Neandreia in Troas 350BC Apollo Horse Authentic Ancient Greek Coin i49186

Item: i49186

Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Greek city of

Bronze 20mm (7.75 grams) Struck 350-310 B.C.

Reference: Sear 4119; B.M.C. 17.74,8-10; SNG Copenhagen 451-3

Laureate head of Apollo right.
NEAN above horse grazing right; corn-grain in exergue.

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In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
,
Apollo, is one of the most
important and diverse of the
Olympian deities
. The ideal of the
kouros
(a beardless youth), Apollo has been
variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy;
archery
; medicine and healing; music, poetry,
and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of

Zeus and Leto
, and has a
twin
sister, the chaste huntress
Artemis
. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced
Etruscan mythology
as Apulu. Apollo was
worshiped in both
ancient Greek
and
Roman religion
, as well as in the modern
Greco
–Roman
Neopaganism
.

As the patron of Delphi
(Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an
oracular
god — the prophetic deity of the
Delphic Oracle
. Medicine and healing were
associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his
son Asclepius
, yet Apollo was also seen as a god
who could bring ill-health and deadly
plague
as well as one who had the ability to
cure. Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with
dominion over
colonists
, and as the patron defender of herds
and flocks. As the leader of the

Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo
functioned as the patron god of music and
poetry
.
Hermes
created the

lyre for him, and the instrument became a common
attribute
of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were
called paeans
.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo
Helios he became identified among Greeks with
Helios
,
god of the sun
, and his sister Artemis
similarly equated with
Selene
,
goddess of the moon
. In Latin texts, on the
other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of
Apollo with
Sol
among the
Augustan poets
of the first century, not even
in the conjurations of
Aeneas
and
Latinus
in
Aeneid
XII (161–215). Apollo and Helios/Sol
remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third
century CE.

Neandreia (Ancient
Greek Νεάνδρεια) was a
Greek
city in the south-west of the
Troad
region of
Anatolia
. Its site has been located on Çığrı
Dağ, about 9 km east of the remains of the ancient city of
Alexandria Troas
in the
Ezine
district of
Çanakkale
province,
Turkey
. The site was first identified as
Neandreia by
Frank Calvert
in 1865 and Joseph Thacher Clarke
in 1886 and was first excavated by the German architect
Robert Koldewey
when he excavated in 1889.

History

We do not know the circumstances of Neandreia’s foundation in the
Archaic period
. A tradition known to the author
of the 4th century CE work
Dictys Cretensis Ephemeridos belli Trojani

claimed that Neandreia had been the home of the legendary king
Cycnus
who was killed on the first day of the
Trojan War
by
Achilles
and his city sacked. However, there is
no archaeological evidence for settlement in the second millennium BCE on Çığrı
Dağ and Cycnus is likewise claimed by the neighbouring cities of
Kolonai
and
Tenedos
. The first settlers of Neandreia
probably chose the site because it is highly defensible and commands impressive
views over travel along two axes: north-south along the western coast of the
Troad, and east-west from the coast into the middle
Skamander
valley. Çığrı Dağ, the granite
mountain on which Neandreia is located, has a maximum height of 520 m and a
circuit 1,400 m and up to 450 m wide. It has access to granite quarries which
were used for its fortification and to springs which would help the inhabitants
withstand sieges. The city’s main area of agricultural cultivation was the Plain
of Samonion, provisionally identified with an area in the middle Skamander
valley to the east of Neandreia.

The earliest archaeological remains found on Çığrı Dağ date to the 6th
century BCE. These include a temple, an
agora
, and a

stoa, as well as fortifications at the western end of the site. It
has been suggested that this temple was dedicated to
Apollo
, since Apollo appears on the coins of
the city and an inscription from Neandreia dating to ca. 500 BCE records the
dedication of a statue to this god. Rock-cut inscriptions found 1 km from the
city’s main gate and tentatively dated to the
Classical period
attest the existence of a
sacred grove for Zeus, while other inscriptions found near Çığrı Dağ indicate
the existence of a temple of
Dionysus
in the city’s territory. In the
of Pseudo-ScylaxPeriplus
,
which dates to the mid-4th century BCE, Neandreia is said to be ethnically
Aeolian
in origin, and this is confirmed by
inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in the
Aeolian dialect
. The language of a dedication
to the god Priapus
indicates that by the late 5th or early
4th century BCE the Aeolic dialect was no longer spoken at Neandreia.

In the 5th century BCE Neandreia was a member of the
Delian League
and is recorded paying a tribute
to Athens
of 2,000
drachmas
as part of the Hellespontine district
from 454/3 to 410/9 BCE. Soon after this latter date, perhaps following the
defeat of Athens in the
Peloponnesian War
in 404, the city of Neandreia
came under the influence of Zenis, the dynast of
Dardanus
, who controlled the Troad on behalf of
the Persian satrap

Pharnabazos
. Under Zenis and his wife and
successor Mania, a garrison of Greek troops was installed in Neandreia. In 399
BCE this garrison was expelled and the city freed by the
Spartan
commander
Dercylidas
. Archaeological investigations have
shown that in the late 5th or early 4th century BCE a new circuit of walls was
constructed from granite ashlar blocks which was 3.2 km in length, 2.9 m thick,
and enclosed an area of 40 ha. It is not clear whether these walls were
constructed when the city was in the hands of Zenis and Mania, or after
Dercylidas had freed the city. Later in the 4th century BCE there was further
construction work on Çığrı Dağ, including housing in its western part on a
rectangular grid, a complex internal drainage system, and possibly a theatre.
The excavators estimate that in this period the city consisted of 230 houses and
a population of about 2,500 individuals.

In ca. 310 BCE
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
founded the city of
Antigonia Troas
(after 301 BCE renamed
Alexandria Troas) as a
synoecism
of the surrounding cities of the
Troad, including Neandreia. The earliest coinage of the newly synoecized city
adopted the coin types of Neandreia, which displayed a grazing horse, and this
remained Alexandria Troas’ emblem on its coinage for the rest of antiquity. From
this point on, Neandreia had no independent political existence, hence in the
1st century CE
Pliny the Elder
listed it among the settlements
in the Troad which no longer existed in his day. However, a sarcophagus found
near Çığrı Dağ which dates to the Roman period and held the remains of two men
named Neandros and Epitynchanon indicates that the area was still inhabited long
afterwards, presumably as a

deme of Alexandria Troas.