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Sabina – Roman Empress: 117-137 A.D. – wife of Emperor
Hadrian –
Bronze 23mm (8.91 grams) of of Cassandrea in Macedonia
Diademed and draped bust of Sabina right.
COL IVL AVG CASSANDREN, bearded head of Zeus Ammon left, with ram’s horns.
* Numismatic Note: Very very rare, possibly unpublished type.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
Vibia
Sabina (83-136/137) was a Roman Empress, wife and second cousin, once
removed, to
Roman
Emperor
Hadrian
. She was the daughter to
Salonina Matidia
(niece of Roman Emperor
Trajan
), and
suffect consul
Lucius Vibius Sabinus
. After her father’s death in 84, Sabina along with her
half-sisters lived with their grandmother, mother and were raised in the
household of Trajan, his wife
Pompeia Plotina
and her stepfather.
She married Hadrian in 100
, at the Roman Empress
Pompeia Plotina
‘s request, for Hadrian to succeed her great uncle, in 117.
Sabina’s mother Matidia (Hadrian’s second cousin) was also fond of Hadrian and
allowed him to marry her daughter.
They had no children and had an unhappy marriage. Sabina was said to have
remarked that she had taken steps to see she never had children by Hadrian
because they would “harm the human race”. It seems that she once
aborted
a
child of theirs. Sabina was strong and independent and her beliefs in marriage
didn’t sit well with the Emperor. Sabina had an affair with
Suetonius
a historian (and Hadrian’s secretary) in the year 119. In 128, she was awarded
the title of
Augusta
. Vibia Sabina died before her husband, some time in
136 or early
137.
//
Namesake
Vibia Aurelia Sabina
(170-died before 217), daughter and youngest child of
Roman Emperor
Marcus Aurelius
and Roman Empress
Faustina the Younger
was a great, great niece to Vibia Sabina. Her name was
bestowed in honor of Sabina and her father.
Zeus Ammon. Ammon was a surname of Zeus or Jupiter. The Greeks of the lower
Nile Delta and Cyrenaica combined features of supreme god
Zeus with features of the
Egyptian god Ammon-Ra.
Alexander the Great styled himself the son of Zeus-Ammon; his successors,
the kings of Syria and those of Cyrenaica have, on coins, their heads
adorned with the horns of a ram, or of Ammon, the symbol of their dominion
over Libya. This deity appears on a great number of coins and engraved
marbles. The Egyptians, for whom he was a popular divinity, regarded him as
the author of fecundity and generation. The same belief was later introduced
to the Romans who worshipped Ammon as the preserver of nature.
Zeus Ammon, the Greek interpretation of the
Egyptian god Amun.
Amun (also Amon, Amen,
Greek
Ἄμμων
Ámmōn, Ἅμμων Hámmōn)
was a local deity of
Thebes
. He was attested since the
Old Kingdom
together with his spouse
Amaunet
. With the
11th dynasty
(c. 21st century BC), he rose to
the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing
Monthu
.
Typical depiction of Amun during the New Kingdom, with two plumes on his head,
the ankh
symbol and the
was
sceptre. King of the Gods Name in
hieroglyphs
Major cult center
Thebes
Symbol two vertical plumes, the
ram-headed Sphinx
(Criosphinx)
Consort Amunet
Wosret
Mut
After the rebellion of Thebes against the
Hyksos
and with the rule of
Ahmose I
, Amun acquired
national importance
, expressed in his fusion
with the
Sun god
,
Ra,
as Amun-Ra.
Amun-Ra retained chief importance in the
Egyptian pantheon
throughout the
New Kingdom
(with the exception of the “Atenist
heresy” under
Akhenaten
). Amun-Ra in this period (16th to
11th centuries BC) held the position of
transcendental
, self-created
creator deity
“par excellence”, he was the
champion of the poor or troubled and central to personal piety. His position as
King of Gods developed to the point of virtual
monotheism
where other gods became
manifestations of him. With
Osiris
, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of
the Egyptian gods. As the chief deity of the
Egyptian Empire
, Amun-Ra also came to be
worshipped outside of Egypt, in
Ancient Libya
and
Nubia
, and as Zeus Ammon came to be
identified with
Zeus in Ancient Greece.
