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Greek city of Perrhaiboi in Thessaly
Bronze Trichalkon 22mm (6.35 grams) Struck Late 2nd to early 1st century B.C.
Reference: Rogers 440; SNG Copenhagen 197; BCD Thessaly II 561; SNG Alpha bank 194ff
Certification: NGC Ancients VF 4281763-005
Laureate and bearded head of Zeus right.
ΠEPPAIBΩN, Hera, diademed and draped, seated right on backless throne, holding long scepter with her right and resting her left on her knee.
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The Perrhaebi (Ancient Greek: Περραιβοί) were an ancient Greek people who lived in northern Thessaly. They took part in the Trojan War under Guneus and also fought in the Battle of Thermopylae. Their capital was Phalanna, and their most significant town, or polis, was Oloosson. Through most of their history they were overshadowed and controlled by Thessaly, although they had two votes at the Delphic Amphictyony. Philip II of Macedon freed the Perrhaebi from Thessaly and took their kingdom for Macedonian control, under which it remained until Roman conquest in 196. They were listed in Xerxe’s vast army by Herodotus. A coin of the Perrhaebi depicted a man restraining a bull on one side and a horse on the other.The inscription was “Περραιβών”.
 In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the “Father of Gods and men” who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.
Zeus was the child of Cronus and Rhea, and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to Hera, although, at the oracle of Dodona, his consort was Dione: according to the Iliad, he is the father of Aphrodite by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and heroic offspring, including Athena, Apollo and Artemis, Hermes, Persephone (by Demeter), Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses (by Mnemosyne); by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus.
As Walter Burkert points out in his book, Greek Religion, “Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence.” For the Greeks, he was the King of the Gods, who oversaw the universe. As Pausanias observed, “That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men”. In Hesiod’s Theogony Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is referred to as the chieftain of the gods.
His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical “cloud-gatherer” also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the Ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of two poses: standing, striding forward, with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty.
 Hera is the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function is as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow, lion and the peacock are sacred to her. Hera’s mother is Rhea and her father Cronus.
Portrayed as majestic and solemn, often enthroned, and crowned with the polos (a high cylindrical crown worn by several of the Great Goddesses), Hera may bear a pomegranate in her hand, emblem of fertile blood and death and a substitute for the narcotic capsule of the opium poppy. A scholar of Greek mythology Walter Burkert writes in Greek Religion, “Nevertheless, there are memories of an earlier aniconic representation, as a pillar in Argos and as a plank in Samos.”
Hera was known for her jealous and vengeful nature, most notably against Zeus’s lovers and offspring, but also against mortals who crossed her, such as Pelias. Paris offended her by choosing Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess, earning Hera’s hatred.
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