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Index of this thread

Titles in Italics refer to Roman mythology!

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.0
Apollo Smintheus
Apollo Sauroktonos - The Lizardkiller
Amphilochos - The seer
Apollo Lykeios
Apollo Lykeios - or rather not?
The Rape of Persephone
The Stymphalean Birds - an ancient Bird Influenza?
The Sword Dance of the Kuretes
Gigantomachia - The battle of the Giants
The two Nemeseis of Smyrna
Haimos - the Mountain God
Astarte, or Ba'alat Gebul, the Lady of Byblos
Baetyl, the sacred stone
Erichthonios - King of Athens
Marsyas - the skinned
Triptolemos - the bringer of culture
Men - the Anatolean Moon God
Priapos

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Ma-Enyo - the archaic War Goddess
Ares - the bloodthirsty killer
Aphrodite Pudica
The infant Dionysos
Dionysos and the panther
Dionysos with Kantharos
Mount Argaios - the Sacred Mountain of Cappadocia
Some notes on the Roman god Liber
The Aegis - the wondershield of Zeus
The Gorgoneion - the head of Medusa
Asklepios - the Healing God
Telesphoros
The gods of the Underworld
Dea Caelestis - the ancient City Goddess of Carthage
Kybele - the great Earth Mother
The Dioscurs - the divine pair of brothers
Hermes - the frontier runner

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.50
Melikertes and the Isthmian Games
Omphale - owner and lover of Herakles
The snake cult of Alexander of Abounoteichos (called the FALSE PROPHET)
A curious depiction of Asklepios
The heritage of Greek mythology in modern literature
The madness of Aias the Great
Kronos - father of gods
Asteria - the Star Goddess
Perseus and Andromeda
HELIOS
The Ephesian Boar
PEGASUS
The Calydonean Boar
Bull Mythology
Some notes on the river-gods

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Mt. Gerizim - the holy mountain of Samaria
Hermes
The mysterious Cabiri
Herakliskos Drakonopnigon - The infant Herakles strangling the snakes
Atargatis or Dea Syria, the Great Syrian Goddess
Orpheus taming the wild animals
Telephos, the son of Herakles
Dionysos and Nikaia - the founder myth of Nicaea

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.100
Dido - founder of Carthage
The Minotaur
Battos - the untrue herdsman
Kadmos - Founder of Thebes
Darzalas - The Great God of Odessos
Melqart-Herakles
Tyre and the Ambrosial rocks
Artemis Tauropolos and Iphigenia
The Lokrian Aias
The Herakles Farnese
Europa and the bull
The auloi
Harpokrates

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.125
Leda and the swan
Tomos - the Ktistes
Hippolytos and Phaidra
An interesting depiction of Zeus-Ammon
Bellerophon
Alpheios and the nymph Arethusa
The Dioskouroi
The myths of Arne
Artemis and Kallisto
The Lares
Ianus
The white sow of Lavinium
The Catanian Brothers
Hermanubis
The rape of the Sabine women
Veiovis and Amaltheia

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.150
Herakles with kantharos
Laurel wreath with berries
Some notes on Pan
Miletos - founder of Milet
Herakles and the Nemean lion
Venus Verticordia
The love of Ares and Aphrodite
The fourth labor of Herakles, the Erymanthian Boar
Zeus Kasios
Zeus Kataibates
Venus Cloacina
The struggle between Xanthos and Achilleus
The Erymanthian Boar II
Herakles and the giant Antaios
Anna Perenna
Iuppiter Optimus Maximus
Ganymedes - the beautiful
Protesilaos
The three Graces

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Diomedes
Juno Sospita
Skylla
Apollo with double-axe
The Amazons
Cheiron, the wise kentaur
The Kentaurs
Aeneas, carrying Anchises
Apollo Patroos
Hekate Triformis
Poseidon and the nymph Beroe
Ino-Leukothea
Some notes on Mithras
Hector - Heroe of Troy
Juno Caprotina

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The Thracian Rider-God Heros
The unlucky King Kyzikos
Hylas - Herakles' favorite
Aphrodite Urania
Sandan of Tarsos
Diana Nemorensis
Acca Larentia
Apollo Smintheus and the herdsman Ordes
Hera Lacinia
Euthenia/Abundantia
The Egyptian Sphinx
The river Nile
Agathodaimon and Uraeus
The crowns of ancient Egypt
Zeus Olbios and the Priest-Kingdom of Olba
Some notes on Nemesis
The Star of Bethlehem: Mythology or not?

