Larissa in Thessaly 350BC Ancient Greek Coin Nymph facing Horse Rare i33867

Item: i33867

Authentic Ancient Coin of:

GREEK City of Larissa in Thessaly
Bronze 18mm (5.86 grams) Struck 350-325 B.C.
Reference: Sear 2132 var., B.M.C. 7. 86.
Head of nymph Larissa three-quarter face to left,
wearing necklace; hair confined by fillet
and floating loosely, with ampyx in front.
ΛΑΡΙΣΑIΩN. –
Thessalian horseman right, holding spear, horse
prancing; beneath, Σ.

 You
are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a
Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.  

A nymph  in
Greek mythology
and in
Latin mythology
is a
minor female nature deity typically associated with a
particular location or landform. There are 5 different
types of nymphs, Celestial Nymphs, Water Nymphs, Land
Nymphs, Plant Nymphs and Underworld Nymphs. Different
from goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as divine
spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as
beautiful, young
nubile
maidens who love
to dance and sing; their amorous freedom sets them apart
from the restricted and chaste wives and daughters of
the Greek
polis
. They are
believed to dwell in mountains and
groves
, by springs and
rivers, and also in trees and in valleys and cool
grottoes
. Although they
would never die of old age nor illness, and could give
birth to fully immortal children if mated to a god, they
themselves were not necessarily immortal, and could be
beholden to death in various forms.
Charybdis
and
Scylla
were once
nymphs.

Other nymphs, always in the shape of
young maidens, were part of the
retinue
of a god, such
as
Dionysus
,
Hermes
, or
Pan
, or a goddess,
generally the huntress
Artemis
.^[1]
Nymphs were the frequent target of
satyrs
. They are
frequently associated with the superior divinities: the
huntress
Artemis
; the prophetic
Apollo
; the reveller
and god of
wine
,
Dionysus
; and rustic
gods such as Pan and Hermes.

Etymology

Nymphs are personifications of the
creative and fostering activities of nature, most often
identified with the life-giving outflow of springs: as
Walter Burkert
(Burkert
1985:III.3.3) remarks, “The idea that rivers are gods
and springs divine nymphs is deeply rooted not only in
poetry but in belief and ritual; the worship of these
deities is limited only by the fact that they are
inseparably identified with a specific locality.”

The
Greek
word
νύμφη has “bride”
and “veiled” among its meanings: hence a marriageable
young woman. Other readers refer the word (and also
Latin
nubere and
German
Knospe)
to a root expressing the idea of “swelling” (according
to
Hesychius
, one of the
meanings of νύμφη
is “rose-bud”).

Adaptations

The Greek nymphs were spirits invariably
bound to places, not unlike the Latin
genius loci
, and
the difficulty of transferring their cult may be seen in
the complicated myth that brought
Arethusa
to Sicily. In
the works of the Greek-educated
Latin poets
, the nymphs
gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous
Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna,
Egeria
,
Carmentis
,
Fontus
), while the
Lymphae
(originally
Lumpae), Italian water-goddesses, owing to the
accidental similarity of their names, could be
identified with the Greek Nymphae. The mythologies of
classicizing Roman poets were unlikely to have affected
the rites and cult of individual nymphs venerated by
country people in the springs and clefts of
Latium
. Among the
Roman
literate class,
their sphere of influence was restricted, and they
appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery
element.

In modern Greek folklore

The ancient Greek belief in nymphs
survived in many parts of the country into the early
years of the twentieth century, when they were usually
known as “nereids“.
At that time, John Cuthbert Lawson wrote: “…there is
probably no nook or hamlet in all Greece where the
womenfolk at least do not scrupulously take precautions
against the thefts and malice of the nereids, while many
a man may still be found to recount in all good faith
stories of their beauty, passion and caprice. Nor is it
a matter of faith only; more than once I have been in
villages where certain Nereids were known by sight to
several persons (so at least they averred); and there
was a wonderful agreement among the witnesses in the
description of their appearance and dress.”^[2]

Nymphs tended to frequent areas distant
from humans but could be encountered by lone travelers
outside the village, where their music might be heard,
and the traveler could spy on their dancing or bathing
in a stream or pool, either during the noon heat or in
the middle of the night. They might appear in a
whirlwind. Such encounters could be dangerous, bringing
dumbness, besotted infatuation, madness or stroke to the
unfortunate human. When parents believed their child to
be nereid-struck, they would pray to Saint Artemidos.^[3][4]

 

Modern sexual connotations

Due to the depiction of the mythological
nymphs as females who mate with men or women at their
own volition, and are completely outside male control,
the term is often used for women who are perceived as
behaving similarly. (For example, the title of the
Perry Mason
detective
novel The Case of the Negligent Nymph (1956) by
Erle Stanley Gardner
is
derived from this meaning of the word.)

The term
nymphomania
was
created by modern
psychology
as referring
to a “desire to engage in
human sexual behavior

at a level high enough to be considered clinically
significant”, nymphomaniac being the person
suffering from such a disorder. Due to widespread use of
the term among lay persons (often shortened to nympho)
and stereotypes attached, professionals nowadays prefer
the term
hypersexuality
,
which can refer to males and females alike.

The word
nymphet
is used to
identify a sexually precocious girl. The term was made
famous in the novel
Lolita
by
Vladimir Nabokov
. The
main character,
Humbert Humbert
, uses
the term many times, usually in reference to the title
character.

Classification

As
H.J. Rose
states, all
the names for various classes of nymphs are plural
feminine adjectives agreeing with the substantive
nymphai, and there was no single classification that
could be seen as canonical and exhaustive. Thus the
classes of nymphs tend to overlap, which complicates the
task of precise classification. Rose mentions
dryads
and
hamadryads
as nymphs of
trees generally,
meliai
as nymphs of
ash trees
, and
naiads
as nymphs of
water, but no others specifically.^[5]

Classification by type of dwelling

The following^[6]
is not the authentic Greek classification, but is
intended simply as a guide:

• Celestial nymphs

  • Aurae

    (breezes), also called Aetae or Pnoae

  • Asteriae (stars), mainly
    comprising the Atlantides (daughters of
    Atlas
    )

    • Hesperides

      (nymphs of the West, daughters of Atlas;
      also had attributes of the
      Hamadryads
      )

      • Aegle

        (“dazzling light”)

      • Arethusa

      • Erytheia

        (or Eratheis)

      • Hesperia

        (or Hispereia)

    • Hyades

      (star cluster; sent rain)

    • Pleiades

      (daughters of
      Atlas
      and
      Pleione
      ;
      constellation; also were classed as
      Oreads
      )

Larissa, sometimes written
Larisa on ancient coins and inscriptions, is near the
site of the Homeric Argissa. It appears in early times,
when
Thessaly
was mainly
governed by a few aristocratic families, as an important
city under the rule of the
Aleuadae
, whose
authority extended over the whole district of
Pelasgiotis
. This
powerful family possessed for many generations before
369 BC the privilege of furnishing the tagus, the
local term for the
strategos
of the
combined Thessalian forces. The principal rivals of the
Aleuadae were the
Scopadac
of
Crannon
, the remains of
which (called by the Turks Old Larissa) are about 14
miles south west. The inhabitants sided with
Athens
during the
Peloponnesian War.

As the chief city of ancient
Thessaly, Larissa was directly annexed by Philip II of
Macedon in 344, and from then on Larissa was under
Macedonian control; in 196 B.C. Larissa became an ally
of Rome and was the headquarters of the
Thessalian League
.

 

Larissa

 

Coordinates

39°38.5′N

22°25′E