Faustina II wife of Marcus Aurelius Pautalia Ancient Roman Coin Salus i45739

Item: i45739

Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Faustina II ‘Junior’ – Roman Empress & Wife
of Emperor Marcus Aurelius – 161-175 A.D. –
Bronze 21mm (5.28 grams) Struck in the city of Pautalia 161 A.D. in the province of Thrace
Reference: Moushmov 4115 var
ΦAVCTEINA CEBACTH, draped bust right
OVΛΠIAC ΠAVTAΛIAC, Hygeia standing right feeding serpent
she is holding.

You

Authenticity.

Serpents
and snakes play a role in many of the world’s myths and legends. Sometimes these
mythic beasts appear as ordinary snakes. At other times, they take on magical or
monstrous forms. Serpents and snakes have long been associated with good as well
as with evil, representing both life and death, creation and destruction.

Serpents and Snakes as Symbols. In religion, mythology, and
literature, serpents and snakes often stand for fertility or a creative life
force—partly because the creatures can be seen as symbols of the male sex organ.
They have also been associated with water and earth because many kinds of snakes
live in the water or in holes in the ground. The ancient Chinese connected
serpents with life-giving rain. Traditional beliefs in Australia, India, North
America, and Africa have linked snakes with rainbows, which in turn are often
related to rain and fertility.

As snakes grow, many of them shed their skin at various times, revealing a
shiny new skin underneath. For this reason snakes have become symbols of
rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing. The ancient Greeks
considered snakes sacred to Asclepius, the god of medicine. He carried a
caduceus, a staff with one or two serpents wrapped around it, which has become
the symbol of modern physicians.

For both the Greeks and the Egyptians, the snake represented eternity.
Ouroboros, the Greek symbol of eternity, consisted of a snake curled into a
circle or hoop, biting its own tail. The Ouroboros grew out of the belief that
serpents eat themselves and are reborn from themselves in an endless cycle of
destruction and creation.

Serpents figured prominently in archaic Greek myths. According to some
sources,
Ophion (“serpent”, a.k.a. Ophioneus), ruled the world with Eurynome
before the two of them were cast down by Cronus and Rhea. The oracles of the
Ancient Greeks were said to have been the continuation of the tradition begun
with the worship of the Egyptian cobra goddess,
Wadjet.

The
Minoan

Snake
Goddess brandished a serpent in either hand, perhaps evoking her role
as source of wisdom, rather than her role as Mistress of the Animals (Potnia
theron), with a leopard
under each arm. She is a Minoan version
of the Canaanite
fertility goddess
Asherah.
It is not by accident that later the infant
Heracles,
a liminal hero on the threshold between the old ways and the new Olympian world,
also brandished the two serpents that “threatened” him in his cradle. Classical
Greeks did not perceive that the threat was merely the threat of wisdom. But the
gesture is the same as that of the Cretan goddess.

Typhon
the enemy of the Olympian gods is described as a vast grisly monster with a
hundred heads and a hundred serpents issuing from his thighs, who was conquered
and cast into Tartarus
by
Zeus,
or confined beneath volcanic regions, where he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon
is thus the chthonic figuration of volcanic forces. Amongst his children by
Echidna are Cerberus
(a monstrous three-headed dog with a
snake for a tail and a serpentine mane), the serpent tailed
Chimaera
, the serpent-like chthonic water beast

Lernaean Hydra and the hundred-headed serpentine dragon
Ladon.
Both the Lernaean Hydra and Ladon were slain by
Heracles.

Python
was the earth-dragon of
Delphi,
she always was represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent.
Pytho was the chthonic enemy of Apollo
, who slew her and remade her former home
his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece.

Amphisbaena a Greek word, from amphis, meaning “both ways”, and
bainein, meaning “to go”, also called the “Mother of Ants”, is a mythological,
ant-eating serpent with a head at each end. According to Greek mythology, the
mythological amphisbaena was spawned from the blood that dripped from
Medusa
the Gorgon‘s
head as
Perseus flew over the Libyan Desert with her head in his hand.

