KOS Ancient Greek ISLAND City OFF CARIA 88BC Apollo Lyre Authentic Coin i46530

Item: i46530

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of

Bronze 23mm (9.14 grams) Struck circa 88-50 B.C.
Reference: Sear 5017 var.; HGC 6, 1331
Laureate head of Apollo right.
ΚΩΙΩΝ AΛΚΙΔΑΜ (Chelys Magistrate Name) either side
of lyre.

Hippokrates came from this
island, a person of importance to the medical profession. Assassin of Julius
Caesar, Cassius also stationed himself there. Saint Paul the Apostle briefly
visited the island. This island has had a rich history and has played important
roles in many historical events.

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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.

Kos or Cos (Greek:
Κως) is a
Greek
island of the group of the
Dodecanese
, next to the
Gulf of Gökova/Cos
. The island measures 40 by 8
kilometres (25 by 5 miles), and is 4 km (2 miles) from the coast of
Bodrum
, Turkey, and the ancient region of
Caria
. The island constitutes a municipality
within the
Kos regional unit
, which is part of the
South Aegean

region
. The principal town of the island and
seat of the municipality is Kos town. The island has a population of 33,388.

Name

The name Kos (Greek:
Κῶς,
genitive
Κῶ) is first attested in the
Iliad
, and has been in continuous use
since. Other ancient names include Meropis, Cea, and Nymphaea.

In the West, it was formerly known as Stancho, Stanchio, or
Stinco, and in
Ottoman
and
modern Turkish
it is known as İstanköy,
all from the Greek expression εις την Κω ‘to Kos’; cf. the similar
Stamboul
and
Stimpoli, Crete
. Under the rule of the
Knights Hospitaller
of
Rhodes
, it was known as Lango or Langò,
presumably because of its length. In
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
, the
author misunderstands this, and treats Lango and Kos as distinct islands.

In Italian, it is known as Coo.

A person from Kos is called a “Koan” in English. The word is also an
adjective, as in “Koan goods”.

History

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Homer
‘s
Iliad
, a contingent from Kos fought for the
Greeks in the
Trojan War
.

In the Roman mythology, the island was visited by
Hercules
.

The island was originally colonised by the
Carians
. The
Dorians
invaded it in the 11th century BC,
establishing a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from
Epidaurus
, whose
Asclepius
cult made their new home famous for
its sanatoria. The other chief sources of the island’s wealth lay in its
wines and, in later days, in its silk manufacture.

Its early history–as part of the religious-political
amphictyony
that included
Lindos
,
Kamiros
,
Ialysos
,
Cnidus
and
Halicarnassus
, the
Dorian Hexapolis
(hexapolis means six
cities in Greek),–is obscure. At the end of the 6th century, Kos fell under
Achaemenid
domination but rebelled after the
Greek victory at the
Battle of Mycale
in 479. During the
Greco-Persian Wars
, before it twice expelled
the
Persians
, it was ruled by Persian-appointed
tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under oligarchic government. In the
5th century, it joined the
Delian League
, and, after the revolt of
Rhodes
, it served as the chief
Athenian
station in the south-eastern Aegean
(411–407). In 366 BC, a democracy was instituted. In 366 BC, the capital was
transferred from
Astypalaia
to the newly built town of Kos, laid
out in a
Hippodamian
grid. After helping to weaken
Athenian power, in the
Social War (357-355 BC)
, it fell for a few
years to the king Mausolus

of Caria
.

Proximity to the east gave the island first access to imported silk thread.
Aristotle
mentions silk weaving conducted by
the women of the island. Silk production of garments was conducted in large
factories by women slaves.

In the
Hellenistic
age, Kos attained the zenith of its
prosperity. Its alliance was valued by the kings of Egypt, who used it as a
naval outpost to oversee the Aegean. As a seat of learning, it arose as a
provincial branch of the museum of
Alexandria
, and became a favorite resort for
the education of the princes of the Ptolemaic dynasty. During the
hellenistic age
, there was a
medical school
; however, the theory that this
school was founded by Hippocrates (see below) during the
classical age
is an unwarranted extrapolation.
Among its most famous sons were the physician
Hippocrates
, the painter
Apelles
, the poets
Philitas
and, perhaps,
Theocritus
.

