Greek city of Akrasos (Acrasus) in Lydia
CIVIC ISSUE (Pseudo-Autonomous)
Bronze 12mm (1.31 grams) Struck time of Septimius Severus, circa 193-211 A.D.
Reference: BMC 5; SNG Cop 4
Head of Hercules right.
AKPA-CIΩTΩN, Telesphoros standing facing, wearing hooded cloak.

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

Heracles, born Alcaeus (Alkaios) or Alcides, was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.

Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him. Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the lion skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have “made the world safe for mankind” and to be its benefactor. Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends (such as wrestling with Thanatos on behalf of Prince Admetus, who had regaled Heracles with his hospitality, or restoring his friend Tyndareus to the throne of Sparta after he was overthrown) and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus and Laomedon all found out to their cost.

In Greek mythology, Telesphorus (or Telesphoros; Τελεσφόρος) was a son of Asclepius. He frequently accompanied his sister, Hygieia. He was a dwarf whose head was always covered with a hood or cap. He symbolized recovery from illness, as his name means “the accomplisher” or “bringer of completion” in Greek. Representations of him are found mainly in Anatolia and along the Danube.

Telesphorus is assumed to have been a Celtic god in origin, who was taken to Anatolia by the Galatians in the 3rd century BC, where he would have become associated with the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, perhaps in Pergamon, an Asclepian cult center. and spread again to the West due to the rise of the Roman Empire, in particular during the 2nd century AD, from the reign of Hadrian, after Epidaurus, the main center of the cult of Asclepius, had adopted him.

Acarassus or Akarassos was a city in ancient Lycia. The town, with high probability, was located at the site of today’s Elmalı, Antalya Province, Turkey. Since it was in the Roman province of Lycia, the bishopric of Acarassus was a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Myra, the province’s capital. It is listed in all the Notitiae Episcopatuum from the mid-7th century to about 1300. The name of only one of its bishops is known with certainty: Nicolaus attended the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and was one of the signatories of the letter that the Lycian bishops sent in 458 to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian to protest about the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. Because of the similarity of the names of Acarassus in Lycia and Acrassus in Lydia, it is unclear to which of these two sees two other bishops belonged, one of whom was at the Second Council of Nicaea in 787, the other at the Photian Council of Constantinople (879): Le Quien, Pétridès, and Darrouzès differ in their interpretations. No longer a residential bishopric, Acarassus is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish provinces of Uşak, Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian.

At its greatest extent, the Kingdom of Lydia covered all of western Anatolia. Lydia (known as Sparda by the Achaemenids) was a satrapy (province) of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, with Sardis as its capital. Tabalus, appointed by Cyrus the Great, was the first satrap (governor). (See: Lydia (satrapy).)

Lydia was later the name of a Roman province. Coins are said to have been invented in Lydia around the 7th century BC.