Medusa and the other Gorgons were vicious female monsters with sharp fangs
and hair of living, venomous snakes whose origins predate the written myths of
Greece and who were the protectors of the most ancient ritual secrets. The
Gorgons wore a belt of two intertwined serpents in the same configuration of the
caduceus.
The Gorgon was placed at the highest point and central of the relief on the
Parthenon.

Asclepius, the son of Apollo and Koronis, learned the secrets of
keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another (which
Asclepius himself had fatally wounded) healing herbs. To prevent the entire
human race from becoming immortal under Asclepius’s care, Zeus killed him with a
bolt of lightning. Asclepius’ death at the hands of Zeus illustrates man’s
inability to challenge the natural order that separates mortal men from the
gods. In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals.
Non-poisonous snakes were left to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the
sick and injured slept. In
The Library
,

Apollodorus claimed that
Athena
gave Asclepius a vial of blood from the Gorgons. Gorgon blood had magical
properties: if taken from the left side of the Gorgon, it was a fatal poison;
from the right side, the blood was capable of bringing the dead back to life.
However
Euripides wrote in his tragedy
Ion
that the Athenian queen Creusa had
inherited this vial from her ancestor Erichthonios, who was a snake himself and
receiving the vial from Athena. In this version the blood of Medusa had the
healing power while the lethal poison originated from Medusa’s serpents.

Laocoön
was allegedly a priest of Poseidon
(or of Apollo, by some accounts) at
Troy;
he was famous for warning the Trojans in vain against accepting the Trojan Horse
from the Greeks, and for his subsequent divine execution. Poseidon (some say
Athena),
who was supporting the Greeks, subsequently sent sea-serpents to strangle
Laocoön and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus. Another tradition states
that Apollo sent the serpents for an unrelated offense, and only unlucky timing
caused the Trojans to misinterpret them as punishment for striking the Horse.

Olympias, the mother of
Alexander the Great
and a princess of the
primitive land of
Epirus
, had the reputation of a snake-handler,
and it was in serpent form that Zeus was said to have fathered Alexander upon
her; tame snakes were still to be found at Macedonian
Pella
in the 2nd century AD (Lucian,
Alexander the false prophet
) and at
Ostia
a bas-relief shows paired coiled serpents
flanking a dressed altar, symbols or embodiments of the
Lares
of the household, worthy of veneration (Veyne 1987 illus p 211).

Aeetes
, the king of
Colchis
and father of the sorceress Medea
, possessed the

Golden Fleece. He guarded it with a massive serpent that never slept.
Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason
of the
Argonauts,
enchanted it to sleep so Jason could seize the Fleece.

In
Greek
and
Roman mythology
,
Hygieia (also Hygiea or Hygeia, Greek
Ὑγιεία or
Ὑγεία, Latin
Hygēa or Hygīa), was the daughter of the god
of medicine,
Asclepius
, and
Epione
. She was the
goddess/personification of health, cleanliness and
sanitation.

Hygieia
and her five sisters each performed a facet of
Apollo
‘s art: Hygieia
(“Hygiene” the goddess/personification of health,
cleanliness, and sanitation),
Panacea
(the goddess of
Universal remedy),
Iaso
(the goddess of
recuperation from illness),
Aceso
(the goddess of
the healing process).

Hygieia also played an important part in her father’s
cult
. While her father
was more directly associated with healing, she was
associated with the prevention of sickness and the
continuation of good health. Her name is the source of
the word “hygiene“.
She was imported by the Romans as the Goddess Valetudo,
the goddess of personal health, but in time she started
to be increasingly identified with the ancient Italian
goddess of social welfare,
Salus
.

History

At Athens, Hygieia was the subject of a local cult
since at least the 7th century BC. “Athena Hygieia” was
one of the cult titles given to
Athena
, as Plutarch
recounts of the building of the
Parthenon
(447-432 BC):

However, the cult of Hygieia as an independent
goddess did not begin to spread out until the
Delphic oracle

recognized her, and after the devastating
Plague of Athens

(430-427 BC) and in Rome in 293 BC.

In the 2nd century AD,
Pausanias
noted the
statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the
entrance to the
Acropolis
of Athens.

