Lysimacheia in Thrace 309BC Ancient Greek Coin Young Hercules NIke i33978

Item: i33978

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of Lysimacheia in Thrace
Bronze 17mm (3.26 grams) Struck 309-281 B.C.
Head of young Hercules right, in lion’s skin.
ΛYΣΙΜΑ / XΕΩΝ either side of Nike standing facing,
holding wreath and palm.

Founded by Lysimachos in 309
B.C., close to the site of Kardia which he had destroyed, this city became the
principal residence and European mint of the King of Thrace.

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Authenticity.

In
Greek mythology
,
Nike

was a goddess
who personified
victory
, also known as the Winged Goddess of
Victory. The Roman equivalent was
Victoria
. Depending upon the time of various
myths, she was described as the daughter of
Pallas
(Titan) and

Styx (Water) and the sister of
Kratos
(Strength),
Bia
(Force), and
Zelus
(Zeal). Nike and her siblings were close
companions of Zeus
, the dominant deity of the
Greek pantheon
. According to classical (later)
myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when

the
god was assembling allies for the
Titan War
against the older deities. Nike
assumed the role of the divine
charioteer
, a role in which she often is
portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the
victors with glory and fame.

Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings. Most other winged
deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is
the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance
of Athena
, and is thought to have stood in
Athena’s outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon.
Nike is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins.

Names stemming from Nike include amongst others:
Nicholas
, Nicola, Nick, Nikolai, Nils, Klaas,
Nicole, Ike, Niki, Nikita, Nika, Niketas, and Nico.

Hercules and the Hydra (ca.
1475) byAntonio
del Pollaiuolo the
hero wears his characteristic lionskin and wields a club

Hercules is the Roman name for
the Greek divine hero Heracles,
who was the son of Zeus (Roman
equivalent Jupiter)
and the mortal Alcmene.
In classical
mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous
far-ranging adventures.

The Romans adapted the Greek hero’s iconography and myths for their literature
and art under the name Hercules.
In later Western
art and literature and in popular
culture, Hercules is
more commonly used than Heracles as
the name of the hero. Hercules was a multifaceted figure with contradictory
characteristics, which enabled later artists and writers to pick and choose how
to represent him. This article
provides an introduction to representations of Hercules in the later
tradition.

Labours

Hercules capturing theErymanthian
Boar, by J.M.
Félix Magdalena (b.
1941)

Hercules is known for his many adventures, which took him to the far reaches of
the Greco-Roman
world. One cycle of these adventures became canonical as
the “Twelve Labours,” but the list has variations. One traditional order of the
labours is found in theBibliotheca as
follows:

1. Slay the Nemean
   Lion.
2. Slay the nine-headed Lernaean
   Hydra.
3. Capture the Golden
   Hind of Artemis.
4. Capture the Erymanthian
   Boar.
5. Clean the Augean stables
   in a single day.
6. Slay the Stymphalian
   Birds.
7. Capture the Cretan
   Bull.
8. Steal the Mares
   of Diomedes.
9. Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta,
   Queen of the Amazons.
10. Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon.
11. Steal the apples of the Hesperides.
12. Capture and bring back Cerberus.

Side adventures

Hercules had a greater number of “deeds
on the side” (parerga) that
have been popular subjects for art, including:

• 

  Killing a
  fire-breathingCacus (Sebald
  Beham, 1545)

   

• 

  Holding up
  the world forAtlas (based
  on Heinrich
  Aldegrever, 1550)

   

• 

  Wrestling
  with Achelous(16th-century
  plaque)

   

• 

  Fighting the
  giant Antaeus(Auguste
  Couder, 1819)

   

• 

  Retrieving Alcestis from
  the underworld (Paul
  Cézanne, 1867)

   

• 

  Freeing Prometheus(Christian
  Griepenkerl, 1878)

Roman era

The Latin name Hercules was
borrowed through Etruscan,
where it is represented variously as Heracle,
Hercle, and other forms. Hercules was a favorite subject for Etruscan
art, and appears often on bronze
mirrors. The Etruscan form Herceler derives
from the Greek Heracles via syncope.
A mild oath invoking Hercules (Hercule! or Mehercle!)
was a common interjection in Classical
Latin.

Baby Hercules strangling asnake sent
to kill him in his cradle(Roman
marble, 2nd century CE)

Hercules had a number of myths that
were distinctly Roman. One of these is Hercules’ defeat of Cacus,
who was terrorizing the countryside of Rome. The hero was associated with the Aventine
Hill through his son Aventinus. Mark
Antony considered him a personal
patron god, as did the emperor Commodus.
Hercules received various forms of religious
veneration, including as a deity
concerned with children and childbirth, in part because of myths about his
precocious infancy, and in part because he fathered countless children. Roman
brides wore a special belt tied with the “knot
of Hercules”, which was supposed to be hard to untie. The
comic playwright Plautus presents
the myth of Hercules’ conception as a sex comedy in his play Amphitryon; Senecawrote
the tragedy Hercules Furens about
his bout with madness. During the Roman
Imperial era, Hercules was worshipped locally from Hispania through Gaul.

Germanic association

Tacitus records a special
affinity of the Germanic
peoples for Hercules. In chapter
3 of his Germania,
Tacitus states:

… they say that
Hercules, too, once visited them; and when going into battle, they sang of
him first of all heroes. They have also those songs of theirs, by the
recital of this barditus as
they call it, they rouse their courage, while from the note they augur the
result of the approaching conflict. For, as their line shouts, they inspire
or feel alarm.

