus (Pindar). Visitors to the island are still shown this circle of rocks (Pausanias).

Perseus went to Argos and Danae followed her son and stayed there with her mother Eurydike, while Perseus went in search of Akrisios. The latter had fled to Larissa in Pelasgia out of fear of the oracle. There Perseus had been invited to the funeral celebrations held by King Teutames in honour of his dead father and took part in the pentathlon. When he had thrown a discus into the air, it was deflected by the wind and the will of the gods in such a way that it fell on the foot of Akrisios and killed him. Thus the oracle had been fulfilled even against the will of Perseus. A heroon was erected to Akrisios.

In Athens Perseus had a sacred precinct (Temenos), in which there was an altar to Diktys and Klymene (about whom I have found nothing else), who had saved Perseus (Pausanias).

Background:
In Christian times, Danae was regarded on the one hand by the Church Fathers as the epitome of venal love, but in the Middle Ages as a symbol of shamefulness and as a prefiguration, a foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary, since she had conceived without a husband. This second conception is still alive in J. Grossaert's painting of 1527 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), in which Danae is dressed in the blue that corresponds to the rules for Mary.

More often, however, Danae was seen as the woman who fell for the temptation of gold, with which everything can be bought.

In addition, this myth also shows that no human caution can help against fate. In-so-far, the fate of Akrisios is a tragedy in the ancient sense.

Literary history:
A poignant "Lamentation of Danae" by Simonides of Kos (557/6-468/7 BC) has survived.

Then, of course, the great tragedians took up this theme. Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) wrote the satyr play "Diktyoulkoi" (= The Net Pullers) in the first half of the 5th century, Sophocles (497/6-406/5 B.C.) composed an "Akrisios" and by Euripides (480 or 485/4-406 BC) there was a trilogy of tragedies of which "Danae" is lost and "Diktys" is only preserved in fragments.

Art history:
Art loved the Danae myth. Danae was depicted clothed in vase painting and naked in Pompeian wall painting (House of G. Rufus). In the Renaissance and Baroque, Danae was a popular subject in the visual arts, as it gave artists the opportunity to present an unclothed woman. Here is a small list of artists who have painted a "Danae":

(1) Correggio (1489-1534): "Danae", 1531 (Rome, Galeria Borghese)
(2) Titian (1488/90-1576) painted a whole series of 6 versions. 
(3) Tintoretto (1518-1594), "Danae", 1570, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon
(4) Oracio Gentileschi (1563-1639), "Danae", 1623, Cleveland Museum of Art
(5) Rembrandt (1606-1669), "Danae", 1636, Hermitage,  St. Petersburg, later reworked by him. This  painting was the subject of a serious attack in 1985.
And from more recent times:
(6) Gustav Klimt (1867-1918), "Danae", 1907, Galerie Würthle, Vienna
By Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), there is the ornamental bronze figure "Danae and Perseus" at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.

I have attached the following pics:
(1) The first image shows Danae and the golden shower of Zeus. It is found on a Boiot red-figure bell crater from the period 450-435 B.C. Today it can be seen in the Louvre in Paris.

(2) The second scene shows Danae and her little son Perseus exposed in a chest at sea. They are surrounded by a flock of seagulls. Attic red-figure leucythos, attributed to the Icarus Painter, c.490 BC, Late Archaic/Early Classical, now in the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design in New York (detail).

(3) The last ancient representation is an Attic red-figure Leukythus, attributed to the Providence Painter, c. 480-470 BC, Early Classical, now in the Museum of Art in Toldeo, Spain. King Akrisios is seen on the right, ordering his daughter and her son Perseus to be set adrift in a box at sea. The infant Perseus is already sitting in the box while Danae prepares to climb in.

(4) Of the Renaissance painters, I chose the painting by Corregio because I like so much the two putti checking the gold for authenticity at the bottom right.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Iliad
(2) Apollodor, Library
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Hyginus, Fabulae
(5) Pausanias, Periegesis

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Extensive Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology
(3) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology
(5) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen, 2000.

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) acsearch.info
(3) wildwinds.com
(4) Wikimedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 12, 2022, 01:43:18 pm
Thanatos - Brother of Sleep

The beautiful image of death as the brother of sleep already occurs in Homer's Iliad, where death is described as "brazen sleep", or in the Odyssey, where the Phaiaks "bring their husband home in a deep sleep quite similar to death". This is in accordance with the Homeric doctrine of the soul, according to which the soul, as a double of the living human being, leaves the body during sleep and death. The only difference is that during sleep it returns to the body, whereas at death it leaves it for good.

The ancients imagined the soul as a "soul bird". In the drawing of the Piot Amphora from Capua (today in the Louvre in Paris), the body of Memnos is carried away from Troy by two warriors, whom the artist has given wings as a reminiscence of the twins Thanatos and Hypnos. Above the mouth of the dead man rises the "soul bird". A conception that existed similarly with the soul bird Ba in ancient Egypt. This pre-Homeric ghost of the soul was originally probably the soul of someone else coming to take that of someone else (Roscher).

Later the soul was seen as a butterfly, and in representations it was given into the hand of Thanatos, which is often seen in vase paintings. This may come from the fact that in Greek the butterfly is called psyche.

In fact, Thanatos (Latin mors, feminine by the way!) is not a mythological figure.  He belongs to a group of pre-Olympic deities, such as Moira, Ate, Ker (the doom of death) or Nemesis, who were regarded by the Greeks as more powerful than the gods and whom the gods also had to obey. The great Wilamowitz writes: "Thanatos is not a person of faith, neither as the twin brother of Sleep, nor as the henchman of Hades who wrests Alcestis from Heracles, nor as the comic person in the tale of Sisyphus."

Only Hesiod invents a lineage so that everything has its order. He gives Nyx (the Night) as mother to Death and Hypnos, who brings forth evil fortune from within herself, as well as Moros (the male form of Moira) and Ker. Hyginus gives him Erebos ín addition as father, and Sleep and Death receive Tartarus as their home. They were δεινοί θεοί (terrible gods) whom the shining sun never looks upon; but while the one walks over the earth calm and friendly to men, the mind of the other is of iron. Whom he has once seized, he holds fast without pity. Therefore he is also hateful to the immortal gods.

Since Homer said that his twin brother was Hypnos, sleep, they are depicted side by side on statues (Pausanias). Thanatos with black wings and in black clothing (Horace), Sleep in white. In his hand he has a wreath and a butterfly. An actual cult is not known. According to Pausanias, there was a temple only in Sparta, and a temple is known from Gades where animal sacrifices were also made to him.

In the dramatists, Thanatos also became the redeemer from suffering, for example in Sophokles' "Philoktetes", who longed for death. And even in the death of Socrates, he did not frighten him, but was seen almost as a friend. Life is illness, death is recovery.

Nevertheless, Thanatos, probably "because of the transparency of his name", always retained "something of a pale abstraction, something wavering and, as it were, bloodless" (Heinemann). He writes of the dramatists: "it is as if the process of personification in Thanatos had to be carried out anew by the poet in each individual case, and he never becomes a truly formed figure to such a degree as even Nike and Eros".

In popular belief, Thanatos increasingly takes a back seat to Charon. In mythology, Charon was originally the ferryman across the Acheron. In later times he became the Greek god of death par excellence. It is he who is found in large numbers on the sarcophagi.

Outsmarting death:
The outwitting of death, which has fairy-tale features, occurs in all the fairy tales of the world. In Greek mythology there are the following tales:

Asklepios was so well instructed in healing by Cheiron that he was even able to bring the dead back to life. Among them were Glaukos and Lykurgos. This angered Hades, who saw his kingdom threatened, so that he complained to Zeus about him. And Zeus killed Asklepios with his thunderbolt. Angered by the murder of his son, Apollo then killed the Cyclopes from whom Zeus had received his thunderbolt.

The tragedy "Alkestis" by Euripides is about vicarious death for another and being brought back from the underworld. After the murder of the Cyclopes, Apollo had been condemned by Zeus to tend the flocks with King Admetes. Since Admetes proved to be benevolent, Apollo rewarded him with being able to postpone his death by having a deputy go to his death for him. When Death goes to fetch his beloved consort Alkestis, Apollo announces to him that Herakles will free Alkestis again. Despite reproaching Admetes for not having gone to her death himself instead of Alkestis, Herakles succeeds in bringing Alkestis back from the underworld. Euripides tells how Herakles defeats Thanatos in a wrestling match at Alkestis' grave.

Sisyphus is said to have entered the underworld 2x. It is said that before his death he asked his wife not to bury him. After his death, he then complained about this injustice to Hades, who finally allowed him to return to the upper world to call his wife to account. Sisyphus, however, did not think of going back to Hades, so Hades had to commission Hermes to bring Sisyphus back. Thereupon he was punished to roll a stone up a high mountain for eternity, which then rolled down again.

According to Eukleides of Megara, Thanatos is said to have been deaf and blind so that he could not be dissuaded from his duty by beauty or entreaty. This was also true of Charon, who once spared a beautiful girl on Lesbos and was therefore punished by Zeus with blindness, deafness and lameness.

Art history:
(1) Vase images of Thanatos were numerous in antiquity, where death was man's constant companion. One of the most famous images is found on the so-called, "Euphronios krater", a red-figure calyx krater signed by Euxitheos, the potter, and Euphronios, the painter, ca, 515 BC, formerly in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, now back in Cerveteri, the original site. It shows a scene from the Trojan War in which the body of the Lykian king Sarpedon is carried away by Hypnos (left) and Thanatos (right) while Hermes looks on. This scene from Homer's Iliad Book XVI, is the source for the idea of sleep and death as twin brothers.

(2) Something special is found on the column relief of the Artemision of Ephesus. Thanatos is depicted on the left with his sword sheathed and a butterfly(?) in his right hand, and Hermes Psychopompos (the soul guide) on the right with his kerykeion lowered, both escorting Alkestis between them into the underworld. Here Thanatos is depicted for the first time as a youth in the pose of Eros!

This depiction takes up the beautiful coin from Berytos in the collection of featherz (Forum Ancient Coins). Thanatos in the depiction of the youth from the Ephesian Artemision and Hermes Psychopompos have accompanied a soul to the underworld and are now resting. This is the only coin that actually depicts Death.

1st coin:
Phoenicia, Berytos, Elagabal, 218-222
AE 30
Obv.: IMP CAES M AVR - ANTONINVS AVG
         Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind laureate, r.
Rev.: COL - IVL - AVG FEL BER
         Thanatos, nude, winged, standing r., left foot on rock, holding burning torch down in right hand, left resting on left thigh, facing Hermes standing left, nude, right foot on rock, holding kerykeion down in left hand
coll. featherz, Forum Ancient Coins

(3) The numerous genii of the imperial period with the torch lowered or extinguished and the putto-like representations of Eros on coins no longer have anything to do with the Thanatos of legend and popular belief (Pauly).

2nd coin:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, 193-211.
AE 16, 2.24g, 16.09mm, 225°.
Obv.: AV KAI - CEVHPOC
        Laureate head r.
Rev.: NIKOΠOΛI - T ΠPOC ICTP.
         Eros, winged, with crossed legs srg. r., leaning on an upturned torch.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG:
            Rev. AMNG I/1, 1368 (depiction)
                   AMNG I/1, 1384 (legend)
            Obv. e.g. AMNG I/1, 1348
         b) not in Varbanov
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) No. 8.14.16.11   

Francis Jarman: Eros and Thanatos
A major annoyance is that the figure of the putto-like Eros with the torch is still referred to as Thanatos or the Genius of Death, even by eminent numismatists. Francis Jarman, to whom we owe the fundamental work on Eros on coins, has traced the history of this misunderstanding. And in doing so, he has come across the German classical period, which had developed an idealised idea of ancient Greece since Winckelmann's "Edle Einfalt und stille Größe". The significance of the prevailing aestheticism played a major role in this. The idea of death as the twin brother of sleep was so fascinating that it pushed aside the brutal reality of death. Important personalities such as Lessing and Herder ensured the widespread dissemination of this reception, which then radiated through German Romanticism, and not only in Germany.  But Death is not a cherubic angel, apart from the fact that his representation on the Severan coins would make no sense.

Superstitions:
An interesting side note: Since Θ (= 9) was an abbreviation for the Greek thanatos, it was subject to a taboo, like 13 in our days, which also does not exist as the number of a hotel room. So on this coin from Antioch Θ, the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet, was replaced by ΔE, which as 4+5 also makes 9. But there were also AH and IX, or N (for novem) in Rome.

3rd coin:
Constantine I the Great, 307-337
AE 3, 2.63g, 18.56mm, 330°.
Antioch, 9th Offizin, 329-30
Obv.: CONSTANT - INVS MAX AV
         Bust, draped and cuirassed, wearing rosette diadem, r.
Rev.: PROVIDEN - TIAE AVG
         So-called. Camp gate, with 2 towers and without gate
         above star
         in l. and r. field Δ - E (for officina 9!)
         in ex. SMANT
Ref.: RIC VII, Antioch 84
Very rare (R5), almost SS, sand patina, patina damage on top of Rev.

Notes:
(1) The Aithiopis was an epic poem describing events at the end of the Trojan War that Homer had not covered. These include the battles of the Amazons before Troy, Penthesilea's fight with Achilles, the intervention of the Aithiopians under King Memnon in the war, and the quarrel between Ajas and Odysseus after the death of Achilles. Unfortunately, it has not been preserved.
(2) Eukleides of Megara (c. 450 - between 369/367 BC) was a Greek philosopher and founder of the Megarian school. He was a student of Socrates and is said to have been present at his death. The central theme of his philosophy seems to have been goodness, but his writings are lost. 

Sources:
(1) Homer, Iliad
(2) Homer, Odyssey
(3) Aithiopis
(4) Hesiod, Theogony
(5) Hyginus, Fabulae
(6) Pausanias, Periegesis
(7) Cicero, De Natura Deorum

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythology (also online)
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (also online)
(3) The Little Pauly
(4) Patricia Lawrence, Wings, Daimonia, Asomata: The Embodiment of the Bodiless (more relevant to numismatics than they may seem)
(5) Francis Jarman, Eros and Thanatos, 2011

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 15, 2022, 01:58:02 pm
The myth of Apollo and Daphne

The myth of Daphne is probably one of the best-known stories of ancient Greece. But first my coin:

The coin:
Mysia, Apollonia ad Rhyndacum, Commodus, 177-192.
AE 27, 6.91g, 26.5mm
Obv.: [AV KAI M AVPHΛIOC - KOMMOΔOC]
Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r.
Rev.: A - ΠOΛΛΩNI - ATΩN.
Apollo, nude, with waving chlamys advancing l., holding bow(?) in lowered left hand, grasping branch with raised right hand; on left before him Daphne kneeling l., head turned r., embraces a laurel tree with both arms
Ref.: RPC online IV.3 No. 450.3 corr. (this coin, but mistakenly adopting the description of No. 450.2); von Fritze Mysia 268; F.W. Haslick, NC 1907, 440, no. 20 Very rare (1 of 3 known specimens), F+/almost VF, brown patina.
Pedigree:
Lanz Numismatik

Notes:
The RPC IV.2 coin has a slightly different rev. design and legend separation. The obv. legend also appears to be slightly different: possibly AVPHLIOC?
The coins all show the scene where the transformation of Daphne has not yet begun.

Mythology:
There are several versions of this mythology. The most beautiful and poetic one is by Ovid. Therefore, I will at least put its content at the beginning:

Apollo is known in mythology for liking to chase nymphs. Daphne was his first love. The reason for this, however, was the wrath of Cupid. Apollo had seen him draw his bow after his victory over the python and made fun of him: he should leave archery to real men. Cupid replied: "You can hit anything with your bow, but I can hit you!" Then he drew two arrows from his quiver with opposite effects: the gold-plated one produced passionate love, but the leaden one disgusted love. With this one he hit the nymph Daphne, the daughter of Pineus. The gold-plated one he shot at Apollo. Daphne roamed the woods with the virgin Phoebe (Diana) and hunted animals. Many suitors sought her, but she fled them all. Her father urged her to marry because he wanted grandchildren. She finally got him to recognise her wish for lifelong virginity.

When Apollo caught sight of her, he was immediately enamoured of her. With flattering speeches he tried to beguile the terrified woman who was fleeing from him and raved about her beauty. These seductive speeches during his chase are the focus of Ovid's verse. When Apollo reached her on the banks of the Pineus and she saw no way out, she called desperately to her father to destroy her beauty. At the same moment she was transformed into a laurel tree. Apollo's love, however, was still not finished. He embraced the branches and kissed the tree, which avoided him. Then he put the laurel on his head in memory of Daphne.

The versions report different origins of Daphne:
(a) The nymph Daphne is the daughter of the river god Pineios (lat. Pineus) of the river of the same name in Thessaly and of Gaia (Hyginus; this was adopted by Ovid).
b) She is the daughter of the river god Ladon in Arcadia and of Gaia (Tzetzes ad Lycophr.)
c) She is the daughter of Amyklas, king of Sparta and founder of Amyklai (Parthenios of Nikaia).
d) In her flight she had reached Antiocheia in Syria, where her transformation then took place.

Notes:
(1) Since all the river gods are sons of Okeanos and Tethys, in this case she is a granddaughter of Okeanos.
(2) Amyklai is one of the oldest ancient cities on the Greek mainland. Already in Mycenaean times Hyakinthos, the lover of Apollo, was cultically worshipped there. After the conquest by the Spartans around 800 BC, the "Throne of Apollo" was erected there with a colossal statue of Apollo (Pauly).
(3) The inhabitants of Antiocheia in Syria claimed that Daphne was a native of their country and still displayed in their suburb the laurel tree into which she was transformed. This suburb is called Daphne after her and was in ancient times a city of the rich and beautiful. Pausanias still saw the sanctuary of Apollo Daphnaios there. The "Grove of Daphne" still exists there today.
(4) Johannes Tzetzes (c. 1110 - c. 1180) was a Byzantine grammarian. The Allegorias mythologicas, physicas, morales are known from him. He is also said to have been the author of the Commentary on Lykophron. Through his extensive commentary on classical authors, much information on Greek literature of the Classical and Hellenistic periods has been preserved.

The version by Parthenios:
The oldest version of the Daphne myth is by Parthenios from Nikaia, who refers to Diodorus and Phylarchus. Later it was adopted by Pausanias.

In Parthenios, Daphne was the daughter of Amyklas, the king of Sparta (in Pausanias, the daughter of the river god Ladon). Her only pleasure was hunting and therefore she was especially loved by Artemis. She had sworn virginity to her and kept away from men and love.

Leukippos ("the one with the white horses"), the son of Oinomaos, king of Pisa, a countryside in the western Peloponnese, fell in love with her and, seeing no other way to approach her, he let his hair grow long and disguised himself as a woman. In this way he managed to win the friendship of Daphne. She did not see through the deception and he became her best friend.

But Apollo had also fallen in love with Daphne and was jealous of Leukippos. He gave Daphne the idea of bathing with her playmates. When they came to a river, the girls undressed, but Leukippos refused. When they forcibly undressed him, they saw that it was a man who had been living with them and immediately killed him with their spears. The story then continues with Apollo chasing Daphne as in Ovid, except that at the end Daphne begs Zeus, who turns her into a laurel tree.

Etymology:
Daphne is Greek for laurel. The explanation that daphne itself comes from δαιω (= I burn) and φωνη (= voice), because the laurel crackles in the fire (Eustath. ap. Gyrald), is only folk etymology.

Background:
The mythology of Daphne is quite clearly aetiological, i.e. it is meant to explain why the laurel is sacred to Apollo and why he has epithets such as Daphnaios, Daphnephoros or Daphnites. The river god Pineios may have entered the story because the area around the Pineios was known for its abundance of laurel. The quintessence that a virgin can gain eternal glory through chastity, as Hederich writes, sounds too much like Christian morality. Ultimately, this is also a story that shows the power of Eros, which is stronger than even the gods.

Palaiphatos
Palaiphatos tells us that Daphne, the daughter of the river Ladon and Gaia, at the end of her flight from Apollo, asked her mother to take her back to her and keep her as she had always been. And a rift opened and Gaia took her daughter to herself. In that place a plant (the laurel) sprang up immediately. It was taken up by Apollo who adorned his head with it

Art History:
The myth of Daphne has inspired numerous artists, usually focusing on the moment of transformation. I have chosen

(1) the floor mosaic from the house of Menander in Antioch, late 3rd century AD, today in the Princeton University Art Museum.
Daphne is depicted in the midst of transformation with branches of laurel reaching up from the earth to enfold. Apollo, reaching out to catch her, wears a radiant aureole, like a halo.

(2) The famous marble group "Apollo and Daphne" (c. 1625) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), which today stands in the Roman Villa Borghese.
The work was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese as the finale of Bernini's mythological sculpture group. It is worth circumventing this sculpture from behind in the opposite direction to the clockwise direction. Daphne is in the beginning of the transformation.

What is remarkable is the progression of the transformation, the further one follows the direction of the group of figures. Around her legs, rising up to her left hip, there is already tree bark.

(3) The painting "Apollo and Daphne", 1734/44, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, today in the Louvre/Paris.
Here the transformation into a laurel has already begun on the fingers. In the foreground is her father, the river god. In Apollo, Tiepolo has taken a liberty: Apollo is already wearing a laurel wreath!

Sources:
(1) Hyginus, Fabulae
(2) Nonnus, Dionysiaka
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Pausanias, Periegesis
(5) Parthenios von Nikaia, Erotica pathemata
(5) Plutarch, Parallelbiographien
(6) Palaiphatos, Unglaubliche Geschichten

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Karl Kerenji, Die Mythologie der Griechen
(5) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
(6) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague,Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, 2000

Online Sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia
(3) Wikimedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 20, 2022, 08:02:31 am
Enodia - The Thessalian Hekate

Already in our school days we have read with pleasure in Goethe's Faust, Part 2, the scene in the laboratory:

MEPHISTOPHELES leering.
Thessalian witches!  Well!  They are people,
For whom I have long inquired.
To dwell with them night after night,
I don't think it would be pleasant;
But to visit, try -


You can see Mephistopheles licking his lips! The following coin takes us right into this Thessalian witch world:

The coin:
Thessaly, Pherai, 353-352 BC (National Museums in Berlin).
AE 21 (trichalcone), 6.55g, 30°
Obv.: Head of the water nymph Hypereia with wreath of reeds 3/4 n. l.; in left field fish swimming upwards.
Rev.: ΦEPAIΩN
          Enodia, in long chiton, seated lady on horse, riding r.; holding long torch in front of body; in upper left ield, fountain in form of lion's head with water flowing from its mouth
Ref: BMC 22; SNG Copenhagen 247; BCD Thessaly II, 716; Hoover HGC 4, 565
VF, somewhat rough

Note:
The en face effigy of the nymph on the obverse is inspired by Syracusan coin designs. There the famous die engraver Kimon first showed the local nymph Arethusa in frontal view with her hair open.

Pherai:
Pherai was an ancient city in the Thessalian landscape of Pelasgiotis. Due to its location, Pherai dominated the port city of Pagasai and the Pagasitic Gulf, the only large bay in Thessaly connected to the Aegean only by a narrow strait. The city profited from the grain trade and trade in other goods, so that a prosperous middle class was able to form, in contrast to the other more agrarian cities of Thessaly.

Towards the end of the Peloponnesian War it became the seat of tyrannical rule. Lykophron of Pherai was the first to establish a thoroughly popular tyranny. In 404 BC, he succeeded in defeating the noble family of the Aleuads of Larissa. The Larissaians, however, enlisted Persian support and returned. These ongoing conflicts between the Larissaians and the tyrants of Pherai subsequently determined the political development of Thessaly. Later, Antiochos III of Syria conquered Pherai, but was soon forced to surrender it to the Romans. Today, only sparse remains of the ancient city can be seen, e.g. the Hypereia spring.

According to mythology, Pherai was founded by Pheres, the son of King Cretheus of Iolkos and Tyro. He was the father of Admetos, Lykurgos and the daughter Idomene. Admetos succeeded him on the throne. He is known among other things for the fact that Apollo had to serve him for 10 years after his banishment from Olympus. He was followed by his son Eumelos, who fought as leader of the Pheraeans and Iolians before Troy.

Hypereia:
Hypereia was the source nymph of the famous water spring of Pherai. She is already mentioned by Homer (Iliad 6, 457). Sophokles (Fragm. 911) writes of the water "which the gods love". Hera is said to have bathed in its crystal-clear, healing waters to restore her virginity. She is usually depicted as a lion's head from whose mouth the water emerges. This lion's head, which represents the spring's enclosure, also exists as a single depiction on coins:

2nd coin
Thessaly, Pherai, ca. 404-369 B.C.
AE 19 (dichalcon), 3.78g
Obv.: Laureate head of Enodia r.
Rev.: Fountain in the shape of a lion's head r.
Ref.: BCD Thessaly II, 689; HGC 4, 577
London Ancient Coins, Vcoins

This spring has been there since people settled there, from about 3000 BC, and since those times it bubbled in abundance until 1998, when it suddenly dried up. I have attached a picture from Ottoman times and a sad picture of the spring today, north of the town of Velestino.
(1) The "Hypereia krini" in Ottoman times
(2) The "Hypereia krini" near Velestino today.

According to Pindar, the name of the spring comes from Hyperes, the son of Melas and Eurykleia. Melas, in turn, was a son of Phrixos, the brother of Helle, after whose death the Hellespont was named.

Enodia:
For a long time it was assumed that Enodia was simply an epiklesis of Hekate. However, it is now believed that it is the ancient Thessalian goddess Enodia who took the name Hekate

Mythology:
Enodia is closely associated with Pherai. In the time of Pheres, the founder of Pherai, shepherds are said to have found her in the field and brought her to the city. So she grew up together with the city and became its patroness.

Her name comes from the Greek εν (= in, on) and οδος (= way), thus as much as "the one on the way". She is also spelled with Gemmination Ennodia I will stick with Enodia here though.

Her name says that she was a goddess of the streets, standing at crossroads and on the main road, watching over the entrances to the city, but also over the entrances to private houses. In this sense she was apotropaic as a tutelary goddess, as were Hekate or Hermes. She was even supposed to keep pestilence away. The fact that she is often found in cemeteries underlines her chthonic character. She was worshipped together with Zeus Meilichios, in some places even in a common sanctuary. Meilichios was also a chthonic deity, the Zeus in the underworld.