Early history
Amun and
Amaunet
are mentioned in the
Old Egyptian
pyramid texts
. Amun and Amaunet formed one
quarter of the ancient
Ogdoad
of
Hermopolis
, representing the primordial concept
or
element
of
air
or invisibility (corresponding to
Shu
in the
Ennead
), hence Amun’s later function as a
wind deity
, and the name Amun (written
imn, pronounced Amana in
ancient Egyptian ), meaning “hidden”. It was thought that Amun created himself
and then his surroundings.
Amun rose to the position of tutelary deity of Thebes after the end of the
First Intermediate Period
, under the
11th dynasty
. As the patron of Thebes, his
spouse was Mut
. In Thebes, Amun as father, Mut as mother
and the Moon god Khonsu
formed a divine family or “Theban
Triad“.
Temple at Karnak
The history of Amun as the patron god of Thebes begins in the 20th century
BC, with the construction of the
Precinct of Amun-Re
at
Karnak
under
Senusret I
. The city of Thebes does not appear
to have been of great significance before the 11th dynasty.
Major construction work in the Precinct of Amun-Re took place during the
18th dynasty
when Thebes became the capital of
the unified Ancient Egypt. Construction of the
Hypostyle Hall
may have also began during the
18th dynasty, though most building was undertaken under
Seti I
and
Ramesses II
.
Merenptah
commemorated his victories over the
Sea Peoples
on the walls of the
Cachette Court
, the start of the processional
route to the
Luxor Temple
. This
Great Inscription
(which has now lost about
a third of its content) shows the king’s campaigns and eventual return with
booty and prisoners. Next to this inscription is the Victory Stela, which
is largely a copy of the more famous
Israel Stela
found in the West Bank funerary
complex of Merenptah. Merenptah’s son
Seti II
added 2 small obelisks in front of the
Second Pylon, and a triple bark-shrine to the north of the processional avenue
in the same area. This was constructed of sandstone, with a chapel to Amun
flanked by those of Mut and Khonsu.
The last major change to the Precinct of Amun-Re’s layout was the addition of
the first
pylon
and the massive enclosure walls that
surrounded the whole Precinct, both constructed by
Nectanebo I
.
New Kingdom
Bas-relief depicting Amun as
pharaoh
Further information:
High Priests of Amun
Identification
with Min and Ra
When the army of the
founder
of the
Eighteenth dynasty
expelled the
Hyksos
rulers from Egypt, the victor’s city of
origin,
Thebes
, became the most important city in
Egypt, the capital of a new dynasty. The local patron deity of Thebes, Amun,
therefore became
nationally important
. The pharaohs of that new
dynasty attributed all their successful enterprises to Amun, and they lavished
much of their wealth and captured spoil on the construction of
temples
dedicated to Amun.
The victory accomplished by pharaohs who worshipped Amun against the “foreign
rulers”, brought him to be seen as a champion of the
less fortunate
, upholding the rights of
justice
for the poor.By aiding those who
traveled in his name, he became the Protector of the road. Since he
upheld
Ma’at
(truth, justice, and goodness), those who
prayed to Amun were required first to demonstrate that they were worthy by
confessing their sins. Votive stelae from the artisans’ village at
Deir el-Medina
record:
“[Amun] who comes at the voice of the poor in distress, who gives breath
to him who is wretched..You are Amun, the Lord of the silent, who comes
at the voice of the poor; when I call to you in my distress You come and
rescue me…Though the servant was disposed to do evil, the Lord is
disposed to forgive. The Lord of Thebes spends not a whole day in anger;
His wrath passes in a moment; none remains. His breath comes back to us
in mercy..May your ka be kind; may you forgive; It shall not happen
again.”
