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Greek city of Erythrai in Ionia
Bronze 12mm (1.70 grams) Struck circa 330-300 B.C.
Magistrate Philites
Reference: Sear 4436 var.; SNG Copenhagen 606; SNG Munich 332.
Head of young Hercules, clad in lion’s skin.
Bow in case and club; EPY above, magistrate’s name
ΦΙΛIΤΗΣ between.
Situated on the coast opposite the island of Chios, Erythrai
was a prosperous city and boasted a temple of great antiquity dedicated to
Heracles and Athena Polias.
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HERCULES – This celebrated
of mythological romance was at first called Alcides, but received the name of
Hercules, or Heracles, from the Pythia of Delphos. Feigned by the poets of
antiquity to have been a son of “the Thunderer,” but born of an earthly mother,
he was exposed, through Juno’s implacable hatred to him as the offspring of
Alemena, to a course of perils, which commenced whilst he was yet in his cradle,
and under each of which he seemed to perish, but as constantly proved
victorious.
At
length finishing his allotted career with native valor and generosity, though
too frequently the submissive agent of the meanness and injustice of others, he
perished self-devotedly on the funeral pile, which was lighted on Mount Oeta.
Jupiter raised his heroic progeny to the skies; and Hercules was honored by the
pagan world, as the most illustrious of deified mortals. The extraordinary
enterprises cruelly imposed upon, but gloriously achieved, by this famous
demigod, are to be found depicted, not only on Greek coins, but also on the
Roman series both consular and imperial. The first, and one of the most
dangerous, of undertakings, well-known under the name of the twelve labors of
Hercules, was that of killing the huge lion of Nemea; on which account the
intrepid warrior is represented, clothes in the skin of that forest monarch; he
also bears uniformly a massive club, sometimes without any other arms, but at
others with a bow and quiver of arrows. On a denarius of the Antia gens he is
represented walking with trophy and club.
When his head alone is typified, as in Mucia gens, it is covered with the lion’s
spoils, in which distinctive decoration he was imitated by many princes, and
especially by those who claimed descent from him – as for example, the kings of
Macedonia, and the successors of Alexander the Great. Among the Roman emperors
Trajan is the first whose coins exhibit the figure and attributes of Hercules.
Erythrae or Erythrai (Greek:
Ἐρυθραί) later Litri, was one of the
twelve
Ionian
cities of
Asia Minor
, situated 22 km north-east of the
port of Cyssus (modern name:
Çeşme
), on a small peninsula stretching into
the
Bay of Erythrae
, at an equal distance from the
mountains
Mimas
and
Corycus
, and directly opposite the island of
Chios
.
According to Pausanias (Paus. 7.3.7), Erythrae was founded by
Cretan settlers under the leadership of Erythrus the Red, son of Rhadamanthus,
and at the same time inhabited by Lycians, Carians, and Pamphylians. At a later
period came Cnopus (Strab. 14.633), son of Codrus, with an Ionian colony, whence
the city is sometimes called Cnopopolis. The city did not lie exactly on the
coast, but some little distance inland, and had a harbor on the coast named
Cissus (Livy, 36.43).
In the 7th century BC as an Ionian city of Asia Minor,
Erythrae was a member of Pan-Ionian League. The city gained fame as a producer
of millstone
during the period of tyrannical rule.
In the peninsula, excellent wine was produced. The town was
said to have been founded by Ionians under
Knopos
, son of
Codrus
. Never a large city, it sent only eight
ships to the
Battle of Lade
. The Erythraeans were for a
considerable time subject to the supremacy of
Athens
, but towards the close of the
Peloponnesian War
they threw off their
allegiance to that city. After the battle of
Cnidus
, however, they received
Conon
, and paid him honours in an inscription,
still extant.
Erythrae was the birthplace of two prophetesses (sibyls)
–one of whom,
Sibylla
, is mentioned by
Strabo
as living in the early period of the
city; the other,
Athenais
, lived in the time of
Alexander the Great
. The
Erythraean Sibyl
presided over the
Apollonian
oracle
.
The ruins include well-preserved Hellenistic walls with
towers, of which five are still visible. The acropolis (280 ft) has an
amphitheatre
on its northern slope, and
eastwards lie many remains of
Byzantine
buildings.
By the mid. 18th century and up to early 20th century, Litri
was a considerable place and port, extending from the ancient harbour to the
acropolis. The smaller
coasting
steamers call, and there was an active
trade with Chios and
Smyrna
.
The archaeological site is situated within the settlement
zone of the present-day Turkish village of
Ildırı
. The site was explored in depth in the
1960s by Professor
Ekrem Akurgal
, leading to precious discoveries,
but has been left somewhat unattended since.
About 453 BC Erythrae, refusing to pay tribute, seceded from
the Delian League. A garrison and a new government restored the union, but late
in the Peloponnesian War (412 BC) it revolted again with Chios and Clazomenae.
Later it was allied alternately with Athens and Persia. About
the middle of the 4th c. BC the city became friendly with Mausolus: in an
inscription found on the site he is called a benefactor of Erythrae. About the
same time the city signed a treaty with Hermias, Tyrant of Assus and Atarneus,
based on reciprocal aid in the event of war.
In 334 BC the city regained its freedom through Alexander the
Great who, according to Pliny (HN 5.116) and Pausanias (2.1.5), planned to cut a
canal through the peninsula of Erythrae to connect Teos bay with the gulf of
Smyrna.
When Alexander returned to Memphis in April 331 BC, envoys
from Greece were waiting for him, saying that the oracles at Didyma and Erythrae,
which had been silent for a long time, had suddenly spoken and confirmed that
Alexander was the son of Zeus. The timing proves that Alexander was already
thinking that he was of a more than human nature when he entered Greece: after
all, the people of Didyma and Erythrae can never have known that Alexander was
recognized as the son of Ra and wanted to be called ‘son of Zeus’.
Erythrae was later associated with Pergamum and with Rome,
and after the death of Attalos III in 133 BC, when the Pergamene kingdom was
bequeathed to the Romans, it flourished as a free city attached to the Roman
province of Asia.
At this time, Erythrae was renowned for its wine, goats,
timber, and millstones, as well as its prophetic sibyls, Herophile and Athenais.
In the Roman period the city was plundered and its importance
faded after the earthquakes of that region in the 1st c. AD.
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