Her main place of worship was Pherai, especially before the 5th century BC. Since Pherai was an important city at that time, the cult of Enodia quickly spread to Thessaly, Southern Macedonia and even Thrace, where the epithet thea (Lat. dea = goddess) was often attached to her, a sign that she was actually an "immigrant goddess" there. But she became a Panthessalian goddess during this time. This was also related to the striving for a Thessalian sense of belonging. According to Polyainos, Enodia was a national deity during the Ionian migration. She was worshipped until Roman times, as can be seen from votive offerings to her.

The use of Enodia for the new Thessalian identity, which was to be created with the refoundation of the Confederation by Flaminius 196, failed, however, as it was not suitable for this purpose. It is completely absent on Thessalian coins from the post-Flaminian period. Thus the resolutions of the new covenant were also not published in a sanctuary of Enodia, neither in Pherai nor elsewhere in Thessaly. Nor is there any evidence of possible investment in one of her sanctuaries, and no month of the Thessalian calendar used after 196 seems to acknowledge and honour the goddess.

Identification with Hekate
Because of many similarities between the two goddesses, Enodia was identified with Hekate. They have in common the protection of the crossroads, the warding off of evil and animals such as the dog. Thus, Lucian describes the rites of Hekate as "rites of Enodia". Pausanias reports how a black puppy was sacrificed to Hekate-Enodia by the Spartans at night. In the 4th century, Hekate-Enodia was associated with spirits and seen as the cause of the "holy disease (perhaps epilepsy)".

According to Wilamowitz, however, Enodia belongs to the ancient Hellenic deities before the time of the Olympians. It was not until the spread of the cult of Hekate from Asia Minor to mainland Greece that she was worshipped in certain sanctuaries along with Hekate. He also pointed out her connection with children and the underworld, which was expressed in a variety of epithets. This was used especially by writers to establish a connection with Persephone, Hekate and Artemis.

But Wilamowitz already recognised the independent existence of a goddess Enodia, especially because she was common in Thessaly, where Hekate was absent. Her syncretisation with Artemis or Hekate took place outside Thessaly. There she was also referred to simply as Artemis Pheraia or just Pheraia.

Chrysostomou suspects that although the original character of the goddess was terrifying, she already developed in the classical period into a deity who served her worshippers in a variety of ways. And so Hekate, Artemis et al. were assimilated with Enodia and not Enodia with these goddesses.

The Enodia priestess Chrysame
In his "Strategemata", the Macedonian writer Polyainos tells the following about the wartime stratagem of the Thessalian Enodia priestess Chrysame: When, during the colonisation of Ionia by the Greeks, the Greek conqueror Cnopus of Kodridae fought the Ionians at Erythrai, he received the oracle saying "to take Chrysame the priestess of Enodia as general of the Thessalians." This he did, and Chrysame chose a large bull and mixed into its feed poisonous herbs that caused madness. When the two armies faced each other, she had an altar built and brought the magnificently decorated bull. But the bull broke out and attacked everything in its path. The Erythraeans took this as a good sign, caught the bull and sacrificed it to their gods. They divided the meat among themselves. But this was also poisoned and produced the same madness that afflicted their whole army. Then Chrysame ordered the enemy to attack, and the Erythraeans were cut down. Thus Cnopus came into possession of Erythrai. Thessaly was known for its witches, and especially for the use of herbs. Thessalian witches were said to be able to conjure up even the moon

Note:
Polyainos (Latin Polyaenus), * c. 100, was a Macedonian rhetor, lawyer and writer in Rome. Of his works, only the "Strategemata" have survived in their entirety, in which he dealt with military strategies and which he dedicated to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus so that they would avoid the mistakes of earlier commanders in their campaign against the Parthians.

Art History:
The iconographic type of Enodia appears regularly in Upper Macedonia from the Hellenistic to the late Roman period. It is identical to the images on the coins.
 (1) The first image shows the votive relief for Enodia from the 3rd century AD from Hagia Paraskevi (Elimeia) [Chrysostomou (1998), pl. 14Α]. Depicted is Enodia on a horse sitting side by side with a short torch and a dog accompanying her. The dog is a typical attribute of Hekate as well.

(2) The second picture shows a consecration gift with an inscription, also from this sanctuary. It is a marble relief from the time between the 2nd and 1st century B.C. Here Enodia stands in a long chiton (chiton pederes), which is girded cross-shaped under the breast, and with long sleeves and 2 torches in 3/4 view. A horse and a dog can also be seen. It was donated by a Ma (Μα[ς Μενάνδρου), today in the archaeological collection of Kozani.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Sophokles, Fragments (Loeb Classic Library)
(3) Apuleius, Metamorphoses
(4) Goethe, Faust 2.

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(3) Head, Historia numorum
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Wikipedia
(6) C.D.Graniger, The Regional Cults of Thessaly, 2006 (Dissertation)
(7) Kalliopi Chatzinikolaou, Locating Sanctuaries in Upper Macedonia According to Archaeological Data, in Kernos, Revue internationale et pluridisciplinaire de religion grecque antique, 23/2010
(8) Chrysostomou, P., Η θεσσαλική θεά Εν(ν)οδία ή Φεραία θεά, 1998
(9) Wilhelm Gemoll, Griechisch-deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch, 1954

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 25, 2022, 05:17:34 am
Hades

Hades, Ploutos, Pluto, Pluton and then Serapis are an almost inextricable group of underworld gods. Here I will try to untangle this tangle a little.

Hades was the eldest son of Kronos and Rhea and a brother of Zeus, Poseidon and Hera (Homer). Hesiod added Hestia and Demeter to him. He was swallowed by Kronos, as were all his children except Zeus, but was then broken out again by an emetic of Metis. According to some, it was also a stone that Zeus then had erected for worship at Delphi.

In the battle of the Titans, Hades sided with Zeus. He used the Hades cap, a camouflage cap that made him invisible. According to an older legend, he had been given this by the Cyclopes in gratitude for their liberation, just as Zeus was given the bundle of lightning and Poseidon the trident. After that, the world was divided: Zeus got the sky, Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld. Earth and Olympos were common property.

According to Homer, he was the implacable god of the underworld, his kingdom a place of terror and horror. It was as closed off as Zeus' heaven. That is why he was also called Zeus katachthonios, the subterranean Zeus.  His attribute was the sceptre.

His wife was Persephone, who was an equally implacable judge. But they only became judges in Aeschylos. Later genealogists also named Radamanthys, Minos and Sarpedon (or Aiakos) as judges of the underworld (Cicero, Ovid).

They did not form a family. The Furies were close to them, but could not have been his daughters, which they were later made to be.   

Hades does not actually appear in myths, since he knows nothing of Earth and Olympos in the underworld. He does not intervene in the human world.  There are only 2 stories in which he comes to the upper world, whereby the robbery of Persephone also only takes place at the command of Zeus.

(1) In the Homeric Hymns, the story is told of the robbery of Persephone, which had happened near Nysa, but whose geographical location is unclear. When Persephone/Kore was playing there in a flower meadow, the earth suddenly opened up and Hades came in a chariot with his 4 immortal black horses and abducted her into the underworld. Claudius Claudianus even knows the names of the horses:  Aethon, Alastor, Nykteus and Orphnaios.

Note:
Claudius Claudianus, born c. 370 probably in Alexandria - died after 404, was a late ancient Greek writer, court poet under Honorius and Stilicho. One of his most important works is the mythological epic "de raptu Proserpinae". Around 400, a statue was even erected for him on Trajan's Forum in Rome, the pedestal of which is still preserved.

1st coin:
Lydia, Maionia, Marcus Aurelius, 161-180.
AE 35, 24.70g, 0°
struck under the archon Quintus, who was 1st archon for the second time
Obv.: AVT KAIC - ANTΩNEINOC AVP
         Laureate bust r.    
Rev.: E-Π-I KVEINTOV B - AP - X A - MAIONIΩN.
         Hades, with clothes blowing in the wind, charging in quadriga  r., head turned l.,
         embracing the struggling Persephone, who has spread her arms in despair; r. beneath
         the horses  her fallen basket of flowers; above them the flying Eros.
Ref.: SNG by Aulock 3018
VF, pretty blue-green patina, flan crack at 7h.
Pedigree:
ex coll.  Marcel Burstein, Nevada
ex auction Peus 366, 2000

The second time there was a fight with Herakes at the gate to the underworld when he brought up Kerberos. In the process Hades was hit on the shoulder by an arrow from Herakes and had to be healed on Mount Olympos by Paion, the physician of the gods.

2nd coin:
Bithynia, Herakleia Pontika, Septimius Severus, 193-211.
AE 30, 17.23g, 30.09mm, 195°.
Obv.: .AV - T. - K.Λ.CEΠ.  - CEVHPOC Π
          Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
Rev.: HPAKΛHAC - EN ΠON - TΩ.
        Herakles, nude, lion skin over left arm, holding club with left hand over arm, standing frontally, head turned l., holding in his lowered right hand by a rope the three-headed Kerberos, who is sitting l.  beside him  r.  and looking up at him
Ref.: SNG of Aulock 378 (Obv. same die, Rev.  however different type; for Rev. cf. 397 for Macrinus); not in SNG Copenhagen, SNG Tübingen, SNG Lewis; not in Rec. Gen.
extremely rare, fig. almost SS, roughness on Vs.
Pedigree:
ex lanznumismatik, Ebay, 2007.

Later Ovid tells us that Hades fell in love with the nymph Menthe, who was transformed by Persephone out of jealousy into the spearmint (Mentha spicata). Another nymph, Leuke ("the White"), is said to have been transformed into the white poplar (Populus alba) after her death.

In the Suda, another daughter Makaria is given as the daughter of Hades and Persephone, who does not appear anywhere else. In contrast to Thanatos, she stands for blessed death. Etymologically (but not mythologically!) related is the Island of the Blessed, where today the Macaronesian Islands are understood to mean the Canary and surrounding islands. 

It is understandable that the fearfulness of his nature made him shy and afraid to speak his name. This gave rise to a multitude of euphemisms, e.g. "the many-absorber", where the many were the dead. Or "the great host". In the Odyssey, he was also the psychopompos who guided the dead into the underworld with his staff, like Hermes later on. He was also called Zagreus (= the great hunter), a name that later stood for Dionysos, "the honourable one" or even Euboulos the "benevolent one". As "gatekeeper" he possessed the key to the underworld, which he later gave to Aiakos.

These euphemisms are connected with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Under their influence, there was a complete transformation of the conception in the 5th century. Through the important role of Persephone, the god of the dead became a god of fertility and vegetative wealth. And this also required a new name: Hades became Plouton! He was the god who was responsible for grain, the source of prosperity, but also for the metals in the earth. He first appeared among the poets of the 5th century, where he was later also called Plouteus. His iconography included the cornucopia. Ploutos now represents the milder side of the chthonic powers and displaces Hades from this aspect until it sinks to a mere place name. In contrast to Hades, there were numerous cults for Ploutos and also theoxenia, guest banquets with the god.

Ploutos, the son of Demeter and Iasion (Hesiod), is to be strictly distinguished from Plouton. He is the figure of abundance and wealth, originally of the grain store stored underground. In Eleusis he had a naiskos and was worshipped as a "divine child", probably as an inheritor of Minoiscan ideas. His birth was one of the Eleusinian dromena (cultic acts). Here it was a child of Gaia, as there was no room for another son besides Plouton and Persephone. Since after the emergence of trade and commerce a more effortless and also more dishonest profit was possible, Ploutos was readily attributed with injustice and blindness (Pauly). Although he is depicted as a child, according to Roscher he is not a personification but only an allegory of wealth.

3rd coin
Phrygia, Hierapolis, pseudo-autonomous, 3rd century AD.
AE 27, 11.72g, 27.07mm, 180°.
Obv.: IEPAΠOΛEI - TΩN (from upper left)
         Head of Dionysos with wreath of ivy  r.
Rev.: EUBO - CIA (from lower left)
        Eubosia as Demeter, standing in long robe and cloak l., holding in raised right hand
        2 ears of grain and in left arm cornucopiae on which little Ploutos sits and holds out his
        arms to her.
Ref: Numismatics Naumann Auction 44, June 2016, lot 693 (at Wildwinds, same dies!)
         unpublished in the larger works
Very rare, F+ to near VF, greenish brown patina
Pedigree:
ex Bertolami Fine Arts E-Auction 49, 12.11.17, Lot 484.
(mislabelled as SNG of Aulock Pisidia I, 891-7; RPC IX 997. But that is  Decius and from Isinda!)

Notes:
(1) Personification is the conception and representation of non-human objects as persons, as human beings of definite character.
(2) Allegory (from Greek = "to speak otherwise"), for a long time understood in art only as a sensual representation of something abstract. In 1928, W. Benjamin detached it from its subordination to the symbol and placed it alongside the symbol as its own form of expression. Through his study of Baroque art, he found that it is, in terms of the philosophy of history, an art form of the decaying times (Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe).

Cults:
The triad Demeter, Kore, Hades/Pluto is certainly already known Pelasgic. Strabon writes that Hades was originally the king of the Cauconians, a pre-Greek people on the Peloponnes, who only gradually became the underworld god of the Greeks. The only sanctuary specifically dedicated to Hades was in Pylos, because Hades came to the aid of Pylos when it was attacked by Herakles.

Especially in Asia minor there were several plutoniums, which were mostly seen as entrances to the underworld, e.g. in Aphrodisias or Hierapolis.
The photo shows the Plutonion in Hierapolis/Phrygia (Wikipedia). Here, carbon monoxide leaked from a fissure in the earth, forming an invisible lake that was deadly to those who did not know their way around. This was passed off as a miracle by the initiated priests.

Pausanias describes most of the places of worship in the Peloponnese, always together with Demeter. Male and female animals of black colour were sacrificed to him, especially piglets, which were thrown into pits. Such a sacrifice is also described in the Odyssey, when Odysseus wants to question Teiresias in the underworld. Kirke advises him to sacrifice one female and one male black sheep, but necessarily with their faces turned away.

Art History:
Because of Hades' unpopularity, there is little evidence and depictions are not consistent throughout. He is usually depicted like Zeus or Poseidon with flowing hair on his head. After Bryaxis created his famous statue of Serapis in Alexandria, all subsequent images resemble him, as can be seen beautifully on the following coin.

4th coin
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Caracalla, 198-217
AE 28, 14.47g, 28.24mm, 0°
struck under the governor Aurelius Gallus
Obv.: AV.K.M.AVP - ANTΩNIN
        Laureate head r. , slight drapery on l. shoulder.
Rev.: VΠA AVP.ΓAΛΛOV N - I - KOΠOLEITΩN / ΠPOC ICTPO
        Hades/Serapis, in himation, with Kalathos, enthroned  l., resting on long sceptre with
       raised l. hand and holding outstretched r. hand over three-headed Kerberos at his feet.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG
        b) Varbanov 3092
        c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) 8.18.6.1 (this coin) 
not common, almost VF, black patina

In 212 Carcalla had consecrated a temple of Serapis on the slope of the Quirinal.

I have added a photo of the Roman marble copy of the cult statue of Serapis from Alexandria, found in 1750 in Pozzuoli during the Bourbon excavations, today in the Archaeological Museum in Naples.

It is clearly visible that the image on the coin is based on the statue of Bryaxis. It is the blessing giver related to the Plouton with Kalathos. It is therefore Serapis with charges to the benevolent side of Hades.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Odyssey
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Pausanias, Periegesis
(4) Strabon, Geographika
(5) Cicero, de natura deorum
(6) Ovid, Metamorphoses

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (also online).
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführlichen Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (also online).
(3) The Kleiner Pauly
(4) Karl Kerenyi, Mythology of the Greeks
(5) Robert von Ranke-Graves
(6) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov, The coins of Nicopolis ad Istrum, Blagoevgrad 2021
(7) Kirchner/Michaelis, Wörterbuch der philosophichen Begriffe, WBG 1998
(8) Wikimedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 01, 2022, 07:24:28 am
The Pantheion

The starting point for this article was the following coin.

1st coin:
Roman Republic, M. Plaetorius Cestianus, gens Plaetoria
AR - Denarius, 18.52mm, 3.86g, 60°.
         Rome, 67 BC
Obv.: Draped bust of a winged goddess, r., with helmet decorated with plume, lotus
          blossom and ears of grain on forehead, bow and quiver over right shoulder,
          cornucopiae under chin.
          behind CESTIANVS, in front S.C
Rev.: in ex. M PLAE, then TORIVS F AED CVR
          Eagle with spread wings standing on bundle of lightning .r., head turned l. 
Ref.: :Crawford 409/1; Sydenham 809; BMCRR 3596; Plaetoria 4
VF+
 
Pedigree:
ex M&M AG Auction 38, Basel 6/7.12.1968, coll. Dr. August Voirol, lot 181

Notes:
(1) Plaetorius Cestianus was a friend of Cicero ("Pro Cluentio"). He was a Curulian Aedile and has struck as Mint Master for the final battle against Mithridates.
(2) Dr. August Voirol (1884-1967) was a gynaecologist in Basel. In 1933 he discovered numismatics by chance through some coins of the Adlerbank. He met Herbert Cahn and assembled a small but select collection of ancient coins. From 1942-1954 he was vice-president of the Swiss Numismatic Society.

The goddess depicted on the obv. is regularly but incorrectly called Vacuna. Vacuna is a Sabine goddess and identical with the Roman Victoria. She had an ancient sanctuary (Vacunae nemis) near Hadrian's villa at Tibur, today's Tivoli. The Romans, however, derived her name from Vacuus and thought that she was a deity to whom the country people offered sacrifices when the harvest in the fields was over and the fields were empty (Schol. ad Horat. Epist. I.10.49; Ovid Fast.VI.307; Plin. H.N. III.17). Her festival, the Vacunalia, took place in December. From Horace's Scholiast we also hear that some identified her with Diana, Ceres, Venus, Minerva, Bellonan and Victoria. However, these scholarly interpretations were not yet fully available at the time of the Mint Master, so that this view is untenable (Roscher).
 
Today her name is etymologically derived from *vacu- (= lacus, with alternation of l>v, like Umbrian 'vaper' = Lat. lapis) and she is determined as 'dea del lago'. Their Sabine cult centre was probably at the sulphurous springs Aquae Cutiliae (Evans) near present-day Rieti. A village called Bacugno in the region there still points to the worship of Vacuna.

The traditional identification of the female bust on the obv. of this coin as Vacuna is impossible, writes Crawford, citing the work of J.P.Morel, MEFR 1962, pp.25-29. An identification as Isis, according to the work of A.Alföldi, S 1954, pp.30/31, may be correct. But she carries not only the lotus-flower of Isis but also
(1) the helmet of Minerva adorned with a plume of feathers,
(2) on her forehead the ears of grain of Ceres,
(3) over the right shoulder the bow and quiver of Diana,
(4) under the chin a cornucopiae and is
(5) winged like Victoria!
In summary we have to state that the identification of the obv, type is still uncertain. She is a real "multi-culti" goddess!

The Pantheion
The Pantheion (Lat. Pantheon) was the totality of the gods, just as the Panellenion was the totality of the Greeks. In a polytheistic religion, people were used to invoking the deity responsible for them or their concerns each time. It was not always easy to choose the right deity. Sometimes the oracle had to be consulted first. At large festivals, several gods were in charge, and sacrifices had to be made to them. In order not to incur the wrath of the forgotten gods, the other gods or even "all the gods" were also invoked. This custom already appears in Homer, where oaths were supposed to be given the strongest confirmation. This was especially true when there was a hurry and there was not enough time to find out which deity was responsible. In such cases, pantes theoi (= all gods) were used, e.g. for oath formulas. In the 4th century, these calls became more frequent, but there was no cult of the gods as a whole. According to Herodotus, when the Ionians, Dorians and Aiolians founded Naukratis in the Nile delta, they built a common sanctuary for all the gods they had brought with them (Pauly), but only as a defence against the foreign cults surrounding them.
 
This changed in Hellenistic times, when there is an increase in inscriptions referring to consecrations, festivals, priesthoods and cults, especially in Asia Minor, where the formula theoi pantes kai pasai (= all gods and goddesses) also accumulates. The famous Pergamon altar was probably also dedicated to the community of gods, as indicated by the fact that its four sides depict the entire family of gods. Antiochos IV Epiphanes organised a great triumphal procession in Antiocheia, in which the images of "all the gods named among men" were carried along. After the Pantheon in Rome, the most important was the one that Antiochos of Pergamon had erected on the summit of Mount Tauros, which was dedicated to all the gods, including himself and his family (Pauly). Such a Pantheion is also known from Ilion, Pergamon, Erythrai, Antiocheia ad Maiandrum and Alexandria.

A significant influence on the increasing spread of these cults had been Alexander's campaign to the Orient, through which the Greeks became acquainted with a large number of new gods and foreign cults. Their own traditional views became weaker and they were no longer convinced that they were the sole helpers in emergency situations. Worshipping many deities at once made people feel safer. It is said that there were even altars dedicated to the agnostoi theoi (= the unknown gods) in order not to neglect any god. According to Acts 17:13, there was such an inscription on an altar in Athens, to which Paul linked his Areopagus speech.

But a monotheistic tendency was already emerging, that all gods were only the expression of a single higher being. There was probably no goddess named Panthea (Roscher). But more and more often different deities were syncretistically linked with each other, as we know from coins, e.g. Zeus/Ammon, Dea Mater, Aequitas/Nemesis, Tyche/Demeter etc. Caligula had his beloved sister Drusilla consecrated as Diva Drusilla Panthea! Pantheus is found among the Romans as an epithet of many gods. As the name suggests, Pantheus represented a deity who united the various divine powers and personalities within himself. Inscriptions from the 1st and 2nd century A.D. prove that the ideas that led to the worship of a god Pantheus were already present among the Romans relatively early (Roscher). Serapis was also regarded as a universal god. In Carthage there are inscriptions as Serapis Pantheos. The next coin shows him as Serapis Pantheos:

2nd coin
Egypt, Alexandria, Antoninus Pius, AD 138-161
AE 33mm, 26.42g, 33.4mm, 0°
struck 141/42 (year 5)
Obv.: ΑVΤ Κ Τ ΑΙΛ ΑΔΡ ΑΝΤΩΝΙΝΟϹ EVϹEΒ
        Laureate head r.
Rev.: Bust, of Serapis Pantheos, draped, wearing kalathos and radiate crown, ram's
          horn over ear, before him trident around which serpent coils.
          In field L - E
Ref.: Dattari-Savio Pl. 148, 2867 (this coin; RPC IV.4, 15340.6 (this coin)
Shanna Schmidt Numismatics, Vcoins, April 2022.
Pedigree:
Naville Numismatics 53, 3 Nov 2019, lot 303.
ex Dattari coll.

The Pantheon in Rome:
The grandest and most perfectly preserved ancient building in Rome is undoubtedly the Pantheon on the Campus Martius. It was long believed to have been built by Agrippa in 25 BC in honour of his friend Augustus. This is also written as a monumental inscription on the epistyle of the vestibule: M. Agrippa L. f. consul tertium fecit. This is also attested by Pliny and Cassius Dio.

The round building contained the statues of many gods and the huge dome resembles heaven. The Pantheon was destroyed several times by lightning and fire and rebuilt each time, so in 89 by Domitian and then by Hadrian, but also in 202 by Septimius Severus and then by Caracalla. In 608, it was converted into the church beatae semperque virginis Mariae et omnium martyrum by Pope Boniface IV under the reign of Emperor Phocas. In the process, of course, all the images of the gods were removed.

In the meantime, archaeological facts have proven that the circular building we see today was not erected by Agrippa, but by Emperor Hadrian. It has been shown that almost exclusively bricks from the Hadrianic period were used in the construction of all structurally important parts. The inscription that names Agrippa as the builder goes back to the fact that Hadrian had a traditional aversion to his name being mentioned on his buildings, and the reason for this almost "quirky reverence" (Pauly) was his endeavour to avoid anything that would have made him appear similar to the hated Domitian. The latter had passed off the buildings he had only restored as his own original creations.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Iliad
(2) Herodotus, Histories
(3) Pliny, Naturalis historia
(4) Cassius Dio, Roman History
(5) New Testament
(6) Ovid, Fastes

Literature:
(1) Crawford
(2) The Little Pauly
(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Detailed Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology (also online)
(4) Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (online)
(5) Benjamin Hederich, Thorough Mythological Dictionary (also online)
(6) Elizabeth C. Evans, The Cults of the Sabine Territory, 1939.

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Tracy Aiello on May 01, 2022, 02:32:22 pm
Jochen,

I enjoy reading these threads of yours. Great work. Informative and interesting.

Cheers,

Tracy
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on May 02, 2022, 03:53:31 pm
Thank you for your comment!

Cheers,
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 25, 2022, 12:14:49 pm
Lykurgos and the nymph Ambrosia

Dear friends of ancient mythology!

The botanical season, in which I roamed through meadows and forests almost daily as a volunteer mapper for the Stuttgart Natural History Museum to discover new plants, is coming to an end. Now I have more time again to take care of numismatics and ancient mythology. And finally I have found a coin worthy of being presented here. Its condition is suboptimal, but it is one of the rarer ones.

The coin:
Syria, Coele-Syria, Damascus, Trebonianus Gallus, AD 252-253
AE 25, 9.20g
Obv.: [IMP C] VIB TREB GA[LLO AVG]
         Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from behind, laureate, r. 
Rev.: COL ΔAMA CO METRO.
        The nymph Ambrosia, nude, standing frontally, head n. r., holding in both hands   
        Vines, her feet growing out of the earth.
Ref.: RPC IX, 1949 (there are several slight variations of the rev. image, here e.g. the 
         grapes below the elbows)

The Hyades
The Hyades, from Greek. Hyades (= "who make it rain"), were nymphs of Greek mythology, already mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. As a constellation, the Hyades are found as a V-shaped star cluster in the constellation of Taurus. The largest star among them is Aldebaran at the bottom left.
(see picture)
There were already different views in antiquity about their number and their lineage. In Hesiod there were five. According to Hygin, the Okeanide Pleione (or Aithra) gave birth to 12 daughters and the son Hyas to Atlas. When the latter was killed in the hunt, Zeus placed seven of them in the starry sky as Pleiades, and the other five, who had especially wept for him, as Hyades.

