Antoninus Pius 138AD Ephesus in Ionia CALYDONIAN Boar Ancient Roman Coin i50361

Item: i50361

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Roman Emperor: 138-161 A.D.
Bronze 18mm (4.04 grams) of
Ephesus

in

Ionia
Reference: SNG Copenhagen 395
Laureate head of Antoninus Pius right.
 ЄΦЄCЄΩN, wild Calydonian boar running right,
pierced by spear which broke underneath him.

You are bidding on the exact

Guarantee of Authenticity.

The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters of
Greek mythology
that had to be overcome by
heroes of the Olympian age. Sent by
Artemis
to ravage the region of
Calydon
in
Aetolia
because its king failed to honor her in
his rites to the gods, it was killed in the Calydonian Hunt, in which
many male heroes took part, but also a powerful woman,
Atalanta
, who won its hide by first wounding it
with an arrow. This outraged some of the men, with tragic results.
Strabo
was under the impression that the
Calydonian Boar was an offspring of the
Crommyonian Sow
vanquished by
Theseus
.

Importance in Greek mythology and art

The Calydonian Boar is one of the
chthonic
monsters in Greek mythology, each set
in a specific locale. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in
Aetolia
, it met its end in the Calydonian
Hunt, in which all the heroes of the new age pressed to take part, with the
exception of Heracles
, who vanquished his own Goddess-sent
Erymanthian Boar
separately. Since the mythic
event drew together numerous heroes—among whom were many who were venerated as
progenitors of their local ruling houses among tribal groups of
Hellenes
into Classical times—the Calydonian
Boar hunt offered a natural subject in classical art, for it was redolent with
the web of myth that gathered around its protagonists on other occasions, around
their half-divine descent and their offspring. Like the quest for the
Golden Fleece
(Argonautica)
or the Trojan War
that took place the following
generation, the Calydonian Hunt is one of the nodes in which much Greek myth
comes together.

Both Homer
and
Hesiod
and their listeners were aware of the
details of this myth, but no surviving complete account exists: some
papyrus
fragments found at
Oxyrhynchus
are all that survive of
Stesichorus
‘ telling; the myth repertory called

Bibliotheke
(“The Library”) contains the
gist of the tale, and before that was compiled the Roman poet Ovid told the
story in some colorful detail in his
Metamorphoses
.

Hunt

King Oeneus
(“wine man”) of
Calydon
, an ancient city of west-central
Greece
north of the
Gulf of Patras
, held annual harvest sacrifices
to the gods on the sacred hill. One year the king forgot to include Great “Artemis
of the Golden Throne” in his offerings Insulted, Artemis, the “Lady of the Bow”,
loosed the biggest, most ferocious boar imaginable on the countryside of
Calydon. It rampaged throughout the countryside, destroying vineyards and crops,
forcing people to take refuge inside the city walls (Ovid), where they began to
starve.

Oeneus sent messengers out to look for the best hunters in Greece, offering
them the boar’s pelt and tusks as a prize.

Among those who responded were some of the
Argonauts
, Oeneus’ own son
Meleager
, and, remarkably for the Hunt’s
eventual success, one woman— the huntress
Atalanta
, the “indomitable”, who had been
suckled by Artemis as a she-bear and raised as a huntress, a proxy for Artemis
herself (Kerenyi; Ruck and Staples). Artemis appears to have been divided in her
motives, for it was also said that she had sent the young huntress because she
knew her presence would be a source of division, and so it was: many of the men,
led by Kepheus and Ankaios, refused to hunt alongside a woman. It was the
smitten Meleager who convinced them. Nonetheless it was Atalanta who first
succeeded in wounding the boar with an arrow, although Meleager finished it off,
and offered the prize to Atalanta, who had drawn first blood. But the sons of
Thestios, who considered it disgraceful that a woman should get the trophy where
men were involved, took the skin from her, saying that it was properly theirs by
right of birth, if Meleagros chose not to accept it. Outraged by this, Meleagros
slew the sons of Thestios and again gave the skin to Atalanta (Bibliotheke).
Meleager’s mother, sister of Meleager’s slain uncles, took the fatal brand from
the chest where she had kept it (see
Meleager
) and threw it once more on the fire;
as it was consumed, Meleager died on the spot, as the Fates had foretold. Thus
Artemis achieved her revenge against King Oeneus.