Worship

Hygieia’s primary temples were in
Epidaurus
,
Corinth
,
Cos
and
Pergamon
.
Pausanias
remarked
that, at the Asclepieion of
Titane
in
Sicyon
(founded by
Alexanor
, Asclepius’
grandson), statues of Hygieia were covered by women’s
hair and pieces of
Babylonian
clothes.
According to inscriptions, the same sacrifices were
offered at
Paros
.

Ariphron
, a Sicyonian
artist from the 4th century BC wrote a well-known
hymn
celebrating her.
Statues of Hygieia were created by
Scopas
,
Bryaxis
and
Timotheus
, among
others, but there is no clear description of what they
looked like. She was often depicted as a young woman
feeding a large snake that was wrapped around her body
or drinking from a jar that she carried. These
attributes were later adopted by the
Gallo-Roman
healing
goddess,
Sirona
. Hygieia was
accompanied by her brother,
Telesphorus
.

The

Pythagoreans

called the pentagram ὑγιεία Hugieia (“health”);
also the Greek goddess of health,

Hygieia

and saw in the pentagram a mathematical perfection.

In

Greek

and

Roman mythology

, Hygieia,

or Hygeia, was a daughter

of the god of medicine,

Asclepius
.

She was the goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation and afterwards, the

moon. She also played an important part in her father’s

cult

. While her father was more directly associated with healing, she was

associated with the prevention of sickness and the continuation of good health.

Her name is the source of the word “hygiene“.

//

At Athens, Hygieia was the subject of a local cult since at least the

7th

century BC
. “Athena Hygieia” was one of the cult titles given to

Athena
, as

Plutarch recounts of the building of the

Parthenon

(447-432 BC):

However, the cult of Hygieia as an independent goddess did not begin to

spread out until the

Delphic oracle

recognized her, and after the devastating

Plague of Athens

(430-27 BC) and in Rome in 293 BC.

In the second century AD,

Pausanias

noted the statues both of Hygieia and of Athena Hygieia near the

entrance to the

Acropolis

of Athens.

Hygieia’s primary temples were in

Epidaurus
,

Corinth

, Cos
and

Pergamon
.

Pausanias

remarked that, at the Asclepieion of

Titane
in

Sicyon
(founded

by Alexanor
,

Asclepius’ grandson), statues of Hygieia were covered by women’s hair and pieces

of Babylonian

clothes. According to inscriptions, the same sacrifices were offered at

Paros
.

Ariphron
,

a Sicyonian artist from the

4th

century BC
wrote a well-known

hymn celebrating

her. Statues of Hygieia were created by

Scopas
,

Bryaxis
and

Timotheus
,

among others, but there is no clear description of what they looked like. She

was often depicted as a young woman feeding a large snake that was wrapped

around her body or drinking from a jar that she carried.

These attributes were later adopted by the

Gallo-Roman

healing goddess,

Sirona
. Hygieia

was accompanied by her brother,

Telesphorus

.

“Hygieia” was used as a greeting among the

Pythagoreans

.

Kyustendil (Bulgarian:

Кюстендил, historically

Велбъжд, Velbazhd) is a town in the

far west of Bulgaria

, the capital of

Kyustendil Province

, with a population of 58,059 (2005 census). Kyustendil

is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of

Sofia
. It was

named after the medieval lord of the surrounding region,

Constantine Dragaš

.

A Thracian

settlement was founded at the place of the modern town in the

5th
-4th

century BC and the

Romans

developed it into an important stronghold, balneological resort and trade

junction called Pautalia in the 1st century AD.

The Hisarlaka fortress was built in the 4th century and the town was

mentioned under the

Slavic

name of Velbazhd (Велбъжд, meaning “camel”)^[1]

in a 1019 charter by the

Byzantine

Emperor

Basil II
.

It became a major religious and administrative centre.

Annia

Galeria Faustina Minor (Minor Latin for

the younger), Faustina Minor or Faustina

the Younger

(February

16 between 125 and 130-175) was a daughter of

Roman Emperor

Antoninus Pius

and Roman Empress

Faustina the Elder

. She was a Roman Empress and wife

to her maternal cousin Roman Emperor

Marcus Aurelius

. Though Roman sources give a

generally negative view of her character, she was held

in high esteem by soldiers and her own husband and was

given divine honours after her death.