Pherekydes knows seven:  Ambrosia, Eudora, Pedile, Koronis, Polyxo, Phyto and Thyone. Their mother was Boiotia. Among them we now find our Ambrosia. They looked after Dionysus in his childhood and their role was probably thought to parallel that of the nymphs Adrasteia and Ide, who raised and guarded little Zeus on Crete. 

The nymph Ambrosia
In describing the coin, Barclay Head writes to the reverse "Maenad(?)" and indeed, for certain identification, a reference to the terrible fate of Ambrosia, who is not depicted on the coin, is missing. Nevertheless, I adopt here the description from RPC IX, 1949, which Leu Numismatik also did. That the nymph's legs grow out of the earth is very unusual and could be a reference to Gaia, who plays a not insignificant role in the tale of Nonnos.

There are also different genealogies for Ambrosia, Greek Ambrosia (= "immortal", with emphasis on the i(!). In Hygin she was the daughter of Pleione and Atlas. She became a Dodonaean nymph and a nurse of Dionysus. In Nonnos she became the companion of the wine god Dionysus, a maenad.

The most impressive description of her fate is found in Nonnos (Dionysiaka, lib. 21). These events took place after Dionysus had passed through Thrace on his way east or on his return from India.

Lykurgos, King of Thrace
Lykurgos appears in all mythologies as a fanatical opponent of Dionysus. Most often, Lykurgos is used to refer to the mythical king of the Edonians in Thrace. When Dionysus wanted to go from Asia across the Hellespont back to Europe, Lykurgos offered him his friendship. But when Dionysus translated his maenads first, Lykurgus ordered them all to be killed along with Dionysus. Dionysus, however, was warned by a man called Tharops and just managed to escape to the other side of the Hellespont. His companions, the Maenads, were all killed on the orders of Lykurgus. Here the name Ambrosia already appears. After Dionysus had crossed with his army, a battle took place in which Lykurgos was defeated and captured. Dionysus had his eyes gouged out and crucified. He handed over his kingdom to Tharops (Diodorus Siculus).

In another version it is said that Lykurgus taunted Dionysus and finally chased him away, but captured his companions. Then Dionysus struck Lykurgus with madness, so that he mistook his son Dryas for a vine, struck him down with an axe and cut off his own feet until he regained his senses. A great barrenness then came over his land and the oracle answered that it would only end when Lykurgus had shed his mortality. Then the Edons led him to Mount Pangaios and had him torn apart by horses (Apollodor).

Others tell that he did not want to acknowledge Dionysus as a god, and when he was drunk with wine and wanted to rape his own mother, he thought the wine was poison and ordered all the vines to be uprooted. Then Dionysus drove him mad, so that he slew his wife and son and cut off one of his own feet, which he thought was a vine. Then Dionsos throw him ro his panthers on the mountain of Rhodopes (Hygin. Fab.).

There are other versions of his end. But even though Dionysus always had to flee from him at the beginning, he was able to capture him afterwards. He had him bound and scourged with vines so violently that Lykurgos had to shed tears. These fell to the ground and cabbage grew from them. This is still today an enemy of the vine.(Schol. Aristoph. in Equis.)

In the oldest story (Homer, Iliad) he pursued the nurses of little Dionysus on Mount Nysa. These threw their thyrses to the ground, while Lykurgus wounded them with his hatchet. Little Dionysus threw himself into the sea, where Thetis picked him up and comforted him. The gods were enraged by the atrocity and struck Lykurgos with blindness. Shortly afterwards he died.

There was a tragedy about him by Aeschylus, but it has not survived.

Already Diodoros, who reports the battle between Lykurgos and Dionysos, states that Antimachos transferred this battle to Arabia. This was taken up by Nonnos in his extensive work "Dionysiaka". He narrates:

On its way to India, his army reached Arabia via Tyros, Byblos and Lebanon. There a son of Ares ruled, the terrible Lykurgos, who slew all strangers and wanderers, slaughtered them and decorated his palace with their limbs. Lykurgos pursued the female companions of Dionysus, here called Bassarides (after Greek "Bassaris" = "fox fur", which they wore like the Nebris, the deer skin) and took up the fight against them. In particular, the maenad Ambrosia, one of the Hyades, resisted him valiantly; almost overcome, she was transformed into a vine by Gaia, Mother Earth. With her tendrils she inextricably entwined herself around Lykurgos, and since by Rheia's grace human speech was preserved for her, she mockingly addressed her opponent. Ares could not free his son, but at least took the divine battle-axe from him. The Maenads surrounded the bound opponent and scourged him cruelly. At Rheia's request, Poseidon caused an earthquake in Arabia. At the same time, the inhabitants of Arabia, the "Nysaeans", were seized with madness, so that they killed and slaughtered their own children. The maltreated Lykurgos did not bow to Dionysus, but persisted in his defiance of all the gods. At last Hera took pity on him, cut the tendrils of ambrosia and thus freed Lykurgos. He was later blinded by Zeus, but the Arabs worshipped him as a god with sacrifices. Ambrosia, however, ascended from the earth into the sky and was transferred to the constellation of the Hyades.

This would have been a nice theme for Ovid's "Metamorphoses", but Nonnos lived almost 500 years after Ovid!

And now it also becomes geographically understandable that this motif with Ambrosia was struck precisely on coins from Damascus. Otherwise Damascus only appears once: On his way to India, the king of Damascus confronted him on the Euphrates. He was flayed alive (Ranke-Graves). But I have not been able to find out anything more about this.

Art history:
The motif of Ambrosia has been taken up several times in ancient art. I have selected the following pictures:

(1) This image is from an Apulian red-figure vase from the Late Classical period, c. 330 BC, and is now in the Staatl. Antikensammlung, Munich.
King Lycurgus holds the body of Ambrosia, whom he has just slain with his sword. The angry god summons an Erinnye to drive him mad. She is depicted as a winged huntress whose arms and hair are draped with poisonous snakes. Dionysus wears elaborate clothing with high boots and holds a tree branch in his hand.  Behind him, the thyrsos of a maenad is still visible. This vase does not have the vine tendrils that are present on our coin and so typical of the Nonnos narrative.
(see picture)

(2) The mosaic pictured above was found in Herculaneum and is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. It shows the king of Thrace, Lycurgus, the enemy of Dionysus, attacking the nymph Ambrosia. The latter is in the process of transforming herself into a vine and binding Lycurgus with her shoots to deliver him to the vengeance of Dionysus. It seems to grow out of the earth, which is reflected in the depiction on our coin. So at this time the version that Nonnos later adopted is already known!
(see picture)

Ambrosia, the food of the gods
We already know that Ambrosia means "immortal" in Greek. And so Ambrosia was the food reserved for the immortals. Whoever ate it became immortal himself. This happened to Tantalus, for example, and Thetis anointed her son Achilles with Ambrosia to make him immortal.

The first to receive ambrosia was Zeus, to whom it was brought by wild doves from the mountain tops of Crete. In Homer, the terms "ambrosia" and "nectar" are still interchangeable. Later, ambrosia was used to refer to food and nectar to refer to something to drink.

Ambrosia was used as food, drink, balm, ointment and as a remedy. It was famous for its fragrance and would have tasted sweet. Rationalists thought it was honey, e.g. Roscher: "This fits wonderfully with honey, which was also conceived as a gift from the gods." The nymph Ambrosia would then have been the personification of honeydew.

The immortal horses were also fed with ambrosia. This has also been inferred the other way round: since horses are usually fed oats, ambrosia could simply have been oatmeal!

The idea of nectar and ambrosia serves the human desire for immortality, present from early on in all cultures, and for a magic cure to achieve it. This is back in a big way today, when ageing is seen as a disease, as seen in the billions spent on anti-ageing products. Behind the desire for eternal life, however, the present is too often forgotten.

Ragweed, an allergenic neophyte
As an amateur botanist, I would like to conclude by mentioning the mugwort ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia), or ragweed for short. This is an invasive neophyte and originates from the Mediterranean region. It has been known in Germany since 1860, but as a field weed it was always tied to humans. Since the 1990s, it began to spread under its own steam and has now become a major threat. Typical features are its strong branching and tall inflorescences. Its pollen has a strong allergenicity that is 5x higher than that of grass pollen. Truly no food of gods!

Notes:
(1) Pherekydes of Syros (* between 584 and 581 BC on the island of Syros, one of the Cyclades) was an ancient Greek mythographer and cosmologist in the time of the Pre-Socratics. .
(2) Nonnos of Panopolis was a Byzantine poet of the 5th century. He is considered the author of the Dionysiaka, the last great epic of antiquity. In 48 books or cantos and approx. 21,300 hexameters, he describes the triumphant march of Dionysus to India.
(3) Dodona in Northern Greece was an ancient Greek sanctuary and oracle. It was considered the oldest oracle in Greece and, after Delphi, the largest supra-regional oracle in the Greek world. The rustling of an oak tree sacred to Zeus was used for divination, and later the flight of doves was also used for divination.
(4) Antimachos of Kolophon was a Greek poet and grammarian who lived around 450 BC.  He is considered one of the founders of the epic.
(5) Nysa is considered to be the place where Dionysus was raised and nourished by nymphs. This is probably only a figment of the imagination. Later, various places were called Nysa. Nonnos relocates Nysa to Arabia.
(6) A neophyte is a plant that only naturalised in Europe after 1492. A neophyte is invasive if it spreads uncontrollably.

Sources:
(1)  Homer,  Ilias
(2)  Apollodor,  Bibliotheka
(3)  Hyginus,  Fabulae,  De  astronomia
(4)  Nonnos,  Dionysiaka

Secondary literature:
(1) Heinrich-Wilhelm Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 1884
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,  1770  (Nachdruck)
(3) Barclay  Head,  Historia  Numorum (online Version von  Ed  Snible)
(4) Der  Kleine  Pauly

Internet sources:
(1)  Wikipedia
(2)  theoi.com
(3)  RPC  IX

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 03, 2022, 03:46:43 pm
Eos and her unhappy loves

The coin
Roman Republic, L. Plautius Plancus, gens Plautia
AR - Denarius, 3.54g, 17mm, 210°.
        Rome, 47 BC
Obv.: Mask of Medusa with dishevelled hair ending in coiled serpents.
         below L.PLAVTIVS   
Rev.: Victoria (or Aurora), winged, holding palm branch, head slightly left., flying
         right, holding the reins and leading the 4 sun-horses
         below PLANCVS
Ref.: Crawford 453/1a; CRI 29; Sydenham 959; Plautia 15
CNG, 19.9.2012 (my own coin was too eccentric).

About the coin:
Lucius Plautius Plancus was the brother of L. Munatius Plancus, who was Praefectus Urbi under Caesar in 45 BC and 2 years later, as Proconsul of Gallia Comata, founded the Colonia of Lugdunum (now Lyon). Plautius Plancus was born Gaius Munatius Plancus, but then adopted by Lucius Plautius, whose name he took retaining only the cognomen of his original name. The unusual elegance of the reverse type of his silver denarii suggests that their design was based on a special work of art and this may have been a painting by the celebrated painter Nicimachus of Thebes, which was hung in the Capitol by L. Munatius Plancus on the occasion of the celebration of his Gallic triumph in 43 BC. This remarkable painting may have been in the possession of the mintmaster during his tenure and was then reproduced as a coin type to celebrate Caesar's military successes in 48 and 47 BC. In the course of Plautius' proscription during the triumvirate of 43 BC, which led to his execution and the confiscation of his property, it may have come into the possession of his brother Munatius Plancus; there is a strong suspicion that Munatius was responsible for Plautius' tragic end. The significance of the head of Medusa on the obverse still awaits a convincing explanation, although it is probably related to the history of the family into which the mintmaster was adopted (CNG).

Ehymology:
Eos (Greek ηως) is linguistically and factually related to the Indian ushas and the Latin aurora from the root -us (= to burn, to shine), in that a Graeco-Italic form ausos is assumed.

The parents of Eos are the Titan Hyperion and the Titan Theia (Hesiod, Apollodor), or Aithra (Hygin), also Titan and Earth, or she is the daughter of Pallas (Ovid Fasten). Her siblings are Selene and Helios, Sleep and Death.

Picture #1:
Detail from the ceiling painting in the Villa Ludovisi in Rome with the Sun Chariot of Aurora (1621), Guercino. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), better known as Guercino, was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. The frescoes of the Aurora in the casino of Villa Ludovisi date from his period in Rome.

Every morning she rises from the camp of her husband Tithonos and ascends from the Okeanos (according to Homer Odyssey 12,4 she has her dwelling on Aiaia) with her team of horses Lampos (bright shine) and Phaeton (the radiant one) and rides across the sky in front of her brother Helios. She only finishes her orbit in the evening and thus signifies not only the morning, but also noon and the whole day (hemera). Her beautiful poetic epithets, the rose-fingered and the saffron-robed, correspond to the colours of the sky at dawn, when the sun covers the sky in long stripes. The horse-drawn carriage is an expression of her speed.

Eos is notorious for her love affairs. Later it was even said that Aphrodite had put a curse on her because she had surprised her in a love affair with Ares.

1) The myth of Tithonos
Tithonos was a Trojan prince, the son of the Trojan Laomedon and thus brother of Priam, but by a different mother, Rhoio (also called Strymo), a daughter of Scamander. He is the only one who, unlike her other loves, was called her husband.

According to the Lesser Iliad, Ganymedes is a brother of Tithonos. Eos also kidnapped him. But he was taken away from her by Zeus, who brought him to Olympus as a lover and cupbearer.

Since Tithonos did not take part in his brother's affairs of government, his main occupation was hunting, to which he set out every morning before sunrise. Then he left Phrygia and offered himself to Teutames in Assyria. Teutames received him kindly and made him his commander.  According to Diodorus, he had founded Susa.

When Eos once saw him in battle, she was so overcome by his beauty that she fell in love with him and carried him off in her golden chariot to Ethiopia, where they lived happily in Aiaia or Aethiops on the eastern edge of the Okeanos.

Picture #2
Eos pursues the young Tithonos, who holds a lyre. From an Attic red-figure kylix, Classical period, 470-460 BC, attributed to the Penthesilaos painter.  Today in the British Museum/London.

Eos loved him so much that she asked the gods to grant him immortality. But she forgot to wish him eternal youth as well. So he grew older and weaker. Nevertheless, she remained tenderly attached to him. Finally he had to be locked up in a room, put in a cradle and nursed and fed like a little child. He finally begged Eos to be allowed to die, but she could not grant him this request. Instead, she turned him into a cicada and hung him in a basket in the air so that she could at least still hear his voice.

Picture #3
Aurora and the old Tithonus (1634-1635), painting by Giovanni da San Giovanni, today in the Uffizi/Florence. Giovanni da San Giovanni (1592-1636) was an Italian Baroque painter who worked mainly in Florence.

Tithonos is the allegory of the freshly beginning, then wearily ending day (Preller), the decrepit old man. The cicada is a symbol of the old people who can no longer do anything themselves, but who constantly talk about all the things they used to do. The motif of the incomplete request is a fairy-tale motif (Pauly).

Eos begat Memnon and Emathion with Tithonos. Both were kings of Aethopia. Emathion was killed by Heracles. Memnon was given a golden vine by Priam to help him against the Greeks before Troy, and then went to Troy with a huge army. In a duel he was killed by Achilles with a spear. Eos wept for him so much that her tears fell to the earth as dew. After his death, he was worshipped especially in Egyptian Thebes. His particular statues were made of black marble and were famous for making a graceful sound at sunrise, as if rejoicing in the presence of Eos, but a deeply sad sound at sunset, as if mourning her departure. In fact, these statues are images of Amenophis III, one of which was split. When Severus had them restored, they fell silent.

2) The legend of Kephalos and Prokris
Kephalos was the son of Hermes and Herse, or Dejoneus, king of Phocis, and Diomede. He was of immense beauty, so that when he was once hunting on Mount Hymettos, Eos robbed him and carried him off to Syria.

Picture #4
Eos abducts the young Cephalus holding a lyre
Attic red-figure lekytos, Classical period, 470-460 BC, attributed to the Oinocles painter. Today in the Museo Arqueologico Nacional de Espana (MAN)/Madrid.

But his real wife was Prokris, the daughter of Erechtheus and Praxithea, whom he loved so much that he could not forget her. This angered Eos and she released him, but told him that the time would come when he would not wish to see his Prokris. Then he suspected that she had been unfaithful to him, and he wanted to put her to the test. With the help of Eos, he disguised himself and wooed his own wife with rich gifts until she did his bidding. When he revealed himself, she was so ashamed that she fled and went to Crete to King Minos. When she cured him of a serious illness, he gave her the dog Lailaps, from which no one could escape, and an infallible spear. According to another version, she received both miraculous weapons from Artemis, to whom she had taken refuge. With these she went back to Attica, reconciled with her husband and gave him the dog and the spear. But when Kephalos went hunting incessantly, she became suspicious that he was cheating on her again with Eos. She crept after him and heard him calling for "Aura", which confirmed her suspicions. When she rustled in the bushes, Kephalos thought it was a deer and threw his spear at her, killing her. For this murder he was exiled by the Areopagus and finally came with Amphitryon to the island of Kephalonia, which was named after him. He is also said to have gone with Lailaps, the wonder-dog, in pursuit of the Teumessian fox that was ravaging Thebes and that no one could catch. To escape the dilemma, the fox and the hound were then turned into stone by Zeus.

This non-homeric story is told at length by Ovid in his Metamorphoses (Ovid met. 7, 672). In fact, Kephalos called in Greek for "Nephele", a cooling cloud, which Prokris misunderstood as a girl's name.

In general, the story of Kephalos and Prokris is the fusion of various independent sagas (Roscher).

Picture #5
Piero the Cosimo (1461-1512), The Death of Prokris (c. 1490). Today in the National Gallery in London.

3) Astraios
With the Titan Astraios, son of Krios and Eurybia, Eos begot the main winds Argestes, Zephyros, Boreas and Notos (Hesiod), a myth based on the observation that the winds seem to come from above, i.e. from the stars. According to Apollodorus, she also fathered the stars with him, including the morning star Eosphoros (= Lucifer), who walks before her in the morning and sets with her in the evening.

4) Orion
It is said (Apollodorus) that Eos also once abducted the mighty hunter Orion and brought him to Ortygia, the island where Artemis was born. There are many, also contradictory, stories about his death. In one, the gods envy her possession and Artemis is said to have killed him with an arrow out of jealousy of Eos (Homer, Odyssey). There Calypso laments the jealousy of the celestials.

Other lovers included
5) Kleitos, the son of Mantion and father of Koiranos, who was abducted by Eos because of his beauty to dwell among the immortals (Homer Od. 15, 249).

Eos plays no cultic role. Even the ancients had difficulty distinguishing between a personification and the actual natural phenomenon.

Literature:
Of the many literary adaptations of the Tithonos theme, I list only two here:

(1) The Tithonos poem by Sappho.
This poem belongs to the late work of Sappho. It was first published in 1922 after a papyrus fragment was discovered at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. The fragments of the Cologne papyri from the 3rd century BC, published in 2004, contain only 12 lines of the poem, but complete it almost in its entirety and attracted international attention. This poem is one of very few essentially complete works by Sappho and deals with the effects of ageing, which must have been of great concern to Sappho:
"Often I sigh over it. But what can I do? Ageless, if one is human, one cannot become."

 (2) In "Tithonus" by Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), Tithonus complains that he is neither mortal nor immortal.

Notes:
(1) Nikomachos of Thebes, famous for his rapid painting, worked in the middle and 2nd half of the 4th century B.C. Among his pupils was the even more rapid Philoxenos of Eretria. Nothing is known of his style, although the Victoria quadrigam in sublime raptens (called "Aurora" by Sydenham) on denarii of L. Plautius Plancus is related.
(2) Little Iliad ("Ilias mikra"), belonging to the Epic Cycle. This cycle includes the epics which represent the prehistory of the Iliad and the stories of the homecomings (Nostoi). The time of origin is the 7th/6th century BC, the authorship is disputed.
(3) Aiaia, mythical islands in the west and east of the Okeanos. The western one was considered the residence of Kirke and the dancing place of Eos after her demise in the west.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Odyssey
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Apollodor, Bibliotheka
(4) Hyginus, Fabulae
(5) Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite
(6) Pausanias, Periegesis
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(8) Vergil, Aeneid

Secondary literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Teubner 1889.
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (also online)
(3) Ludwig Preller, Greek Mythology, 1894-1926
(4) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks, dtv
(4) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv

Internet sources:
(1) theoi.com
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on December 07, 2022, 07:54:12 pm
Jochen,
I know I have said this before, but I just love these entries. Thank you once again.

Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 12, 2022, 09:04:43 am
Thank you, Virgil. It's nice to read a feedback. Now a new article:

Priamos, King of Troy

The coin:
Troas, Ilium, Crispina (wife of Commodus), AD 178-182.
AE 25, 13.7g, 24.6mm, 30°.
Onv.: KPICΠEINA - CEBACTH
Bust of Crispina with Stephane, topknot at neck, draped, r.
Rev.: ΠPIAMOC - IΛIEΩN.
      Priamos in long robe and wearing Phrygian cap enthroned r., leaning 
       with raised left hand on long sceptre.
Ref.: Bellinger T193; von Fritze, Ilion 92; BMC 72; RPC IV/2, 193 (#10).
This specimen is an electrotype copy of the coin from the Bibliotheque National in Paris from the 19th century.


What is an Electrotype Copy?
This procedure is a galvanic impression of a model. A model is made from the original, usually from plaster, the surface of which is then made conductive. This model is placed in a galvanic bath. Under the influence of electricity, the metal atoms of the bath are deposited on the surface of the model. The model itself remains inside (so-called core electroforming). This process was invented at the end of the 18th century by the anatomy professor Luigi Galvani and then further developed in the 19th century. Shortly after the development of the process, it was made usable for arts and crafts purposes. Large museums used this method to produce copies of coins to exhibit or sell to collectors. Our coin was produced in the 19th century by the Bibliotheque National de France for collectors. The groove on the edge of the coin is always typical.

Name:
Priamos' original name was Podarkes. After the treacherous Laomedon, the second king of Troy, cheated Apollo and Poseidon, who had built him the walls of Troy, of their deserved reward, probably the famous horses of the gods, Apollo sent him the plague and Poseidon a huge sea monster. The oracle advised that Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, should be sacrificed to the monster in order to save the city. She was abandoned on the beach and Laomedon promised her saviour the divine horses. Heracles killed the monster. But again Laomedon resorted to deceit and refused him the prize. Then Heracles made war on Troy, ravaged it to the walls and killed Laomedon and his sons, except Priam, the youngest. Him Hesione bought (Greek πριασθαι) with her veil interwoven with gold (Apollodor). After a short time as a slave, Heracles set him free.  Hesione, however, was kidnapped by Telamon to Greece, which was one of the main reasons for the Trojan War. This story, however, is a folk etymology. It is more likely that the name Priamos comes from the Aiolian per(r)amos (= basileus, king) (Hesych).

Genealogy:
Priamos, the last king of Troy, was the youngest son of the Trojan king Laomedon and Strymo, a daughter of Scamander, according to others of Plakia, a daughter of Atreus. His brothers were Tithonos, Lampos, Klytios and Hiketaon (Homer Iliad), his sisters Hesione, Killa and Astyoche (Apollodor). After the death of Laomedon, Heracles left him the kingdom, although he was still a child then (Hygin), and he succeeded his father on the throne. He rebuilt the destroyed Troy, stronger and more formidable than it had been before.

(Pic #1) Priamos as oriental ruler enthroned l. Detail from the painting "Helen and Priam at the Skaean Gate" (1808) by Richard Cook (1784-1857).

Family:
Priamos founded the most child-rich royal family in the history of heroes. His first wife was Arisbe, the daughter of Merops. With her he begat Aiakaos, but later left her to Hyrtakos and took Hekabe (lLat. Hecuba), a daughter of Kisseus or Dymas, as his wife. With her he had 19 children. In addition, he had 50 concubines, from whom he had a myriad of other children. Hygin lists 54! Homer speaks of 50 sons, of whom he is said to have had 19 by Hekabe alone, together with 12 daughters who were married, apart from the unmarried ones. All of them were raised by Hekabe. After the death of Hector, 9 sons were still alive.

Hekabe
According to Hygin, Hecabe became a slave to Odysseus after the fall of Troy. In the end she threw herself into the sea and was transformed into a dog. Today this is interpreted as a sign of kinship with Hekate.  The fall of Troy plunged Hekabe from the highest maternal happiness and pride of a queen into deepest misery and slavery, depriving her of her husband and all her children. She is the embodiment of the deepest misfortune and misery of women in war. Her fate was not only treated by Euripides ("The Trojan Women"), but also by Sartre ("Les Troyennes, 1965).
 
"That's Hecuba to me!" in the sense of "I don't give a damn!" goes back to Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. It was used by Bismarck, among others, in 1887 when the Oriental question was at issue.

Of the 22 daughters, the most mythologically significant is Kassandra. It is said that Apollo promised her the gift of prophecy if she gave herself to him. She rejected the god's love and Apollo condemned her, saying that she should only ever prophesy impending disaster, but that no one should believe her.

The curse was fulfilled at the birth of Paris, when she demanded that Hekabe's child be killed because in a dream of Hekabe the city perished in a firestorm.

In the Iliad, Priamos tells that in his youth he fought against the Amazons at Sangarios together with the Phrygians Otreus and Mygdos. Virgil mentions visits to Salamis and Arcadia. At the beginning of the Trojan War, Priamos was a powerful and wealthy king. His empire stretched from Lesbos through Phrygia to the Hellespont. Phrygians and Thracian neighbours were his confederates (Pauly), perhaps also his vassals. Aineias, who always had a tense relationship with him, joined him only in the 10th year of the war. Due to its strategic position, Troy controlled the access to the Black Sea and thus controlled the Greek grain transports.

