BLAUNDOS in LYDIA 2-1CenBC Zeus Hermes Authentic Ancient Greek Coin i50328

Item: i50328

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of

Lydia
Bronze 18mm (6.22 grams) Struck 2nd-1st Century B.C.
Reference: Sear 4692 var.
Laureate head of Zeus right.
Hermes standing left, holding purse and caduceus;
ΜΛΑΥΝΔΕWΝ around.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

Authenticity.

In the
ancient Greek

religion, Zeus was the
“Father of Gods and men” (πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν
τε)
who ruled the Olympians of
Mount Olympus

as a father ruled the family. He was the
god of sky

and
thunder

in
Greek mythology
.
His
Roman

counterpart is
Jupiter

and
Etruscan

counterpart is Tinia
.

Zeus was the child of
Cronus

and
Rhea
,
and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to

Hera, although, at the
oracle of Dodona
,
his consort was
Dione
:
according to the Iliad
,
he is the father of
Aphrodite

by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and
heroic offspring, including
Athena
,
Apollo

and Artemis
,
Hermes
,
Persephone

(by Demeter
),
Dionysus
,
Perseus
,
Heracles
,
Helen of Troy
,
Minos
,
and the Muses

(by Mnemosyne
);
by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered

Ares,
Hebe

and Hephaestus
.

As
Walter Burkert

points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his
natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.”
For the Greeks, he was the
King of the Gods
,
who oversaw the universe. As
Pausanias

observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In
Hesiod’s Theogony

Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is
referred to as the chieftain of the gods.

His symbols are the
thunderbolt
,
eagle
,
bull
,
and oak
.
In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer”
also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the
Ancient Near East
,
such as the
scepter

 

Hermes
is the great messenger of the gods in
Greek mythology
and additionally as a
guide to the Underworld
. Hermes was born on
Mount Cyllene
in Arcadia. An
Olympian god
, he is also the patron of
boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of
shepherds
and
cowherds
, of the cunning of thieves and liars,
of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics and sports, of weights
and measures, of invention, and of commerce in general. His symbols include the
tortoise, the rooster, the winged sandals, the winged hat, and the
caduceus
(given to him by Apollo in exchange
for the lyre).

Symbols of Hermes were the palm tree, turtle, rooster, goat, the number four,
several kinds of fish, incense. Sacrifices involved honey, cakes, pigs, goats,
and lambs.

In the Roman adaptation of the Greek religion (see
interpretatio romana
), Hermes was
identified with the Roman god
Mercury
, who, though inherited from the
Etruscans
, developed many similar
characteristics, such as being the patron of commerce.

The
Homeric hymn
to Hermes invokes him as the one
“of many shifts (polytropos), blandly cunning, a robber, a cattle driver,
a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night, a thief at the gates, one who was soon
to show forth wonderful deeds among the deathless gods.”

He protects and takes care of all the travelers, miscreants, harlots, old
crones
and thieves that pray to him or cross
his path. He is athletic and is always looking out for runners, or any athletes
with injuries who need his help.

Hermes is a messenger from the gods to humans, sharing this role with
Iris
. An interpreter who bridges the boundaries
with strangers is a hermeneus. Hermes gives us our word “hermeneutics“,
the study and theory of interpretation. In Greek a lucky find was a hermaion.
Hermes delivered messages from Olympus to the mortal world. He wears shoes with
wings on them and uses them to fly freely between the mortal and immortal world.
Hermes was the second youngest of the
Olympian gods
, being born before
Dionysus
.

Hermes, as an inventor of fire, is a parallel of the
Titan
,
Prometheus
. In addition to the

lyre, Hermes was believed to have invented many types of racing and
the sports of wrestling and boxing, and therefore was a patron of athletes.

According to prominent
folklorist

Yeleazar Meletinsky
, Hermes is a deified
trickster
. Hermes also served as a
psychopomp
, or an escort for the dead to help
them find their way to the
afterlife
(the
Underworld
in the Greek myths). In many Greek
myths, Hermes was depicted as the only god besides
Hades
,
Persephone
,
Hecate
, and
Thanatos
who could enter and leave the
Underworld without hindrance.

Hermes often helped travelers have a safe and easy journey. Many Greeks would
sacrifice to Hermes before any trip.

In the fully-developed Olympian pantheon, Hermes was the son of

Zeus and the
Pleiade

Maia
, a daughter of the Titan
Atlas
. Hermes’ symbols were the
cock
and the
tortoise
, and he can be recognized by his purse
or pouch, winged sandals
,
winged cap
, and the herald’s staff, the
kerykeion
. The night he was born he slipped
away from Maia and stole his elder brother
Apollo

Blaundos was an ancient city founded by the successors of
Alexander the Great
. The city is about 30
kilometres (19 mi) south of

Uşak, Turkey
, near the village
Sülümenli
. Blaundos is situated on a rocky
place in the valley of the Meandre River, now known as the
Büyük Menderes River
. The city is protected by
a peak, and the only access from the north is protected by a gate, reminiscent
of
Hellenistique
and
Roman
times.

The city has known major developments during the Hellenistique, Roman and
Byzantine
eras. It is possible that the city
was populated by the veterans of the
Roman army
. The last records dates from the 8th
century.

The village was described by the French traveller
Charles Texier
, 1834, but it was never
subjected to any investigation. Among the monuments that still are visible
today, are the north entrance, the stage of a temple dedicated to
Ceres
, where all elements around the foundation
come together. A piece of the columns that circled the temple and the branches
of a large building on the far side of the site. Between 2000 and 2002 the site
was investigated by the
German Institute of Archaeology
.