In the Roman era Hercules’
Club amulets appear from the 2nd
to 3rd century, distributed over the empire (including Roman
Britain, c.f. Cool 1986), mostly made of gold, shaped like wooden clubs. A
specimen found in Köln-Nippes bears
the inscription “DEO HER[culi]”,
confirming the association with Hercules.

In the 5th to 7th centuries, during the Migration
Period, the amulet is theorized to have rapidly spread from the Elbe
Germanic area across Europe.
These Germanic “Donar’s
Clubs” were made from deer antler, bone or wood, more rarely also from bronze or
precious metals.They are found exclusively in female graves, apparently worn
either as a belt pendant, or as an ear pendant. The amulet type is replaced by
the Viking
Age Thor’s
hammer pendants in the course of
the Christianization
of Scandinavia from the 8th to
9th century.

Medieval mythography

Hercules and the Nemean
lionin the 15th-century Histoires
de Troyes

After the Roman Empire became Christianized,
mythological narratives were often reinterpreted as allegory,
influenced by the philosophy of late
antiquity. In the 4th century, Servius had
described Hercules’ return from the underworld as representing his ability to
overcome earthly desires and vices, or the earth itself as a consumer of bodies. In
medieval mythography, Hercules was one of the heroes seen as a strong role model
who demonstrated both valor and wisdom, with the monsters he battles as moral
obstacles. One glossator noted
that when Hercules
became a constellation, he showed that strength was necessary to gain
entrance to Heaven.

Medieval mythography was written almost entirely in Latin, and original Greek
texts were little used as sources for Hercules’ myths.

Renaissance mythography

The Renaissance and
the invention of the printing
press brought a renewed interest
in and publication of Greek literature. Renaissance mythography drew more
extensively on the Greek tradition of Heracles, typically under the Romanized
name Hercules, or the alternate name Alcides.
In a chapter of his book Mythologiae (1567),
the influential mythographer Natale
Conti collected and summarized an
extensive range of myths concerning the birth, adventures, and death of the hero
under his Roman name Hercules. Conti begins his lengthy chapter on Hercules with
an overview description that continues the moralizing impulse of the Middle
Ages:

Hercules, who
subdued and destroyed monsters, bandits, and criminals, was justly famous
and renowned for his great courage. His great and glorious reputation was
worldwide, and so firmly entrenched that he’ll always be remembered. In fact
the ancients honored him with his own temples, altars, ceremonies, and
priests. But it was his wisdom and great soul that earned those honors;
noble blood, physical strength, and political power just aren’t good enough.

In art

In Roman works of art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance art, Hercules can
be identified by his attributes, the lion
skin and the gnarled club (his
favorite weapon); in mosaic he
is shown tanned bronze, a virile aspect.

Roman era

• 

  Hercules of the Forum Boarium (Hellenistic,
  2nd century BCE)

   

• 

  Hercules and Iolaus (1st
  century CE mosaic from the Anzio Nymphaeum, Rome)

   

• 

  Hercules (Hatra,
  Iraq,Parthian
  period, 1st-2nd century CE)

   

• 

  Hercules
  bronze statuette, 2nd century CE (museum of Alanya, Turkey)

   

• 

  Hercules and
  the Nemean
  Lion (detail), silver plate,
  6th century (Cabinet
  des Médailles, Paris)

Modern era

• 

  The Giant
  Hercules (1589) by Hendrik
  Goltzius

   

• 

  The
  Drunken Hercules(1612-1614) by Rubens

   

• 

  Hercules in
  the Augean
  stable (1842, Honoré
  Daumier)

   

• 

  Comic book cover
  (c.1958)

   

• 

  Hercules, Deianira and
  the Centaur Nessus, byBartholomäus
  Spranger, 1580 – 1582

   

• 

  Henry IV of France, as Hercules vanquishing theLernaean
  Hydra (i.e. theCatholic
  League), byToussaint
  Dubreuil, circa 1600. Louvre
  Museum

In numismatics

Hercules was among the earliest figures on ancient Roman coinage, and has been
the main motif of many collector coins and medals since. One example is the 20
euro Baroque Silver coin issued
on September 11, 2002. The obverse side of the coin shows the Grand Staircase in
the town palace of Prince
Eugene of Savoy in Vienna,
currently the Austrian Ministry of Finance. Gods and demi-gods hold
its flights, while Hercules stands at the turn of the stairs.

• 

  Juno, with Hercules fighting a Centaur on
  reverse (Roman, 215–15 BCE)

   

• 

  Club over
  his shoulder on a Roman denarius (ca.
  100 BCE)

   

• 

  Maximinus II and
  Hercules with club and lionskin (Roman, 313 CE)

   

• 

  Commemorative 5-francpiece
  (1996), Hercules in center

Other cultural
references

• 

  Pillars of Hercules, representing the Strait
  of Gibraltar (19th-century
  conjecture of the Tabula
  Peutingeriana)

   

• 

  The Cudgel of Hercules, a tall limestone rock
  formation, with Pieskowa
  Skała Castle in the
  background

   

• 

  Hercules as heraldic
  supporters in the royal
  arms of Greece,
  in use 1863–1973. The phrase “Ηρακλείς του στέμματος” (“Defenders of
  the Crown”) has pejorative connotations (“chief henchmen”) in Greek.

In films

A series of nineteen Italian Hercules movies were made in the late 1950s and
early 1960s. The actors who played Hercules in these films were Steve
Reeves, Gordon
Scott, Kirk Morris, Mickey
Hargitay, Mark Forest, Alan Steel, Dan
Vadis, Brad
Harris, Reg
Park, Peter
Lupus (billed as Rock
Stevens) and Michael Lane. A number of English-dubbed Italian films that
featured the name of Hercules in their title were not intended to be movies
about Hercules.