During the Trojan War
Priamos did not play a major role during the Trojan War. He was the venerable head of a numerous family and a mild, just king (Roscher) to the point of weakness, appearing at the end as a life-weary old man who rarely intervened in the course of events. This corresponded to his view that this was a war of the gods, which was also decided by the gods. Because of his piety, he was a favourite of Zeus. In the Agora he presided as king, but was ruled by his sons. These he angrily insulted as cowards, liars, gluttons who robbed the people of their cattle. The real ruler was his eldest son Hektor.

At a teichoscopy (wall show), where he looked down from the wall on the battlefield in front of the city, he admired the courage and bravery of the Achaeans. He was held in high esteem by them.

Priamos tries to persuade Hector to turn back.
Priamos does not emerge again until the end of the Iliad, when he sees the Greeks raging among the Trojans and they turn to wild flight. He orders the gates to be opened. Only Hektor remains outside. When Achilles rushes at him, he begs Hektor to come in too. He curses Achilles, who had already murdered so many of his sons. If only the last hope of Troy would not sink. Therefore Hektor should come in, for he must preserve his own. He tells him of his own fate, how his corpse will be torn apart by dogs. He uses all his eloquence to persuade his son to return to the city by pointing out the disaster threatening the city. This is Priamos' longest speech. But it was in vain, the inexorable fate was fulfilled.

The supplication of Priamos to Achilles
After Achilles had killed Hektor in single combat, he tied his body to his chariot and dragged it three times around the walls of Troy. Then, out of grief over Patroklos' death, he dragged Hektor's body three times a day around Patroklos tomb. But Apollo protected him from rot and injury. Now followed the most difficult walk of the unhappy king. Guided by Hermes, he went to the camp of the Greeks and sank down at the feet of the unforgiving victor. But Achilles received him with dignity and succeeded in releasing Hektor's body. This event has remained a popular subject in poetry and art ever since.   

The Death of Priamos
After the conquest of Troy, he was dragged away from the altar of Zeus by Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles, despite assurances that he would be spared, and after killing their son Polites while she was still watching, he was brutally murdered in front of Hekabe. This is only one of the terrible crimes the Greeks committed against the defeated Trojans.

The Treasure of Priamos
The so-called Treasure of Priamos was discovered by Heinrich Schliemann on 31 May 1873 during his excavations in Troy. It was named after the mythical king. It contains a total of over 8000 objects. Schliemann donated the treasure to the German people in 1881 and since 1885 it has been in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. After the Second World War it was brought to the Soviet Union as looted art, which was confirmed in 1993. Until then, it was considered lost or destroyed. In the meantime, Turkey has also registered property rights (Wiki).

But Schliemann was under an illusion. In fact, the "Treasure of Priamos" dates from the early Bronze Age and is more than a thousand years older than the presumed reign of the Troy king described by Homer.

(Pic #2) Sophia Schliemann with the Great Hanger from the "Treasure of Priamos", 1873.

Art history:
Depictions of Priamos are not common in antiquity. Mostly the supplication to Achilles and then his murder by Neoptolemos are depicted. This also applies to depictions from modern times, as the selected depictions show.

(Pic #3) Priamos before Achilles
Attic red-figure scyphos, Classical period, c. 490 BC, attributed to the Brygos painter, found in Cerveteri, today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

(Pic #4) Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (1806-1859):
"Priamos asks Achilles to hand over Hektor's body", 1824.

(Pic #5) The death of Priamos
"Priamos is killed by Neoptolemos, the son of Achilles", detail of an Attic black-figure amphora, Late Archaic, ca. 520-510 BC, from Vulci

Sources
(1) Homer, Iliad
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheka
(3) Hygin, Fabulae
(4) Euripides, The Trojan Women
(5) Virgil, Aeneid

Secondary literature
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur, Leipzig
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (also online)
(3) Karl Kerenyi, The Mythology of the Greeks, dtv
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Greek Mythology, rororo
(5) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv
(6) William Shakespeare, Hamlet
(7) Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Troyennes
(8) RPC IV.2
(9) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen in der Kunst, 1994

Online sources
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 18, 2022, 07:49:46 am
Mutinus Titinus

In addition to the well-known Roman gods, especially the Olympic ones, which are part of our educational heritage, there were a multitude of "lesser gods" that are not generally known. It is with these that I wish to deal here.

Coin:
Roman Republic, Q. Titius Mutto, gens. Titia
AR - Denarius, 19mm, 4.08g
       Rome, 90 BC
Obv. Bearded head (Mutinus Titinus?) with winged diadem r.
Rev. Pegasus leaping r., on a base with inscription Q.TIT
Ref. Crawford 341/1; Sydenham 691; Albert 1180; Sear 238; Titia 1
Rev. Somewhat eccentric

RE Pauly (Titius 33): This representation does not point to the gentile name Titius, as was previously thought, but to the byname of Q. Titius, who was called Mutto, according to Cichorius. So Q. Titius Mutto! It is known of him that he was accused by L. Aelius in 100 BC and was Sulla's mint master as a partisan in 87 BC. 

The head of Mutinus is modelled on the head of Priapus on the coins of Lampsakos in Mysia. Lampsakos was the centre of Priapos worship.

Coin #2
Mysia, Lampsakos, pseudo-autonomous, 190-85 BC.
AE - AE 20, 7.90g
Obv. Bearded head of Priapos r., wreathed with ivy.
Rev. Forepart of Pegasos r.
        Above and below ΛAMΨA - KHNΩN.
Ref. BMC 69; SNG France 1245-2248; SNG Copenhagen 224-226; Bompois coll. 1396; SNG   
         von Aulock 7405; Lindgren III, 259; SNG Tübingen 2311.

Mutinus Titinus
Also known as Mutunus, Tutunus, singly or as a double name. Etymologically, Mutinus comes from Latin mutto (= male limb, occasionally also the female equivalwnt), Titinus from *tou (= to swell). Thus it is also related to muttonium, the name for a phallic amulet. This was used as a fascinum to protect against evil, e.g. on houses and paths.

Varro compared Mutinus to the Greek Priapos. According to Augustine, the ithyphallic image of Mutinus was used at the wedding (confarreatio) to break the taboo of the beginning, in that the bride had to sit on the phallus and thus symbolically deflower herself. However, the ritual could only be served by the image, which was kept in a shrine (sacellum) at the Velia in the temple of the Vesta. The women with veiled heads also sacrificed there. The fate of the shrine is unclear. It is likely that this venerable shrine was torn down by Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus in the time of Augustus and a bath complex was built in its place (Wikipedia).

Indigetes Dii
Mutinus belonged to the so-called Indigetes Dii, a controversial collective name used by the Romans from antiquity to the present day for a group of gods under which heroes such as Aeneas and Romulus were classified, however misleadingly. Actually, Indiges was the name of every god who had become a man (Serv. ad Virg.).

In particular, it was Aeneas who received the honour of being called Iupiter Indiges or Pater Indiges. This was worshipped in a grove by the river Numicus. Since Aeneas had been carried away on the Numicus, he was identified with Jupiter Indiges. However, this identification took place only later, in Augustan times.

Later, all the gods were improperly called Indigetes. Actually, only the native, old Roman gods were to be called so (from Latin Indiges = native, old Roman). What is meant by Di Indigetes, however, was already unclear in antiquity. An etymological connection to the Indigitamenta is more than problematic (Pauly).

The Indigitamenta
Etymologically, "Indigitamenta" comes from Latin indigitare (= to point to something, to invoke). These were lists of divinities kept by the college of pontifices to ensure that the correct divine names were invoked for public prayers and that their correct order was observed. Given the fearful conscientiousness with which the Romans confronted the gods, they were not allowed to make the slightest mistake in doing so.

Like many other Roman rites, they were attributed to Numa Pompilius, the pious 2nd king of Rome. The modern standard list has been compiled by W. H. Roscher, although some scholars differ from him on some points. It contains over 150 names of deities, many of whom were responsible for conception, birth and child development, e.g. Vagitanus gave the first cry (vagitus) to the newborn. Others were agricultural gods. In this sense they would have been ancient special gods. But it may also be that they were only epithets for greater gods for certain functions. Some of these deities were already unknown in antiquity or their function was unclear. 

Unfortunately, the Church Fathers, e.g. Augustine and Tertullian, had no historical or scientific interest, but made fun of these deities and corrupted the original list by reversing their meaning or making silly additions.

Notes:
(1) Conrad Antonius Cichorius (1863-1932), German ancient historian, last at the University of Bonn.  Was the first German historian to publish the reliefs of Trajan's Column (1896).
(2) Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), from Rieti, important Roman polyhistor. He is quoted so often by Augustine that his theological writings could be partially reconstructed. From him comes the calculation of the year of the legendary foundation of the city of Rome ("Varronian count").
(3) Maurus Servius Honoratius, a late Roman grammarian from the 4th century who wrote, among other things, commentaries on Virgil.
(4) Ferd. Bompois, Medailles Grecques Autonomes 

I have added
(1) A pic of a stone block with the image of a fascinum from Burgos/Spain

(2) A pic of of a bas-relief of the Arch of Marcus Aurelius, today in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. "Marcus Aurelius (161-180) and members of the imperial family offer a sacrifice in gratitude for the success against the Germanic tribes. In the background, the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol."

Sources
(1) Plinius, naturalis historia
(2) Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum 
(3) Catull, Carmina
(4) Augustinus, De Civitate Dei
(5) Tertullian, Ad Nationes
 
Secondary literature
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (auch online)
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (auch online)
(3) Paulys Realenzyklopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (RE)
(4) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv
(5) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-deutsches Schulwörterbuch

Online Sources
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Tracy Aiello on December 18, 2022, 03:38:48 pm
Thank you Jochen. I really enjoy reading your posts in this thread.

Tracy
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 18, 2022, 05:10:28 pm
Thank you very much! I think I will post another article before Christmas.

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 22, 2022, 04:06:27 am
The river god Acheloos

The Coin:
Akarnania. Oiniadai, 219-211 BC.
AE 22, 6.91g, 22.02mm
Obv.: Laureate head of Zeus r.
          Behind thunderbolt, below ΠPI.
Rev.: OINIAΔAN
          Head of river god Acheloos as bull with human head n. r.
          behind monogram AKAP
Ref.: BCD Akarnania 347; SNG Copenhagen 402
rubbers, otherwise almost SS.

Mythology
Its name probably comes from the old Greek word αχ (= aqua, related to the German Ach, Ache) for water, which is why its name was also used by poets for fresh water in general. In ancient times the river was also called Thoas, and Acheloos was king in Aetolia. It is said that the river only received its final name after Acheloos drowned in it in an accident. Others say that the river was originally called Thestios, after the son of Ares and Prisidike. 

The parents of Acheloos were Okeanos and Tethys (Hesiod), but there are also other accounts such as Okeanos and Gaia or Helios and Gaia. In favour of Okeanos and Tethys is the fact that according to the ancient greeks all rivers have their origin in the sea.

The Sirens
From the general meaning of Acheloos it is explained that he was the father of the Sirens (Pausanias), whom he had with the Muse Melpomene, Calliope, or Terpsichore (App. Rhod.). The Sirens, of whom there were two or three, were hybrid creatures of man and bird and could attract sailors by their beguiling song, who then killed them. It is known that Odysseus had himself tied to a mast. This way he could hear their song, but could not follow them. When the Argonauts came near them, Orpheus was able to drown them out with his lyre. At Hera's request, they are said to have competed with the Muses to see who could sing more beautifully, but they were defeated. In Hellenistic times, there is a legend that the Sirens then committed suicide.

The nymph Perimele
Ovid tells how Theseus, on his way to Athens, came to the Acheloos, which he could not cross because of its strong current. Acheloos invited him to a banquet and asked him to wait until the river had calmed down again. He told him about the fate of the Echinades: Four nymphs sacrificed on the banks of the river to all the gods, danced, jumped and sacrificed, but forgot Acheloos. Enraged by this, he swept away the riverbank and the nymphs with his stream and the naiads became the islands. The fifth island was his lover, the nymph Perimele, the daughter of Hippodamas. Because she had allowed herself to be seduced, her father pushed her off a cliff into the sea before she could give birth. Acheloos was able to keep her afloat and at his request she was turned into an island by Poseidon. These islands lie off the mouth of the Acheloos and were later named Echinades after a soothsayer Echinos. They were silted up early on (Strabo).

This banquet of Acheloos with Theseus has been depicted several times in paintings. Yes, in 16th century Italy it became very popular as an Italian midday meal in a garden grotto under a shady tree. In France, even dwellings were built in this style.

According to Apollodorus, Acheloos begat Hippodamas and Orestes with Perimede, the daughter of Aiolos and Enarete. He also had a daughter Kallirrhoe, who later became the wife of Alkmaion.

The battle for Deianeira
The Calydonian king Oineus had a daughter Deianeira with his wife Althaia, whose beauty attracted many suitors. Among them were Acheloos and Herakles. Since Oineus did not want to spoil things with anyone, he promised his daughter to the one who would remain the victor in a battle. Since no one wanted to take on Herakles and Acheloos, the two faced each other in battle. The battle was fought with the greatest violence. Finally Herakles had Acheloos on the ground. Since Acheloos could not fight him with his strength, he transformed himself into a snake (many river gods could transform themselves), Herakles could only laugh at this; he had already overcome two snakes in the cradle.  Then Acheloos turned into a roaring bull. But Herakles grabbed him by the shoulder and one horn and forced him into the sand, breaking off one of his horns. Full of shame, Acheloos threw himself into the river named after him and left Deianeira to Herakles, who was happy not to have to follow Acheloos. But the nymphs took the horn and made it into the horn of plenty (Ovid). According to others (Apollodorus), Acheloos was in possession of Amaltheia's horn of plenty and gave it to Herakles in exchange for his own. 

Background:
Oiniadai was a town in Akarnania on the western side of central Greece at the mouth of the Acheloos into the Ionian Sea.  The Acheloos is the second longest river in Greece, and still the one with the most water. It rises at Mount Lakmos in the Pindos Mountains and flows in a southerly direction until it turns southwest at Stratos, where it forms the border between Aitolia and Akarnania. There it flows through an extremely fertile plain, which is, however, interspersed with swamps due to flooding of the Acheloos, and then flows into the Ionian Sea near Oiniadai. Especially in the upper reaches, where it has a strikingly light colour due to the subsoil, it has a great gradient, so that it is very noisy, and many meanders. The comparison with a bull's roar and with a snake is therefore understandable. It brings a large amount of debris and has washed up the archipelago of the Echinades in its estuary.

The Acheloos, which was also called Thoas in prehistoric times, was the most revered river of the Greeks in antiquity, a fact recognised by all tribes. It naturally played a major role in the nearby sanctuary of Dodona, which contributed to its veneration.

Art history
Acheloos appears frequently in ancient art. He was a popular motif in Greek and Etruscan art and also appears in Graeca Magna, e.g. on coins of Metapontion, where games were held in his name because that was Aitolian populated, but also in Sicily. In literature, he remained popular as an example of the unfortunate lover until the Roman Empire.

(1) "Heracles and Deianeira and the disgruntled bull with the face of Acheloos", Etruscan wall painting from Tarquinia, c. 550 BC (Wikipedia).

(2) "Heracles fighting the river god Acheloos".
Side A of an Attic red-figure craters, Classical period, c. 450 BC, found in Agrigento, now in the Louvre in Paris. Heracles has seized Acheloos by the horn, Deianeira is on the left.

(3) "Hercules and Achelous", fresco from the Collegio degli Augustali, Herculaneum, Deianeira in the background.

(4) "The Feast of Acheloos" (c. 1615), Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), together with Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), now in the Metropolitan Museum for Art, New York. After Ovid, Metamorphoses. It was these paintings that had such a great influence on lifestyles at the time.

Sources
(1) Homer, Odyssee
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Apollodor, Bibliotheka
(4) Apollonios Rhodos, Argonautika
(5) Macrobius, Saturnalia
(6) Pausanias, Periegesis
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses

Secondary Literature
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich  Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur, Leipzig 1889
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,  Leipzig  1770
(3) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv
(4) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Helden, 2000

Online Sources
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com
(3) metmuseum.org

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 31, 2022, 09:31:38 am
Numa  Pompilius

Numa Pompilius was after Romulus the second mythic king of Rome.

The Coin:
Roman republic, L. Pomponius Molo, gens Pomponia
AE - denarius, 3.97g, 19.41mm, 210°
       Rome, 97 BC.
Obv. L.POMPON.MOLO
       Laureate head of Apollo l.
Rev. Numa Pompilius with lituus stg. r., before him burning altar, to which a victimarius is leading a goat
         in ex. NVMA.POMPIL (MA and MP ligate)
Ref. Crawford 334/1; BMCRR (Italy) 733; Sydenham 607
scarce, part. weakly struck

Note:
Victimarius is the assistant at sacrificing

The gens Pomponia
The Pomponia (from Etruscan pumpu) was a plebeian family, that leads back its origin like several other families to one of the sons of Numa Pompilius. This ancestry was constructed not until later and was expressed by coins that were struck by descendants (Pauly). Between them were remarkable many poets and writers. Titus Pomponius Atticus was a friend of Cicero with whom he kept up a yearslong correspondance. A Pomponia was mother of Scipio Africanus.

Numa  Pompilius
Numa Pompilius (supposedly 750 BC - 672 BC) was after Romulus the mythological 2nd king of Rome. But contemporary sources don't exist. First literally records we have from the 2nd half of the 3rd century BC. So it is not even certain that he is a historical person at all. Numa was a Sabine who lived segregated with his wife in Cures. When the Romans choosed him for their king he took this task only unwillingly. But then he became the wisest law-giver on the Roman throne.

He reorganized the people of Rome by classifying it in districts (pagi) and introduced guilds of craftsmen to overcome the steady conflicts of the tribes. He expanded the worship service of Vesta and introduced the vow of chastity. The vestal virgins had the duty to maintain the "eternal flame", to ensure the existence of the Republic. He founded the Fetiales, the class of priests responsible for the Roman foreign relations and the only ones which had the right to declare war against another nation.

He erected a temple for Janus and gave order to open the doors in case of war and to close them in peace. He let put up the palladium that Aeneas has brought from Troy and he induced the erection of the ancilia which were fallen down from heaven and should symbolize the eternal duration of the Roman empire.

At the border of the empire he let install boundary stones and he dedicated a temple to Terminus, god of boundaries. He interdicted the usual blood sacrifices at worship services. He was wherin all agree a very pious king.

He improved the calendar in that he introduced the months of Ianuarius and Februarius and so raised teir number from ten to twelve. The days he devided in holydays and non-holidays. To give more weight to his laws he claimed that he had secretly consulted with the goddess or nymph Egeria at a well.

His reputation was so great that even people of the neighbourhood call him as arbiter to settle differences. After his death he refused to be cremated and let bury himself in a stone coffin on the Ianiculum hill.

Numa  and  Pythagoras
Because of that in the late republic and in the early imperial time, e.g. at Ovid, there was the myth, that Numa has believed in a life after death and that he had been a scholar of Pythagoras. But already Cicero and Livius pointed out that this chronologically couldn't has been possible.

Egeria
Egeria was a nymph from which Numa Pompilius claimed he would meet her nightly where she told him which laws he should give the Romans (Livius). Some believed that he has fallen in love with her and she has been even his wife (Ovid). Because the Romans didn't believe all that he told them, once Numa invited the noblest of them to come for dinner and they found his house in the poorest state (Plutarch). He asked them to come back in the evening, where they found his house entirely altered. The rooms were decorated most splendid and the tables were covered with most precious dishes and the choicest meal impossible for a human being to acquire in such a short time. Thereafter thay did believe all that Numa told them about Egeria (Dion. Hal.). Other believe she only was a water nymph and Augustinus claimed that her relation to Numa Pompilius was only the manifestation of his knowledge in hydromantia, the art to forecast from water.

When Numa died Egeria withdraw to the grove of Aricia and wept for him so long that Diana transformed her into a well (Ovid).

The actual meaning of Egeria is not clear until today. She was a deity of the tributary of the lake of Nemi that flow through the grove of Aricia (Strabo). It is believed that she has been come to Rome together with the Diana of Aricia. There she become as lover or wife of Numa his adviser especially in matters of cult. This connection is very old but enigmatic (Pauly). In Rome she was worshipped together with other well deities in the grove of Camenae before the Porta Capena where the Ancilia, the sacred shields, were fallen down from heaven. This grove is said to be vowed by Numa on the advice of Egeria.

The interpretation as birth goddess has its origin by the affinity to Diana. As usual well nymphs are believed to be helpful at birth.

In ancien times Numa was seen as counter image to Romulus. While he has founded Rome with force and war (the murder of Remus was seen as primordial evil of Rome), Numa has implanted into the Romans the love for calm and piece. In his 18 years of reign the highest concord has dominated (Cicero). So he has become the second founder of Rome. Plutarch holds him for the example of a philosophically enlightened ruler in the sense of Plato. Especially Antoninus Pius is compared with him.

History of Art:
(1) The first picture shows the painting "Numa consults the nymph Egeria", ca. 1791, decribed to Jean Claude Naigeon (1753-1832), today in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Northern England

(2) The 2nd picture shows the painting of  Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) "Egeria weeping for Numa" (1669), today in the National Museum of Capodimonte

Sources
(1) Livius, ab urbe condita
(2) Plutarch, Numa Pompilius
(3) Plinius, Naturae  historia
(4) Vergil, Aeneis
(5) Cicero, de re publica
(6) Dionsysios von Halikarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae
(7) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(8) Augustinus, De civitate Dei

Literature:
(1) Der kleine Pauly
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur
(2) Benjamin  Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards and a Happy New Year
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 06, 2023, 03:20:26 am
Quirinus, the god of the Sabines

With Quirinus we dive deep into the earliest history of Rome.

The coin:
Roman Republic, C.Memmius c.f., gens Memmia.
AR - Denarius, 3.97g, 16.95x19.64mm, 210°.
          Rome, 56 BC.
Obv.: C MEMMI C.F.
        Bearded head of Quirinus with laurel wreath, r.
        behind QVIRINVS
Rev.: MEMMIVS AED CERIALIA PREIMVS FECIT
        Ceres enthroned r., holding torch in right hand and 3 ears of grain in left;
        in front of her a serpent erecting r.
Ref.: Crawford 427/2; Sydenham 921; Kestner3463; BMCRR Rome 3941; CNR 
         Memmia19; Memmia 9 
VF, fine toning, oval cuirass, rev. off-centre.

Note:
The rev. legend reads "(The festival of) Cerialia was first hosted by the Aedile Memmius."

About this coin:
On the reverse Ceres is depicted, an allusion to Gaius Memmius C.f. Quirinus, a plebeian aedile before 210 BC who had introduced the Ludi Ceriales (Crawford).

The gens Memmia was a plebeian family that provided numerous tribunes from the Jugurthine Wars to the time of Augustus. The origin of their name is not known. Virgil associated the gens with the Trojan hero Mnestheus. The use of Quirinus on denarii of Gaius Memmius perhaps alludes to a Sabine origin of the name.

Quirinus:
Quirinus was the tribal god of the earliest inhabitants of the Roman hill, which was called collis Quirinalis after him, which according to ancient tradition were the Sabine Quirites. His worship was always confined to the Quirinal in Rome. He lacked characteristic special traits and individual functions because he was the divine exponent of all the wishes and interests of his congregation (Roscher). He was most likely to appear as a god of war, which is understandable at a time when warlike prowess and military success played an important role in these ancient Italian communities crowded together in a small space. Thus, he was early interpreted as a parallel deity to Mars of the mountain Romans.
The name Quirites was associated with the Sabine city Cures and with curis (Sabine = lance), according to Varro, Ovid and Macrobius. More recent authors prefer a derivation from covirites (= total manhood, citizenship).

In historical times, the Quirites are always identical with Romani. The official term populus Romanus Quiritium summarises both. Quirites was used as the name of the Romans when one wanted to honour them (Varro). The ius Quiritium is the ancient, ceremonial synonym of ius Romanum. Originally, however, the Quirites - linguistically inseparable from their god Quirinus - were apparently the inhabitants of the collis Quirinalis, the Sabines, who united to form a community, the city of Rome, after the much-discussed conflict with the inhabitants of the palatium (rape of Sabine women), the Romans.

Around the time of Cicero, two narratives emerged linking Quirinus to the prehistory of Rome. Both are incompatible, but existed side by side.

(1) Under the influence of M. Terentius Varro, who himself came from Reate, one of the main places of the Sabines, the Sabine origin of the Quirinal community had gained general acceptance. Now, of course, their god also had to become Sabine and come from Cures, or at least be a Sabine word derived from curis = quiris

The founding legend was also adapted to the Roman one by Dionysius of Halicarnassus: just as Mars begat Romulus with the Albanian king's daughter Rhea Silvia, Quirinus begat Modius Fabidius with a virgin from Reate, who then founded Cures together with other men. The introduction of a cult of Quirinus then took place through the Sabine Titus Tatius. Therefore, in the list of sanctuaries drawn up by Varro, there is an altar (ara) of Quirinus on the Quirinal, which had been donated by Tatius.

(2) But a second story became more influential, which linked the old legend of the Rapture of Romulus with Quirinus: Romulus had taken the name Quirinus after his deification!
Romulus had taken the name Quirinus after his deification! During a storm, Romulus had suddenly disappeared in a cloud. There were even suspicions that he had been eliminated (Livius) and there was great unrest among the people. This unrest was only settled when the highly trustworthy citizen Iulius Proculus declared to the senate under oath that Romulus had appeared to him in war clothing, identified himself as the god Quirinus and demanded the erection of a sanctuary on the Quirinal.
The oldest witness that this text of Varro refers to it was Cicero in de re publica, where he writes that he was worshipped on the Quirinal. He repeated this 10 years later, from which one can conclude that this view was not yet established at that time (Roscher). But in the following period, this idea gained complete victory, favoured by the rulers of the time, and since Augustan times, the identity of Quirinus with Romulus has been common knowledge in poetry and historiography (especially Virgil, Ovid).

Temples and worship
In 263 BC, the consul L. Papirius Cursor consecrated the temple of Quirinus on the Quirinal, which his father had vowed to build, and decorated it with the spoils of war he had taken from the Samnites (Livius, Pliny). This temple was struck by lightning in 206 and burnt down in 49 (Cass. Dio). It was provisionally restored and in 46 the Senate placed in it a statue of Caesar with the inscription θεω ανικητω (the invincible god). The choice of this place had as its premise the equation of the god with the founder of the city (Roscher). In 16 BC Augustus then erected the magnificent new building, which existed until the end of antiquity.