During the hunt, Peleus
accidentally killed his host Eurytion.
In the course of the hunt and its aftermath, many of the hunters turned upon one
another, contesting the spoils, and so the Goddess continued to be revenged (Kerenyi,
114): “But the goddess again made a great stir of anger and crying battle, over
the head of the boar and the bristling boar’s hide, between
Kouretes
and the high-hearted
Aitolians
” (Homer,
Iliad
, ix.543).

The boar’s hide that was preserved in the Temple of
Athena Alae
at
Tegea
in
Laconia
was reputedly that of the Calydonian
Boar, “rotted by age and by now altogether without bristles” by the time
Pausanias
saw it in the second century CE. He
noted that the tusks had been taken to Rome as booty from the defeated allies of
Mark Anthony
by
Augustus
; “one of the tusks of the Calydonian
boar has been broken”, Pausanias reports, “but the remaining one, having a
circumference of about half a fathom, was dedicated in the Emperor’s gardens, in
a shrine of Dionysos”. The Calydonian Hunt was the theme of the temple’s main
pediment.

Ephesusus (Ancient
Greek Ἔφεσος,
Turkish

Efes) was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of
Anatolia
, near
present-day
Selçuk
,
Izmir Province
,
Turkey
. It was
one of the twelve cities of the
Ionian League

during the
Classical Greek

era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the
Roman Empire
;
ranking behind
Rome
, the
empire’s capital. Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st
century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.

The city was famed for the
Temple of Artemis

(completed around 550 BCE), one of the
Seven Wonders of the
Ancient World
. The Temple was destroyed in 401 CE by a mob led by St.
John Chrysostom
.
Emperor
Constantine I

rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. The town was again
partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614. The city’s importance as a
commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the
Cayster River

(Küçük Menderes).

Ephesus was one of the
seven churches of Asia

that are cited in the
Book of Revelation
.
The
Gospel of John

may have been written here. It is also the site of a large
gladiators
‘
graveyard.

Today’s archaeological site lies 3 kilometers southwest of the town of
Selçuk
, in the
Selçuk district of
İzmir Province
,
Turkey
. The
ruins
of
Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing
to their easy access from
Adnan Menderes Airport

and via the port of
Kuşadası
.

The city of Ephesus itself was founded as an Attic-Ionian colony in
the 10th century BCE on the Ayasuluk Hill, three kilometers from the center of
antique Ephesus (as attested by excavations at the
Seljuk
castle
during the 1990s). The mythical founder of the city was a prince of
Athens
named
Androklos
, who
had to leave his country after the death of his father, King Kadros. According
to legend, he founded Ephesus on the place where the oracle of
Delphi
became
reality (“A fish and a boar will show you the way”). Androklos drove away most
of the native
Carian
and
Lelegian

inhabitants of the city and united his people with the remainder. He was a
successful warrior and, as king, he was able to join the twelve cities of
Ionia
together
into the
Ionian League
.
During his reign the city began to prosper. He died in a battle against the
Carians when he came to the aid of
Priene
,
another city of the Ionian League.^[10]
Androklos and his dog are depicted on the Hadrian temple frieze, dating from the
second century.

 Classical period

Ephesus continued to prosper. But when taxes continued to be raised under
Cambyses II

and
Darius
, the
Ephesians participated in the
Ionian Revolt

against Persian rule in the
Battle of Ephesus (498
BCE)
, an event which instigated the
Greco-Persian wars
.
In 479 BCE, the Ionians, together with
Athens
and
Sparta
, were
able to oust the Persians from Anatolia. In 478 BCE, the Ionian cities entered
with Athens and Sparta into the
Delian League

against the Persians. Ephesus did not contribute ships but gave financial
support by offering the treasure of
Apollo
to the
goddess
Athena
,
protectress of Athens.