Amun-Min as Amun-Ra ka-Mut-ef from the temple at Deir el
Medina.
Subsequently, when Egypt conquered
Kush
, they identified the chief deity of the
Kushites as Amun. This Kush deity was depicted as
ram
-headed, more specifically a
woolly ram with curved
horns
. Amun thus became associated with the ram
arising from the aged appearance of the Kush ram deity. A solar deity in the
form of a ram can be traced to the pre-literate
Kerma culture
in Nubia, contemporary to the Old
Kingdom of Egypt. The later (Meroitic
period) name of Nubian Amun was Amani, attested in numerous
personal names such as Tanwetamani, Arkamani, Amanitore, Amanishakheto,
Natakamani. Since rams were considered a symbol of virility, Amun also
became thought of as a fertility deity, and so started to absorb the identity of
Min
, becoming Amun-Min. This association
with virility led to Amun-Min gaining the
epithet
Kamutef, meaning Bull of his
mother, in which form he was found depicted on the walls of
Karnak
,
ithyphallic
, and with a
scourge
, as Min was.
Re-Horakhty (“Ra (who is the) Horus of the two Horizons”), the
fusion of Ra
and
Horus
, in depiction typical of the
New Kingdom. Re-Horakhty was in turn identified with Amun.
As the cult of Amun grew in importance, Amun became identified with the chief
deity who was worshipped in other areas during that period, the sun god
Ra.
This identification led to another merger of identities, with Amun becoming
Amun-Ra. In the
Hymn to Amun-Ra
he is described as
“Lord of truth, father of the gods, maker of men, creator of all
animals, Lord of things that are, creator of the staff of life.”
Atenist heresy
During the latter part of the
eighteenth dynasty
, the pharaoh
Akhenaten
(also known as Amenhotep IV) disliked
the power of the temple of Amun and advanced the
worship of the Aten
, a deity whose power was
manifested in the sun disk, both literally and symbolically. He defaced the
symbols of many of the old deities, and based his religious practices upon the
deity, the Aten
. He moved his capital away from
Thebes, but this abrupt change was very unpopular with the priests of Amun, who
now found themselves without any of their former power. The religion of Egypt
was inexorably tied to the leadership of the country, the pharaoh being the
leader of both. The pharaoh was the highest priest in the temple of the capital,
and the next lower level of religious leaders were important advisers to the
pharaoh, many being administrators of the bureaucracy that ran the country.
The introduction of Atenism under
Akhenaton
constructed a “monotheist”
worship of Aten in direct competition with that of Amun. Praises of Amun on
stelae are strikingly similar in language to those later used, in particular the
Hymn to the Aten
:
“When thou crossest the sky, all faces behold thee, but when thou
departest, thou are hidden from their faces … When thou settest in the
western mountain, then they sleep in the manner of death … The
fashioner of that which the soil produces, … a mother of profit to
gods and men; a patient craftsmen, greatly wearying himself as their
maker..valiant herdsman, driving his cattle, their refuge and the making
of their living..The sole Lord, who reaches the end of the lands every
day, as one who sees them that tread thereon … Every land chatters at
his rising every day, in order to praise him.”
When Akhenaten died, the priests of Amun-Ra reasserted themselves. His name
was struck from Egyptian records, all of his religious and governmental changes
were undone, and the capital was returned to Thebes. The return to the previous
capital and its patron deity was accomplished so swiftly that it seemed this
almost
monotheistic
cult and its governmental reforms
had never existed. Worship of Aten ceased and worship of Amun-Ra was restored.
The priests of Amun even persuaded his young son,
Tutankhaten
, whose name meant “the living image
of Aten”—and who later would become a pharaoh—to change his name to
Tutankhamun
, “the living image of Amun”.
