LYCIAN LEAGUE Masikytes Lycia 48BC Apollo Lyre Ancient Silver Greek Coin i53661

Item: i53661

Authentic Ancient 

Coin of:

Greek coin of the

Lycian League
Silver Hemidrachm 14mm (1.41 grams)

Masikytes mint

Lycia, struck circa 48-42 B.C.
Reference: Troxell Period IV, Series 1, 87.3; 
RPC I 3301
Laureate head of Apollo right.
Lyre; plectrum to lower left; M – A in fields; all 
within rectangular incuse.

Masikytes was a mountainous region of central southern Lycia, 
east of the Xanthos river. It would seem that Myra was the chief town of the 
Monetary District and the principal mint for the coinage issued in the name of 
Masikytes. Situated on the river Myros, close to the sea, Myra was an important 
town and principal mint for the Monetary District of Masikytes.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, 

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.

Lycian League

Formation

The Lycian League (Lukiakou systema in Strabo’s Greek transliterated, a 
"standing together") is first known from two inscriptions of the early 2nd 
century BC in which it honors two citizens. Bryce hypothesizes that it was 
formed as an agent to convince Rome to rescind the annexation of Lycia to
Rhodes
. Lycia had been under Rhodian control 
since the
Peace of Apamea
in 188 BC. A fragment from

Livy records a "pitiful embassy" in 178 BC from Lycia to the Roman 
Senate complaining that the Lycians were being treated as slaves. Whipping had 
been instituted as corporeal punishment and the women and children were being 
abused. The Romans sent back a stern warning with the Lycians to Rhodes saying 
that they had not intended the Lycians or any other people born in freedom to be 
enslaved by Rhodes, and that the assignment was only a protectorate. A fragment 
from Polybius
tells a slightly different version of 
the story, which has the Romans sending legates to Rhodes to say that "the 
Lycians had not been handed over to Rhodes as a gift, but to be treated like 
friends and allies." The Rhodians sent an embassy in return claiming that the 
Lycians had made the story up for reasons of their own and that in fact they 
were a financial burden on Rhodes.

The continuation of the story did not survive, but in 168 BC, Rome took Lycia 
away from Rhodes and turned over home rule to the League. There was no question 
of independence. Lycia was not to be sovereign, only self-governing under 
republican principles. It could neither negotiate with foreign powers nor 
disobey the Roman Senate. It was not independent. It could govern its own people 
and for a time mint its own coins as a right granted by Rome. It did not 
determine its own borders. Land and people could be assigned or taken away by 
the Senate. Remarking on this protectorate Strabo says of the government:

"Formerly they deliberated about war and peace, and alliances, but this 
is not now permitted, as these things are under the control of the Romans. 
It is only done by their consent, or when it may be for their own 
advantage."

Exactly what such a statement might imply is uncertain. Lycia had not been a 
sovereign state for some time. Whether the Lycian League as such is meant, 
implying that it existed anciently, or some other similar government is meant, 
is not clear. The statement does not say also whether there was a gap between 
the former sovereign state and the new Lycian League, or whether they are to be 
conceived as chronologically continuous.

Composition

According to Strabo, the league comprised some 23 known
city-states
as members.
Lucius Licinius Murena
(elder), Roman consul, 
added three more in 81 BC:
Balbura
,
Bubon
and
Oenoanda
, which he had stripped from another
systema to the north, the Tetrapolis, Cibyratis, or Cabalian League. It was 
dominated by the city of Cibyra (Kibyra), 
which formed a league approximately contemporaneously with the Lycian League. 
Cibyra ruled the
Turkish Lakes Region
. It was called Cibyra 
Megale, "Greater Cibyra," to distinguish it from
Cibyra Mikra
or "Little Cibyra" (today near 
Okurcalar) near Side
. The lakes region is a string of alpine 
valleys in the folds of the Taurus Mountains, which have no natural exits. 
Instead they have collected lakes. Cibyra was on a low hill to the west of 
Gölhisar Valley and Gölhisar Lake, just north of
Gölhisar
.