 Hellenistic period

When
Alexander the Great

defeated the Persian forces at the
Battle of Granicus

in 334 BCE, the Greek cities of Asia Minor were liberated. The pro-Persian
tyrant Syrpax and his family were stoned to death, and Alexander was greeted
warmly when he entered Ephesus in triumph. When Alexander saw that the temple of
Artemis was not yet finished, he proposed to finance it and have his name
inscribed on the front. But the inhabitants of Ephesus demurred, claiming that
it was not fitting for one god to build a temple to another. After Alexander’s
death in 323 BCE, Ephesus in 290 BCE came under the rule of one of Alexander’s
generals,
Lysimachus

As the river
Cayster
silted
up the harbor, the resulting marshes caused malaria and many deaths among the
inhabitants. The people of Ephesus were forced to move to a new settlement two
kilometers further on, when the king flooded the old city by blocking the
sewers. This settlement was called after the king’s second wife,
Arsinoe II of Egypt
.
After
Lysimachus
had
destroyed the nearby cities of
Lebedos
and
Colophon
in
292 BCE, he relocated their inhabitants to the new city. The architectural
layout of the city would remain unchanged for the next 500 years.

Ephesus revolted after the treacherous death of
Agathocles
,
giving the Syrian king
Seleucus I Nicator

an opportunity for removing and killing Lysimachus, his last rival, at the
Battle of Corupedium

in 281 BCE. After the death of Lysimachos the town took again the name of
Ephesus.

Thus Ephese became part of the
Seleucid Empire
.
After the murder of king
Antiochus II Theos

and his Egyptian wife, pharaoh
Ptolemy III

invaded the Seleucid Empire and the Egyptian fleet swept the coast of Asia
Minor. Ephesus came under Egyptian rule between 263-197 BCE.

Titus Aurelius relius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus (19 September 86 – 7

March 161), generally known in English as Antoninus Pius was

Roman emperor

from 138 to 161. He was the fourth of the

Five Good Emperors

and a member of the

Aurelii
. He

did not possess the

sobriquet

“Pius” until after

his accession to the throne. Almost certainly, he earned the name “Pius” because

he compelled the

Senate

to deify his adoptive father

Hadrian
; the

Historia Augusta

, however, suggests that he may have earned the name by

saving senators sentenced to death by Hadrian in his later years.

//

He was the son and only child of

Titus Aurelius Fulvus

,

consul
in 89

whose family came from

Nemausus

(modern Nîmes
)

and was born near

Lanuvium

and his mother was Arria Fadilla. Antoninus’ father and paternal grandfather

died when he was young and he was raised by

Gnaeus Arrius Antoninus

, his maternal grandfather, a man of integrity and

culture and a friend of

Pliny the Younger

. His mother married to Publius Julius Lupus (a man of

consular rank),

Suffect

Consul
in 98, and bore him a daughter called Julia Fadilla.

As a private citizen between 110 and 115, he married Annia Galeria

Faustina the Elder

. They had a very happy marriage. She was the daughter of

consul

Marcus Annius Verus

and

Rupilia

Faustina (a half-sister to Roman Empress

Vibia

Sabina
). Faustina was a beautiful woman, renowned for her wisdom. She spent

her whole life caring for the poor and assisting the most disadvantaged Romans.

Having filled with more than usual success the offices of

quaestor

and praetor
,

he obtained the consulship in 120; he was next appointed by the Emperor

Hadrian
as

one of the four

proconsuls

to administer

Italia

, then greatly increased his reputation by his conduct as

proconsul

of

Asia

. He acquired much favor with the Emperor Hadrian, who adopted him as

his son and successor on 25 February, 138, after the death of his first adopted

son Lucius Aelius

, on the condition that Antoninus would in turn adopt Marcus

Annius Verus, the son of his wife’s brother, and Lucius, son of Aelius Verus,

who afterwards became the emperors

Marcus Aurelius

and

Lucius

Verus
(colleague of Marcus Aurelius).

 Emperor

On his accession, Antoninus’ name became “Imperator Caesar Titus Aelius

Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pontifex Maximus”. One of his first acts as Emperor

was to persuade the

Senate

to grant divine honours to Hadrian, which they had at first refused; his efforts

to persuade the Senate to grant these honours is the most likely reason given

for his title of Pius (dutiful in affection; compare

). Two other reasons for this title are that he would support his

aged father-in-law with his hand at Senate meetings, and that he had saved those

men that Hadrian, during his period of ill-health, had condemned to death. He

built temples, theaters, and mausoleums, promoted the arts and sciences, and

bestowed honours and financial rewards upon the teachers of

rhetoric

and philosophy

.