Before Papirius built the temple, the sacellum Quirini (small shrine) near the porta Quirinalis, mentioned by Festus, existed from the earliest times and was perhaps identical with the ara mentioned by Varro and donated to Quirinus by Titus Tatius.

The same applies to the fact that Octavian was occasionally referred to as Quirinus, i.e. as the old, venerable Romulus, before he assumed the title of Augustus, and was also expressed in the decoration of his temple of Quirinus in whose pediment the founders of the city, Remus and Romulus, were depicted. Naturally, the founder of the Quirinus cult was no longer Titus Tatius, but now Numa Pompilius. And since Virgil, Quirinus always appears as the name of the city founder of Rome, as the brother of Remus or the son of Mars, and bears the attributes of Romulus lituus and trabea. And the poets do not speak of Quirinus only after the deification of Romulus, but already of him as a man, child or in the womb (Ovid fast.). Since Cicero he has been regarded as a Roman example of someone who was raised to heaven because of his merits, like among the Greeks Herakles, Asclepios or others. In contrast to his role in poetry, he plays a rather modest role as a god in the cultus of the imperial period.

The great age of the cult of Quirinus, however, is attested by the fact that he had a special public priest, the flamen Quirinalis, as otherwise only Juppiter had the flamen Dialis and Mars the flamen Martialis. Apparently this was the highest trinity of gods in Rome at that time, whose flamines appeared first in the order of priestly rank behind the rex sacrorum and were then replaced by the Capitoline trinity Iuppiter-Iuno-Minerva. The feast of Quirinus, the Quirinalia, fell on 17 February (Ovid fast.).

With the epithet Quirinus, Mars had a temple in the I. region. Under this name he was worshipped when he was calm (quies) and still, so that he had his temple within the city. As Mars Gradivus, god of war and unrest, he had his temple outside. The derivation from quies, however, was only a folk etymology.   

The last picture shows the "Quirinal", Luigi Rossini (1790-1857), "I Sette colli di Roma", etching, 1827. The Quirinal has always been the residence of rich Romans.

Sources:
(1) Plutarch, Romulus
(2) Dionysios von Halikarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae
(3) Titus Livius, ab urbe condita
(4) Ovid, Fastes
(5) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(6) Marcus Terentius Varro
(7) Cassius Dio, Roman History
(8) Macrobius, Saturnalia

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Leipzig
(3) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv
(4) Michael Crawford, The Roman Republic Coinage

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2023, 04:24:28 am
Titus  Tatius

Coin:
Roman Republic, L. Titurius L.f. Sabinus, gens Tituria
AR - Denaris, 3.96g, 29.92mm, 225°
        Rome, 89 BC
Obv.: Bearded head of king Tatius, bare-headed, r.
        behind SABIN, before monogram TA (for Tatius)
Rev.: 2 Roman soldiers each carrying away a Sabine woman
         in ex. .TITVRI
Ref.: Crawford 344/1a; Sydenham 698; Tituria 1
VF, slightly toned, somewhat excentric
Pedigree:
ex Lakeview coll.

Note:
The reverse shows the robbery of the Sabine women. The mintmaster L. Titurius had a son Q. T. Sabinus, who was Caesar's legate in Gaul. He distinguished himself in the battles against the Belgae, Venetians and the Venetians and its leader Viridovix. In 54/3 he was destroyed by personal failure with 15 cohorts by Ambiorix (Pauly).

Mythology:
Titus Tatius was the mythological co-king of Romulus. As with all figures of early Roman history, it cannot be determined whether he was actually a historical person. The mythologies mainly emerged in the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. They owe their origin to the belief, deeply rooted in Roman thinking, that Rome had arisen from a fusion of different peoples, which in fact was not so (Mommsen). That the Etruscans had a great influence on the Romans is beyond doubt. But that there was a great influence of the Sabines on the Romans is very doubtful. If one disregards Varro, who was filled with local patriotism, there is nothing to suggest this (Roscher).

According to the mythology Titus Tatius was the king of the Sabines. After the theft of girls by the Romans, he led a campaign of revenge against the Romans. When he besieged the Capitol, where the Romans' castle was located, the daughter of the castle commander Spurius Tarpeius, Tarpeia, who was fetching water, met Titus Tatius. She fell head over heels in love with him and, out of love, promised to open the castle gates. Others said she had been bribed out of greed for gold. In any case, the Sabines were able to conquer the Capitol with her help. Tarpeia, however, was sentenced to death by the Sabines themselves for her treachery.

The next day, the armies of the Sabines and the Romans engaged in a battle on the plain between the Palatine and the Capitol, which surged back and forth. When the Romans were in the greatest distress, Romulus promised a temple to Jupiter Stator and the fortunes of battle turned against the Sabines. Then the Sabine women, led by Hersilia, threw themselves between the fighters and achieved a reconciliation (Plutarch; Dionysius of Halicarnassus). She is said to have become the wife of Romulus and had 2 children with him, a daughter Prima and a son Aollius (or Avillius). After his death and deification, she also became a goddess under the name Hora. According to others, she became the wife of the Roman Hostius Hostilius, the grandfather of Tullius Hostilius, the legendary third king of Rome.

Afterwards, Romans and Sabines formed an alliance (foedus) and Romulus and Titus Tatius ruled Rome together and decided on common laws. Since then, the Romans called themselves populus Romanus Quiritium or simply Quirites, which was considered a venerable name. In Mars and Quirinus they had 2 war gods side by side. And after the death of the first two kings, Sabine and Roman kings alternated, eventually being joined by Etruscan kings, which speaks for their influence on Rome.

Tatius lived in arce (the castle of Rome). He introduced Sabine cults in Rome, e.g. for Ianus and Volcanus. After him, one of the 3 tribus into which the Romans were divided after the foundation of Rome is called Titiensis, and, supposedly in order to preserve Sabine cults, he established the priesthood of the Titii sodales, which was later renewed by Augustus, who was himself Titii sodalis. After the death of Tatius, this cult was extended to himself. He had an only daughter, Tatia, who became the wife of Numa Pompilius.

Murder of Tatius:
One day, emissaries from Laurentium were mistreated by Tatius' relatives. When they were to be called to account by the Laurentians according to international law, Tatius put love for his family above the law. The evil consequence was that when he came to Lavinium to celebrate the sacrifice, he was slain by the Laurentians. Romulus, however, did not start a war because of this. It was said that he did not take this act as evil as it deserved (Livius). But the alliance between Rome and Lavinium had to be solemnly renewed. Tatius was buried on the Aventine.

Art History:
I have chosen the painting by Jaques-Louis David (1748-1825) "L'intervention des Sabines", 1799, now in the Louvre, Paris. In the centre is Hersilia holding the fighters apart, Titus Tatius with sword on the left, Romulus with spear on the right. David is famous for his historical paintings in the style of classicism. He was a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Notes:
Arx (lat. = castle) was the northern, higher hill of the Capitoline double hill, where the Ara coeli church is located today. After the unification of the seven-hill city with the Sabine settlement on the Quirinal, the heavily fortified citadel of Rome was located here (Pauly).

Sources:
(1) Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina
(2) Plutarch, Romulus
(3) Titus Livius, ab urbe condita
(4) Dionysios von Halikarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae
(5) Ovid, Metamorphoses

Secondary literature:
(1) Theodor Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, dtv
(2) Der Kleine Pauly
(3) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-deutsches  Schulwörterbuch

Online Sources
(1) zeno-org
(2) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2023, 04:28:28 am
Excursus: The beginnings of Rome

On the bend of the Tiber, where today's Rome lies, moderately high hills rise on both banks, higher on the right, lower on the left. The latter were inhabited by the Ramnes in the most ancient times. But they were not the only ones. They were joined by the Titians and the Lucerians, from whom a common polity (synoikism) emerged.

This tripartite division is ancient, as can be seen from the Latin terms for part (tribus) and divide (tribuere).

The Ramnes were a Latin tribe and gave the name (Romani) and the Roman language to the newly emerged polity. The Titians seem to have been a Sabellian community and probably imposed synoicism on the Ramnes. They are considered the more venerable in the oldest traditions and had special rituals. These tribes inhabited the surrounding hills and cultivated their fields from there. Rome later emerged from these settlements. There was never an actual city foundation, as in the saga of Remus and Romulus. And certainly not an asylum on the Capitol as a collection point for all kinds of migrants and runaway slaves.

What is more interesting is why Rome developed precisely in the lowlands. This was less fertile, had fewer springs and was frequently flooded by the Tiber, so that the whole area became marshy, which of course also made it very unhealthy. This strangeness was already felt in ancient times.
But inland, one encounters narrow borders of powerful communities. Only on both banks of the Tiber could Roman settlement extend unhindered. The right bank with the Ianiculum was also part of the settlement area, and Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a citizen colony, a kind of suburb. This gave Rome the advantage of a firm trading post on the Tiber, the natural trade route of Latium, which was far enough away from the coast to protect it from pirates (Mommsen).

Literature:
(1) Theodor Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, dtv
(2) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Virgil H on January 12, 2023, 12:21:05 pm
As always, great stuff, Jochen. Thanks again.

Virgil
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 12, 2023, 03:00:48 pm
Thank you. These articles are for readers like you.

Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on January 16, 2023, 07:58:12 am
Felicitas

I will start with a rather rare provincial coin of Elagabal from Nicopolis ad Istrum, showing a Felicitas in her standard representation.

The coin:
Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal, 218-222.
AE 27, 12.64g, 26.78mm, 0°
stuck under governor Novius Rufus
Obv:: AVT K M AVPH - ANTΩNEINOC
         Bust, draped and cuirassed seen from behind, laureate, r.
Rev.: VΠ NOBIOV POVΦOV NIKOΠOΛITΩN ΠP / OC IC
        Felicitas in long robe and mantle, standing frontal, head l., resting with raised l. hand
        on long kerykeion and holding patera in right hand.
Ref.: a) not in AMNG:
            cf. AMNG I/1, 1970 (has laureate head)
            Rev. pl. XIX, 3 (1 ex., London, same die) 
        b) not in Varbanov:
             cf. 3897 (= AMNG 1970), as Eutychea!
        c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2013) No. 8.26.3.4 var. 
            (other obv. die: e.g. No. 8.26.38.8)
VF, nice shiny dark green patina

Felicitas is the Roman goddess of fertility and happy success. Originally, felix referred only to fertility. Fruit-bearing trees were called felices. In Ovid, felix is as much as child-bearing. Etymologically, felix is derived from dha (= to bear fruit), as are femina or fecundus. Later its meaning shifted more to the more general meaning of happy success. It is to be distinguished from the fleeting Fortuna, to whom it is opposed as permanent bliss.

The personification of Felicitas as a goddess seems to have occurred rather later. Nevertheless, her original meaning has not been forgotten. This is proven on the one hand by an inscription on the wall of a bakery in Pompeji "Hic habitat Felicitas" (= "Here dwells happiness"), but also by symbols attached to her on coins.

A temple was first erected for her by C. Licinius Lucullus because of his fortunate campaigns in Spain in the years 151 and 150 BC, and in front of the same he erected image columns, statues of Praxiteles, which Mummius had dragged away from Thespiä (Strabo, who here translates Felicitas with Eytychia). In any case, the dedication took place shortly after 146 BC. The delivery of a statue of Felicitas was entrusted to Arkesilaos by L. Licinius Lucullus, grandson of the founder of the temple, who was to receive 6000000 sesterces for it. But since both died, this statue was no longer executed (Pliny).

According to Dio Cassius, the axle of Caesar's triumphal chariot broke in front of this temple, and since Suetonius mentions that this happened when Caesar was driving at the Velabrum, the location of this temple can thus be determined precisely. This temple burnt down under Claudius. 

Perhaps to avert the bad foreshadowing of this event, Caesar had a second temple built to Felicitas in 44 BC on the site of the Curia Hostilia, which had been renovated by Sulla and his son Faustus, but it was not completed until M. Aemilius Lepidus.

According to a fragment, there was a sacrificial site of the goddess on the Field of Mars, which could be identical to the one where she was sacrificed on 12 August together with Venus victrix, Honos and Virtus. In any case, this refers to the theatre of Pompeius, which he had built as the first stone building in his 2nd Consulate, but had it dedicated as a temple in order to avoid conflicts with the Senate. Probably the veneration of Felicitas had already increased considerably, especially by Sulla, who called himself Felix and his patron goddess Venus Felix. Koch (RE) considers a sacrificial community of Felicitas with Venus Victrix already possible since Sulla.
 
With the waning of faith in the old gods, the cult of Felicitas seems to have expanded in imperial times. Thus Tiberius ordered a sacrifice to be made to her and the numen Augusti on 17 January. Because of Tiberius' descent from Fundi, a statue of Felicitas was erected there and a supplicatio established (Suetonius). The sacrifice offered was always a cow.

In inscriptions she followed either immediately after Iuppiter, Iuno, Minerva, or, if the Salus publica is especially mentioned, after this. Otherwise Felicitas herself is usually given the suffix publica. Other additions are Augusta, Perpetua, Italica, rei publicae, populi Romani, Romanorum, saeculi, temporum, imperatorum, Caesarum, and even deorum.

In the decisive battle of Thapsus, the slogan "Felicitas" was given to Caesar's troops (Bell. Afr.).

Most images of Felicitas are found on coins.  According to an antecedent in a quinarius of Lollius Palicanus, mint master under Caesar's dictatorship, Felicitas often appears as the embodiment of the blessings owed to the Emperor. Commodus first included felix in the official imperial titulary in 185 AD. She is depicted sitting or standing, often leaning on a column and thus resembling the Securitas, as on a Volusian sestertius.

As attributes she has the caduceus and the cornucopia, the bowl and sometimes a spear, but also a basket with ears of corn or a ship, which is supposed to indicate the secure supply of grain on which Rome depended, as on a denarius of Elagabal.


Otherwise, only a few personifications are found in poets and on inscriptions. Obscene reinterpretations (Felicitas as erotic happiness) seem to be indicated by an advertising plaque from Pompeji (Pauly): "Hic habitat felicitas" (= "Here dwells happiness").
The pic shows a copy from the Bible open Museum in Nijmegen. The original was found on the outside of a bakery (not a brothel!) in Pompeii and is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, called "Gabinetto segrteo" in the erotic collection by the Bourbons.

Notes:
(1) Velabrum: The marshy area between the Palatine and the Capitol. Place of high mythological importance. Remus and Romulus were found here. Later drained by the Cloaca maxima, it served among other things as a market.
(2) Curia Hostilia: In the Roman Republic, the meeting place of the Senate on the Forum. Later replaced by Julius Caesar with the Curia Julia.
(4) supplicatio: Religious ceremony appointed by the state. A distinction was made between supplications and thanksgiving supplications.

Sources:
(1) Plinius, Naturalis Historia
(2) Caesar, Bellum Africum
(3) Strabo, Geographika
(4) Cassius Dio, Roman history
(5) Sueton, Vitae Caesarum
(6) Ovid, Fasti

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisxhes Lexikon, Leipzig 1770 (online too)
(2) Wilhelm-Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (online too)
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Paulys Realencyklopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft  (RE)

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on April 03, 2023, 01:32:05 pm
Pan and the mountain nymph Pitys

I am proud to have now solved the mystery of one of the most unusual coins of Commodus from Nicopolis. I was able to do this with the help of the following coin, whose quality is so good that previously unknown details came to light when it was enlarged.

The coin:
Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Commodus, AD 177-192
AE 18, 3.33g
Obv.: AVT M AVPH - KOMOΔOC 
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: NEIKOΠOΛI Π - POC EICTP(sic!) (both P reverse).
          Pan, nude, wearing spruce wreath, walking r., shouldering a long pole with
          raised right hand and holding a wine vessel in front of his belly with his left.
Ref.: a) AMNG I/1, 1242 (1 ex., Vienna)
         b) Varbanov 2181
         c) Hristova-Hoeft-Jekov (2021) No.8.10.8.3corr.
not common, almost EF

120 year old mystery of the "horns" solved!
During my research I found 8 other coins. On these, the naked figure on the reverse is called Pan, Dionysos and even a river god, among others.

The great Behrendt Pick knew only 1 ex., 18mm, in 1895, and cites Wien Arneth Sitzungsber. 9, 898, 7 as his source. The rev. of this coin is illustrated under no. 13 on plate XIX. Behrendt Pick (1861-1940) was probably the greatest German numismatist. His accuracy and reliability are a model unrivalled to this day. His last position was honorary professor in Jena, where he was retired in 1934 as part of the persecution of the Jews. He died in 1940 and his wife took her own life 2 years later for fear of Nazi persecution.

He writes about this coin: The naming of the very crudely worked figure is uncertain because the attributes are indistinct. The object that goes from the r. hand over the shoulder to the back seems to be a long staff, which would suggest Pan; the two points on the head, which are more like horns than the ends of a wreath, would also fit in with this.

This description has been adopted by almost everyone, but the "horns" always remain somewhat obscure. But now everyone can see for themselves on the added photo that these "horns(?)" are indeed spruce branches!

So it really is Pan, and the 120-year-old mystery of the "horns" is solved: this depiction belongs to the mythology of Pan and the nymph Pitys. But I can't remember having seen Pan with a pine wreath before.

Mythology:
The story of Pan and Pitys belongs to the mythologies of the later Greek poets. Pan was known to hunt nymphs. Several were turned into trees to escape his pursuits: Daphne into laurel, Syrinx into reed, Pitys (from Greek pitys = spruce, actually "resin tree") into a spruce.   

Nonnos writes in his Dionysiaka how the marriage-shy Pitys ran away from Pan quickly like the wind over the mountains and finally took root and thus, transformed into a spruce, escaped marriage. The woodcutters were told to spare the spruce and not to cut any spruce beams.

Pan, however, liked to adorn his head with their branches ever since (Ovid, Metamorphoses).

There is also another version of this mythology. Boreas, the north wind, who lived in a cave in the Haimos mountains, was known for playing and dancing in the branches of the trees, as it were, ensnaring and wooing the tree nymphs, and was therefore considered lustful and lecherous like other forest spirits. He had his eye on Pitys and competed with Pan for her favour. Purring through her branches, he wanted to seduce her. In his unruliness he is even said to have uprooted all the trees, but Pan only laughed at this. And Pitys spurned him, preferring Pan. Once, when he met Pitys alone, he threw her off a rock in his jealousy and killed her. But Mother Earth took pity on the girl, took her into her womb and turned her into a spruce tree.

Art history:
I have added a pic of a small mosaic showing Pan and the Hamadryad Pitys. It is an 18th century forgery from the Neapolitan collection of Duke Carafa di Noja. Today it is in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples.

This motif was also taken up later, for example by Nicolas Poussin, Jacob Jordaens, François Boucher, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Annibale Carracci, Andrea Casali, Arnold Böcklin, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Maxfield Parrish (Wikipedia).

Sources:
(1) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(2) Nonnus, Dionysiaka
(3) Longus, Daphnis  and  Chloe
(4) Lukian of Samosata, Dialogues

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, 1884-1895,  Leipzig
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770, Leipzig

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 28, 2023, 08:37:56 am
Hera Argeia

Finally the following coin gives me the opportunity to write an article about Hera, the mother of the gods, once again.

The coin:
Egypt, Alexandria, Nero, AD 54-68
AE  -  BI  Tetradrachm,  12.37g,  25mm
         Alexandria,  AD 67/68  (RY  14)
obv.:  NEPΩ  KΛAV  KAIΣ  ΣEB  ΓEP  AV
         Bust of Nero, radiate, l., aegis on l. shoulder,  l. before L IΔ (year 14)
rev.:  HPA  -  APΓEIA
         Bust of Hera Argeia, veiled and draped, r.
ref.:  Milne  281;  Emmet  122;  Dattari  235;  Geissen  199; RPC  5309

This tetradrachm is associated with the trip to Greece that Nero made in 67/68, during which he was celebrated as a great artist.

Etymology:
The name of Hera is etymologically unsettled. There is much to suggest that it is related to Greek heros, which originally meant "protector."
This important goddess is not, as one has recently thought, a Semitic one, but without doubt of genuine Greek or Graeco-Italian origin. Roscher still considered her to be an original moon goddess, which is rejected today, where she is associated with the moon only in 2nd line (Pauly).
The main area of distribution of her cult was the Peloponnese.

The epithet Argeia, which already appears in Homer, could lead to the conclusion that an old palace goddess from Mycenaean times perhaps lives on in her for Argos. From Argos her cult seems to have spread.

Mythology:
Hera is a goddess of women, whose rights she protected. As wife of the highest god Zeus she is the Guardian and protector of the law of marriage. The step from the goddess of marriage to the general concept of the goddess of fertility would not be far, but is unfounded (Pauly). The sacrificial animal used in her cult seems to have been the cow.

In many places of the Iliad Hera is seen as domineering and proud. She jealously observes Zeus' numerous love affairs and expresses her anger by sulking or bickering. However, she lacks the courage for active resistance; if he threatens her, she quickly gives in, but then knows how to use cunning. Homer already describes this not without irony - according to Egon Friedell, he thus characterizes the "misunderstood woman".

Already the Iliad knows the Argivian Herakult. Argos, Sparta and Mykenai are called cities dearest to the goddess. According to Pausanias the two national deities of Argos are Hera Argeia and Zeus Nemeios. He himself has seen a wooden seated statue of Hera. According to a legend he tells, Hera and Poseidon once quarreled over Argolis. They asked the river gods Inachos, Phoroneus, the son of Inachos, Kephisos and Asterion to make the decision.  They decided in favor of Hera. Poseidon took revenge by making all the rivers dry up. Later Phoroneus succeeded his father on the throne and gained the rule over the whole Peloponnese. According to Hyginus, he was the founder of the Heracults and built the first temple of Hera.

Festivals in honor of Hera, the Heraia, were celebrated in several cities. The most brilliant Heraion took place in Argos with a procession, the sacrifice of a hecatombe of white cattle, male and boy competitions, and horse jumping for shields. More interesting in cultural-historical terms, however, was the Heraion at Olympia, which was a unique remnant of a pre-Hellenic mother-law festival, which also gave the father-law Olympic Games peculiar features and special honor. Elis was known as a stronghold of maternal law.
In Argos she was also worshipped as Eileithya, the goddess of childbirth. In the Theogony of Hesiod, Eileithya is the daughter of Hera and Zeus. But that certain traits of the parents are extracted and then embodied by their children is not unknown in mythology.
From Argos the Herakult spread to the most different directions and several times Argeia became the lasting cult name in the new homeland, so in Sparta, in Messene, on Kos, in Alexandreia and elsewhere.

Kleobis and Biton
To the history of the Heraion of Argos belongs inevitably the mythology of Kleobis and Biton, which is told to us by Herodotus: Kleobis and Biton were a pair of brothers and the sons of Kydippe, the Hera-priestess of Argos, and known for their sense of duty towards their mother. When Kydippe wanted to go to Argos for the sacrificial feast of Hera, on a chariot drawn by white cows, as was customary, the cows had not yet returned from the field. In order not to be late, the brothers harnessed themselves in front of the chariot and pulled their mother 45 stadia (over 8.5km) to the sanctuary themselves. After the sacrificial meal, both of them, exhausted from the long ordeal, lay down to sleep in the temple. Their mother was proud of her sons and asked Hera to give them the best that a human being could receive from a god. Thereupon they gently passed away in the youth of their lives and and attained a quick and gentle death. They were praised by the Argives as examples of the highest virtue. Statues of them were erected at Delphi.

I have addes the following pictures:
(1) The view over the Heraion of Argos to the Inachos plain in the Argolis.
(2) A Roman funerary altar from the imperial period, which depicts the myth of Kleobis and Biton.. Today in the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Baths of Diocletian in Rome.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Herodot, Historiae
(4) Pausanisas, Voyages

Secondary literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(3) Pauly: RE
(4) Der Kleine Pauly

Online-Quellen:
(1) “Das Heraion von Argos – Ein wenig beachteter Höhepunkt im Herzen der Argolis"
(2) www.archaeology.wiki/blog/2014/01/13/pantazis/
(3) https://dbpedia.org/page/Heraion_of_Argos

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 29, 2023, 05:18:36 am
Athena Ilias

Having a coin from Troy in your hand is always special, especially when it is a representation as historically important as that of Athena Ilias.

The coin:
Troas Ilion, Iulia Domna, AD 193-211
AE 19, 4.44g, 18.93mm, 45°.
Obv. IOVΛIA - CEBACTH.
        Draped bust r.
Rev. IΛIEΩ / N.
        Statue of Athena Ilias, holding a spear at an angle with her right hand, her left hand
        stretched forward, standing on garlanded column r.; in front of it a cow   
        with lowered head walking l.
Ref. Bellinger T230: BMC 68, 77 var.; SNG Cop. 418; SNG Munich 268 var;
       not in SNG of Aulock

Note:
The cow played an important role in the founding mythology of Troy because it showed Ilos the place where he was to build Troy.

Athena in the Trojan War:
When at the wedding of Peleus with Thetis the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite quarreled about which of them was the most beautiful, and the Trojan prince Paris decided in favor of Aphrodite, who had promised him Helen, this was the origin of the Trojan War. In this war the gods played an important role. Although Zeus, the father of the gods, was watching the events on earth neutrally, all the others had taken one side or the other. On the Trojan side stood Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Artemis, Leto and the river gods Skamandros (Xanthos) and Simois. On the Greek side Athena, Hera, Hephaistos, Hermes, Thetis and Poseidon fought. It even came to the fight of the gods among themselves, the so-called Theomachia.

Athena played an important role in the war for Troy (Latin Ilium). Several times she personally intervened in the war. Deeply offended by the insult of Paris, she always supported the Greeks. She was the protector of the "cunning" Odysseus, who with the wooden horse finally initiated the fall of Troy. She helped Diomedes to injure Ares with his lance. When Hekabe, the wife of Priamos, invited the noble women of Troy to go to the temple of Athena on the Akropolis, offer her the most beautiful robe, and beg the goddess for mercy, Athena curtly refused their requests for help. Through the Palladion, however, she was also closely connected with Troy.

