Sabina wife of Hadrian Very Rare Perinthus in Thrace Ancient Roman Coin i36222

Item: i36222

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Sabina – Roman Empress: 117-137 A.D. – wife of Emperor
Hadrian –

Bronze 21mm (3.94 grams) of  Perinthus in Thrace
CABEINA CEBACTH – Draped bust of Sabina right.
ПEPINΘN, Demeter standing left holding grain ears
and scepter.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,

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.

In
ancient Greek religion
and
myth
, Demeter is the goddess of the
harvest, who presided over
grains
and the
fertility
of the earth. Her cult titles include
Sito (σίτος: wheat) as the giver of food
or corn/grain and
Thesmophoros
( thesmos: divine order,
unwritten law) as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

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 predated the
Olympian pantheon
. In the
Linear B

Mycenean Greek
tablets of circa 1400-1200 BC
found at Pylos
, the “two mistresses and the king” may be
related with Demeter, Persephone and
Poseidon
. Her
Roman
equivalent is
Ceres
.

Etymology

Didrachme
from Paros island, struck
at the
Cyclades
and representing Demeter

Demeter’s character as
mother-goddess
is identified in the second
element of her name meter  derived from
Proto-Indo-European
mother). In antiquity,
different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name.
It is possible that Da (Δᾶ) (which
became Attic De  is the Doric form of Ge (Γῆ),
“earth”, the old name of the
chthonic
earth-goddess, and that Demeter is
“Mother-Earth”. This root also appears in the
Linear B
inscription E-ne-si-da-o-ne,
“earth-shaker”, as an aspect of the god
Poseidon
. However, the dā element is not
so simply equated with “earth” according to
John Chadwick
.

The element De– may be connected with Deo, a surname of Demeter
probably derived from the Cretan word dea , Ionic zeia  meaning
“barley”, so that she is the Corn-Mother and the giver of food generally.
Arcadian cult to Demeter links her to a male deity (Greek:  Paredros),
who accompanied the
Great Goddess
and has been interpreted as a
possible substitution for
Poseidon
; Demeter may therefore be related to a
Minoan

Great Goddess
.

An alternative, Proto-Indo-European etymology comes through
Potnia
and
Despoina
; where Des- represents a
derivative of
PIE
*dem (house, dome), and Demeter is
“mother of the house”.

Agricultural deity

According to the Athenian
rhetorician

Isocrates
, Demeter’s greatest gifts to
humankind were agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries which
give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the afterlife. These two gifts
were intimately connected in Demeter’s myths and mystery cults. In Homer’s
Odyssey
she is the blond-haired goddess who
separates the chaff from the grain. In Hesiod, prayers to

Zeus-Chthonios (chthonic
Zeus) and Demeter help the crops grow full and strong. Demeter’s emblem is the
poppy, a bright red flower that grows among the barley.

In Hesiod
‘s
Theogony
, Demeter is the daughter of
Cronus
and
Rhea
. At the marriage of
Cadmus
and
Harmonia
, Demeter lured
Iasion
away from the other revelers. They had
intercourse in a
ploughed furrow
in
Crete
, and she gave birth to a son,
Ploutos
. Her daughter by Zeus was
Persephone
, Queen of the Underworld.

Festivals and cults

Demeter’s two major festivals were
sacred mysteries
. Her
Thesmophoria
festival (11–13 October) was
women-only. Her
Eleusinian mysteries
were open to initiates of
any gender or social class. At the heart of both festivals were myths concerning
Demeter as Mother and
Persephone
as her daughter.

Myths

Demeter and Persephone

Demeter drives her horse-drawn chariot containing her daughter
Persephone-Kore
at Selinunte,
Sicily 6th century BC.

Demeter’s virgin daughter Persephone was abducted to the underworld by
Hades
. Demeter
searched for her
ceaselessly, preoccupied with
her loss and her grief. The seasons halted; living things ceased their growth,
then began to die. Faced with the extinction of all life on earth,

Zeus sent his messenger
Hermes
to the underworld to bring Persephone
back. Hades
agreed to release her, but gave her a
pomegranate. When she ate the pomegranate seeds, she was bound to him for one
third of the year, either the dry Mediterranean summer, when plant life is
threatened by drought, or the autumn and winter. There are several variations on
the basic myth. In the
Homeric hymn
to Demeter,
Hecate
assists in the search and later becomes
Persephone’s underworld attendant. In another, Persephone willingly and secretly
eats the pomegranate seeds, thinking to deceive Hades, but is discovered and
made to stay. In all versions, Persephone’s time in the underworld corresponds
with the unfruitful seasons of the ancient
Greek calendar
, and her return to the
upper world
with springtime. Demeter’s descent
to retrieve Persephone from the underworld is connected to the
Eleusinian Mysteries
.

Demeter and her daughter Persephone
were usually called:

• The goddesses, often distinguished as “the older” and “the
  younger” in Eleusis
  .
• Demeters, in
  Rhodes
  and
  Sparta
• The thesmophoroi, “the legislators” in the
  Thesmophoria
  .
• The Great Goddesses, in
  Arcadia
  .
• The mistresses in
  Arcadia
  .

In
Mycenaean

Pylos
, Demeter and Persephone were probably
called “queens” (wa-na-ssoi)

The myth of the capture of Persephone seems to be pre-Greek. In the Greek
version Ploutos (πλούτος, wealth) represents the wealth of the corn that was
stored in underground silos or ceramic jars (pithoi). Similar
subterranean pithoi were used in ancient times for funerary practices is
fused with Persephone, the Queen of the underworld. At the beginning of the
autumn, when the corn of the old crop is laid on the fields she ascends and is
reunited with her mother Demeter, for at this time the old crop and the new meet
each other.

