Tyche Euposia

[slokind]

Between them, Head and Pick (see below) give us about all we know of this epithet, Euposia.  The child climbing up her arm is Ploutos or the same thing by a local name.
• 28 12 06 Æ25  11.94g  axis 12h.  Nicopolis ad Istrum.  Diadumenian, issued by Longinus.  Bareheaded, draped bust (with aegis, evidently) to r.  K M OP[ELLI DIA]      DOVMENIANOS.   Rev., "Tyche (or Euposia) in kalathos, stg. r., her rudder in her right hand, on her left arm the cornucopiae, on which sits a small child."  I should say, "climbs" for "sits".  In a note, Pick adds, "Svoronos, by whom the coin was first described, interprets the child, certainly rightly, as Ploutos.  In the goddess we perhaps are to recognize the same personification as is called EVPOSIA on coins of Hierapolis in Phrygia (refs. to two Imhoof-Blumer).  In that connection, add that the title "euposiarches" occurs in our region at Odessa and Tomis (refs. to Perrot and Kleinsorge)."   [VP STA LON]GINOV NI KOPOLITÔN PROS I.  Pick, AMNG I, 1, no. 1868, pl. XIX, 7,  This specimen does have the same rev. die as that illus. by Pick (Munich).  As an epithet of Tyche, Euposia also occurs at Nysa in Lydia.  See Head, HN p. 654 for Nysa, p. 676 for Hierapolis in Phrygia.
I had one of these, but, scarce as it is, my first one (also rougher) has a different reverse die, with PROS I in the exergue.
The obv. die is, of course, the one with the emperor on horseback and other reverses that we discussed recently.

I also have Tyche Euposia for Caracalla at Marcianopolis, issued by Quintilianus.
• 21 01 03 AE 24+  8.6g  Marcianopolis.  Caracalla, laureate, bearded, head to r.  ANTONINOS PIOS AVGOVST O S.  Rev., Tyche-Euposia, in kalathos and with rudder and cornucopiae, stg. l. with child (Ploutos?) clambering onto her shoulder.  VP KVNTILIANO    V MARKIANOPOLITO and in field at r. N.  Not the most statuesque of Tyches but in remarkably crisp condition.  The obverse legend and its portrait are those of the agonistic issue under Quintilian.  Not in AMNG I, 1 (although the obverse legend exactly matches 637, with the O C ), but possibly cf. Varbanov I, no. 744, though no child or baby (dete, bebe) is mentioned there.  Hr & J seems to illustrate this coin in Marcianopolis, p. 62, at the bottom of the page, though again I don't see the words for baby or child.

Of course, the identification of the type depends on the legends attached to the motif at Hierapolis in Phrygia.  I have not seen the Tyche with a baby at Odessos or Tomis, the cities where Euposiarchs are named.
Pat L.

I attach also my first Diadumenian one and a detail of the baby climbing the arm of Tyche-Euposia on the new one.

[Pscipio]

I confess that I never noticed the child before; thank you for this informative thread. Besides, that Caracalla is a beautiful coin!

Lars

[areich]

I just got one, too.
Not too pretty, but the child is clearly recognizable, now that I know it's there.

EDIT: replaced with nicer picture

[Bacchus]

Very interesting depictions indeed.  The Caracalla one especially shows the child very clearly - I wonder why the size decreased with the passage of a few years? - .  Can I assume here that Ploutos is one of the Oceanids?  Could you possibly elaborate on why this particular deity would be here (i.e., associated with Tyche) or what the coin reverse is really trying to say?  What exactly is 'Euposia'?

Many thanks all for posting these interesting examples (I don't have this particular type.....yet!  )

Malcolm

[Jochen]

There was a famous statue in Athens showing Eirene holding Ploutos on her arm. It was made by Kephisodotos, father of Praxiteles, ca. 370 BC. The pic shows a copy.
Pluton seems to be the symbol of wealth and the statue may say wealth originates from peace.

