MENAINON in SICILY 2ndCenBC Demeter Torches RARE R1 Ancient Greek Coin i51983

Item: i51983

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of

Bronze 16mm (2.96 grams) Struck late 2nd century B.C.
Reference: HGC 2, 761 (Rare
R1); CNS III, pp. 187-188, nos. 9-10
Veiled bust of Demeter right.
MENA/INΩN, Crossed torches; value mark (four pellets) below.

 Founded in 459 B.C., Menainon was the subject to Syracuse for much
of its history down to the time of the Roman conquest at the end of the 3rd
Century.

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In
Greek mythology
,
Demeter was the goddess
of the harvest, who presided over
grains
, the
fertility
of the earth, the
seasons
(personified by the
Hours
), and the
harvest
. One of her surnames is Sito (σίτος:
wheat) as the giver of food or corn. Though Demeter is often described simply as
the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of
marriage
, the
sacred law
, and the cycle of
life and death
. She and her daughter
Persephone
were the central figures of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
that also predated the
Olympian pantheon.

Her
Roman
cognate is
Ceres
.

Sicily (Italian:
Sicilia

[siˈtʃiːlja]
) is the
largest island
in the
Mediterranean Sea
; along with surrounding minor
islands, it constitutes an
autonomous region
of
Italy
, and it is officially referred to as
Regione Siciliana (Sicilian Region).

Sicily
is located in the central Mediterranean. It extends from the tip of the
Apennine peninsula
, from which it is separated
only by the narrow
Strait of Messina
, towards the North African
coast. Its most prominent landmark is
Mount Etna
, which, at 3,350 m (10,990 ft), is
the tallest active
volcano
in Europe and one of the most active in
the world. The island has a typical
Mediterranean climate
.

The earliest
archeological evidence
of human dwelling on the
island dates from as early as 8000 BC. At around 750 BC, Sicily was host to a
number of Phoenician
and
Greek colonies
, and for the next 600 years, it
was the site of the
Greek–Punic
and
Roman–Punic wars
, which ended with the
Roman

destruction
of
Carthage
. After the fall of the
Roman Empire
in the 5th century AD, Sicily
frequently changed hands, and during the early Middle Ages, it was ruled in turn
by the Vandals
,
Ostrogoths
,
Byzantines
,
Arabs
and
Normans
. Later on, the
Kingdom of Sicily
lasted between 1130 and 1816,
first subordinated to the crowns of
Aragon
,
Spain
, and the
Holy Roman Empire
, and then finally unified
under the
Bourbons
with
Naples
, as the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
. Following the
Expedition of the Thousand
, a
Giuseppe Garibaldi
-led revolt during the
Italian Unification
process and a plebiscite,
it became part of Italy in 1860. After the
birth of the Italian Republic
in 1946, Sicily
was given special status as an autonomous region.

Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the
arts
,
music
,
literature
,
cuisine
and
architecture
. It also holds importance for
archeological
and ancient sites such as the
Necropolis of Pantalica
, the
Valley of the Temples
and
Selinunte
.

The term “Sicily” is believed to derive from the radix sik, term of
Indo-Germanic origin that  denotes enlargement and growth, and from the
suffix -ilia (land). In the Greek language the radix sik is used to
identify certain fruits that grow rapidly as the fig tree (sikè) or
pumpkin (sikùs). So Sicily would mean “the land of fertility, fertility
island”.