Theology
In the New Kingdom, Amun became successively identified with all other
Egyptian deities, to the point of virtual monotheism (which was then attacked by
means of the “counter-monotheism” of Atenism). Primarily, the god of wind
Amun came to be identified with the solar god
Ra
and the god of fertility and creation
Min
, so that Amun-Ra had the main
characteristic of a
solar god
,
creator god
and
fertility god
. He also adopted the aspect of
the
ram
from the Nubian solar god, besides numerous
other titles and aspects.
As Amun-Re he was petitioned for mercy by those who believed suffering had
come about as a result of their own or others wrongdoing.
Amon-Re “who hears the prayer, who comes at the cry of the poor
and distressed…Beware of him! Repeat him to son and daughter, to great
and small; relate him to generations of generations who have not yet
come into being; relate him to fishes in the deep, to birds in heaven;
repeat him to him who does not know him and to him who knows
him…Though it may be that the servant is normal in doing wrong, yet
the Lord is normal in being merciful. The Lord of Thebes does not spend
an entire day angry. As for his anger – in the completion of a moment
there is no remnant..As thy
Ka
endures! thou wilt be merciful!”
In the Leiden hymns, Amun,
Ptah, and Re are regarded as a
trinity
who are distinct gods but with unity in
plurality. “The three gods are one yet the Egyptian elsewhere insists on the
separate identity of each of the three.”[14]
This unity in plurality is expressed in one text:
“All gods are three: Amun, Re and Ptah, whom none equals. He who hides
his name as Amun, he appears to the face as Re, his body is Ptah.”
The hidden aspect of Amun and his likely association with the wind caused
Henri Frankfort
to draw parallels with a
passage from the
Gospel of John
: “The wind blows where it
wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and
where it is going.”A Leiden hymn to Amun describes how he calms stormy seas for
the troubled sailor:
“The tempest moves aside for the sailor who remembers the name of Amon.
The storm becomes a sweet breeze for he who invokes His name… Amon is
more effective than millions for he who places Him in his heart. Thanks
to Him the single man becomes stronger than a crowd.”
Third Intermediate
Period
The
sarcophagus
of a priestess of Amon-Ra,
c. 1000 BC –
Smithsonian
‘s
National Museum of Natural History
Theban High
Priests of Amun
While not regarded as a dynasty, the
High Priests of Amun
at
Thebes
were nevertheless of such power and
influence that they were effectively the rulers of Upper Egypt from 1080 to c.
943 BC. By the time Herihor was proclaimed as the first ruling High Priest of
Amun in 1080 BC—in the 19th Year of
Ramesses XI
—the Amun priesthood exercised an
effective stranglehold on Egypt’s economy. The Amun priests owned two-thirds of
all the
temple
lands in Egypt and 90 percent of her
ships plus many other resources. Consequently, the Amun priests were as powerful
as Pharaoh, if not more so. One of the sons of the High Priest Pinedjem I would
eventually assume the throne and rule Egypt for almost half a decade as pharaoh
Psusennes I
, while the Theban High Priest
Psusennes III would take the throne as king
Psusennes II
—the final ruler of the 21st
Dynasty.
Decline
In the 10th century BC, the overwhelming dominance of Amun over all of Egypt
gradually began to decline. In Thebes, however, his worship continued unabated,
especially under the Nubian
Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt
, as Amun was by
now seen as a national god in Nubia. The
Temple of Amun, Jebel Barkal
, founded during
the New Kingdom, came to be the center of the religious ideology of the
Kingdom of Kush
. The
Victory Stele of Piye at Gebel Barkal
(8th
century BC) now distinguishes between an “Amun of
Napata
” and an “Amun of Thebes”.
Tantamani
(died 653 BC), the last pharaoh of
the Nubian dynasty, still bore a theophoric name referring to Amun in the Nubian
form Amani.