The statue of Athena Ilias has similarities with the Palladion: Athena, with polos on her head, stands with closed legs, holding the spear in her right hand and the spindle and skirt in her outstretched left. Thus it is a hybrid of the standing, armed type with the seated, peaceful type (Roscher). Whether this type was known earlier or was introduced after the refoundation of Ilion is not known. 

The Palladion:
Athena grew up with Pallas, the daughter of the sea god Triton. When she accidentally killed her in a game of throwing spears, she created a statue of herself, the Palladion, in her memory. This is said to have been thrown by Zeus to Ilos from heaven at the founding of Troy, and as long as it was in Troy's possession, Troy was invincible. It could only be conquered after Odysseus and Diomedes had stolen it. Besides this, there is said to have been a second one, which Aeneas took to Italy after the fall of Troy, and which was later kept in the temple of Vesta in Rome.

The Temple of Athena:
Around 700 BC, Greek colonists, probably from the opposite islands of Tenedos and Lesbos, settled in Troy and built a temple to Athena in memory of her support in the Trojan War. The exact date is not known. This appears to have been only a modest temple. Strabo writes: "It is said that the city of the present Ilians was for a time a mere village that had its temple to Athena, a small and cheap temple."

But the name Troy was known to Greeks and Persians. It was an important pilgrimage site, also because of its strategic location at the passage from Asia to Europe. In order to gain the support of the gods, Xerxes I sacrificed 1000 cattle at the temple of Athena before his march to Greece in 480 BC. It is known that Alexander the Great, who was enthralled by the story of the Iliad, visited Troy on his way to Persia in 334 BC, sacrificed to Athena and made libations to Achilles and the other heroes. He donated his armor to Athena, elevated the existing village settlement (Greek kome) to a city, and promised to build a new temple to Athena. Antiochos III (191 BC) and Gaius Livius Salinator (190 BC) also crossed the strait, visiting Troy and making sacrifices to Athena.

The promised construction of a new temple by Alexander never happened. The Hellenistic temple is said to have been built by Lysimachos, one of Alexander's generals. In the meantime, however, archaeologists are of the opinion that the construction was begun only around 240 B.C., thus long after his death. This temple stood on the bastion of the late Bronze Age Troy. on the eastern wall of the city. At that time, Troy bore the Greek name Ilion. The temple had a floor plan of 36 x 16 m, making it one of the largest structures in the city. It was the center of the annual festival in honor of Athena with sacrifices and sports competitions. The metopes was richly decorated with reliefs. Themes were the Gigantomachia. the Kentauromachia, an Amazonomachia and the Ilioupersis, the fall of Troy.

In the 1st Mithridatic War (89 - 85 BC) Gaius Flavius Fimbria (d. 85 BC), a supporter of the Populars under Gaius Marius and Cinna, advanced through Greece to Asia Minor and besieged Troy. After conquering it, he had it sacked, destroying the temple of Athena in the process. Only the statue of Athena of Troy is said to have survived the fire. The temple was restored once again under Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). Around 500, Troy was destroyed by earthquakes and the regional inhabitants used it as a source of building material in the early modern period.

The Koinon of Athena Ilias:
In the last decade of the 4th century BC, cities predominantly of the Troad joined together under the patronage of Athena Ilias to form a community, the Koinon of Athena Ilias, which jointly celebrated the annual Panathenaia, festivals in honor of Athena Ilias. It included Ilion, Alexandreia Troas, Skepsis, Assos, Hamaxitos, Abydos, Tenedos, Parion and Lampsakos. This Koinon existed until at least the late 1st century A.D. Only in the 2nd and early 3rd century A.D. were the Panathenaia organized by Ilion alone. The agonothetai, the leaders of the games, were elected penteterically, i.e. every 4 years. There were large and small Panathenaia.

Strangely enough, this great feast has left no traces in Hellenistic literature. But there are numerous epigraphic testimonies and an important silver coinage of tetradrachms. Today, 55 new types have been added to the 56 known to Bellinger in 1961. As a result, we now have a good overview of the institutions. The most important institutions were the Synedrion (the council) and the Administrative Council of the Agonothetai, which were responsible for the execution of the festivals, but whose tasks went far beyond these.

The Koinon minted coins from the late 180th/early 170th B.C. until the 60th/50th B.C. These were tetradrachms with the magistrate's name. They were minted continuously throughout the period, although sometimes at low levels.

These tetradrachms had two purposes:
1) They were to provide the agonothetai with money to host the festivals.
2) They served as status symbols of these festivals.

Due to the Mithridatic Wars of 88-85 BC, which led to the destruction of Ilion, the Koinon got into great difficulties, but some of them were already present before. However, even after the destruction by Fimbria in 85 BC, the games took place again. This proves their great resilience. The reason was the general enthusiasm for these games and the sense of togetherness they embodied. But also important were the institutions of the Koinon, which had helped to bear the financial burden and to cope with the political demands.

The appropriation of the Homeric heritage, especially through the cult of Athena Ilias, was a significant part of the active policy of self-representation of the city. The importance of Athena Ilias can be gauged by the fact that she was still depicted on coins, as on my coin, even though the Koinon no longer existed.

Notes:
(1) Koinon (from Greek koinos = together), designates in Greek constitutional law a federal state, but also as its predecessor a confederation of states. What it has in common is the existence of federal organs and, in any case, federal civil law, which places all citizens of the individual states on an equal footing under private law. The constitutional problems are common to all Koina: the scope of the federal government's competence, the composition of the Federal Council, the time and place of the Federal Assembly's sessions, the appointment of civil servants. We know all this from the European Union. Nothing has changed there since antiquity.

(2) Penteteric comes from Greek pente = five, but means a four-year cycle. The reason: In the counting the start and the end element both are counted. So the four-year Olympiad was also penteteric. We know this ourselves when we say "in 8 days" meaning a week of only 7 days. And the Beatles sing, "Eight days a week!"

Attached I have the following pictures:
(1) Photo of today's temple ruins (Wikipedia).
(2) This picture shows the best preserved relief of the temple of Athena. It shows Apollo as the sun god, emerging from the sea with his four sun horses. It was found in 1872 by Heinrich Schliemann during his excavations and is now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.
(3) Ilion, tetradrachm, 89/85 B.C.; Athena Ilias; Bellinger T98; Küncker Auction, March 2020. Here Athena is wearing a spindle!.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Vergil, Aeneis
(3) Strabo, Geographika

Secondary literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon,
(3) Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Mythologie
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Bellinger, Troy - The  Coins

Online Sources:
(1) Julien Olivier, "La statue d’Athéna Ilias, ou la promotion de l’héritage troyen d’Ilion", in L’Antiquité  à  la  BnF,  01.10.2021
(2) Aneurin Ellis-Evans,The Koinon of Athena Ilias and its Coinage, The American Numismatic Society  2016
(3) Ahmet Denker, Reviving the temple of Athena Ilias at Troy/Ilion,Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Volume 30, September  2023
(4) Wildwinds
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on August 30, 2023, 09:35:19 am
King Menestheus and the Dioscuri

The following coin gives me the occasion to write something about the Memmii and Menestheus.

The coin:
Roman Republic, L. Memmius, gens Memmia
AR - denarius, 3.8g, 22mm
        Rome, 109-108 BC.
Obv.: Male head (Apollo?), with oak wreath, r., under chin value mark.
Rev.: The Dioscuri standing facing, each holding a spear and holding his horse by the bridle                     
         in ex. L MEMMI
Ref: Crawford 304/1; Sydenham 558; RBW 1145; Memmia 1

The gens Memmia:
The Memmii were a plebeian family that first became historically known in 172 BC with Gaius Memmus Gallus as praetor. Until the time of Augustus they provided numerous tribunes of the people. The fact that on coins of Gaius Memmius 56 BC the Sabine god Quirinus is represented, speaks for a Sabine origin of the family.

Lucius Memmius, who had struck our coin, was triumvir monetalis ca. 109 BC. He was the brother of Gaius Memmius, the people's tribune of 111 B.C. Cicero describes him as a mediocre but agressive orator. He supported Marcus Livius Drusus, who instigated important reforms but failed, and his daughter married Gaius Scribonius Curio, the consul of 76 BC.

The gens Memmia claimed their descent from Mnestheus, a Trojan who had come to Italy with Aeneas. The latter was a companion of Aeneas from the family of Assarakos, king of Dardanos in the Troad, and often represented him. In the naval contest near Sicily at the death celebrations in honor of Anchises, he was the helmsman of the ship Pristis ("whale"), where, although he was defeated by Eurytion along with Hippocoon and Akestis, he nevertheless won second prize and received the armor of Demoleon in return. Vergil calls him "mox Italus (= soon to be an Italer), the lineage from which the name of the Memmii comes". This goes back to the etymological linking of this gens to memor, from where the Trojan hero Mnestheus is said to have taken his name. This late legend of descent, which is known only from the Aeneid of Virgil (70 BC - AD 19) and actually has no basis, indicates that the gens had become a respectable part of the Roman nobility at the end of the Republic.

The image of the two Dioscuri on the reverse of this coin, however, suggests that at the time of its minting, the descent legend still referred to
Menestheus, the mythical king of Athens who, with the help of the Dioscuri, chased Theseus out of Athens.

Mythology:
Menestheus was the son of Peteos and, through his father Orneus, a great-grandson of Erechtheus, the mythical king of Attica. Peteos was driven out of Attica by King Aigeus and fled to Phocis, where he founded the city of Stiris. Aigeus had no children and accepted Theseus as his son and successor.

When Theseus was 50 years old, he went to Sparta together with the Lapith king Peirithoos and kidnapped the twelve-year-old Helen.

Helena, the daughter of Leda and sister of the Dioscuri, was considered the most beautiful female of antiquity. When they competed for Helena, Theseus won. Since she was not yet marriageable, he gave her to the care of her mother Aithra in Aphidnai in Attica. As compensation, Peirithoos demanded Persephone, the wife of Hades, as his wife.

When Theseus and Peirithoos went to the underworld to kidnap Persephone, the Dioscuri raised an army, marched against Athens and demanded the surrender of their sister. Since the Athenians did not know the whereabouts, the twins devastated the country. Finally, according to a version of Plutarch, Akademos betrayed the hiding place in order to avert further damage. According to a version of Herodotus, the Dioscuri learned the whereabouts of Helen from the Dekeleians, who were therefore honored by the Spartans. The brothers took Aphidnai by storm, devastated it, freed Helen and in turn captured Aithra. They then brought Menestheus, the son of Peteos, back from exile and made him ruler of Athens.

It is said that Helena was pregnant by Theseus and gave birth either in Aphidnai or later in Argos to Iphigenia, who is known as the daughter of Agamemnon and Klytaimnestra. Helen is said to have passed Iphigenia on to Klytaimnestra, since she was already married.

In the meantime Menestheus, with the help of the Dioscuri, had stirred up the Athenians against Theseus. When Theseus returned to Athens from the underworld, he was expelled by Menestheus and went to the island of Scyros. Either he demanded the throne from King Lykomedes or support against Menestheus - in any case, this was reason enough for Lykomedes to let Theseus fall to his death from a rock.  He was buried on the island.

Thus Menestheus became the unrestricted ruler of Athens. When Helen was to be married, Menestheus was one of the many suitors. The Dioscuri wanted to give him in marriage to her sister, but she was given to Menelaus, the richest of the Greeks.

When the Trojan War broke out after Paris stole Helena, Menestheus, as king of Attica, participated with 50 ships. Together with Odysseus and the herald Talthybios he persuaded King Kinyras of Kypros to participate in the war. Homer tells that no one was equal to him in war experience. In the art of arranging teams and warriors for battle, only Nestor could rival him. Philostratos calls him τακτικωτατος, the greatest tactician. Before Troy he fought Sarpedon and Glaukos, and in Pausanias he was one of the 40 warriors in the Wooden Horse. Pausanias had also seen in the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis of Athens a bronze that showed Menestheus getting out of the horse. Overall, however, the Athenians did not play a major role before Troia, despite their 50 ships.

There are several versions of the end of Menestheus. According to some, he fell before Troy. According to others he returned after the end of the war with Aithra, the mother of Theseus, and her daughter Klymena as king to Athens, where he supported the acquitted Orestes (Dictys). Strabo tells that on his way back from Troy he founded Alais in the Aiolis, and Apollodor reports that after the won war he sailed to Mimas and reached the Cycladic island Melos, where he became king, because their king Polyanax had just died.

Strabo tells of a λιμην Μενεσθεως, a bay near Gades on the coast of Baetika in southern Spain, and of a μαντειον Μενεσθεως, an oracle site. Philostratos relates that the Gaditans sacrificed to Menestheus.

In any case, there is agreement that after his death Demophon and Akamas, the sons of Theseus, who had moved to Troy with Elenophor, king of Euboia, regained their father's rule and secured it for Theseus' descendants for 3 generations.

Note:
Dictys Cretensis: Ephehemeridos bello Troiani libri. An alleged eyewitness account of a Cretan who took part in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks. He accompanied his king Idomeneos from Knossos to Troy. His manuscript was allegedly discovered in 60 AD and translated from Phoenician into Latin by order of Emperor Nero. As a counter-draft to Dare's Phrygius, this work played an important role in the reception of the Troy story until modern times.

I have attached 2 pics:
(1) Attic red figure Stamnos showing the abduction of Helena. Theseus leads Helena to the chariot of Peirithoos; far right Phoibe, sister of Helena Attributed to Polygnotos Painter, ca. 430-420 BC. Today in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens (NAMA).
(2) "Castor and Pollux free Helena", 1817, painting by Jean Bruno Gassies (1786-1832), private collection. Picture from Sotheby's  2015

Sources:
(1) Homer, Ilias
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Hesiod, Theogony
(4) Hyginus, Fabulae
(3) Cicero, Brutus
(4) Plutarch, Theseus
(5) Vergil, Aeneis
(6) Pausanias, Voyages
(7) Strabo, Geographika
(8) Philostratos, Vita Apolloni

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1770
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen 
Mythologie
(3) Der  Kleine  Pauly
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
(5) Wilhelm Gemoll, Griechisch-Deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch
(6) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-Deutsches Schulwörterbuch

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 01, 2023, 08:59:22 am
The spring nymph Iuturna

The coin:
Roman Republic, Aulus Albinus Sp. f, gens Postumia
AR - denarius, 3.61g, 18.13mm, 180°.
         Rome, auxiliary mint 96 BC.
Obv.: Laureate head of Apollo r., in front of it X (value mark), behind it star 
          below ROMA
Rev.: The Dioscuri, nude, chlamys over shoulders, wearing pileus, standing with
          spears l. beside their horses drinking from the Iuturna fountain, in upper l. field
          crescent moon
           in ex. A ALBINVS SF
Ref.: Crawford 335/10a; Sydenham 612; Albert 1157; BMCRR 518; FFC 1055;
         Postumia 5

Note:
The mintmaster Aulus Albinus Sp. f. was probably the son of Spurius Postumius Albinus Magnus, the Roman consul of 148 BC.

The Battle of Lake Regillus
This coin refers to the Battle of Lake Regillus of early Roman history. The lacus Regillus was located in the Tusculum area. It is probably a crater lake drained in the 19th century, today's "Pantano Secco" near Frascati.

There, at the beginning of the 5th century B.C. (mentioned in 496), the decisive battle in the first Latine war took place, whereby the tradition is strongly legendary. The Latins had formed a confederation and marched against the young Roman Republic. In the process, the Latine cavalry was led by the former Roman king Tarquinius Superbus, who had been chased out of Rome by Brutus shortly before. The Romans were led by the dictator Aulus Postumius P. f. Albus († after 493 BC), who afterwards received the honorary name (agnomen) Regillensis. It is said that when the Romans were in danger of losing the battle, Aulus Postumius Albus made a promise (exoratio) to the Dioscuri, the patron gods of the Latin cavalry, who were worshipped by the Latins, to build them their own temple. In this way he succeeded in drawing them to the Roman side. Then, by a clever maneuver, Albus dismounted his cavalry, threw it against the enemy infantry, and thus raised his own discouraged infantry. This maneuver, with the help of the Dioscuri, decided the battle and the standards were recovered. -

Livius does not know about an intervention of the Dioscuri, this is only due to the poetic imagination of Ovid. He also tells that still on the evening of the battle the Dioscuri appeared at the Iuturna fountain on the forum in Rome and watered their horses there and announced their victory to the Romans (So also Dion. Hal.).

The promised temple was inaugurated in 484 BC. However, the Romans had not succeeded in completely subduing the Latins. The peace treaty (foedus Cassianum) that was negotiated was an equal defense alliance between Rome and the Latins.

Iuturna:
Already in the report of the Battle of Lake Regillus, history and mythology are mixed. Iuturna was worshipped as a spring nymph already in archaic times. Originally she was the nymph of a spring at river Numicius near Lavinium, but was then transferred to Rome (by evocatio?).

The poets of the Augustan period tried to insert the goddess in various ways into the image of Italic legends of gods and heroes that they created.
(1) Vergil reports in his Aeneid that she was the daughter of Daunus and the sister of Turnus, the king of the Rutulians. The similarity of the names probably gave the clue. With Turnus, who possessed a sword hardened in the Styx, Aeneas had to compete in a duel before the escaped Trojans could finally settle in Latium. Iuturna had repeatedly taken the form of a charioteer to help her brother.

(2) Another version, of which we have knowledge only through Arnobius, made her the daughter of the water god Volturnus, the wife of Ianus and mother of Fontus, the god of springs. A deeper mythological content must not be sought in these arbitrary combinations; the nature and essence of the goddess have been correctly designated by Varro in his antiqitates rerum divinarum with the words, "Iuturna inter proprios deos nymphasque ponitur (Iuturna was placed with the typical gods and nymphs)" (Wissowa)

In Virgil the love of Iuppiter for Iuturna is hinted at, by Ovid in his fastes it is painted out. Ovid reports that Iuppiter fell in love with her. In return for her giving herself to him, Juppiter gave her immortality and made her goddess over all the springs and rivers in Latium. Generally, a local water nymph was in charge of only one water source, but Iuturna's much greater power reflects her importance in Latium. Ovid further spun out the saga of Iuppiter's love for Iuturna by telling how the brittle nymph flees from the god's solicitations into her wet element, until Iuppiter asks all the other nymphs of Latium to help him and stop the fugitive. Ovid also relates that Larunda, another nymph, betrayed the secret of her love affair and was punished for it by Juppiter with muteness.

She was the only love of Juppiter who had not been angry with Juno. So she sent Iuturna to the aid of her brother Turnus to save him from imminent death. At the chariot race, Iuturna threw Metiscus from the chariot and took his form. Although Turnus recognized his sister, he nevertheless jumped from the chariot to fight with Aeneas and was killed by him. Iuturna withdrew into her water in mourning (Vergil).

Her name is said to come from iuvo (= I help), because her water had been healing and was used for sacrifice (Varro, de ling. Lat.).

The cult:
The goddess does not seem to have received a public cult, however, until the end of the First Punic War in 241 BC, when Gaius Lutatius Catulus vowed a temple to her and built it in the Field of Mars near the Saepta, where the corner of the Aqua Virgo later was (Serv. Aen.; Ovid. fastes). Probably after a renewal of this temple under Augustus in 2 BC, the Iuturnalia was celebrated as the foundation feast of the temple on January 11. where sacrifices were made to her and she was honored by the fontani, the men in charge of the fountains and aqueducts of Rome. This day was festively celebrated by all the craftsmen who needed spring water to practice their profession (Serv. Aen.).

Another festival where Iuturna was worshipped was the Volcanalia.  On August 23, the day of the Volcanalia, a solemn sacrifice was held in Rome to all the deities whose protection was invoked against the danger of fire, which was especially necessary in Rome, which was often ravaged by fires. Here, after Volcanus, the god of fire, Iuturna and the nymphs immediately found their place.

The Iuturna Spring
To the left of the Temple of Castor and Pollux is the Iuturna Spring. Frontinus mentions in his work "De Aquis Urbis Romae" that before the construction of the first aqueduct by Appius Claudius, Rome drew its water from the Tiber, from fountains and from the few springs in the city. The most important of these springs emerged directly at the Forum at the foot of the Palatine: this was the lacus Iuturnae, the Iuturna spring. Originally, the place of worship functioned as a natural sanctuary without a setting. In the first half of the 2nd century BC it was provided with a basin. The first architectural design and the consecration of the statues of the Dioscuri was probably initiated by Lucius Aemilius Paullus, to whom the Dioscuri, during their second epiphany at the spring, proclaimed his victory over the Macedonian king Perseus in the battle of Pydna (168 BC). In front of the basin a large space with niches was uncovered, On the back wall the aedicula of Iuturna rises on a high pedestal. An inscription calls this place the true place of worship for Iuturna. The altar placed in front of the aedicula was found inside.  It shows the representation of Turnus and Iuturna. There was also found a statue of Aesculapius. The current appearance corresponds to that of the time of Trajan.

Art History:
The iconography of Iuturna is largely unknown. A later altar relief from the temple of Castor and Pollux possibly depicts her. I have added the following pics:
(1) Fountain of Iuturna (lacus Iuturnae), aedicula with the image of Turnus and Iuturna. Inscription: "Marcus Barbatius Pollio, curulic aedile, renewed this sanctuary of Iuturna" (Wikipedia).
(2) The picture shows the marble fragment of a horse of the Dioscuri found in the basin of the Iuturna spring. It dates back to the 2nd century BC. It can be seen with other parts in the Temple of Romulus on the Forum (Wikiüedia)
(3) The so-called Area Sacra (Sacred District) di Largo di Torre Argentina is located on the ancient Campus Martius below the present street level and is easily visible from all sides. The excavation area includes the remains of four temples and adjacent secular buildings from the Republic period. It was known to Rome fans as the "Cat Forum" because poor old women fed the feral cats there out of charity.

The temples are numbered from A to D. The picture shows temple A from the 3rd century .C. It is assumed that it is the temple of Iuturna or the temple of Iunonis Curritis. The former was built by Quintus Lutatius Catulus after the victory of the Romans over the Falerii in 241 B.C., the latter by Quintus Lutatius Cercone after the victory of his relative Quintus Lutatius Cercone over the Falerii, also in 241 B.C. However, the most probable identification is the former.

Note:
Sextus Iulius Frontinus (b. c. 35; † 103) was a Roman senator, soldier, and writer.  In 74/75 he became governor of the province of Britain until he was succeeded by Agricola in 79/80. After serving as legatus Augusti pro praetore in what would later become Germania inferior and as proconsul of the province of Asia, he was appointed by Emperor Nerva in 97 AD as superintendent of the aqueducts in Rome (curator aquarum), a task entrusted only to persons of very high standing. He was consul three times, the last time in 100 AD together with Emperor Trajan, which was a high distinction.

His most famous work is De aquaeductu urbis Romae in two books. In it, he describes the history, use, maintenance and condition of the Roman water supply and disposal system. He considers these to be a great civilizing achievement of the Romans. However, he also recognized that the managers lacked the necessary expertise. Therefore, he systematically collected the scattered specialized knowledge for the necessary competence to lead the official business also of his successors.
Another work, the Strategematon libri dealt with the history of Greek and Roman war lists for use by officers and army commanders

Sources:
(1) Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita
(2) Dionysios von Halikarnassos, Antiqutates Romanae
(3) Vergil, Aeneis
(4) Ovid, Fasti
(5) Varro, De Lingua Latina
(6) Sextus Iulius Frontinus, De aquaeductus urbis Romae
(7) Servius, Kommentar zur Aeneis
(8) Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia
(9) Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus
(10) Arnobius der Ältere, Adversus gentes

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und 
römischen Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(3) Theodor Mommsen, Römische Gechichte
(4) Der Kleine Pauly
(5) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-Deutsches Schulwörterbuch

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) Wildwinds
(3) acsearch.info

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on September 03, 2023, 01:39:34 pm
Flora

The coin:
Roman Republic, C. Servilius C.F., gens Servilia
AR - denarius, 3.99g, 17.71mm, 180°.
        Rome, 57 BC.
Obv.: FLORAL PRIMVS
         Head of Flora with floral wreath n.r., necklace with pendants, cross-shaped
          earring, the hair in jeweled knot, lituus behind.
Rev.: Two soldiers, helmeted and in short military skirts, facing each other, each
         holding a shield over the left shoulder and in the right a short sword upright; the
         shield of the right soldier is decorated with a 6-rayed knot.
         in ex: C.SERVEIL, r. upward C.F.
Ref:: Crawford 423/1; Sydenham 890; Servilia 15; Kestner 3448; BMCRR Rome 3817     
Rare

Note:
There are 2 different interpretations for the depiction on this coin.
(1) According to RRC 447f. the otherwise unknown mintmaster probably alludes with this type to the fact that he was responsible for the ancient celebration of the Floralia as Floralis primus, i.e. as flamen Floralis.
(2) The Rev. is an allusion to the ancestor M. Servilius Pulex Geminus (consul 202 BC), famous for his duel victories. Then, according to Hollstein (1993) 256-260, the lituus on the obv. may stand for his long augury, and the coin may be an allusion to the transformation of the Floralia in 173 BC by another ancestor into an annual festival. Thus, this coin would honor the entire gens Servilia, which may be significant in this period when the various families competed for influence.

The gens Servilia:
The Servilii were one of the oldest Roman patrician families and had supposedly moved to Rome from Alba Longa. Since 495 BC, the gens Servilia belonged to the consular families. In the early Republic there were the branches of the Servilii Ahalae and the Servilii Fidenates. The branches of the Prisci and Structi, which can be derived from the cognomens of the ancestor Publius Servilius Priscus Structus, are not provable. After the year 412 AD the Servilians do not appear in the Fasti for a long time. Since the first Punic War, the Servilians, with the patrician branch of the Caepiones (derived from the Ahales) and the original patrician, then because of the conversion to the plebs, probably to be able to provide tribunes of the people, plebeian branch of the Gemini again provided numerous magistrates. In addition, the lineages of the Vatiae - later known as Isaurici, and the plebeian Rulli developed.

Etymology:
Flora derives from Latin flos = flower. Ovid incorrectly derives the name from Greek chloros = green, but he does so because he associates Flora with the Greek nymph Chloris and then transfers the legend of the courtship of Zephyrus to her.

