Greek city of Parion (Parium) in Mysia Silver Drachm 12mm (3.98 grams) Struck circa 500-450 B.C. Reference: Sear 3917 var.; SNG BN 1351–2 Facing gorgoneion with protruding tongue. Disorganized linear pattern within incuse square.
Parium (or Parion), a city of Mysia, founded circa 710 B.C. on the north coast of the Troad, on the shores of the Propontis, between Lampsakos and Priapos, was founded by a colony from Miletos, mingled with natives of Paros and Erythrae, and became a flourishing seaport through the excellence of its harbor, having a better harbor than that of Priapos. Under Augustus it was made a Roman colony, by the name of Colonia Pariana Julia Augusta. It was a renowned seat of the worship of Eros, Dionysus, and Apollo.
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In Ancient Greece, the Gorgoneion (Greek: Γοργόνειον) was originally a horror-creating apotropaic pendant showing the Gorgon’s head. It was assimilated by the Olympian deities Zeus and Athena: both are said to have worn it as a protective pendant. It was assumed, among other godlike attributes, as a royal aegis, by rulers of the Hellenistic age, as shown, for instance, on the Alexander Mosaic and the Gonzaga Cameo.
Homer refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, as if the creature had no body. Jane Ellen Harrison notes that “Medusa is a head and nothing more…a mask with a body later appended”. Up to the 5th century BC, the head was depicted as particularly ugly, with a protruding tongue, boar tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring fixedly on the viewer and the snakes twisting all around her.
The direct frontal stare, “seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer”, was highly unusual in ancient Greek art. In some instances a beard (probably standing for streaks of blood) was appended to her chin, making her appear as an orgiastic deity akin to Dionysus.
Gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-5th century Greek vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized. The Hellenistic marble known as the Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgon’s eventual transformation into a beautiful woman.
Parium (or Parion) was a Greek city in Mysia on the Hellespont. It became a Roman Catholic titular see, suffragan of Cyzicus in the Roman province of Hellespontus.
Located near Lampsacus, it was a colony probably founded by Eretria and Paros. It belonged to the Delian League. In the Hellenistic period it came under the domain of Lysimachus, and subsequently the Attalid dynasty. In Roman times, it was a Colonia, within the province of Asia; and after the province was divided in the 4th century AD, it was in the province of Hellespontus. The ancient coinage of Parium is quite abundant, attesting to its great output and advanced mint (in Hellenistic times, the city’s badge shown on coins was the Gorgoneion).
The Acts of the martyr St. Onesiphorus prove that there was a Christian community there before 180. Other saints worthy of mention are: St. Menignus, martyred under Decius and venerated on 22 November; St. Theogenes, bishop and martyr, whose feast is observed on 3 January; St. Basil, bishop and martyr in the ninth century, venerated on 12 April.
Le Quien (Oriens christianus I, 787-90) mentions 14 bishops, the last of whom lived in the middle of the fourteenth century. An anonymous Latin bishop is mentioned in 1209 by Innocent III (Le Quien, op. cit., III, 945) and a titular bishop in 1410 by Eubel (Hierarchia Catholica medii ævi, I, 410).
At first a suffragan of the Archbishopric, Parium became an autocephalous archdiocese as early as 640 (Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte … Texte, 535) and remained so till the end of the thirteenth century. Then the Emperor Andronicus II made it a metropolis under the title of Pegon kai Pariou.
In 1354 Pegæ and Parium (the Latin forms of both names) were suppressed, the incumbent metropolitan receiving in exchange the See of Sozopolis in Thrace (Miklosich and Müller, “Acta patriarchatus Constantinopolitani”, I, 109, 111, 132, 300, 330). This was the end of the episcopal see.
The ruins of Parium were under Ottoman rule at the Greek village of Kamares (the vaults), on the small cape Tersana-Bournou in the caza and sandjak of Bigha.
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