Best regards

[slokind]

Exactly!  Just so.  And the famous Eirene with the child born of Eirene, Ploutos, doubtless was the model of representations of Tyche-Fortuna with a Ploutos baby as of several other maternal divinities, including some Aphrodites, standing with a baby on the arm or shoulder with or without a cornucopiae.  The famous Eirene-Pax was also the model of statues like that in the Louvre showing (we think) Messalina with the Infant Britannicus, as the bearer of an heir to the throne (history, alas, deemed otherwise).  And so, when the time came to show the bearer of incarnate god, the standing Mary (theotokos, god-bearer) holding the infant Jesus at shoulder height also used the ancient composition (by now about 700 years old, since Eirene and Ploutos was set up in the Athens Agora in 370 BCE), as in the Vierge de Paris and many others, both in sculpture and in pictorial (mosaic, reliefs, paintings) representations from at least the 10th century forward (probably earlier, but I don't want to rely on unsound memory).  Indeed, this year, with Peace in mind and a continuance of civilized existence, I used Eirene and Ploutos as a holidays card.  If my coin had come in time, I'd have used the Tyche Euposia, since I already had used Eirene once before in a different photo.
(yes, I ought to re-write that long, long sentence!)
Pat L.

[Bacchus]

Many thanks for your insightful replys.  Yes, that picture, kindly provided by Jochen, does have strikingly modern Christian overtones.  So the purpose of this (does it warrant a 'type' or a 'sub-type' of it's own?) reverse is to indicate "peace to the city" or some such derivative, while drawing the imagery from a pre-existing statue.

Malcolm

[slokind]

Malcolm: I had to look up the sources for your question.
Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon cites only epigraphic sources for Euposia, which means Abundance, from Olbia and cites Judeich's Altertümer von Hierapolis, which may be identical to Head's references to the coins of Hierapolis (see above).  For euposiarchês, they give not only the inscription at Tomis, but those at Thasos, Smyrna, and Erythrae; you can get the publication references there.
Ploutos just means Wealth.  When it is used of Hades, that is because Hades is wealthy, storing all the treasures of mortality in his underworld House.
For Eirene (Peace) and Ploutos (Wealth), I think that a better 21st century translation is Peace and Prosperity, because we tend to think of Money as Wealth, whereas still in the 4c BCE I think 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 L.

[whitetd49]

From Pat:  I used Eirene and Ploutos as a holidays card.
From Malcolm:  Yes, that picture, kindly provided by Jochen, does have strikingly modern Christian overtones.

I accepted Pat's Eirene and Ploutos as a typical Pieta never thinking twice that it was more ancient.

[slokind]

And yet the Pietà (like the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah) is an Easter motif, isn't it?  Eirene and Tyche Euposia and Messalina (!) and Mary in this compositonal tradition all hold up the child as a kind of offering.  Mary presents him in the Temple and Simon the old priest acknowledges him (Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: Nunc dimittis).  No, I'm not preaching my own faith here.  It is only a question of reading the language of the images fully.  I'm afraid I read Christian images the same way as pre-Christian ones!  Pat L.
P.S. I'd have sent everyone a card, but I didn't have a real e-mail address for everyone.  So here it is.  It is really a New Year card, anyway.

[Bacchus]

Pat,
Thank you very much for taking the trouble to chase those references for me.  A very interesting topic

Malcolm

[slokind]

I am adding a reduced vera fotografia of my first one, since comparing scans with photos is iffy.  Pat L.

[slokind]

I just noticed that the image which Jochen found is based on the 19th-century reconstruction, which was corrected after WWII before the statues were replaced in the Glyptothek.  It is OK that the upraised arm is modern, because we have tiny representations of this statue on Panathenaic prize amphoras (see Boardman, Greek Sculpture, Late Classical, p. 59, fig. 24, which also shows the statue as you see it now).  The present reconstruction used the Attic copy found in the Piraeus of this Athenian statue, and it is this copy, even if it is only partially preserved, that gives us the baby's face and the fact that he sat on the mid-section of a cornucopiae.  Eirene's hand supports it. The 19th c. reconstruction added that infallible sign of restorer's work, the Little Pitcher, which you can see on the old drawing.
So I've been hunting, and I located my 1960s B&W photos of the Piraeus baby, taken to show what I just said.  Here are three.  This is really good copyist work.  Pat L.

[archivum]

The Middle Ages had a slightly rounder if not darker view of the sonship of Plenty ("By peace plenty," Tilley's English Proverbs, P139):

Peace makes plenty, plenty makes pride, pride breeds quarrel, and quarrel brings war, war brings penury, penury brings peace ...

[slokind]

Cromwellian, or...?  P.L.

[archivum]

14th century in Latin, I think; Lydgate has it in English -- 15th century.