Since the end of the 16th century, this goddess has been used metonymically, first in poetry, then in other texts, for the flora of a particular region. Flora is contrasted with fauna, the animal world. named after the Roman goddess Fauna. It is still called bacterial flora today because bacteria used to be counted among plant life. 

According to Ovid, Flora was a nymph from the Islands of thr blessed (the Canary Islands), about whose parents nothing is known. She was responsible for the blossoming of the trees, the grain and the vines and then for the fact that these blossomed not only well and happily, but also brought the desired fruits (Laktanz). She had received this power from the wind god Zephyrus. Zephyrus discovered her one spring in a meadow, fell in love with her because of her beautiful form, took her by force and then made her his wife. Ovid tells that instead of words roses came out of her mouth. By touching with a flower she is said to have impregnated Hera so that she gave birth to Ares. Here Ovid connects the Roman Flora with the Greek legend of the nymph Chloris, whereby it is a Hellenistic invention. He transfers to her the legend of the abduction of Oreithyia by the north wind Boreas.

Flora:
In fact, however, Flora was native to central Italy since ancient times. Among the Oscians she was called Fluusa and the Sabines had a month mense Flusare named after her. It belongs to the oldest layer of the Roman religion and was known long before Rome was built.

According to Varro, Flora was brought to Rome by Titus Tatius. An ancient sanctuary, probably a sacellum, was located on the Quirinal south of the porta Sanqualis. Numa Pompilius had already instituted a flamen to her and her feast was celebrated since ancient times at the end of April. The absence of a feast in the calendar may be due to the fact that in the beginning it was called feriae conceptivae (Cic. Verr.). Dancing and crude jokes were common at all festivals for fertility gods.

When they had not taken place for 66 years, there was a great drought and in the emergency the Sibylline books were consulted. Thus, in 241 BC, according to their prescription, the games were celebrated in a particularly splendid way and at the expense of the state. From here one dates their foundation. They were supervised by the plebeian aediles L. and M. Publicius Malleolus, who allegedly used for the games the money that had been paid as a penalty for the grazing of a public estate (ager publicus). The two Publicii also built a second temple at the Circus Maximus, This was renewed by Augustus and dedicated by Tiberius (Tacitus Ann.).

A euhemeristic interpretation we learn from Laktanz. There Flora is a wh**e, who bequeaths her great fortune to the Roman people, under the condition to organize games every year on her birthday. .

From 173 BC, the Floralia had a fixed date and took place annually (Ovid).  Later, the curulic aediles and, since 22 AD, the praetors took over the management of the games (Dio Cassius)

The Floralia:
The information about the course of the games is not very precise, and therefore leads to different ideas. The Floralia began on April 28 and lasted until May 3. On these days the Romans put on colorful clothes and decorated themselves with flower wreaths. The tables were covered with roses and roses were thrown from the houses to the people celebrating in the streets. Scenic plays were performed with mimes and with whores (meretrices), who played teasing tricks, especially at night by torchlight. At the request of the people, they had to undress completely and performed gladiator fights (Seneca). The lascivious character of the festival probably testifies to Greek influence (Pauly).

The last day took place in the Circus Maximus. It began with a hunt for hares and goats, which were considered symbols of fertility. The Aediles threw peas and beans at the people, thus reconciling the earth with its own fruits (Persius sat.). Under the emperors, the splendor and exuberance of the games grew with the decline of the mores - under Galba even an elephant dancing on a rope is said to have been shown! - and for this very reason they have probably survived until the latest times (Suetonius Galba).

As a deity of flowering, Flora is also a goddess of fertilization and flourishing. All cult customs point to this. And this also explains the title Flora  mater that she has in Cicero. And this also explains the part that the meretrices had in the games. Even the dropping of the clothes may symbolically suggest the dropping of the petals. Already Ovid associated the colorful dresses with colorful flowers. And how else could this custom be called priscus mox (ancient custom)?

Art History:
No independent type has been developed for Flora by Roman art. One has rather borrowed for her the type of Chloris, closely related in her nature, or that of the spring hora from the Greeks Certainly provable is only the head of Flora on our denarius of the gens Servilia.

(1) So-called Flora, fresco from the Villa di Arianna in Stabiae near Pompeii, 1st century AD. Flora (or Persephone or the allegory of spring) walking barefoot into the depths, holding a cornucopiae in her left arm, today in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples (Wikipedia).

It was only after the revival of antiquity in the Renaissance and afterwards that artists took up this theme again.

(2) Detail from the painting "Primavera," ca. 1480, by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), probably the most famous painting depicting Flora, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (Wikimedia). 

The interpretation of the allegorical representation of this painting is still not clear. But in the figure of Flora scattering flowers, Botticelli, according to older and recently reiterated views, possibly dressed the figure of Simonetta Vespucci, who died at an early age. She bears the pale, melancholy expression typical of Botticelli, which recurs in numerous allegorical depictions and portraits.

(3) Bartolomeo Veneto (-1555), Ideal Portrait of a Courtesan as Flora, ca. 1520, Städel Museum Frankfurt am Main. Traditionally considered a portrait of Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, the work depicts an unknown lady in the guise of the ancient goddess of spring, Flora.

(4) Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), "The Triumph of Flora" ca. 1743, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  The painting depicts Flora, the goddess of flowers and spring, and her seasonal triumph as she arrives on earth in summer.  She sits in a golden chariot pulled by putti and is surrounded by dancing nymphs. On the left, Ajax (in armor) and Narcissus(?) offer flowers to the goddess.

Sources:
(1) Ovid, Fasti
(2) Varro, Antiquitates
(3) Cicero, Verres
(4) Sueton, Galba
(5) Dio Cassius, Roman history
(6) Aulus Persius Flaccus, Saties 
(7) Tacitus, Annales

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur (online too)
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 Leipzig
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) W. Hollstein, Die stadtrömische Münzprägung der Jahre 78-50 v. Chr. zwischen politischer Aktualität und  Familienthematik (1993) 256-260

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) Wikimedia
(3) theoi.com
(4) Roman Republic Coinage online (RRC)

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on October 31, 2023, 02:26:03 pm
The Egyptian Libye

The coin:
Kyrenaica, Kyrene, Ptolemy III, 284-247 BC.
AE 22, 6.09g, 21.76mm, 330°.
Av: Head of Ptolemy, draped and diademed, r.
Rv.: ΠTOΛEMAIOV BAΣIΛEΩΣ head of Libye with taenia, r., hair in 3 long curls falling to neck, under chin double cornucopia.
Ref: Svoronos 866; BMC 13-14; Weber (DE) 4479; Milan 7555
VF, brown patina

Note:
Since all coins of this type look very similar, it is very difficult to determine the exact Ptolemy. So it could be Ptolemy II here.

Mythology:
Libye (Latin Libya) was an autochthonous woman or an Egyptian king's daughter. The ancient genealogists added her to the family tree starting from Zeus and Io, as it was regularly done with deities of foreign peoples.  Apollodorus constructed a complicated family tree: there she was the daughter of Epaphos and Memphis, the daughter of Neilos, and thus a granddaughter of Io and Zeus. From Apollodor we learn that she was the mother of Belos, the father of Aigyptos and Danaos and thus a great-ancestor of Perseus.

Herodotus tells us that she married Poseidon, a local Libyan god, and by him became the mother of the twins Belos and Agenor. At her marriage she had received a golden basket from Hephaistos, which she later gave to Telephassa, the mother of Europa. Besides the main genealogy there are a number of variants. For example, Pliny makes her the mother of Atlas without specifying a father, and according to some she is said to have been the mother of Prometheus. As her parents also Okeanos and Pompholyge are mentioned and Asia was her sister (Andron. Halikarnass.). Hygin lists among the sons of Hermes also the daughter Libys from Libye. This fits to Pausanias, who in a note counts Hermes to the Libyan gods.

Apollonios Rhodos tells in his Argonaut saga that the Argonauts with their ship "Argo" were thrown by storms into the Syrtis to Libya, where they were stranded on the shores of the Tritonian Sea. Desperately they searched for a way out. Then 3 ghostly divine women appeared to Jason, daughters of Libya, who advised him to repay their mother, who had borne them in her own body for so long, for this kindness in kind. The Argonauts took this on their ship, put it on their shoulder, carried it through the burning desert and thus were saved (Pindar).

A marble relief from Kyrene, now in the British Museum, shows Libye crowning Kyrene after a lion fight. Here Libye is depicted with the same hairstyle as on our coin. The atteches pic shoes the Roman marble relief from Kyrene (120-140 AD). From: Emergency - Red List of Endangered Cultural Properties of Libya, ICOM

The nymph Kyrene was the daughter of the Lapith king Hypeseus and Creusa. She was an avid hunter. During a fight with a lion, Apollo saw her and fell in love with her. He abducted her to Libya, where Libye offered her asylum. The city of Kyrene, newly built by Greek settlers from Thera on Santorini, was named after her.

Otherwise, her characteristic feature is usually the elephant skin on her head with trunk and tusks, as shown on the next coin:

2nd coin:
Galerius as Caesar, 293-305, Augustus 305-311
AE - Follis (AE 2), 11.36g, 28.8mm, 0°.
        Carthage 4th Offizin, ca. 298 AD.
Obv.: MAXIMIANVS NOB CAES
         Laureate head r.
Rev.: FELIX A - D - VENT AVG NN
         Africa standing frontally, head l., in long dress,  with elephant skin headdress,  
         holding r. standard and l. elephant tooth; left at her feet lion with captured bull.
         in the left field: I (for the Iovian family)
         in ex. PK Delta
Ref.: RIC VI, Carthago 26(b); C. 28

With the lion and the bull, this coin also refers to the animal wealth of Africa.

Belos, the son of Libye, was king of Egypt according to Greek mythology. With Anchinoe, the daughter of the river god Neilos (Nile), he begat the twins Aigyptos and Danaos. He is also considered the mythical founder of Babylon. His name is the Hellenized form for Ba'al and corresponds to the Hebrew Baal of the Old Testament. Thus it is not a proper name, but rather a title (= "lord").

Agenor, the other son of Libye, was king of Phoenician Tyros. With Telephassa he begat Europa, Kadmos, Phoinix, Kilix, Thasos and Phineus. When Zeus kidnapped Europa, he sent his sons after him, but they never returned. Since Telephassa was with her sons, he also lost his wife.

It is remarkable that not many details are told about Libye herself. This is due to the fact that she is not a genuinely Greek figure and that she was only later integrated into Greek mythology.

Etymology:
From Libye comes the name of present-day Libya. But at the beginning the Greek settlers only called the region west of the Nile Delta Libye, after the tribe of the African Libu (ancient Egyptian rbw, therefore also Rebu), who lived in the area of the Kyrenaika. Already in the oldest mention, in the Epinikion (victory song) for the Kyrenaian Telesikrates of Olympia, Libye appeared as an eponym (Pindar, 9th Pythian Ode).

With the expansion of the Greek settlement areas, the term Libye was also shifted further west by the Ionian geographers, until it not only encompassed North Africa west of the Nile, but became the name for all of Africa. Strabo knew the 3 continents Europe, Asia and Libye.

The today's name Africa was used first by Scipio Africanus (235 B.C.-183 B.C.), the victor over Carthage, and designated at first only the Roman province in today's Tunisia around Carthage. This name is derived from the Latin Afer (plural Afri) meaning "Africans, Punic" and may be derived from a native tribe called "cave dwellers". This would fit Herodotus, who wrote that the North African people of the Garamantes lived in caves. The Greeks called an African people who lived in caves Troglodytes.

Some history:
Early on, the ancient Egyptians had contacts with the Libyans. Toward the end of the Old Kingdom, the "light-skinned Libyans," who corresponded to today's Berbers, advanced along the Nile Valley. In the New Kingdom, under their prince Mereye, there was a great Libyan invasion by the Libu and the Meshevesh, who had allied themselves with the Sea Peoples, which led to heavy defensive fighting by the Egyptians under Ramses III, who were victorious (depictions in Medinet Habu and in the Harris papyrus). Some tribes were settled in Egypt. They assimilated and were popular as mercenaries. In 950 B.C. even a Libyan chieftain became Sheshonk I, king of Egypt and founder of the 22nd dynasty.

Sources:
(1) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(2) Herodot, Historien
(3) Apollonios Rhodos, Argonautika
(4) Pindar, Olympia
(5) Strabo, Geographika

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Mythologisches Lexikon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon  der griechischen und 
       römischen Mythologie
(3) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
(4) Karl  Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
(5) Der Kleine Pauly

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on November 09, 2023, 05:34:22 am
The struggle for the tripod

I would have loved to have this coin. But then the price exploded and rose to CHF 1500 + fee. So I was out of the running. Nevertheless, I would like to put it at the beginning of this article.

The coin:
Lakonia, Gytheion, Geta as Caesar, 197-209
AE 23, 4.19g, 240°
Obv.: ΛOΥ CEΠ ΓETAC KAI
         Bust, draped and cuirassed, bareheaded, n. r.
Rev: ΓΥΘ - Ε - ΑΤ - ΩΝ
        Herakles and Apollo fighting for the tripod
Ref.: from a Swedish collection; unpublished in the standard references
Nomos AG, Obolos 29, lot 463, 8.10.23

Note:
This coin refers to the founding myth of Gytheion, according to which Herakles and Apollo were reconciled after the struggle for the Tripod and founded the city together. According to Pausanias (3.21.8), the statues of Apollo and Herakles stood on the agora of Gytheion.

The struggle for the Tripod:
The story of the struggle for the Tripod actually begins with the murder of Iphitos. Iphitos, the son of King Eurytos and Antiope of Oichalia, was a well-meaning and helpful young man who had also been on the Argonaut voyage. Eurytus himself was the greatest known archer. It is even said that Herakles himself was his pupil (Apoll. Myth.). One day, when Herakles was courting his daughter Iole, Eurytus challenged him to a shooting contest, in which Herakles won. But Eurytus refused to hand Iole over to Heracles, even though Iphitus tried to persuade him.

When the cattle (or mares) were stolen from Eurytus shortly afterwards by Autolykos, it was believed that Herakles had done it out of revenge. But Iphitos defended him and even asked him to help him find the cattle. Herakles agreed and invited him to his inn at Tiryns as a guest. But then he fell into a rage again. He led Iphitos onto a wall so that he could keep a better lookout for the cattle and threw him off the wall to his death (Apollodoros).

When he came to his senses, he went to Delphi to ask the oracle how he could atone for this murder. But as a murderer, he was not allowed to enter the oracle itself. So he flew into a rage, grabbed the tripod on which the Pythia was sitting and hurried away with it. Apollo tried to prevent this, caught up with him and a fight broke out between the god and the Heros. Athena stood by Herakles, Artemis by Apollo. Zeus finally intervened to end the fight. He hurled a thunderbolt between the two, so that they parted and made peace. Afterwards, they are said to have founded the city of Gytheion together.

Nevertheless, Herakles could not avoid paying penance for the murder of his guest. Hermes sold him to Omphale on the slave market for 3 talents and he had to serve her as a slave for 3 years. The money was used to pay the children (or brothers) of Iphitos. But he had not forgotten the humiliation at the hands of Eurytus. Later he stormed Oichalia, killed Eurytus and his remaining sons and robbed Iole to marry her to his son Hyllos.

Background:
To understand the background to the struggle for the Tripod, we need to delve deeper into ancient cultural history. Apparently the Dorians (Herakles) tried to take possession of the Delphic shrine. The intervention of Zeus represents the decision that Apollo was allowed to keep his sanctuary, provided he served the Dorian interests as patron of the Dymanians (Ranke-Graves). The Dymanians belonged to the Dorian League. In the Classical Age, the Spartans, who were Dorians and called themselves "Sons of Heracles", controlled the Oracle of Delphi. In the peace treaty of Nicias in 421 BC, which brought the Peloponnesian War to a temporary end, the Athenian attempt to maintain Phocian sovereignty over Delphi was thwarted. This treaty was the prime example of a "rotten peace" because it did not eliminate the causes of the conflict and, in particular, took insufficient account of the interests of the Spartan allies.

In the 4th century, the dispute broke out again and the Phocians took possession of Delphi. They plundered its treasures in order to equip their army. However, they were defeated and all their cities destroyed. Plutarch, who was himself a Delphic priest, writes that Herakles only seized the Tripod in "friendly competition" with Apollo. Plutarch probably intended to settle the dispute between Apollo, the Phocian, and Herakles, the Dorian, out of "religious decency" (Ranke-Graves).

Art History:
I have added "Apollo and Herakles fighting over the Tripod", Attic red-figure krater, 490-460 BC,  attributed to Myson, Early Classical period, now in the British Museum London (theoi.com). This picture looks like a template for our coin.

Sources:
(1) Homer, Odyssee
(2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke
(3) Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica
(4) Thukydides, Geschichte des Peloponnesischen  Krieges
(5) Plutarch, Dialoge über das E zu Delphi  

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologiches Lexikon Leipzig 1770
(auch  online)
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und
römischen Mythologie (auch online)
(3) Karl  Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
(4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie
(5) Der Kleine Pauly

Online Sources:
(1) Wikipedia
(2) theoi.com

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on December 21, 2023, 02:07:22 pm
Dea Roma

Recently, a forum member asked me to explain to him what significance the goddess Roma had for the Romans. This has now resulted in the following article. It is difficult to write about more than a thousand years of history. I have therefore limited myself to what I considered to be essential.

The religion of the Roman state must be imagined as a kind of legal relationship in which the political community on the one side and the pantheon of Roman gods with Juppiter Optimus Maximus at the head on the other are opposed to each other. In itself, the dea Roma, which represents the community, has no right to exist in this totality (Wissowa). It is actually foreign to the Roman religion and was only "talked into" to the Romans by the Greeks (Preller). Greek historians even tried to weave it into the genealogy. For example, Rome was said to have been founded by an Arcadian Euander, whose daughter Roma gave the city its name (Servilius).

The influence of Greek can also be seen in the fact that the first coin ever to show an undisputed image of Roma was minted in Lokroi at the time of the war against Pyrrhos of Epiros. The depicted coin comes from CNG from the Mail Bid Sale 60 of 22 May 2002

Coin #1:
Bruttium, Lokroi Epizephyrioi. ca. 275-270 BC.
AR - stater, 7.24g
Obv.: Laureated head of Zeus l.
           Below monogram NE
Rev.: left [PΩMA], right [ΠIΣTIΣ]
          in ex [ΛΟΚPΩN]
         Roma seated r., crowned by Pistis
Ref.: SNG ANS 531; SNG Lloyd 645; SNG Copenhagen 1867; SNG Munich 1499; HN Italy 2347; Franke-Hirmer pl. 101, 293; Jameson 449; de Nanteuil 323

This rare coin was probably struck shortly after the Battle of Beneventum, which was so disastrous for Pyrrhos and his allies. Pistis is "faith, trust". This now also refers to the Locrians, who entered into an alliance with the Romans.

It is true that there was a whole series of coins in the Republic at the time of the 1st Punic War and then during the war against Pyrrhos with the portrait of a warlike Amazon with a helmet. However, their identification as Roma is disputed. There were also other helmeted deities in the Roman pantheon, such as Bellona or Minerva, although Minerva was never as warlike as the Greek Athena. According to Mellor, it is more of a genius than a goddess. Roscher, however, is of the opinion that the head with a winged helmet must be Roma and that this depiction begins as early as 312 BC, when Rome had risen to become the dominant power in central Italy. Only a victorious, personified Roma would fit in with this. At the beginning, she often wore a Phrygian helmet, which was possibly intended to emphasise the Romans' descent from the Trojans. Clear depictions in which Roma is named only appeared later in the Roman Republic.

Coin #2:
Roman Republic, Porcius Laeca, gens Porcia
AR - denarius, 3.75g, 19.35mm, 225°
        Rome, 110-109 BC
Obv.: Head of Roma with winged helmet, r.
          above ROMA, behind P.LAECA
          under the chin X (value mark)
Rev: Male figure in military dress (military commander), with boots and short sword in his 
         belt standing half-left, head to the left, holding his raised right hand over the head of
         a citizen in toga, who is standing to the right and gesticulating with his hands; behind
         him an assistant (lictor?) walking to the left, holding a long rod in his right hand and 2
         more in his left.
         In the ex PROVOCO
Ref.: Crawford 301/1; Sydenham 178; Porcia 4

As Rome's power grew in the East, more and more cities expressed their subservience to Rome by establishing a cult of Roma. The cult of Roma was closely linked to the imperial cult, and in the Hellenistic East, cities built temples dedicated to Roma and Augustus at the same time after receiving imperial authorisation. The first temple to Roma was built in Smyrna in 159 BC, and Smyrna boasted of it to Rome (Tacitus, Ann.). Smyrna was the Romans' oldest ally in Asia Minor. However, Hederich speaks of "servile flattery against the Romans".

Coin #3:
Mysia, Pergamon, pseudo-autonomous, late 1st - mid 2nd cent.
AE 17, 3.4g, 17.29mm, 0°
Ov.: ΘEON CVN - KΛHTON
        Bust of youthful senate, draped, r.
Rev.: ΘEAN PΩ - MHN
         Bust of Roma, draped and with mural crown, r.
Ref.: BMC 205; Sear 4910; SNG Post 182 (1 specimen);
         cf. Fritze Pergamon vol. 3, 18 (2 ex.)
very rare, SS
In 1827 a larger hoard of these coins was found near Pergamon.

However, we must realise that Roma was not an object of divine worship for the Romans for a long time. It only entered the circle of city gods when Hadrian founded the city temple. This was a double temple that was dedicated to Venus and Roma together and through which Roma was first divinised. She was depicted like Athena Polias in a long robe, with a shield, spear and helmet modelled on the statue by Phidias. The temple was consecrated in 135 AD and 21 April, the supposed founding day of the city of Rome, was also celebrated as her birthday in the provinces until the late imperial period. A new priesthood, the XII viri Urbis Romae, was probably appointed for the new deity at the same time.

I have added a picture that shows shows the view across the Forum towards the Colosseum. Directly to the west are the remains of the Temple of Venus and Roma, the largest temple in ancient Rome. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the 9th century. (Photo: Daryl Mitchell, Wikiwand)

The designation Romae aeternae can be found on imperial coins. While the gods are immortales who cannot die because they have an immortal body, just as humans have a mortal one, aeternal denotes a disembodied being that is only conceivable as an abstraction (Roscher).

Coin #4:
Licinius II, Caesar, 315-326
AE 19, 3.09g, 0°
Rome, 1st Offizin, 320
Obv.: LICINIVS IVN NOB C
          Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.
Rev.: ROMAE A - ETERNAE
         Roma with helmet seated r.on a shield, holding a shield on her knees with her left hand
         and writing X / V on it
       in section R EPωC P
Ref.: RIC VII, Rome 199 corr. (writes: seated l.)
very rare (R4), F+

Note:
EPωC (Greek) is the Latin AMOR, the palindrome of ROMA. ROMA-AMOR was a popular play on words.

In 307 AD, the temple was destroyed by a great fire. Maxentius (306-312) celebrated the rebuilding of the temple on several coins. He always calls Rome urbs sua (= his city)

Coin #5:
Maxentius, 306-312, son of Maximianus
AE - Follis, 24.52mm, 6.1g
        Rome, 4th office, 308-310
Obv.: IMP C MAXENTIVS P F AVG
          laureate head r.
Rev.: CONSERV - VRB SVAE
          Hexastyle Stemple, therein Roma, helmeted, seated l., holding sceptre in left hand, in
          outstretched right hand globe with victoriola crowning her with a wreath; next to her
          a shield(?); architrave decorated with wavy line and dots; in the pediment 2 figures         
          and dots; in the pediment 2 figures, on the left Juppiter with eagle sceptre, on the
          right Hercules leaning on a club, the two outer hands outstretched; in the left angle
          upper body of a river god (Tiber?), in the right angle Sol with globe to the right; as
          Acroteria  on the left a wreath, on the right a male figure with a long torch
         in ex RBQ
Ref.: RIC VI, Rome 208 var.(?); Victor Failmezger, Roman Bronze Coins 294-364 AD, no.
         127iM3, notes 179, 183; C. cf. 34; Drost, Monayage de Maxence, p. 310, no. 93, 5th
         issue (1 ex., Milano 5572), image 89d/3 (this coin!)

The role of Roma was played out when Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire and Constantinople took its place; occasionally both city goddesses still appear on coins side by side as rivals; then later dea Roma has to give way to the Tyche of Constantinople (Roscher).
My last coin shows the personification of Constantinopolis sitting frontally, helmeted like dea Roma used to be. The only difference is that her right foot is standing on the prora of a ship, as a sign that Constantinopolis, unlike Rome, has direct access to the sea.

Coin #6:
Honorius, 393-423
AU - solidus, 4.47g, 21mm 180°                   
        Constantinopolis, 7th Offizin, 402-ca. 403
Obv.: D N HONORI - VS P F AVG
           helmeted, laureate head with pearl diadem, armoured 3/4 bust r., with shouldered
           lance r. and with oval shield in front of left shoulder, on which horseman (emperor?)
           riding down an enemy, helmet in front with eagle(?)                 
Rev:: CONCORDI - A AVGGG
          draped, helmeted Constantinopolis seated frontally and facing right, right foot on
          Prora, holding sceptre in right hand and  in the left hand a globe with Victoriola, facing
          the deity and crowning her with a wreath
         in the left field a star, below right an inverted Z
         in ex CONOB
Ref.: RIC X , Arcadius 24; Cohen

Ronald Mellor, however, writes in the introduction to his work on Roma that "the name Roma as personification, as goddess or as symbol ranges from classical Greece to Mussolini's fascist propaganda ... Roma has been seen as a goddess, a wh**e, a near-saint and a symbol of civilisation itself. She remains the oldest continuous politico-religious symbol of Western civilisation."

Sources:
(1) Livy, Ab urbe condita
(2) Tacitus, Annals
(3) New Testament

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches Lexikon der Mythologie
(3) Ronald J. Mellor, The Goddess Roma, 1991 

Online sources:
(1) Wildwinds
(2) Wikipedia

Wish you a Merry Christmas
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 09, 2024, 03:14:16 pm
The sea monster Ketos

We have already encountered Ketos: In the mythology of Perseus and Andromeda and in the legend of Troy.  Here he is the focus of this article.