//

 Biography

Faustina, named after her mother, was

her parents’ fourth and youngest child and their second

daughter; she was also their only child to survive to

adulthood. She was born and raised in

Rome

.

Her great uncle, the Emperor

Hadrian

, had arranged with her father for Faustina

to marry

Lucius Verus

. On February 25, 138, she and Verus

were betrothed.

Verus’ father

was Hadrian’s first adopted son and

his intended heir. However when Verus’ father died,

Hadrian chose Faustina’s father to be his second adopted

son, and eventually, he became Hadrian’s successor.

Faustina’s father ended the engagement between his

daughter and Verus and arranged for Faustina’s betrothal

to her maternal cousin,

Marcus Aurelius

; Aurelius was also adopted by her

father. On May 13, 145, Faustina and Marcus Aurelius

were married. When her father died on March 7, 161, her

husband and Lucius Verus succeeded to her father’s

throne and became co-rulers. Faustina was given the

title of

and became Empress.

Unfortunately, not much has survived

from the Roman sources regarding Faustina’s life, but

what is available does not give a good report.

Cassius Dio

and the

accuse Faustina of ordering

deaths by poison and execution; she has also been

accused of instigating the revolt of

Avidius Cassius

against her husband. The Augustan

History mentions adultery with sailors, gladiators,

and men of rank. However, Faustina and Aurelius seem to

have been very close and mutually devoted. Her husband

trusted her and defended her vigorously against

detractors.

Faustina accompanied her husband on

various military campaigns and enjoyed the love and

reverence of Roman soldiers. Aurelius gave her the title

of Mater Castrorum or Mother of the Camp.

Between 170-174, she was in the north, and in 175, she

accompanied Aurelius to the east. However, these

experiences took their toll on Faustina, who died in the

winter of 175, after an accident, at the military camp

in Halala (a city in the

Taurus Mountains

in

Cappadocia

).

Aurelius grieved much for his wife

and buried her in the Mausoleum of Hadrian in Rome. She

was deified: her statue was placed in the Temple of

Venus in Rome and a temple was dedicated to her in her

honor. Halala’s name was changed to Faustinopolis

and Aurelius opened charity schools for orphan girls

called Puellae Faustinianae or ‘Girls of

Faustina’.^[1]

The Baths of Faustina in

Miletus

are named after her.

In their thirty years of marriage,

Faustina bore Marcus Aurelius thirteen children:

1. Annia Aurelia Galeria Faustina

   (147-after 165)

2. Gemellus Lucillae (died around

   150), twin brother of Lucilla

3. Annia Aurelia Galeria

   Lucilla

   (148/50-182), twin sister of Gemellus,

   married her father’s co-ruler

   Lucius Verus

4. Titus Aelius Antoninus (born

   after 150, died before 7 March 161)

5. Titus Aelius Aurelius (born after

   150, died before 7 March 161)

6. Hadrianus (152-157)

7. Domitia Faustina (born after 150,

   died before 7 March 161)

8. Fadilla

   (159-after 211)

9. Annia Cornificia Faustina Minor

   (160-after 211)

10. Titus Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus

    (161-165), twin brother of Commodus

11. Commodus

    (161-192), twin brother of Titus

    Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus, later emperor

12. Marcus Annius Verus Caesar

    (162-169)

13. Vibia Aurelia Sabina (170-died before 217)

Thrace  is a historical and geographic
area in southeast
Europe
. As a
geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded
by the
Balkan Mountains
on the
north,
Rhodope Mountains
and
the
Aegean Sea
on the
south, and by the
Black Sea
and the
Sea of Marmara
on the
east. The areas it comprises are southeastern
Bulgaria
(Northern
Thrace), northeastern
Greece
(Western
Thrace), and the European part of
Turkey
(Eastern
Thrace). The biggest part of Thrace is part
of present-day Bulgaria. In Turkey, it is also called
Rumelia
. The name comes
from the
Thracians
, an ancient
Indo-European
people
inhabiting Southeastern Europe.