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.225
Tellus
The myth of Tereus and Prokne
Mars and Rhea Silva
Faustulus and the twins
Romulus and the first triumph
Byzas - founder of Byzanz
Herophile - the Sibyl
Vacuna?
The voting pebble of Athena
The second labour of Hercules, the Lernaean Hydra
The Garden of the Hesperides
The Cult of Dionysos in Nysa-Scythopolis
Eshmun - The Phoenician Healer God
The pre-Islamic goddess Al-Lat
Aineias escapes from Troy
Pyramus and Thisbe
The Genius
The Genius Cucullatus and Christophorus

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.250
Hestia
Vesta
Artemis with child
Nymph Nysa and the Dionysos Child
Dionysos and Ariadne
The Samian Hera
Shamash - The Babylonian sun-god
A founder myth of Lanuvium
A word about Aequitas
Doros - son of Poseidon

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.275
The bound Ares
Volcanus
Hephaistos
The drunken Hephaistos
Leto - mother of the twins Apollo and Artemis
Ptah - the Creator God of Memphis
The Sibyl Mantho
The mysterious Pigmies
Poseidon and Troy
Hadad - Jupiter Heliopolitanus
Io/Hathor (and Marnas)
Saturn - the old Roman God of Agriculture
Herakles and the Cretan Bull
Artemis Perasia, the old Kubaba
Apollo Philesios and the movable stag of Kanachos
The Greek Sphinx
Derketo and Triton(?)
Juno Martialis
Some notes on the Phoenix

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The Sothic Cycle
Amor and Psyche
Some notes on Eros
The Greek sun-god Helios
Aphrodite Stratonikis
Gordios - Founder of Gordion
Minos
The Griffins
Tyche Euposia
Apollo Karinos, the stony Apollo
Apollon Iatros - Apollon the Doctor
Apollon Klarios and the Oracle of Klaros
Silen and Dionysos
Who is the boy between Asklepios and Hygieia?
Zeus Syrgastes

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.325
Pelops and the Curse of the House of Atreus
Some notes on Aeternitas
Aphrodite Aphrodisias

Until here the articles are in the book 'Coins and Ancient Mythology'

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.350
Thoth, Hermes Trismegistos
The Caduceus (Kerykeion)
Crescent and the ash-grey moonlight
The Mythology of Tenedos
Tyana
Maron - Eponym of Maroneia
The Return of Odysseus
Excursion: The island of the Phaiakians - Homer's Atlantis?
The so-called Tyche of Antioch
The horrible fate of Tarpeia

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.375
Janus - the God with 2 Faces
Excursion: 'The Mourning Penelope' - An Addentum to 'Tyche'
Phrixos and Helle
Excursion: The Dardanelles
The standing lake-god of Savatra
Zeus Olybrios
Philoctetes - the Story of a Lonely and Tortured
Midas (and Mida)
Athena Itonia
Herakles and Kerberos
El/Kronos of Byblos
Adranos

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.400
Pygmalion
Excursion: Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA
Theseus, the National Hero of the Athenians
Rhodope and the Rabbit - A Beauty from Markianopolis
The Ichthyocentaurs
Otreus and Aineas
Apollo Karneios
Pallor - Goddes of Paleness and Fear
Some Notes on the Cock
Jupiter Stator
Talos - The first Robot in History
Excursion: Man and Machine
The Phrygian Rider-God Sozon

http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=25089.425
Astakos and the founder myth of Nikomedeia
Dione and the Oracle of Dodona
Themis
Excursion: Deukalion and Pyrrha

Index of this thread

[Excursus: Deukalion and Pyrrha]

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

Hallo,

A colleague of mine acquired at polish auction site allegro.pl iteresting coin of Trajan. Could you take a look at photos attached to this e-mail and write your thougts about this coin in a few words?

Coin is much smaller than typical denarius, its diameter is 16-17 mm and weight 1,74 g. Reverse type is copied from one of rarest Trajan denarii - RIC 147A/MIR 269. Core is copper, and there is a little trace of silvering. A hole before Trajan's eye is quite deep (about half of coin thickness, probably a sign of coin check when the silvering was full or unfinished hole which allows to use coin as pendant). Style is unexpectedly good and it resembles a Rome mint products; but if it is a cast, why it is so small?

If it is necessary we of course can upload more photos.

Regards,
Pawel

I forgot to mention: buying from a reputable dealer whom you trust is key. Forvm is a great place from which to buy and start building your collection.

Tracy

Thank you

Hello Mark,

You've received lots of good advice. I still consider myself a green-greenhorn after almost two years. Like you I set parameters around my collecting and I tried to dovetail those parameters with some of my historical interests, e.g. the challenges facing Aurelian (270 to 275 AD) with the Palmyrene empire, as well as various periods during the Sasanian empire. Yet I have left room (and money) for straying off topic. I've done that several times because I see a coin that in one way or another speaks to me or that I simply find beautiful. When that happens I look at it as yet another historical era into which I can dive.

Balancing coins with buying books, going to the library, and online learning (which is nice because it is generally free) can be key. Sometimes I enjoy "collecting" the books and the numismatic/historical articles as much as finding and purchasing the coins. In addition to the books by Wayne Sayles and David Sear you might also consider the applicable volume of the Handbook of Greek Coinage series, by the Classical Numismatic Group. Go to Numiswiki on Forvm and type HGC in the search box.

I believe that ultimately this hobby should make you happy, so be sure to have fun with it.

Tracy

Yes but the degree of oxidation depends on how the coin was stored/lost and the chemical environment.   You need a source of H2S to make black AgS.

Thanks Jay and Andrew for your kind compliments.

I will be on the lookout as I think that other coins from the same collection will likely show up in next auctions.

Alberto

Very nice coins and a great provenance. As you know I have a Titus denarius from the same collection.

This topic has been moved to Ancient Coin Forum.

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