|
Greek city of Atarneos in Mysia
Bronze 8mm (0.85 grams) Struck 4th Century B.C.
Reference: Cf. SNG France 125 (obol); cf. von Fritz, Mysien 319-20. Very rare
Laureate head of Apollo right.
ATAP, Serpent coiled right.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo, is one of the most important and diverse of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was worshiped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Greco-Roman Neopaganism.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god – the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god’s custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon. In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215). Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century CE.
Atarneus (Greek: Ἀταρνεύς Atarneus) was an ancient Greek city in the region of Aeolis, Asia Minor. It lies on the mainland opposite the island of Lesbos, northeast of the town of Dikili in modern-day Turkey.
Atarneus flowered in the 4th century BC, when it was the seat of government of Hermias of Atarneus, ruling over the area from Atarneus to Assos. The city was deserted by inhabitants in the 1st century AD, possibly following an outbreak of an unknown epidemic.
The city is known by many for its association with the life of Aristotle. After the death of his father, Aristotle was cared for and educated by Proxenus of Atarneus, possibly an uncle of his. At the Academy Aristotle made friends with Hermias, who was later to become the ruler of Atarneus. Indeed, after the death of Plato, Aristotle went to stay with Hermias, subsequently marrying Hermias’s niece Pythia.
Mysia (Greek: Μυσία, Latin: Mysia) was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia (part of modern Turkey). It was located on the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. It was bounded by Bithynia on the east, Phrygia on the southeast, Lydia on the south, Aeolis on the southwest, Troad on the west and by the Propontis on the north. In ancient times it was inhabited by the Mysians, Phrygians, Aeolian Greeks, and other groups.
Geography
The precise limits of Mysia are difficult to assign. The Phrygian frontier was fluctuating, while in the northwest the Troad was only sometimes included in Mysia. The northern portion was known as Lesser Phrygia or Phrygia Minor (Ancient Greek: μικρὰ Φρυγία), while the southern was called Major or Pergamene. Mysia was in later times also known as Phrygia Hellespontica (Ἑλλησποντιακὴ Φρυγία, “Hellespontine Phrygia”) or Phrygia Epictetus (ἐπίκτητος Φρυγία, “acquired Phrygia”), so named by the Attalids when they annexed the region to the Kingdom of Pergamon.
Under Augustus, Mysia occupied the whole of the northwest corner of Asia Minor, between the Hellespont and the Propontis to the north, Bithynia and Phrygia to the east, Lydia to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the west.
Land and elevation
The chief physical features of Mysia are the two mountains-Mount Olympus at (7600 ft) in the north and Mount Temnus in the south, which for some distance separates Mysia from Lydia and is afterwards prolonged through Mysia to the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Adramyttium. The major rivers in the northern part of the province are the Macestus and its tributary the Rhyndacus, both of which rise in Phrygia and, after diverging widely through Mysia, unite their waters below the lake of Apolloniatis about 15 miles (24 km) from the Propontis. The Caïcus in the south rises in Temnus, and from thence flows westward to the Aegean Sea, passing within a few miles of Pergamon. In the northern portion of the province are two considerable lakes, Artynia or Apolloniatis (Abulliont Geul) and Aphnitis (Maniyas Geul), which discharge their waters into the Macestus from the east and west respectively.
Cities in Mysia
The most important cities were Pergamon in the valley of the Caïcus, and Cyzicus on the Propontis. The whole sea-coast was studded with Greek towns, several of which were places of considerable importance; thus the northern portion included Parium, Lampsacus and Abydos, and the southern Assos, Adramyttium. Further south, on the Eleatic Gulf, were Elaea, Myrina and Cyme.
History
A minor episode in the Trojan War cycle in Greek mythology has the Greek fleet land at Mysia, mistaking it for Troy. Achilles wounds their king, Telephus, after he slays a Greek; Telephus later pleads with Achilles to heal the wound. This coastal region ruled by Telephus is alternatively named Teuthrania in Greek mythology, as it was previously ruled by a King Teuthras. In the Iliad, Homer represents the Mysians as allies of Troy, with the Mysian forces led by Ennomus (a prophet) and Chromius, sons of Arsinous. Homeric Mysia appears to have been much smaller in extent than historical Mysia, and did not extend north to the Hellespont or the Propontis. Homer does not mention any cities or landmarks in Mysia, and it is not clear exactly where Homeric Mysia was situated, although it was probably located somewhere between the Troad (to the northwest of Mysia) and Lydia/Maeonia (to its south).
There are a number of Mysian inscriptions in a dialect of the Phrygian language, in a variant of the Phrygian alphabet. There are also a small number of references to a Lutescan language indigenous to Mysia in Aeolic Greek sources.
Under the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the northwest corner of Asia Minor, still occupied by Phrygians but mainly by Aeolians, was called Phrygia Minor and by the Greeks Hellespontos.
After Rome’s defeat of Antiochus the Great in the Roman-Syrian War, the area, which had been held by the Diadoch Seleucid Empire, passed to Rome’s ally, the kingdom of Pergamon, and, on the death of King Attalus III in 133 B.C., to Rome itself, which made it part of the province of Asia and, later, a separate proconsular Roman province, called Hellespontus.
According to the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles Paul, Silas and Timothy came to (or passed by) Mysia during Paul’s second missionary journey. The narrative suggests that they were uncertain where to travel during this part of the journey, being ‘forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia’. Shortly afterwards Paul had a vision of a ‘man of Macedonia’ who invited the apostles to travel westwards to Macedonia.
|