Cibyra dominated an ancient region, Cabalis, which was divided between the 
later states of Lycia,
Pisidia
and
Lydia
, subsequently incorporated in
Phrygia
. According to Strabo, it spoke four 
languages,
Lydian
, even though Lydian had disappeared 
elsewhere, Greek, Pisidian and "that of the
Solymi
." Cabalis, which was later divided into 
Lycian and Asian Cabalis, was the putative home of the Solymi. It included the 
Milyas District of Lycia, putatively the home of the first Lycians. It is 
possible that they spoke a form of Anatolian earlier than the attested Lycian, 
which some have dubbed "Milyan." A further connection of this "Milyan" with 
Lycian B of the
Xanthian Obelisk
is pure fantasy.

Unlike the Lycian League, the Cibyratis was ruled by a succession of 
deliberately ostentatious and high-handed tyrants. Having become a thorn in the 
side of Rome, they attracted the attention of
Gnaeus Manlius Vulso
, commander of the Roman 
armies successfully fighting the
Galatian War
of 189 BC. Manlius turned toward 
Cibyratis with the intent of removing the thorn. The tyrant, Moagetes, barely 
escaped with his life and his position by entering the Roman camp dressed in 
humble clothing, with a handful of similarly dressed assistants, claiming 
destitution and begging for mercy. He offered a payment of 15 talents. Manlius 
set the payment at 500 talents, a huge sum, impossible of payment. Finally moved 
to mercy, he allowed Moagetes to bargain him down to 100 and a substantial 
payment of grain, necessary to the Roman commissary.

When the Romans had departed Moagetes dropped the pretense, and Cibyratis 
resumed its arrogance. Consequently, when Murena did finally deal with Cibyratis, 
he had no political mercy. Strabo says that Bubon and Balbura were transferred 
to the Lycian League forthwith. He does not mention Oenoanda, but it had been a 
city of the Lycians anyway. It minted coinage of the League subsequently. There 
is no evidence that Cibyra was ever admitted to the League, although that 
assumption sometimes is made. It was in Asian Cabalia and as such was joined to 
Phrygia later, an event supported by their coin issues. The last tyrant of the 
Tetrapolis was also named Moagetes, a different one, unless the term was a 
title, or Strabo made a mistake.

The 23 at first and then 26 city states joined together in a federal-style 
government that shared political and economic resources. A “Lyciarch” was 
elected by a senate (συνέδριον, synedrion, "sitting together") that convened by 
agreement beforehand at "what city they please." Each member had one, two or 
three votes (presumably by different representatives), depending on the city’s 
size. The diminishment of some cities over time caused them to join with the 
major state in their vicinity to form a sympolity. In that case they lost their 
vote (if they had one) assuming an influence in the vote of the major city. 
After election of the Lyciarch the Senate voted for the other public officials 
and the magistrates. The League’s government took precedence, but, as in many 
federal systems, the issue was not entirely settled, and the resulting civil 
conflict led to the dissolution of the union.

Strabo identified the major cities of the League; that is, the three-vote 
cities, as Xanthos
,
Patara
,
Pinara
,
Olympos
,

Myra, and Tlos
, with Patara as the capital. The full 
complement has been identified by a study of the coins and mention in other 
texts. The coins recognize two districts, termed, for want of a better term, 
"monetary districts:" Masicytus and Cragus, both named after mountain ranges, in 
the shadow of which, presumably, the communities lived and conducted business. 
Where coinage before the Lycian League had often been stamped LY for Lycia, it 
was now stamped KP (kr) or MA.

Treaty with Rome

An inscription from Tyberissos records the treaty between Rome and Lycian 
League, which is of a type the Romans called a foedus. It was much used 
between Italian cities and Rome, except that their treaties provided for 
contributions to Rome, but this one does not. There is a general statement and 
four clauses. The general statement establishes "peace, friendship, and loyal 
alliance … by land and sea for all time." The four clauses provide for 
neutrality of Rome to the enemies of the Lycian League, neutrality of the Lycian 
League to the enemies of Rome, mutual assistance in the case of first aggression 
by an enemy against either, and alteration of the treaty only by joint 
agreement. The treaty is written as though between independent and co-equal 
states, but all parties knew that this was conventional hypocrisy. The Lycian 
League was subject to the decisions of the Roman Senate and the decrees of the 
Roman emperors, but not vice versa. Only the Roman state was powerful.

Roman period

In 43 AD, the emperor
Claudius
annexed Lycia to the
Roman Empire
as a province and by the time of
Vespasian
, it was united with
Pamphylia
as a Roman province. The heir of
Augustus
,
Gaius Caesar
, was killed there in 4 AD.