Diodorus Siculus
(xv. 76) and
Strabo
(xiv. 657) describe it as a
well-fortified port. Its position gave it a high importance in Aegean trade;
while the island itself was rich in wines of considerable fame.  Under
Alexander the Great
and the
Egyptian Ptolemies
the town developed into one
of the great centers in the Aegean;
Josephus
quotes Strabo to the effect that
Mithridates
was sent to Kos to fetch the gold
deposited there by the
queen Cleopatra
of Egypt.
Herod
is said to have provided an annual
stipend for the benefit of prize-winners in the athletic games, and a statue was
erected there to his son
Herod the Tetrarch
(“C. I. G.” 2502 ).
Paul
briefly visited here according to
Acts 21:1
.

Except for occasional incursions by
corsairs
and some severe earthquakes, the
island has rarely had its peace disturbed. Following the lead of its larger
neighbour, Rhodes, Kos generally displayed a friendly attitude toward the
Romans; in 53 AD it was made a
free city
.
Lucian
(125–180) mentions their manufacture of
semi-transparent light dresses, a fashion success.

The
bishopric
of Cos was a
suffragan
of the
metropolitan see
of
Rhodes
. Its bishop Meliphron attended the
First Council of Nicaea
in 325. Eddesius was
one of the minority Eastern bishops who withdrew from the
Council of Sardica
in about 344 and set up a
rival council at Philippopolis. Iulianus went to the synod held in
Constantinople in 448 in preparation for the
Council of Chalcedon
of 451, in which he
participated as a legate of
Pope Leo I
, and he was a signatory of the joint
letter that the bishops of the
Roman province
of
Insulae
sent in 458 to
Byzantine Emperor

Leo I the Thracian
with regard to the killing
of
Proterius of Alexandria
. Dorotheus took part in
a synod in 518. Georgius was a participant of the
Third Council of Constantinople
in 680–681.
Constantinus went to the
Photian

Council of Constantinople (879)
. Under
Byzantine
rule, apart from the participation of
its bishops in councils, the island’s history remains obscure. It was governed
by a droungarios
in the 8th/9th centuries, and
seems to have acquired some importance in the 11th and 12th centuries:
Nikephoros Melissenos
began his uprising here,
and in the middle of the 12th century, it was governed by a scion of the ruling
Komnenos
dynasty, Nikephoros Komnenos.

Today the metropolis of Kos remains under the direct authority of the
Patriarchate of Constantinople
, rather than the
Church of Greece
, and is also listed by the
Catholic Church
as a
titular see
.

Following the
Fourth Crusade
, Kos passed under
Genoese
control, although it was retaken in ca.
1224 and kept for a while by the
Empire of Nicaea
. In the 1320s, Kos nominally
formed part of the realm of
Martino Zaccaria
, but was most likely in the
hands of
Turkish corsairs
until ca. 1337, when the
Knights Hospitaller
took over the island. The
last Hospitaller governor of the island was
Piero de Ponte
.

The
Ottoman Empire
captured the island in early
1523. The Ottomans ruled Kos for 400 years, neglecting the island, until it was
transferred to Italy
in 1912 after the
Italo-Turkish War
. The Italians developed the
infrastructures of the island, after the ruinous earthquake of 23 April 1933,
which destroyed a great part of the old city and damaged many new buildings.
Architect Rodolfo Petracco drew up the new city plan, transforming the old
quarters into an archaeological park, and dividing the new city into a
residential, an administrative, and a commercial area.,^[27]
In World War II
, the island, as Italian
possession, was part of the
Axis
. It was controlled by Italian troops until
the Italian surrender in 1943. On that occasion, 100 Italian officers who had
refused to join the Germans were executed. British and German forces then
clashed for control of the island in the
Battle of Kos
as part of the
Dodecanese Campaign
, in which the Germans were
victorious. German troops occupied the island until 1945, when it became a
protectorate of the United Kingdom, which ceded it to Greece in 1947.^{[citation
needed]}

In the late 1920s about 3,700 Turks lived in Kos, slightly less than 50% of
the population, settled mainly in the west part of the city.

A 21-month British child disappeared in 1991
,
triggering an extensive investigation and international publicity. The child has
never been found.

In 2011, Kos city was merged with two other municipalities, creating the new
Kos municipality: the three municipalities became municipal units:

Dikaios
,
Irakleides
, and Kos.

Geography

Kos is in the Aegean Sea. Its coastline is 112 kilometres (70 miles) long and
it extends from west to east.

In addition to the main town and port, also called Kos, the main villages of
Kos island are
Kardamena
,
Kefalos
, Tingaki, Antimachia, Mastihari,
Marmari and Pyli. Smaller ones are Zia, Zipari, Platani, Lagoudi and Asfendiou.