The historical boundaries of Thrace have varied.
Noteworthy is the fact that, at an early date, the
ancient Greeks
employed
the term “Thrace” to refer to all of the territory which
lay north of
Thessaly
inhabited by
the
Thracians
,^[1]
a region which “had no definite boundaries” and to which
other regions (like
Macedonia
and even
Scythia
) were added.^[2]
In one ancient Greek source, the very Earth is divided
into “Asia, Libya, Europa and Thracia”.^[2]
As the knowledge of world geography of the Greeks
broadened, the term came to be more restricted in its
application: Thrace designated the lands bordered by the
Danube
on the north, by
the Euxine Sea (Black Sea) on the east, by northern
Macedonia
in the south
and by the
Illyrian
lands (i.e.
Illyria
) to the west.^[2]
This largely coincided with the Thracian
Odrysian kingdom
, whose
borders varied in time. During this time, specifically
after the Macedonian conquest, the region’s old border
with Macedonia was shifted from the
Struma River
to the
Mesta River
.^[3][4]
This usage lasted until the Roman conquest. Henceforth,
(classical) Thrace referred only to the tract of land
largely covering the same extent of space as the modern
geographical region. In its early period, the
Roman province of Thrace

was of this extent, but after the administrative reforms
of the late 3rd century, Thracia’s much reduced
territory became the six small provinces which
constituted the
Diocese of Thrace
. The
medieval
Byzantine

theme
of
Thrace
contained only
what today is
Eastern Thrace
.

The largest cities of Thrace are:
İstanbul
(European
side),
Plovdiv
,
Burgas
,
Stara Zagora
,
Haskovo
,
Edirne
,
Çorlu
and
Tekirdag
.

Most of the Bulgarian and Greek population are
Christians, while most of the Turkish inhabitants of
Thrace are Muslims.

Thrace in ancient Greek mythology

Ancient Greek mythology

provides them with a mythical ancestor, named
Thrax
, son of the
war-god
Ares
, who was said to
reside in Thrace. The Thracians appear in
Homer
‘s
Iliad
as
Trojan
allies, led by
Acamas
and
Peiros
. Later in the
Iliad,
Rhesus
, another
Thracian king, makes an appearance.
Cisseus
, father-in-law
to the Trojan elder
Antenor
, is also given
as a Thracian king. Homeric Thrace was vaguely defined,
and stretched from the River
Axios
in the west to
the
Hellespont
and
Black Sea
in the east.
The
Catalogue of Ships

mentions three separate contingents from Thrace:
Thracians led by Acamas and Peiros, from
Aenus
;
Cicones
led by
Euphemus
, from southern
Thrace, near
Ismaros
; and from the
city of
Sestus
, on the Thracian
(northern) side of the Hellespont, which formed part of
the contingent led by
Asius
. Greek mythology
is replete with Thracian kings, including
Diomedes
,
Tereus
,
Lycurgus
,
Phineus
,
Tegyrius
,
Eumolpus
,
Polymnestor
,
Poltys
, and
Oeagrus
(father of
Orpheus
). In addition
to the tribe that Homer calls Thracians, ancient Thrace
was home to numerous other tribes, such as the
Edones
,
Bisaltae
,
Cicones
, and
Bistones
.

Thrace is also mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in
the episode of
Philomela
, Procne, and
Tereus
. Tereus, the
King of Thrace, lusts after his sister-in-law, Philomela.
He kidnaps her, holds her captive, rapes her, and cuts
out her tongue. Philomela manages to get free, however.
She and her sister, Procne, plot to get revenge, by
killing Itys (son of Tereus and Procne) and serving him
to his father for dinner. At the end of the myth, all
three turn into birds—Procne, a swallow; Philomela, a
nightingale; and Tereus, a
hoopoe
.

 History

Ancient history

Thracian Tomb of
Kazanlak
 

The indigenous population of Thrace was a people
called the
Thracians
, divided into
numerous tribal groups. Thracian troops were known to
accompany neighboring ruler
Alexander the Great

when he crossed the
Hellespont
which abuts
Thrace, and took on the
Persian Empire
of the
day.

The Thracians did not describe themselves as such and
Thrace and Thracians are simply the names
given them by the Greeks.^[5]

Divided into separate tribes, the Thracians did not
manage to form a lasting political organization until
the
Odrysian state
was
founded in the 4th century BC. Like
Illyrians
, Thracian
tribes of the mountainous regions fostered a locally
ruled warrior tradition, while the tribes based in the
plains were purportedly more peaceable. Recently
discovered funeral mounds in Bulgaria suggest that
Thracian kings did rule regions of Thrace with distinct
Thracian national identity.