The coin:
Caria, Halicarnassos (formerly placed to Kindya), ca. 500-495 BC.
AR - Diobol (Milesian standard), 1.78g, 11.57mm
Av.: Head of Ketos to the right.
Rv: Inkus with star-shaped pattern in lattice frame
Ref.: Kagan&Kritt, NC 1995, 1 var. (head n. l.); SNG Keckman 920 var. (head n. l.); Asyut 688; SNG Kayhan 815

Ketos (Greek κητος) is not the name of a specific sea monster, but is used to name various different sea monsters. We find it on many ancient vase paintings. It is usually depicted with a snake-like body and a dog-like head. Lycophron refers to the Trojan Ketos directly as a dog.
 
We distinguish between the following:

(1) The Aithiopian Ketos (Ketos Aithiopios)
When Kassiopeia, the wife of King Kepheus of Aithiopia (probably the land of the Nubians), considered herself (or her daughter Andromeda) more beautiful than the Nereids, the sea nymphs, Poseidon was so enraged that he sent the sea monster Ketos to devastate Aithiopia. In their distress, Kepheus and Kassiopeia turned to the oracle of Ammon, who advised him to chain their daughter Andromeda to a rock by the sea and sacrifice her to the monster. There she was discovered by Perseus, who made Kepheus and Kassiopeia an offer to save their daughter if they would give her to him in marriage. Andromedea herself agreed and Perseus killed Ketos with his sickle (harpa). Andromeda gave him her son Perses, who became Kepheus' successor after his death. Kepheus, Kassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus and even the monster Ketos were transferred to the starry sky by Athena after their deaths.

Pliny reports that the bones of Ketos, who was killed by Perseus, were brought from Joppa to Rome by Marcus Scaurus. Jerome (347-430), however, reports that the bones were still on display in Joppa at his time.

Picture #1 shows the detail of a Corinthian black-figure amphora by an unknown artist, 575-550 BC, found in Cerveteri, now in the Altes Museum Berlin. The scene shows Perseus throwing stones at Ketos.

This is the oldest known depiction of the mythology of Perseus and Andromeda. It is evidently based on a Babylonian scroll seal depicting the battle between Marduk and the Babylonian sea goddess Tiamat. The unknown Greek artist seems to have had no idea of Babylonian mythology. He therefore interpreted the stars in the background of the seal as stones 

Picture #2: Babylonian scroll seal with the battle between Marduk and Tiamat

(2) The Trojan Ketos (Ketos of Troy)
Zeus had condemned Poseidon and Herakles to build the walls of Troy because of a conspiracy against him. But Laomedon, the 2nd king of Troy and father of Priamos, refused to pay them the promised reward. Poseidon then sent Ketos, a sea monster that wreaked terrible havoc. According to the oracle, the monster could only be appeased by the sacrifice of Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon. Laomedon offered his immortal horses as the price for saving his daughter. Herakles came forward and succeeded in killing the beast with a fishhook or a hail of arrows and freeing Hesione. However, he did not marry her himself, but gave her to his friend Telamon as his wife. However, Laomedon did not give him the promised prize of immortal horses, whereupon Herakles killed his entire family and, at Hesione's request, left only Priamos alive.

Picture #3 shows the detail of a Corinthian black-figure krater by an unknown artist, archaic, mid 6th century BC, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The scene shows Herakles and Hesione fighting Ketos (theoi.com).

As this mythology already appears in the Iliad (ca. 800 BC), it appears to be older than that of Perseus and Andromeda.  In this oldest known depiction, the head of Ketos resembles a skull. There are therefore speculations that the mythology of Ketos is based on the discovery of a fossil.

(3) The Ketos of Lykophron
In Tzetzes ad Lykophron we hear of another version before Troy: here the Ketos had devoured Herakles, so that he had to spend 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the monster. Only when Heracles had completely cut and torn apart the monster's innards the hero was released. According to Vossius (De theologia gentili), this story was then taken over by Jonas and the whale!

Picture #4 shows an early Christian floor mosaic from the Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta in Aquileia (4th century). Here it is a serpent-like monster that is devouring Jonas as he is thrown overboard. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Greek term for it is κητος. The story of Jonas was probably incorporated into the mosaic at a later date. It is assumed that there were thermal baths here before. 

Aristotle was the first to use Ketos to describe real whales. After Ketos (lat. Cetus) the mammal class of whales is called Cetacea today.

Note:
Gerhard Johannes Vossius (1577-1649), born in Heidelberg, was a Dutch scholar, humanist and theologian. He was a professor in Leiden and then rector of the grammar school in Amsterdam. He also wrote about poetry, mythology and maths. The so-called 2nd antonomasia is called the Vossian after him. This refers to the reduction of a characteristic or a thing to a well-known main representative, e.g. "Judas" for "traitor".

Sources:
(1) Homer, Iliad
(2) Hesiod, Theogony
(3) Ovid, Metamorphoses
(4) Apollodorus, Bibliotheke
(5) Scholion to Apoll.  Rhod.
(6) Pausanias, Periegesis
(7) Nonnus, Dionysiaka
(8) Pliny, naturae historia
(9) Eusebius Jerome, Epistulae
(10) Joannes Tzetzes, ad Lykophron
(11) The Old Testament, Jonas
(12) Novum Testamentum Graece

Literature:
(1) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon
der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythology - Reise
in ein fernes Land, 2011

Online sources:
(1) theoi.com
(5) Wikipedia

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 28, 2024, 01:21:19 pm
Some notes on Tranquillitas

Etymology:
tranquillus is Latin for "calm, quiet". It possibly comes from trans = "over" in its intensifying meaning "extremely" and an adjective from the Proto-Indo-European root *kweie- "to be calm". However, the etymologist de Vaan is of the opinion that this is "semantically unclear" and phonetically controversial.

(1) Its oldest meaning probably refers to the sea and it is the personification of the calmness of the sea. Marble round altars from the 1st century AD were found at Porto Anzio near Antium/Italy and are now in the Musei Capitolini. They bear the inscription ara Tranquillitatis and ara Ventorum and are decorated with images of a calmly sailing ship with skippers and the prora of a ship. Tranquillitas here means safety against sea storms. 

(2) Tranquillitatis appears on coins from Hadrian and Antoninus Pius onwards.

Coin #1
Antoninus Pius, AD 138 - 161
AR - Denarius, 3.27g, 18.0mm, 180°
         Rome, 148-149
Obv.: IMP CAES T AEL HADR ANTONINVS PIVS P P
          laureate head r.
Rev.: TR POT XIIII COS III
          Tranquillitas, draped and diademed, standing frontal, head r., holding rudder on   
          ground in right hand and a pair of grain ears in left hand
          in ex.: TRANQ
Ref.: RIC III, 202b; C. 825 (there without PIVS, an oversight!); BMC 736
Scarce, EF

Tranquillitas is depicted here with the attributes of Annona. Modius and Prora also appear on coins. She is thus the personification of security of the res publica and the security of the Roman grain supply, which is of course due to the emperor. On coins of Hadrian - and later of Gallienus - she is leaning on a pillar, the symbol of security, and is thus related to Securitas.

Wissowa, however, emphasises that coin images alone do not yet entitle us to see her as a goddess like Securitas

(3) Under Philip I Arabs we find a new depiction of Tranquillitas.

Coin #2:
Philip I Arabs, AD 244-249
AR - Antoninianus (billon), 22.94mm, 4.03g, 0°
         Rome, 248
Obv.: IMP PHILIPPVS AVG
          Bust, draped and cuirassed, radiate, r. 
Rev.: TRANQVILLITAS AVGG
          Tranquillitas standing frontal, head l., leaning on long sceptre with raised left
           hand and holding capricorn in outstretched right hand
           in lower left field B
Ref.: RIC 9b; C. 223; RCV 8968; RSC 223; MRK 74/27
R1, almost EF

Although there was at least a period of relative stability during this turbulent period under Philip the Arabian, the legend TRANQULLITAS AGG certainly refers here to the two emperors, Philip and his son, personally and thus denotes the quality of the emperors themselves. Here it must be seen as an imperial virtue, like pietas, nobilitas or virtus.

Eusebius of Caesarea speaks of Philip Arabs as the first Christian Roman emperor, which is certainly not true because there is no other evidence for this. As usual, he will have been a representative of the state religion, with sacrifices and the observance of state holidays.

But tranquillitas is also the translation of the Greek γαληνη (galene), which means calmness of the sea, but also tranquillity of the soul, the quality of not allowing oneself to be distracted from one's chosen goal by external strokes of fate. Under the Stoics Cicero and Seneca, tranquillitas animi is fused with ataraxia. This makes γαληνη, like ataraxia, a desirable character trait, one of the main goals of the Stoic view of man. The legend on this coin undoubtedly speaks in favour of this reference: Tranquillitas is a stoic attitude. However, I have not been able to find any reference to the Stoa in Philipp Arabs.

(4) Tranquillitas then reappears as a legend on coins from Licinius to Constantine II, now in the form Beata Tranquillitas together with the type globe on altar.

Coin #3
Constantine I the Great, AD 307-337
AE - AE 3 (follis), 19.45mm, 3.17g, 180°
         Trier, 1st Offizin, 321
Obv.: CONSTAN - TINVS AVG
          Bust, with consular mantle (trabea), eagle sceptre in right hand, laureate, r.
Rev.: BEATA TRAN - QVILLITAS
          Large altar with inscription VOT / IS / XX, above globe and 3 stars.  Globe
          decorated with 4 vertical lines and a horizontal ladder band.
          in ex. *PTR
Ref.: RIC VII, Trier 305
almost EF

Note:
The coin comes from the Langtoft Hoard B, buried ca. 325 AD near a road that ran through Langtoft/East Yorkshire, discovered on 24 Sept. 2000. It contained 924 coins, mostly reduced folles of the Constantinian family. Most were sold at auction by DNW (Dix Noonan Webb) in 2002.

The message on this coin - blissful tranquillity - is again similar to Hadrian's: it emphasises the peaceful security of the Roman Empire. The emperor is the embodiment of tranquillity and peace. But here Tranquillitas is only the pure concept, no longer even a personification (Roscher).

(5) In late Roman times, Tranquillitas even became the emperor's title (Pauly). "Tranquillitas tua" is found in Eutropius, Codex Theodosianus, Codex Iustinianus and Hilarius (Roscher) as a form of address to the emperor.

There is no entry for Tranquillitas in Hederich, because she is basically not a mythological figure!

Sources:
(1) Seneca, De vita beata
(2) Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita

Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologischesmLexikon, Leipzig 1770 (also online)
(2) Wilhelm-Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (also online) 
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Brill 2008
(5) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-deutsches Schulwörterbuch, München 1960

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on February 28, 2024, 01:54:21 pm
Excursus: The Stoa

The Stoa is an important philosophical movement of antiquity that was founded around 300 BC by Zeno of Kilion (not to be confused with the sceptic Zeno of Elea!). Its name goes back to a promenade hall on the Agora in Athens, the στοα ποικιλη (stoa poikile, Greek for colourful vestibule), in which the older Stoics held their lessons in public because they did not have enough money for their own school.

The Stoa is a materialistic philosophy that views nature as rational. And just as everything in nature can be explained rationally, every human action must also be based on reason. This applies not only to physics and natural science, but especially to ethics, where virtue can be taught. The Logos (reason), which is presented as the finest matter, permeates the whole world and every human being. Apart from the Logos, there is no other general active principle.

Since the Stoa existed for centuries, it is understandable that it developed in different directions. Thus one cannot speak of a philosophical school, but rather of a philosophical movement. It is usually divided into the older Stoa, to which Zeno, Kleanthes and Chrysippus belong, the younger Stoa with Panaitios and Poseidonios, and the imperial Stoa, whose main representatives are Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The works of the younger Stoics have almost all been preserved, those of the older ones only through quotations from other writers.

Logos was at the centre of their philosophy. It is therefore understandable that the Stoics were intensively concerned with logic.  They further developed the propositional logic of the Megarian philosophers Diodorus and Philon (material implication) and founded the first formally precise propositional calculus, which forms the basis for today's computer logic. In 1935, the great Polish logician Lukasiewicz was the first to recognise the independent character and value of Stoic logic.

As all cognition takes place in language, they became the founders of systematic linguistics. They studied grammar and developed the theory of declension and tense. In doing so, they trained dialectics and rhetoric.

In ethics, their primary goal was to place people in the natural world, which was permeated by the Logos, and not to allow themselves to be led astray by their feelings. The focus was therefore on self-knowledge, without which there was no path to eudaimonia (the happy life).

With the rise of Christianity, the Stoa lost importance. It was not until the Renaissance that its ideas were taken up again. Descartes and Leibniz, for example, were influenced by the Stoa. Immanuel Kant's ethics were also influenced by Stoicism. Frederick the Great's famous saying "I am the first servant of my state" could have originated from Marcus Aurelius.

I have added a pic of the ruins of the Stoa poikile from 1991 (Wikimedia)

Literature:
(1) Der Kleine Pauly
(2) Regenbogen/Meyer, Dictionary of Philosophical Terms, WBG 1998   
(3) Jan Lukasiewicz, On the history of propositional logic, 1935
(4) J.  M. Bochensky, Formal Logic, Alber 1956
(5) Gemoll, Griechisch-deutsches Schul- und Handwörterbuch, 1955

Best regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 22, 2024, 05:09:49 am
The Lion and the Bull

A word beforehand: a new article is always a great adventure. As a rule, I know nothing about the subject beforehand. It is always the coin that has aroused my interest and I am curious about the result of my research. If I think it might interest others, I post the article here. It started with this coin, but then grew into a big article: 

Coin #1:
Phoenicia, Byblos, King Ajnel, 350-333 BC.
AR - 1/16 shekel, 0.77g, 10.32mm, 135°
         struck 333 BC
Av.: Galley with lion-headed figure on prow and manned by 2 hoplites to l., below
        winged hippocampus to l.
Rev: Lion to l. attacking bull
         above Phoenician from r. to l.: AJNEL MLK GBL (Ajnel King of Gebal)
Ref.: BMC 8

Byblos:
Byblos is one of the longest inhabited places in the world.  From 2026 BC it had its own kings, many of whose names are known from inscriptions or coins. It was an export centre for cedar wood to Egypt and its city kings became vassals of the Egyptian pharaohs. After the Assyrians and Babylonians, it came under the rule of the Achaemenids, whose empire extended as far as Libya.

Ajnel, ca. 450-333, was the last king of Byblos before it opened up to Alexander the Great without resistance. In Phoenician it was called Gebal. It has been a World Heritage Site since 1984.

In Hellenistic times, it was the main export centre for papyrus. The Greeks then referred to a papyrus roll as biblion, which is the origin of our word Bible. Between the 18th and 15th centuries BC, Byblos developed its own hieroglyphic script, the Byblos script. It contains around 90 different characters, which speaks in favour of a syllabic script. It became extinct and has nothing to do with the Phoenician alphabet, which was used in the Levant from the 11th to the 5th century. The Byblos script has not yet been deciphered.

Picture #1: Ancient port in Byblos (Leon Petrosyan, Wikimedia)

Even better known as these coins from Byblos are coins with the lion-bull motif from Tarsos from the same period:

Coin #2:
Cilicia, Tarsos, Mazaios, Persian satrap of Cilicia, 361/0-334 BC.
AR stater, 9.94g, 24.86mm, 225°
Obv.: Baaltars seated l., holding a long sceptre in his raised left hand and an eagle, ears of grain and a bunch of grapes in his outstretched right hand. 
      r. Aramaic from bottom to top B'LTRZ
Rev.:  Lion attacking bull, above Aramaic from r. to l. MZDY,  below KM
Ref.: SNG Levante 101; SNG France 335
Pedigree:
ex Palladium Numismatics

Note:
Mazaeus was Persian satrap of Cilicia from around 361 BC and was also appointed satrap of Transeuphratia (which included Syria and Judaea) around 345 BC. In 331 BC, Mazaeus was defeated by Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela and fled to Babylon. Later that year, Mazaeus surrendered Babylon, the capital of the Persian Empire, to Alexander. Because he had surrendered without a fight, Alexander appointed Mazaeus as governor of Babylon. He died in 328 BC (Ibarra Collection, Vcoins).

Baaltars (Baal of Tarsus) was the patron god of Tarsus and appeared on coins of the Persian satraps of Cilicia in Tarsus before the conquest by Alexander the Great.

This motif was taken up again by the Romans. There are tetradrachms of Hadrian from Tarsus showing the lion-bull motif, but also later bronze coins of Gordian III or Trajan Decius.

Coin #3: 
Tarsos, Gordian III, SNG Levante 1141, Numismatik Naumann

The lion hunt
While the ancient Greeks no longer knew any lions - bones that have been found date from the late Neolithic and early Iron Age - things were quite different in Mesopotamia. In the Epic of Gilgamesh (oldest version 1800-1595 BC), the lion is described as "perfect in strength". Lion hunting has played a prominent role there since ancient times. Assur-Bel-Kala (1073-1056 BC King of the Assyrian Empire) writes that Ninurta and Nergal, his patron gods, "because they loved him", gave him the wild animals and ordered him to hunt them. In his 2nd year of reign alone, he killed 300 lions and 6 wild bulls. This hunt was an expression of his royal power and was intended for his people, his vassals and his enemies. It had nothing sporting about it, but something religious and was a ritual act. As the victor, their powers were transferred to the king, the "Master of the Animals", who then also referred to himself as a lion (according to Ashurnasipal II, 883-859 BC)   

After the conquest of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, like many others, adopted lion hunting as a royal symbol. During a lion hunt in Syria in 331 BC, he was only saved by the intervention of Krateros, one of his generals. This event was depicted by Lysipp and Leochares in a bronze sculpture for Delphi. Successors such as Lysimachus adopted this tradition, claiming to follow in Alexander's footsteps.

The wild animals represented the forces of the universe and were an expression of both evil and good, attack and defence. This can be seen most beautifully in the reliefs on the walls of the Processional Way and the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, which were erected in their final form under Nebuchadnezzar II (c. 640-562 BC). They had an apotropaic protective function and consisted of lions, bulls and Mushussu serpent dragons, which symbolised Ishtar, the wind god Adad and Marsuk:

Picture #2: Lion of the Ishtar Gate, Pergamon Museum
Picture #3 Bull of the Ishtar Gate, Pergamon Museum
Picture #4 Mushussu snake dragon from the Ishtar Gate, Pergamon Museum

After the excavations in Babylon by Koldewey and others, the artefacts were brought to Berlin and in 1902 the first parts were put together. Walter Andrae succeeded in making the reconstructed Ishtar Gate and parts of the Processional Way accessible to the public in the Pergamon Museum in 1930. In the meantime, Iraq is demanding the exhibits back from Berlin (probably to have them destroyed in the civil war there?).

(to be continued)
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jochen on March 22, 2024, 05:23:25 am
The Lion and the Bull (continuation)

The Lion and Bull motif:
If you trace the origins of this impressive motif, you will inevitably come to Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. Persepolis was founded in 520 BC by Darius I as the "Throne of Jamshid" and destroyed by Alexander the Great in 330 BC. Today Persepolis is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The largest palace is the Apadana, the audience hall of Darius I. The side staircases are decorated with marvellous bas-reliefs.

Picture #5: Bas-relief from the front staircase of the palace

What catches the eye is that the two Babylonian tutelary deities attack each other here! This has always puzzled scientists looking for explanations. This is one of the oldest mythological symbols of great symbolic power and scope, which has been passed on from culture to culture. It is the image of the fundamental forces of life and death united in a terrible battle. It has been shown that this scene is difficult to interpret.

M.G.S. Hodgson (1964) writes that symbols live and change in the course of history. Once they have become established, they can move from context to context and be used for different purposes. Symbols can also die, or be desacralised. Then they still serve as an aesthetic form in a misunderstood tradition.

Hartner and Ettinghausen took up this idea in 1964. I would like to try to present it here:   

(1) The lion-bull battle as an astronomical symbol
This motif is known to be 4000 years old and we have to put ourselves in that time. At that time, agrarian society was extremely dependent on the seasons. Determining the exact time of sowing and harvesting was essential for survival. I am reminded of the "Nebra Sky Disc", which is estimated to be over 4000 years old. There are countless depictions of bulls, lions, scorpions and other figures, which refer to constellations, which can be recognised by the fact that they are accompanied by celestial symbols such as dots, stars or rosettes

They are therefore astronomical or astrological symbols. However, we must bear in mind that these are the constellations of 4000 years ago, which looked different than they do today due to the precessional movement of the earth. The solar year was organised according to the times of the heliacal rising or setting  of particularly conspicuous stars.

The Pleiades, which belong to the constellation Taurus, and Leo with its brightest star, the Regulus (α Leonis), = king (sic!), were particularly important in all cultures. In Persepolis in 4000 BC, the Pleiades and Regulus signalled the spring equinox and the highest position of the sun (summer solstice) with their heliacal risings.

In the first half of February, the Babylonian constellations "Wage labourer (luhun.gd)" and "Plough (mulAPIN)" had their heliacal rising, indicating the beginning of ploughing, harrowing and sowing after the winter solstice. At this time, 10 February, the Pleiades, the leading stars of Taurus, had their heliacal setting, they became invisible until they could be seen again 40 days later (heliacal rising) and indicated the spring equinox. Exactly at the time of the Pleiades' setting, the constellation Leo was exactly at the zenith in Persepolis and Regulus (King) was only 8° from the zenith.

This makes the interpretation of our motif self-evident: the triumphant lion stands directly above the observer's head, shows the peak of its power and destroys the bull, "which tries in vain to escape below the horizon" (Hartner).

Only 40 days later will he reappear and regain his power, while that of Leo wanes until he has his heliacal demise (Regulus on 5 May). The cycle then begins anew on 10 February of the following year.

Due to the precession, the "battle between Leo and Taurus" had shifted in the sky at the time of the Achaemenids and now took place one week after the vernal equinox. In the calendar, this date was now reinterpreted as the beginning of the luni-solar year and the Nowraz, the great Persian New Year and spring festival.

(2) The victorious lion as a symbol of political and military power
Although there are proud inscriptions in Persepolis in which Xerxes proclaims his divine calling and his rule over "the far-reaching earth", there are no other royal depictions, which is strange. But the depictions of the lion fight are found as a leitmotif sixteen times in various places, right next to depictions of the royal guards. It would be most appropriate to understand these scenes as emblems of royal power. This is in keeping with Ernst Herzfeld's opinion that although the depictions on the Apadana steps originally had an astronomical meaning, "on the other hand, this configuration almost has the character of a coat of arms. The symbol has become a heraldic emblem."

Picture #6: Bronze disc of Sargon II, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In 1950, Edith Porada described a bronze disc from Khorsabad, which is said to be the shield hump of the Assyrian king Sargon II (731-705 BC). Here the ruler has transformed himself into a lion triumphing over the mighty bull. This can also be found similarly on an embroidered tunic of Assurnasirpal (9th century) 

(3) The victorious lion as a religious motif

Picture #7: Tableau (Photo: Dr Hamit Zübeyr Kosay)

A calligraphic tableau from the 8th century, today in the Ethnographic Museum in Ankara, shows the fight between a lion and a dragon, which comes very close to the fight between a lion and a bull. On the right is a text in Persian script:

"Killing the bad nafs in the body is
not the work of the (worldly) leader (or prince).
Tearing the snake in the cradle to pieces is
the work of Haydar ('Ali, actually lion)"


Nafs in Sufism are the souls, of which there are different levels. The text points out that the bad nafs can only be killed in transcendence, so it is meant religiously, here in the spirit of Sufism.

(4) The transformation into a decorative design

Picture #8: Scraper (Photo: L. A. Mayer Memorial Collection)

The final stage in the life cycle of the symbol is reached in this 12th-13th century scraper for removing calloused skin after bathing. The design has descended from its religious heights to profane use. Only the celestial symbol under the bull is an echo from its oldest past, whose true meaning has finally been forgotten (Hartner/Ettunghausen).

However, this cultural decline in the meaning of the symbol does not depend on the lower social class, as one might think. On the contrary, we tend to find this last stage in the later period among the "wealthier", as we can see from the following decorative plate, which dates from the Ottoman period around 1600 and is now in the Berlin State Museums.

Picture #9: Decorative plate

This plate no longer sends out a message, whether astrological, religious or political. With its floral elements, bright colours and sweeping movement, it appeals to our aesthetic sensibilities. It is simply beautiful to look at.

And now we can also answer the question that I have been putting off: Which group do the images on our coins belong to? They are certainly not meant to be astronomical or astrological, nor are they merely decorative. They have a political meaning and are intended to demonstrate the power of the ruler!

Sources:
(1) Epic of Gilgamesh

Literature:
(1) Hartner/Ettinghausen, The Conquering lion, the Life Cycle as Symbol,  Oriens Vol. 17, 31.12.1964
(2) Lion and Bull: Old Iranian Mythological Symbol, Financial Tribune (Iranian)
(3) Krzysztof Ulanowski, The Metaphor of the Lion in Mesopotamian and Greek Civilization, in Mesopotamia in the Ancient World, 2015
(4) Chikako E. Watanabe, The Symbolic Role of Ani-mals in Babylon: A contextual Approach to the Lion, the Bull and the Musussu, Iraq, Vol. 77, Issue 1, 2015
(5) Vijay Sathe, The Lion-Bull Motifs of Persepolis: The Zoogeographic Context, IRANIAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES 2:1 (2012)
(6) Kiersten Neumann, Tracking the Lion & Bull of Persepolis, News&Notes, Issue 245, Spring 2020
(7) Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Islam and Image, History of Religions III, 1964

Online-Quellen:
(1) https://www.thecollector.com/fascinating-facts-from-the-bas-reliefs-of-persepolis/
(2) https://iranicaonline.org/articles/persepolis
(4) Wildwinds
(5) Wikipedia

The b/w photos are all from Hartner/Ettinghausen

Kind regards
Jochen
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: Jay GT4 on March 22, 2024, 09:36:28 am
A great read Jochen.  Thanks!
Title: Re: Coins of mythological interest
Post by: *Alex on March 22, 2024, 11:00:14 am
Excellent, and educational, piece of work Jochen.

Alex