Iron Age and
Classical Antiquity
Depiction of Amun in a relief at Karnak (15th century BC)
Nubia, Sudan and
Libya
In areas outside of Egypt where the Egyptians had previously brought the cult
of Amun his worship continued into
Classical Antiquity
. In Nubia, where his name
was pronounced Amane or Amani, he remained a national deity, with
his priests, at
Meroe
and
Nobatia
, regulating the whole government of the
country via an oracle
, choosing the ruler, and directing
military expeditions. According to
Diodorus Siculus
, these religious leaders even
were able to compel kings to commit suicide, although this tradition stopped
when
Arkamane
, in the 3rd century BC, slew them.
In Sudan
, excavation of an Amun temple at
Dangeil
began in 2000 under the directorship of
Drs Salah Mohamed Ahmed and Julie R. Anderson of the National Corporation for
Antiquities and Museums (NCAM), Sudan and the
British Museum
, UK, respectively. The temple
was found to have been destroyed by fire and
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
(AMS) and
C14 dating
of the charred roof beams have
placed construction of the most recent incarnation of the temple in the 1st
century AD. This date is further confirmed by the associated ceramics and
inscriptions. Following its destruction, the temple gradually decayed and
collapsed.
In Libya
there remained a solitary
oracle
of Amun in the
Libyan Desert
at the oasis of
Siwa
. The worship of Ammon was introduced into
Greece at an early period, probably through the medium of the Greek colony in
Cyrene
, which must have formed a connection
with the great oracle of Ammon in the Oasis soon after its establishment.
Iarbas
, a mythological king of Libya, was also
considered a son of Hammon.
Levant
Amun is mentioned as a deity in the
Hebrew Bible
, and in the
Nevi’im
, texts presumably written in the 7th
century BC, the name נא אמון No Amown
occurs twice in reference to Thebes, by the
KJV
rendered just as No:
- Jeremiah
46:25:25 The Lord of hosts, the
God of Israel, said: “Behold, I am bringing punishment upon Amon of Thebes,
and Pharaoh and Egypt and her gods and her kings, upon Pharaoh and those who
trust in him.
English Standard Version:
- Nahum
3:8 “Art thou better than populous
No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about
it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?”
Greece
Ammon had a temple and a statue, the gift of
Pindar
(d. 443 BC), at
Thebes
, and another at
Sparta
, the inhabitants of which, as
Pausanias
says,consulted the oracle of Ammon in
Libya from early times more than the other Greeks. At
Aphytis
, Chalcidice, Ammon was worshipped, from
the time of Lysander
(d. 395 BC), as zealously as in
Ammonium. Pindar the poet honoured the god with a hymn. At
Megalopolis
the god was represented with the
head of a ram (Paus. viii.32 § 1), and the Greeks of Cyrenaica dedicated at
Delphi a chariot with a statue of Ammon.
Such was its reputation among the Classical Greeks that
Alexander the Great
journeyed there after the
battle of Issus
and during his occupation of
Egypt, where he was declared “the son of Amun” by the oracle. Alexander
thereafter considered himself divine. Even during this occupation, Amun,
identified by these Greeks as a form of
Zeus, continued to be the principal local deity of Thebes.
Several words derive from Amun via the Greek form, Ammon, such as
ammonia
and
ammonite
. The Romans called the
ammonium chloride
they collected from deposits
near the Temple of Jupiter Amun in
ancient Libya
sal ammoniacus (salt of
Amun) because of proximity to the nearby temple.Ammonia, as well as being the
chemical, is a genus name in the
foraminifera
. Both these foraminiferans
(shelled Protozoa
) and ammonites (extinct shelled
cephalopods
) bear spiral shells resembling a
ram’s, and Ammon’s, horns. The regions of the
hippocampus
in the
brain
are called the
cornu ammonis
– literally “Amun’s Horns”, due
to the horned appearance of the dark and light bands of cellular layers.
In
Paradise Lost
, Milton identifies Ammon with
the biblical Ham (Cham) and states that the gentiles called him the Libyan Jove.
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