"Replaced by a bow" is an entirely different
type, even if in the same tradition and even if the coin is
signed by Gargilius Antiquus, as this one is. Typical sales list
writing! I wish I
had one of these! But never mind, because this sort seems to be the
choice for
Apollo at
Philippopolis (Phlpp). It is very Antonine taste, just as their Ares is. The stance with the free
leg forward, the straight back. It is interesting how each of these cities has its own taste: each
had its own persons in high positions governing decisions, just as each USA city has: Seattle, S.F., L.A. and so on.
This
Apollo coin is one of many inspired by the mid-5th-century
Apollo called "Kassel" (though I post the Louvre one because in its photo the standing
leg is less obscured by the marble copy's external support). A number of the actual copies of the Kassel
type (see E.
Schmidt,
Antike Plastik, V) are Antonine. The
work shown on the
Philippopolis coin is a spin-off of the Kassel
type, and so is another Macrinus-Diadumenian
Apollo, without either twig or tripod (another favorite coin of mine).
Now, holding a laurel twig is perhaps the thing most relevant to cult (as the arrow of the
Seleucid one is, as
Kraay said in the
Davis &
Kraay picture book, an allusion to both Python and Niobe events). On the
Philippopolis coin the tripod on its own stepped base is an accessory, not an attribute; perhaps Phlpp
had a bronze tripod in their sanctuary. The laurel twig and the perfect nudity do perhaps relate the cult to that at
Magnesia, but Phlpp is using a different statuary model, if so. This
Apollo thrusts out
his chest and tucks in
his pelvis, not
vice versa.
BTW, the youths that even
Pick cannot decide whether to call
Apollo or
Bonus Eventus are yet another, Late Classical.
The
Apollo type of Seleucus II tetradrachms and of
Magnesia (possibly because of an oracle from
Delphi??) on its stephanophoroi after c. 190 is in the taste of the bronze
Ephesus Scraper (now in another copy, too, in
Zagreb, from a shipwreck, besides the marble Uffizi one) and may have been created as early as the beginning of the
Seleucid dynasty (and, we must always remember, may have been a painted rather than sculptural image). Here the tripod is inseparable from the stance, though the other early
Seleucid tetradrachms suggest that it is iconographically interchangeable with the
omphalos covered with knotted fillets. The
Magnesia Apollo has the knotted
fillet with the twig, apparently sufficient for the Delphic allusion. It seems to me likely that the
Seleucid Apollo, if not the
Magnesia one too, is not a cult statue but an adornment (
agalma) of one of the sanctuaries of or near Antioch, so that the accessories,
apart from that arrow-sighting, are not essential to its meaning.
The tripod, however, always possible for a mantic god, is intrinsic to the heavily slouched stance of the Seleucus II-Magnesia
type.
We see how Myth and Cult and Art interface all the time, but they aren't the same thing. The proclivity of the Thracian and Moesian (Inf.) cities to the use of famous art
types (like Hallmark putting Sistine Madonna putti on their cards) may be related to their prosperity for a few generations and their having none that they could call their own, as the age-old cities of
Asia Minor had, as
Athens had, just to name a couple.
Pat L.
07 01 02 AE 27-8
Marcianopolis Issued by Pontianus
Macrinus, laureate, and
Diadumenian,
confronted busts, draped (Macrinus's over armor). AV K
OPEL SEVE MAKRINOS K M
OPEL and in
exergue ANTONEI and below that NOS. This probably means that this is the same die as
Pick nos. 718, 725, 743 (resp. with
Zeus, Demeter, and
Hermes reverses).
Rev. Apollo stg. l., with hair, stance, and body proportions in the tradition of the Kassel
Apollo, holding bow in
his left and
phiale in
his right over a flaming
altar. The bow and long hair being clear and the proportions being adult, this is not
Pick 728 (itself
Apollo, as
Pick deduces), because, besides, the
legend is continuous: VP PONTIANOV MARKIANOPOLEITON and the value mark E in the lower r.
field. There are many examples of no. 728, and
Pick would have noticed if any
had a bow rather than a laurel branch.