Geology

The island is part of a
chain of mountains
from which it became
separated after earthquakes and subsidence that occurred in ancient times. These
mountains include
Kalymnos
and
Kappari
which are separated by an underwater
chasm c. 70 metres (230 ft) (40
fathoms
deep), as well as the
volcano
of
Nisyros
and the surrounding islands.^{[citation
needed]}

There is a wide variety of rocks in Kos which is related to its geographical
formation. Prominent among these are the
Quaternary
layers in which the
fossil
remains of
mammals
such as horses,
hippopotami
and elephants have been found.^{[citation
needed]} The fossilised
molar
of an elephant of gigantic proportions
was presented to the
Paleontology
Museum of the
University of Athens
.^{[citation
needed]}

Demographics

Turks

There is a
Turkish
community in Kos, whose population has
been estimated at about two thousand.^[29][30]

Religion

 

The main religion practiced is
Greek Orthodoxy
. Kos has one of the four
cathedrals in the entire Dodecanese. There is also a Roman Catholic church on
the island as well as a Mosque catering to the Turkish-speaking Muslim community
of Kos. The Synagogue is no longer used for religious ceremonies as the
Jewish community
of Kos was
practically wiped out
by the
Nazis
in World War II. It has, however, been
restored and is maintained with all religious symbols intact and is now used by
the Municipality of Kos for various events, mainly cultural.

Economy

Tourism is the primary industry.^{[citation
needed]} Some are attracted to the beaches. The main
port
and population centre on the island, also
called Kos, is also the tourist and cultural centre, with whitewashed buildings
including many hotels, restaurants and a small number of nightclubs forming the
Kos town “barstreet”.

Farming
is the second principal occupation,
with the main crops being grapes,
almonds
,
figs
,
olives
, and tomatoes, along with wheat and
corn
.^{[citation
needed]}
Cos lettuce
may be grown here, but the name is
unrelated.

Landmarks

Castles

 

The island has a 14th-century
fortress
at the entrance to its
harbour
, erected in 1315 by the
Knights Hospitaller
, and another from the
Byzantine period in Antimachia.

Ancient Agora

 

The ancient market place of Kos was considered one of the biggest in the
ancient world. It was the commercial and commanding centre at the heart of the
ancient city. It was organized around a spacious rectangular yard 50 metres
(160 ft) wide and 300 metres (980 ft) long. It began in the Northern area and
ended up south on the central road (Decumanus) which went through the city. The
northern side connected to the city wall towards the entrance to the harbour.
Here there was a monumental entrance. On the eastern side there were shops. In
the first half of the 2nd century BC, the building was extended toward the
interior yard. The building was destroyed in an earthquake in 469 AD.

In the southern end of the Market, there was a round building with a
Roman dome
and a workshop which produced
pigments including “Egyptian
Blue”. Coins, treasures, and copper statues from Roman times were
later uncovered by archeologists. In the western side excavations led to the
findings of rooms with mosaic floors which showed beastfights, a theme quite
popular in Kos.

 

Culture

 

The ancient physician Hippocrates is thought to have been born on Kos, and in
the center of the town is the
Plane Tree of Hippocrates
, a
dream temple
where the physician is
traditionally supposed to have taught. The limbs of the now elderly tree are
supported by scaffolding. The small city is also home to the International
Hippocratic Institute and the
Hippocratic Museum
dedicated to him. Near the
Institute are the ruins of
Asklepieion
, where
Herodicus
taught Hippocrates medicine.
Kardamena is a popular resort for young British holidaymakers and has a large
number of bars and nightclubs.

Notable people

• Hippocrates
  (5th century BC), “father of
  medicine”.
• Apelles
  (4th century BC), painter.
• Michael Kefalianos
  , professional
  bodybuilder.
• Marika Papagika
  , early 20th century singer.
• Al Campanis
  , (20th century) Major League
  Baseball player and executive.
• Stergos Marinos
  , international
  footballer
  currently playing for
  Panathinaikos
  .
• Şükrü Kaya

  Turkish
  politician, served as
  Minister of the Interior
  and
  Minister of Foreign Affairs
  of
  Turkey
  .

Gallery>Galleryry

• 

  Ruins of Apollo Temple, Asclepeion

• 

  Windmill, Antimachia

• 

  Medieval Phoros Gate, Kos town

• 

  <div class="gallerytKos town hall

• 

  Eleftherias Square, Kos town

• 

  Archeological museum of Koseum of Kos

• 

  Jewish synagogue

• 

  Logoudi village

• 

  Evangelistria Church of Zia

• 

  Agia Paraskevi church, Kos town