225- 227 A.D., wife of  Severus Alexander
Bronze 30mm (15.42 grams) of Side in Pamphylia
Reference: SNG Pfalz 734; Lindgren III 667; SNG France III, 845; Paris 636 var.
ΓN CEI CAΛΛ BAΡB OΡBIANH CEB, draped bust right; [COUNTERMARK: Є within incuse circle].
CIΔHTΩN, Tyche, turreted, sitting left on rock, holding corn-ears and a poppy, the river-god Melas swimming left at her feet.

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Countermarked Coin is a coin marked after being minted and while it is in circulation. Marking can mean that the coin is fit for circulation or has been revalued. The latter is the case for countries that experience rapid changes in inflation and need to quickly change currency valuations. On ancient Greek and Roman bronze coins, there were ones that circulated so much and their designs have been therefore worn beyond recognition. This happened on many coins of emperor Augustus, whose coins circulated many decades and sometimes up to a century or more. In order to save money and energy producing new coins, what the ancients would do is make an incuse punch with either letters or symbols. What this allowed is for the coin to continue circulating because it was officially countermarked to be a valid coin of the realm. There are many interesting types of coins with countermarks to collect in ancient Greek and Roman numismatic coins. What is interesting about countermarked coins is that they truly have passed so many hands, that, just to imagine it, could amaze anyone.

Tyche (meaning “luck”; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. She is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes.

In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, or considered as one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon (“good spirit”).

The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche.

Worship

Increasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities venerated their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown (a crown like the walls of the city).

Tyche had temples at Caesarea Maritima, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. In Alexandria the Tychaeon, the temple of Tyche, was described by Libanius as one of the most magnificent of the entire Hellenistic world.

She was uniquely venerated at Itanos in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia, linked with the Athenian Protogeneia (“firstborn”), daughter of Erechtheus, whose self-sacrifice saved the city.

Stylianos Spyridakis concisely expressed Tyche’s appeal in a Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: “In the turbulent years of the Epigoni of Alexander, an awareness of the instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the vicissitudes of the time.”

Depictions

Tyche appears on many coins of the Hellenistic period in the three centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean. Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of Hellenistic romances, such as Leucippe and Clitophon or Daphnis and Chloe. She experienced a resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly sanctioned Paganism, between the late-fourth-century emperors Julian and Theodosius I who definitively closed the temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot.

In medieval art, she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia, an emblematic ship’s rudder, and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate.

The constellation of Virgo is sometimes identified as the heavenly figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as Demeter and Astraea.

River-gods were represented often on Greek, Greek Imperial (Roman Provincial) and Roman Imperial coins, as a personification of a river that flowed through that area, as it was an important feature of a city. The coins of the Roman Republic do not have any representations of river gods. Some river gods represented on ancient coins were that of the Tiber, Nile, Danube and many more. River gods on ancient Roman coins are most often depicted on Roman provincial issues (another term for Greek Imperial). There are also Greek coins that depicted personifications of river-gods usually as the head of that god. On Greek Imperial coins, the river-god is usually depicted reclining, holding reeds, and leaning on over-turned jug from which water flows.

Side (Greek: Σίδη Side, Turkish: Side) was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, in the region of Pamphylia, in what is now Antalya province, on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. It is now a resort town and one of the best-known classical sites in Turkey, near Manavgat and the village of Selimiye, 75 km from Antalya) in the province of Antalya.

It is located on the eastern part of the Pamphylian coast, which lies about 20 km east of the mouth of the Eurymedon River. Today, as in antiquity, the ancient city is situated on a small north-south peninsula about 1 km long and 400 m across.

Seia Herennia Sallustia Barbia Orbiana Augusta (fl. 220s), also known as Barbia Orbiana, was an Augusta of the Roman Empire and briefly the wife of Emperor Severus Alexander. She was known for her beauty, which was captured in multiple works of art. Following the execution of her father Seius Sallustius, she was exiled to North Africa, after only two years as empress.

Orbiana was born to influential Roman Senator Seius Sallustius in the early Third Century CE. In August 225, at about the age of 16 years, she wed Roman Emperor Severus Alexander in an arrangement organized by the emperor’s mother, Julia Mamaea. After Orbiana was given the title of Augusta, Mamaea grew jealous, due to her desire for complete ownership of all feminine imperial titles, and the strong bond that developed between Orbiana and Severus. She treated Orbiana cruelly, forcing her to seek refuge with her father, Sallustius, who is believed to had been appointed as a Caesar. Sallustius consulted with the Praetorian Guard for protection of Orbiana, but the act was determined to be treasonous. In August 227, Sallustius was executed, and Orbiana was stripped of her title, divorced and exiled to the province of Libya in North Africa. Severus Alexander had the power to intervene, but chose not to. He and his mother later died during the usurpation by Maximinus Thrax in 235, ending the Severan dynasty.