During this period, a subculture of
celibate

ascetics
called the
Ctistae
lived in
Thrace, where they served as philosophers, priests and
prophets.

Medieval history

By the mid 5th century, as the Roman Empire began to
crumble, Thracia fell from the authority of Rome and
into the hands of Germanic tribal rulers. With the fall
of Rome, Thracia turned into a battleground territory
for the better part of the next 1,000 years. The eastern
successor of the
Roman Empire
in the
Balkans, the
Byzantine Empire
,
retained control over Thrace until the 8th century when
the northern half of the entire region was incorporated
into the
First Bulgarian Empire
.
Byzantium regained Thrace in the late 10th century and
administered it as a
theme
, until the
Bulgarians regained control of the northern half at the
end of the 12th century. Throughout the 13th century and
the first half of the 14th century, the region was
changing in the hands of the Bulgarian and the Byzantine
Empire(excl. Constantinopole). In 1265 the area suffered
a Mongol raid from the
Golden Horde
, led by
Nogai Khan
. In 1352,
the
Ottoman

Turks
conducted their
first incursion into the region subduing it completely
within a matter of two decades and occupying it for five
centuries.

Modern
history

With the
Congress of Berlin
in
1878, Northern Thrace was incorporated into the
semi-autonomous Ottoman province of
Eastern Rumelia
, which
united with Bulgaria in 1885. The rest of Thrace was
divided among Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey at the
beginning of the 20th century, following the
Balkan Wars
,
World War I
and the
Greco-Turkish War
.
Today Thracian is a strong regional identity in
Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and other neighbouring
countries.

Famous Thracians and people from Thrace

• Mehmed II

  Ottoman
  Sultan,
  born at
  Edirne
  in Thrace;
  he was the Sultan who conquered Constantinople,
  marking the end of the Middle Ages.

• Bayezid II
  Ottoman
  Sultan
• Spartacus
  was a
  Thracian auxiliary soldier in the
  Roman army
  who
  deserted but was captured and then enslaved by the
  Romans. He led a large slave uprising in what is now
  Italy in 73–71 BC. His army of escaped
  gladiators
  and
  slaves defeated several
  Roman legions
  in
  what is known as the
  Third Servile War
  .
• Belisaurius
  , one of
  the most successful Generals of the
  Roman Empire
  , was
  born in the borderlands between Thrace and
  Illyria
  .
• In
  Ancient Greek mythology
  ,
  Orpheus
  was the
  chief representative of the art of song and playing
  the
  lyre
  .
• Democritus
  was a
  Greek philosopher and mathematician from
  Abdera, Thrace
  (c.
  460–370 BC.) His main contribution is the
  atomic theory
  , the
  belief that all matter is made up of various
  imperishable indivisible elements which he called
  atoms
  .
• Herodicus
  was a
  Greek physician of the fifth century BC who is
  considered the founder of
  sports medicine
  . He
  is believed to have been one of
  Hippocrates’

  tutors.

• Protagoras
  was a
  Greek philosopher from
  Abdera, Thrace
  (c.
  490–420 BC.) An expert in
  rhetorics
  and
  subjects connected to virtue and political life,
  often regarded as the first
  sophist
  . He is
  known primarily for three claims (1) that man is the
  measure of all things, often interpreted as a sort
  of
  moral relativism
  ,
  (2) that he could make the “worse (or weaker)
  argument appear the better (or stronger)” (see
  Sophism
  ) and (3)
  that one could not tell if the gods existed or not
  (see
  Agnosticism
  ).

• A number of
  Roman emperors
  of
  the 3rd-5th century were of
  Thraco-Roman

  backgrounds (Maximinus
  Thrax,
  Licinius
  ,
  Galerius
  ,
  Aureolus
  ,
  Leo the Thracian
  ,
  etc.). These emperors were elevated via a military
  career, from the condition of common soldiers in one
  of the
  Roman legions
  to
  the foremost positions of
  political power
  .