Abbaitis in PHRYGIA 150BC Ancient Greek Coin Zeus Thunderbolt i31506

Item: i31506

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of Abbaitis in PHRYGIA

Bronze 19mm (8.44 grams) Struck circa 150 B.C.

Reference: Sear 5096; B.M.C. 25.1,4-6

Laureate head of Zeus right.

MYΣΩN / ΑΒΒΑΙΤΩΝ above and below winged thunderbolt, monogram beneath; all

within oak wreath.

This district of western Phrygia was occupied by a people of

Mysian origin. Their coins were probably struck at the city of Ankyra..

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

In the
ancient Greek

religion
, Zeus


zews



zooss
;
Ancient Greek
: Ζεύς;
Modern
Greek
: Δίας, Dias) was the “Father of Gods and men” (πατὴρ
ἀνδρῶν 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.

Etymology

 

The Chariot of Zeus, from an 1879 Stories from the Greek
Tragedians by Alfred Church

In antiquity,

Phrygia (Greek:

Φρυγία) was a kingdom in the

west

central part of Anatolia

, in what is now modern-day

Turkey
. The

Phrygians (Phruges or Phryges) initially lived in the southern

Balkans
;

according to Herodotus

, under the name of

Bryges
(Briges),

changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the

Hellespont
.

During the flourishing of the city-state of

Troy, a part of the

Bryges emigrated to

Anatolia
as

Trojan allies or under the protection of Troy.^[

neededcitation] The Trojan language did not survive; consequently, its

exact relationship to the

Phrygian language

and the affinity of Phrygian society to that of Troy

remain open questions. Similarly, the date of migration and the relationship of

the Phrygians to the

Hittite empire

are unknown. They are, however, often considered part of a “Thraco-Phrygian”

group. A conventional date of c. 1200 BC often is used, at the very end of the

empire. It is certain that Phrygia was constituted on Hittite land, and yet not

at the very center of Hittite power in the big bend of the

Halys River

, where

Ankara
now is.

Subsequently the state of Phrygia arose in the

8th

century BC
with its capital at

Gordium
.

During this period, the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the

kingdom of Urartu
,

the descendants of the

Hurrians
, a

former rival of the Hittites.

Meanwhile the Phrygian Kingdom was overwhelmed by Iranian

Cimmerian

invaders c. 690 BC, then briefly conquered by its neighbor

Lydia
, before it

passed successively into the

Persian Empire

of

Cyrus

and the empire

of

Alexander

and his

successors
,

was taken by the

Attalids

of Pergamon

, and eventually became part of the

Roman

Empire
. The last mentions of the language date to the 5th century AD and it

was likely extinct by the 7th century AD.^[1]

When the Romans entered its capital Sardis in 133 BC, Lydia, as the other

western parts of the Attalid legacy, became part of the

province of Asia

, a very rich

Roman province

, worthy of a governor of the high rank of

proconsul
.

The whole west of Asia Minor had

Jewish

colonies very early, and Christianity was also soon present there.

Acts of the Apostles

16:14-15 mentions the baptism of a merchant woman

called “Lydia” who came from

Thyatira
,

in what had once been the satrapy of Lydia. Christianity spread rapidly in the

3rd century AD, centered on the nearby Exarchate of Ephesus.