ACHAIOS 220BC Seleucid King Apollo Tripod Authentic Ancient Greek Coin i41439

Item: i41439

Authentic Ancient 
Greek Coin of:

Rebel Satrap in Asia Minor
of the

Seleucid Kingdom

Achaios
– King: 220-214 B.C.
Bronze 14mm (1.63 grams) Sardeis mint, circa 220-214 B.C.
Reference: HGC 9, 438 (R2-3)

Laureate head of 
Apollo
right.
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑXAIOY either side of
tripod
.

Uncle of Antiochos III, Achaios was appointed commander-in-chief in Asia Minor. 
He restored Seleukid authority in the area but then rebelled against his young 
nephew and proclaimed himself king. In 216 B.C. Antiochos moved against the 
rebel, many of whose troops then deserted him. After a two-year siege of his 
capital city of Sardeis, in Lydia, Achaios was captured and beheaded.

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A sacrificial tripod is a three-legged piece of religious furniture
used for offerings or other ritual procedures. As a seat or stand, the
tripod
is the most stable furniture
construction for uneven ground, hence its use is universal and ancient. It is
particularly associated with
Apollo
and the
Delphic oracle
in
ancient Greece
, and the word “tripod” comes
from the Greek meaning “three-footed.”

 

Apollo and
Heracles
struggle for the Delphic
tripod (Attic
black-figure

hydria
, c. 520 BC)

Ancient Greece

The most famous tripod of ancient Greece was the
Delphic
tripod from which the
Pythian priestess
took her seat to deliver the
oracles
of the deity. The seat was formed by a
circular slab on the top of the tripod, on which a branch of
laurel
was deposited when it was unoccupied by
the priestess. In this sense, by Classical times the tripod was sacred to
Apollo
. The
mytheme
of
Heracles
contesting with Apollo for the tripod
appears in vase-paintings older than the oldest written literature. The oracle
originally may have been related to the primal deity, the Earth.

 

Priestess of Delphi (1891), as imagined by
John Collier
; the Pythia is
inspired by
pneuma
rising from below as she
sits on a tripod

Another well-known tripod in Delphi was the
Plataean Tripod
; it was made from a tenth part
of the spoils taken from the
Persian
army after the
Battle of Plataea
. This consisted of a golden
basin, supported by a
bronze

serpent
with three heads (or three serpents
intertwined), with a list of the states that had taken part in the war inscribed
on the coils of the serpent. The golden bowl was carried off by the
Phocians
during the
Third Sacred War
(356–346 BC); the stand was
removed by the emperor
Constantine
to
Constantinople
in 324, where in modern
Istanbul
it still can be seen in the
hippodrome
, the Atmeydanı, although in
damaged condition: the heads of the serpents have disappeared, however one is
now on display at the nearby Istanbul Archaeology Museums. The inscription,
however, has been restored almost entirely. Such tripods usually had three
ears (rings which served as handles) and frequently had a central upright as
support in addition to the three legs.

Tripods frequently are mentioned by
Homer
as prizes in
athletic games
and as complimentary gifts; in
later times, highly decorated and bearing inscriptions, they served the same
purpose. They also were used as dedicatory
offerings
to the deities, and in the dramatic
contests at the Dionysia
the victorious
choregus
(a wealthy citizen who bore the
expense of equipping and training the chorus) received a crown and a tripod. He
would either dedicate the tripod to some deity or set it upon the top of a
marble structure erected in the form of a small circular temple in a street in
Athens
, called the street of tripods, 
from the large number of memorials of this kind. One of these, the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates
, erected by him
to commemorate his victory in a dramatic contest in 335 BC, still stands. The
form of the victory tripod, now missing from the top of the Lysicrates monument,
has been rendered variously by scholars since the 18th century.

 

An ancient Greek coin c. 330-300 BC. Laureate head of Apollo (left)
and ornate tripod (right).

Martin L. West
writes that the sibyl at Delphi
shows many traits of
shamanistic
practices, likely inherited or
influenced from Central Asian practices. He cites her sitting in a cauldron on a
tripod, while making her prophecies, her being in an ecstatic trance state,
similar to shamans, and her utterings, unintelligible.

According to Herodotus (The Histories, I.144), the victory tripods were not
to be taken from the temple sanctuary precinct, but left there as dedications.

Sometimes the tripod was used as a support for a
lebes
or cauldron or for supporting other items
such as a vase.

• 
  

  Delphic tripod (red-figured
  bell-krater
  ,
  Paestum
  , c. 330 BC)

Ancient China

 

A
ding
from the late
Shang Dynasty
.

Tripod pottery have been part of the archaeological assemblage in China since
the earliest Neolithic cultures of
Cishan
and
Peiligang
in the 7th and 8th millennium BC.
Sacrificial tripods were also found in use in ancient
China
usually cast in bronze but sometimes
appearing in ceramic form. They are often referred to as “dings”
and usually have three legs, but in some usages have four legs.

The Chinese use sacrificial tripods in modern times, such as in 2005, when a
“National Unity Tripod” made of bronze was presented by the central Chinese
government to the government of northwest China’s
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
to mark its
fiftieth birthday. It was described as a traditional Chinese sacrificial vessel
symbolizing unity.

Seleucid  Empire Σελεύκεια Seleúkeia

312 BC–63 BC ↓

The Seleucid Empire in 301 BC.

The Seleucid Empire
  was a
Hellenistic
state ruled by the Seleucid dynasty 
founded by
Seleucus I Nicator
following the division of 
the empire created by
Alexander the Great
. Seleucus received
Babylonia
and, from there, expanded his 
dominions to include much of Alexander’s
near eastern
territories. At the height of its 
power, it included central
Anatolia
, the
Levant
,
Mesopotamia
,
Kuwait
,
Persia
,
Afghanistan
,
Turkmenistan
, and northwest parts of
India
.

The Seleucid Empire was a major center of
Hellenistic
culture that maintained the 
preeminence of
Greek
customs where a Greek-Macedonian 
political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas. The Greek population of 
the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by emigration from
Greece
. Seleucid expansion into
Anatolia
and Greece was abruptly halted after
decisive defeats
at the hands of the
Roman army
. Their attempts to defeat their old 
enemy
Ptolemaic Egypt
were frustrated by Roman 
demands. Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the
Parthians
under
Mithridates I of Parthia
in the mid-2nd century 
BC, yet the Seleucid kings continued to rule a
rump state
from
Syria
until the invasion by
Armenian
king
Tigranes the Great
and their ultimate overthrow 
by the Roman
general
Pompey
.