ALEXANDER II Zabinas 128BC Antioch SELEUKID Dionysus Ancient Greek Coin i47340

Item: i47340

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek Coin of

Seleukid Kingdom

Alexander II Zabinas – Reigned: 128-123
B.C.
Serrate Bronze 18mm (5.84 grams) Apameia on the Oxios mint, struck circa 128-123 B.C.
Reference: HGC 9, 1166 (R1); SC 2242
Head of Dionysus right, wreathed with ivy.
ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ,
Winged Tyche standing left, holding tiller and cornucopia; symbols and monograms
to left.

Claiming to be an adopted son of Alexander Balas, Zebina
rebelled against Demetrios II with the backing of Ptolemy VII of Egypt. Five
years later he was defeated by the forces of Cleopatra and her son Antiochos
VIII.

 You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

Tyche (Greek for luck; the Roman equivalent was
Fortuna
) was the presiding
tutelary deity
that governed the fortune and
prosperity of a city, its destiny. Increasingly during the Hellenistic period,
cities had their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a
mural crown
(a crown like the walls of the
city).

The
Greek historian Polybius
believed that when no cause can be
discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then
the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.

Stylianos Spyridakis  concisely expressed Tyche’s appeal in a Hellenistic
world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: “In the turbulent years of
the Epigoni of Alexander
, an awareness of the
instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind
mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the
vicissitudes of the time.”

In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of
Hermes
and
Aphrodite
, or considered as one of the
Oceanids
, daughters of
Oceanus
and
Tethys
, or of

Zeus. She was connected with
Nemesis
and
Agathos Daimon
(“good spirit”).

She was uniquely venerated at
Itanos
in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia,
linked with the Athenian
Protogeneia
(“firstborn”), daughter of
Erechtheus
, whose self-sacrifice saved the
city.

She had temples at
Caesarea Maritima
,
Antioch
,
Alexandria
and
Constantinople
. In
Alexandria
the Tychaeon, the temple of
Tyche, was described by
Libanius
as one of the most magnificent of the
entire Hellenistic world.

Tyche appears on many
coins
of the Hellenistic period in the three
centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean.
Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of
Hellenistic romances
, such as
Leucippe and Clitophon
or
Daphnis and Chloe
. She experienced a
resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly
sanctioned
Paganism
, between the late-fourth-century
emperors
Julian
and
Theodosius I
who definitively closed the
temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability
in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a
commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot.

In medieval art
, she was depicted as carrying a
cornucopia
, an
emblematic
ship’s rudder, and the
wheel of fortune
, or she may stand on the
wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.

The constellation of
Virgo
is sometimes identified as the heavenly
figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as
Demeter
and
Astraea
.

Dionysus
is the god of the
grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and
religious ecstasy in
Greek mythology
. Alcohol, especially

wine, played an important role in Greek


culture
with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought
to be a theonym
in
Linear B
tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH
Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c.
1500–1100 BC by
Mycenean Greeks
; other traces of the
Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient
Minoan Crete
. His origins are uncertain, and
his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian,
others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic
foreigner; in others, from
Ethiopia
in the South. He is a god of
epiphany
, “the god that comes”, and his
“foreignness” as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his
cults. He is a major, popular figure of
Greek mythology
and
religion
, and is included in some lists of the
twelve Olympians
. Dionysus was the last god to
be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a
mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of
Greek theatre
. He is an example of a
dying god
.

The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed.
He holds a fennel
staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known
as a thyrsus
. Later images show him as a
beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature
describes him as womanly or “man-womanish”. In its fully developed form, his
central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if
from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession
(thiasus)
is made up of wild female followers (maenads)
and bearded
satyrs
with
erect penises
. Some are armed with the
thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot,
usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a
bearded, drunken Silenus
. This procession is presumed to be the
cult model for the human followers of his
Dionysian Mysteries
. In his
Thracian
mysteries, he wears the bassaris
or
fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city
religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society
and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected,
everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the
unforeseeable action of the gods.

Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the
Romans
and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia.
His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a
beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose
his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios
(“the liberator”), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from
self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the
powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the
god himself. His cult is also a “cult of the souls”; his maenads feed the dead
through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living
and the dead.

In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of

Zeus and the mortal
Semele
, thus semi-divine or

heroic: and as son of Zeus and
Persephone
or
Demeter
, thus both fully divine, part-chthonic
and possibly identical with
Iacchus
of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
. Some scholars believe
that Dionysus is a
syncretism
of a local Greek nature deity and a
more powerful god from
Thrace
or
Phrygia
such as
Sabazios
or
Zalmoxis
.

Alexander II Zabinas, ruler of the
Greek

Seleucid kingdom
, was a counter-king who emerged in the chaos following the
Seleucidian
loss of
Mesopotamia
to the
Parthians
.
Zabinas was a false Seleucid who claimed to be an adoptive son of
Antiochus VII Sidetes
, but in fact seems to have been the son of an Egyptian
merchant named Protarchus.
Antioch
,
Apamea
, and
several other cities, disgusted with the tyranny of Demetrius, acknowledged the
authority of Alexander. He was used as a pawn by the
Egyptian
king
Ptolemy VIII Tryphon
, who introduced Zabinas as a means of getting to the
legitimate Seleucid king
Demetrius II
, who supported his sister
Cleopatra II
against him in the complicated dynastic feuds of the latter
Hellenistic dynasties.

Zabinas managed to defeat Demetrius II, who fled to
Tyre

and was killed there, and thereafter ruled parts of
Syria
(128 BC-123
BC), but soon ran out of Egyptian support and was in his turn was defeated by
Demetrius’ son
Antiochus VIII Grypus
.

Zabinas fled to the Seleucid capital
Antiochia
,
where he plundered several temples. He is said to have joked about melting down
a statuette of the goddess of victory
Nike
which was held in the hand of a
Zeus statue, saying
“Zeus has given me Victory”. Enraged by his impiety the Antiochenes cast Zabinas
out of the city. He soon fell into the hands of robbers, who delivered him up to
Antiochus, by whom he was put to death, in 122 BC.

The name “Zabinas” means “the purchased slave”, and was applied to him,
deprecatingly, in response to a report that he had been bought by Ptolemy as a
slave. For reasons unknown, Alexander II was the only late Seleucid not to use
epithets on his coins. Several of his coins are extant.

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
the Seleukid Kingdom
until the invasion by
Armenian
king
Tigranes the Great
and their ultimate overthrow
by the Roman
general
Pompey
.