TERMESSOS MAJOR in PISIDIA 71BC Ancient Greek Coin ZEUS & BULL i22767

Item: i22767

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of Termessos Major in Pisidia (Asia Minor)
Bronze 14mm (1.92 grams) Struck 71-36 B.C.
Laureate head of Zeus right.
Forepart of humped bull left, TEP in exergue.

An important city of south-western Pisidia, high up in the
Tauros mountains, Termessos at one time controlled a large area of territory
extending into northern Lycia. Its position was given recognition by the Romans
in 71 B.C. from which era its earliest coins date.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

In the
ancient Greek

religion
,
Zeus

zews



zooss
;
Ancient Greek
:
Ζε�ς;
Modern Greek
:
Δίας, Dias) was the “Father of Gods and men” (πατὴÏ�
ἀνδ�ῶν τε θεῶν τε)
who ruled the Olympians of
Mount Olympus

as a father ruled the family. He was the
god of sky

and
thunder

in
Greek mythology
.
His
Roman

counterpart is
Jupiter

and
Etruscan

counterpart is Tinia
.

Zeus was the child of
Cronus

and
Rhea
,
and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to

Hera, although, at the
oracle of Dodona
,
his consort was
Dione
:
according to the Iliad
,
he is the father of
Aphrodite

by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and
heroic offspring, including
Athena
,
Apollo

and Artemis
,
Hermes
,
Persephone

(by Demeter
),
Dionysus
,
Perseus
,
Heracles
,
Helen of Troy
,
Minos
,
and the Muses

(by Mnemosyne
);
by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered

Ares,
Hebe

and Hephaestus
.

As
Walter Burkert

points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his
natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.”
For the Greeks, he was the
King of the Gods
,
who oversaw the universe. As
Pausanias

observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In
Hesiod’s Theogony

Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the
Homeric Hymns

he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.

His symbols are the
thunderbolt
,
eagle
,
bull
,
and oak
.
In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer”
also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the
Ancient Near East
,
such as the
scepter
.
Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing,
striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated
in majesty.

Zeus, poetically referred to by the
vocative
Zeu pater (“O, father Zeus”),
is a continuation of *Di̯ēus,
the
Proto-Indo-European
god of the daytime sky,
also called *Dyeus
ph₂tÄ“r (“Sky Father”).^[9]
The god is known under this name in
Sanskrit
(compare
Dyaus/Dyaus Pita
),
Latin
(compare
Jupiter
, from Iuppiter, deriving
from the
Proto-Indo-European
vocative *dyeu-ph₂tÄ“r^[10]),
deriving from the basic form *dyeu– (“to shine”, and in its many
derivatives, “sky, heaven, god”).^[9]
And in
Germanic mythology
(compare *TÄ«waz
>
Old High German language
Ziu,
Old Norse

Týr
), together with Latin deus,
dīvus and Dis (a variation of dīves^[11]),
from the related noun *deiwos.^[11]
To the Greeks and Romans, the god of the sky was also the supreme god. Zeus is
the only deity in the Olympic
pantheon
whose name has such a transparent
Indo-European etymology.

ompare
Jupiter
, from Iuppiter, deriving
from the
Proto-Indo-European
vocative *dyeu-ph₂tÄ“r^[10]),
deriving from the basic form *dyeu– (“to shine”, and in its many
derivatives, “sky, heaven, god”).^[9]
And in
Germanic mythology
(compare *TÄ«waz
>
Old High German language
Ziu,
Old Norse

Týr
), together with Latin deus,
dīvus and Dis (a variation of dīves^[11]),
from the related noun *deiwos.^[11]
To the Greeks and Romans, the god of the sky was also the supreme god. Zeus is
the only deity in the Olympic
pantheon
whose name has such a transparent
Indo-European etymology.