In marked contrast to his predecessors

Trajan
and

Hadrian
,

Antoninus was not a military man. One modern scholar has written “It is almost

certain not only that at no time in his life did he ever see, let alone command,

a Roman army, but that, throughout the twenty-three years of his reign, he never

went within five hundred miles of a legion”.^[2]

His reign was the most peaceful in the entire history of the

Principate
;

while there were several military disturbances throughout the Empire in his

time, in Mauretania

,

Iudaea

, and amongst the

Brigantes

in Britannia

, none of them are considered serious. The unrest in Britannia is

believed to have led to the construction of the

Antonine Wall

from the

Firth of Forth

to the

Firth of Clyde

, although it was soon abandoned. He was virtually unique

among emperors in that he dealt with these crises without leaving Italy once

during his reign, but instead dealt with provincial matters of war and peace

through their governors or through imperial letters to the cities such as

Ephesus (of which some were publicly displayed). This style of government was

highly praised by his contemporaries and by later generations.

Of the public transactions of this period we have scant information, but, to

judge by what we possess, those twenty-two years were not remarkably eventful in

comparison to those before and after his; the surviving evidence is not complete

enough to determine whether we should interpret, with older scholars, that he

wisely curtailed the activities of the Roman Empire to a careful minimum, or

perhaps that he was uninterested in events away from Rome and

Italy
and his

inaction contributed to the pressing troubles that faced not only Marcus

Aurelius but also the emperors of the third century. German historian Ernst

Kornemann has had it in his Römische Geschichte [2 vols., ed. by H. Bengtson,

Stuttgart 1954] that the reign of Antoninus comprised “a succession of grossly

wasted opportunities,” given the upheavals that were to come. There is more to

this argument, given that the Parthians in the East were themselves soon to make

no small amount of mischief after Antoninus’ passing. Kornemann’s brief is that

Antoninus might have waged preventive wars to head off these outsiders.

Scholars place Antoninus Pius as the leading candidate for fulfilling the

role as a friend of Rabbi

Judah

the Prince
. According to the

Talmud
(Avodah

Zarah 10a-b), Rabbi Judah was very wealthy and greatly revered in Rome. He had a

close friendship with “Antoninus”, possibly Antoninus Pius,

who would consult Rabbi Judah on various worldly and spiritual matters.

After the longest reign since Augustus (surpassing

Tiberius
by

a couple of months), Antoninus died of fever at

Lorium
in

Etruria
,

about twelve miles (19 km) from Rome, on 7 March 161, giving the keynote to his

life in the last word that he uttered when the

tribune
of

the night-watch came to ask the password—”aequanimitas” (equanimity). His body

was placed in

Hadrian’s mausoleum

, a

column

was dedicated to him on the

Campus Martius

, and the

temple

he had built in the Forum in 141 to his deified wife Faustina was

rededicated to the deified Faustina and the deified Antoninus.

 Historiography

The only account of his life handed down to us is that of the

, an unreliable and mostly fabricated work. Antoninus is

unique among Roman emperors in that he has no other biographies. Historians have

therefore turned to public records for what details we know.

 In

later scholarship

Antoninus in many ways was the ideal of the landed gentleman

The Principate

 Julio-Claudian
dynasty

 Year
of the Four Emperors (Civil War)

 Flavian
dynasty

 Nervan-Antonian
dynasty

Main article:
Five Good Emperors

 Year
of the Five Emperors &
Severan dynasty

 Rulers during the
Crisis of the Third Century

 Gallic
Empire
260
to 274

 Britannic
Empire
286
to 297

 Dominate

 Tetrarchy
and
Constantinian dynasty

 Valentinian
dynasty

 Theodosian
dynasty

 Western
Roman Empire

Further information:
Barbarian kings of Italy

 Eastern
Roman Empire

• For
  the rulers of the Eastern Roman Empire (also known as the
  Byzantine Empire
  ) after
  Theodosius II
  , see:
  List of Byzantine Emperors
  