Myra is an ancient town in
Lycia
, where the small town of Kale (Demre) 
is situated today in present day
Antalya Province
of
Turkey
. It was located on the river Myros (Demre 
Çay), in the fertile
alluvial plain
between Alaca Dağ, the 
Massikytos range and the
Aegean Sea
.

Ancient Greek theatre
of Myra, with 
the rock-cut tombs of the ancient
Lycian

necropolis
on the cliff in the 
background.

//

 Historical 
evidence

Although some scholars equate Myra with the town Mira in
Arzawa
, there is no proof for the connection. 
There is no substantiated written reference for Myra before it was listed as a 
member of the Lycian alliance (168 
BC – AD 43); according to
Strabo
(14:665) it was one of the largest towns 
of the alliance.

The
Greek
citizens worshipped
Artemis

Eleutheria
, who was the protective goddess of 
the town. Zeus
,
Athena
and
Tyche
were venerated as well.

The ruins of the Lycian and Roman town are mostly covered by alluvial silts. 
The Acropolis
on the Demre-plateau, the Roman
theatre
and the
Roman baths
(eski hamam) have been 
partly excavated. The semi-circular theater was destroyed in an
earthquake
in 141, but rebuilt afterwards.

Rock-cut tombs in Myra.

There are two
necropoli
of
Lycian

rock-cut tombs
in the form of temple-fronts 
carved into the vertical faces of cliffs at Myra: the river-necropolis and the 
ocean-necropolis. The ocean necropolis is just northwest of the theater. The 
best known tomb in the river-necropolis (located 1.5 km up the Demre Cayi from 
the theater) is the "Lion’s tomb,"also called the "Painted Tomb." When the 
traveller
Charles Fellows
saw the tombs in 1840 he found 
them still colorfully painted red, yellow and blue.

Andriake
was the harbour of Myra in classical 
times, but silted up later on. The main structure there surviving to the present 
day is a granary built during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (117–138 
CE). Beside this granary is a large heap of Murex shells, evidence that 
Andriake had an ongoing operation for the production of purple dye.^[1]

In early Christian times, Myra was the
metropolis
of
Lycia
. The town is traditionally associated 
with
Saint Paul
, who changed ships in its harbor.
Saint

Nicholas of Myra
was the
bishop
of Myra in the 4th century, and was an 
ardent opponent of
Arianism
at the
First Council of Nicaea
in 325. Myra became the 
capital of the Byzantine
Eparchy
of Lycia under
Theodosius II
, who reigned from 408 to 450.

 Siege 
of 809

Saint Nicholas of Myra
Saves Three 
Innocents from Death (oil painting by
Ilya Repin
, 1888,
State Russian Museum
).

After a siege
in 809, Myra fell to
Abbasid
troops under
Caliph

Harun al-Rashid
. The town went into a decline 
afterwards. Early in the reign of
Alexius I Comnenus
(ruled between 1081 and 
1118), Myra was again overtaken by Islamic invaders, this time the
Seljuk Turks
. In the confusion, sailors from

Bari in Italy seized the
relics
of Saint Nicholas, over the objections 
of the monks
caring for them, and spirited the remains 
away to Bari, where they arrived on May 9, 1087, and soon brought that city 
visitors making
pilgrimage
to Saint Nicholas.

 The 
church of St. Nicholas at Myra

The original tomb of St. Nicholas at the
basilica
in Myra.

The earliest church of St. Nicholas at Myra was built in the 6th century. The 
present-day church was constructed mainly from the 8th century onward; a
monastery
was added in the second half of the 
11th century.

In 1863, Tsar

Alexander II of Russia
purchased the building 
and began restoration, but the work was never finished. In 1963 the eastern and 
southern sides of the church were excavated. In 1968 the former
confessio
(tomb) of St. Nicholas was roofed 
over.

The floor of the church is made of
opus sectile
, a
mosaic
of coloured marble, and there are some 
remains of frescoes
on the walls. An
ancient Greek

marble

sarcophagus
had been reused to bury the Saint; 
but his bones were stolen in 1087 by merchants from

Bari, and are now held in the
cathedral of that city
.

The church is currently undergoing restoration. In 2007 the Turkish Ministry 
of Culture gave permission for the
Divine Liturgy
to be celebrated in the church 
for the first time in centuries.