Theodosian dynasty (395–457)

Name		Reign	Comments
	Theodosius I “the Great” (Θεοδόσιος Α’ ο Μέγας, Flavius Theodosius)Theodosius I Coins.htm	19 January 379 – 17 January 395	Born on 11 January 347. Aristocrat and military leader, brother-in-law of Gratian, who appointed him as emperor of the East. From 392 until his death sole Roman emperor
	Arcadius (Αρκάδιος, Flavius Arcadius)Arcadius Coins.htm	17 January 395 – 1 May 408	Born in 377/378, the eldest son of Theodosius I. Succeeded upon the death of his father
	Theodosius II (Θεοδόσιος Β’, Flavius Theodosius) Theodosius II Coins.htm	1 May 408 – 28 July 450	Born on 10 April 401, the only son of Arcadius. Succeeded upon the death of his father. As a minor, the praetorian prefect Anthemius was regent in 408–414. He died in a riding accident
	Marcian (Μαρκιανός, Flavius Valerius Marcianus) Marcian Coins.htm	450 – January 457	Born in 396. A soldier and politician, he became emperor after being wed by the Augusta Pulcheria , Theodosius II’s sister, following the latter’s death. Died of gangrene

Leonid
dynasty (457–518)

Name		Reign	Comments
	Leo I “the Thracian” (Λέων Α’ ο Θράξ, Flavius Valerius Leo) Leo I Coins.htm	7 February 457 – 18 January 474	Born in Dacia in 401. A common soldier, he was chosen by Aspar , commander-in-chief of the army. Died of dysentery
	Leo II (Λέων Β’, Flavius Leo) Leo II Coins.htm	18 January – 17 November 474	Born in 467, the grandson of Leo I. Succeeded upon the death of Leo I. Died of an unknown disease, possibly poisoned
	Zeno (Ζήνων, Flavius Zeno) Zeno Coins.htm	17 November 474 – 9 April 491	Born c.425 at Zenonopolis , Isauria , originally named Tarasicodissa. Son-in-law of Leo I, he was bypassed in the succession because of his barbarian origin. Named co-emperor by his son on 9 February 474, he succeeded upon the death of Leo II. Deposed by Basiliscus, brother-in-law of Leo, he fled to his native country and regained the throne in August 476.
	Basiliscus (Βασιλίσκος, Flavius Basiliscus) Basiliscus Coins.htm	9 January 475 – August 476	General and brother-in-law of Leo I, he seized power from Zeno but was again deposed by him. Died in 476/477
	Anastasius I (Αναστάσιος Α’, Flavius Anastasius) BYZANTINE – Anastasius Coins.htm	11 April 491 – 9 July 518	Born c. 430 at Dyrrhachium , Epirus nova . A palace official (silentiarius) and son-in-law of Leo I, he was chosen as emperor by empress-dowager Ariadne

Justinian Dynasty

Portrait	Name	Born	Reigned	Succession	Died
	Justin I FLAVIVS IVSTINVS AVGVSTVS	c. 450 AD, Naissus	July 9, 518 AD – August 1, 527 AD	Commander of the palace guard under Anastasius I) ; elected as emperor with support of army	August 1, 527 AD Natural causes
	Justinian I FLAVIVS PETRVS SABBATIVS IVSTINIANVS AVGVSTVS	c. 482 AD, Tauresium , Dardania	August 1, 527 AD – 13/14 November 565 AD	Nephew and nominated heir of Justin I	13/14 November 565 AD Natural causes
	Justin II FLAVIVS IVSTINIVS IVNIOR AVGVSTVS	c. 520 AD, ?	13/14 November 565 AD – 578 AD	Nephew of Justinian I	578 AD Became insane; Tiberius II Constantine ruled as regent from December 574 and became emperor on Justin’s death in 578

Roman Late Monogram Coins.htm

Roman AE4 Coins.htm

 See also

• 
  Roman Republic
  
• 
  Roman Empire
  
• 
  Western Roman Empire
  
• 
  Byzantine Empire
  
• 
  Britannic Empire
  
• 
  Gallic Empire
  
• 
  List of Roman usurpers
  
• 
  Roman usurper
  
• 
  Thirty Tyrants (Roman)