According to the personal mythology of
Robert Graves
, Persephone is not only the
younger self of Demeter, she is in turn also one of three guises of the
Triple Goddess
— Kore (the youngest, the
maiden, signifying green young grain), Persephone (in the middle, the nymph,
signifying the ripe grain waiting to be harvested), and Hecate (the eldest of
the three, the crone, the harvested grain), which to a certain extent reduces
the name and role of Demeter to that of group name. Before her abduction, she is
called Kore; and once taken she becomes Persephone (‘she who brings
destruction’).

Demeter at Eleusis

Eleusinian trio
:
Persephone
,
Triptolemos
, and Demeter, on a
marble
bas-relief
from
Eleusis
, 440–430 BC

Demeter’s search for her daughter Persephone took her to the palace of
Celeus
, the King of
Eleusis
in
Attica
. She assumed the form of an old woman,
and asked him for shelter. He took her in, to nurse
Demophon
and
Triptolemus
, his sons by
Metanira
. To reward his kindness, she planned
to make Demophon immortal; she secretly anointed the boy with
ambrosia
and laid him in the flames of the
hearth, to gradually burn away his mortal self. But Metanira walked in, saw her
son in the fire and screamed in fright. Demeter abandoned the attempt. Instead,
she taught Triptolemus the secrets of agriculture, and he in turn taught them to
any who wished to learn them. Thus, humanity learned how to plant, grow and
harvest grain. The myth has several versions; some are linked to figures such as
Eleusis
,
Rarus
and
Trochilus
. The Demophon element may be based on
an earlier folk tale.

Demeter and Poseidon

Demeter and Poseidon
‘s names appear in the earliest
scratched notes in
Linear B
found at
Mycenae
and Mycenaean
Pylos
. E-ne-si-da-o-ne (earth-shaker) for
Poseidon, and Si-to po-ti-ni-ja, who is probably related with Demeter.

In the myths of isolated
Arcadia
in southern Greece,
Despoina
, is daughter of Demeter and
Poseidon
Hippios. These myths seem to be
connected with the first Greek-speaking people who came from the north during
the
Bronze age
. Poseidon represents the river
spirit of the underworld and he appears as a horse as it often happens in
northern-European folklore. He pursues the mare-Demeter and she bears one
daughter who obviously originally had the form or the shape of a mare too.
Demeter and Despoina were closely connected with springs and animals, related to
Poseidon as a God of waters and especially with the mistress of the animals
Artemis
, the goddess of Nymphs.

Demeter as mare-goddess was pursued by Poseidon, and hid from him among the
horses of King
Onkios
, but could not conceal her divinity. In
the form of a stallion, Poseidon caught and covered her. Demeter was furious (erinys)
at Poseidon’s assault; in this furious form, she is known as Demeter Erinys. But
she washed away her anger in the River
Ladon
, becoming Demeter Lousia, the
“bathed Demeter”.^[32]
“In her alliance with Poseidon,”
Karl Kerenyi
noted, “she was
Earth
, who bears plants and beasts, and could
therefore assume the shape of an ear of
grain
or a mare.” She bore a daughter
Despoina
(Δέσποινα:
the “Mistress”), whose name should not be uttered outside the Arcadian
Mysteries
, and a horse named
Arion
, with a black mane and tail.

In Arcadia
, Demeter’s mare-form was worshiped into
historical times. Her
xoanon
of Phigaleia shows how the local
cult interpreted her: a Medusa type with a horse’s head with snaky hair, holding
a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water.

The second mountain, Mt. Elaios, is about 30 stades from
Phigaleia
, and has a cave sacred to Demeter
Melaine [“Black”]… the Phigalians say, they accounted the cave sacred to
Demeter, and set up a
wooden image
in it. The image was made in
the following fashion: it was seated on a rock, and was like a woman in all
respects save the head. She had the head and hair of a horse, and serpents
and other beasts grew out of her head. Her
chiton
reached right to her feet, and she
held a dolphin in one hand, a dove in the other. Why they made the
xoanon
like this should be clear to any
intelligent man who is versed in tradition. They say they named her Black
because the goddess wore black clothing. However, they cannot remember who
made this xoanon or how it caught fire; but when it was destroyed the
Phigalians gave no new image to the goddess and largely neglected her
festivals and sacrifices, until finally barrenness fell upon the land.

—
Pausanias
, Description of Greece
8.42.1ff.

Titles and functions

Demeter’s epithets
show her many religious functions. She
was the “Corn-Mother” who blesses the harvesters. Some cults interpreted her as
“Mother-Earth”. Demeter may be linked to goddess-cults of
Minoan

Crete
, and embody aspects of a pre-Hellenic
Great Goddess
. Her other epithets include:

Triptolemus
, Demeter and
Persephone
by the
Triptolemos-painter, ca 470 BC,
Louvre

• Aganippe
  (“the Mare who destroys
  mercifully”, “Night-Mare”)

• Potnia
  (“mistress”) in the
  Homeric Hymn to Demeter
  .
  Hera
  especially, but also
  Artemis
  and
  Athena
  , are addressed as “potnia” as well.

• Despoina
  (“mistress of the house”), a Greek
  word similar to the
  Mycenean
  potnia. This title was also
  applied to Persephone,
  Aphrodite
  and
  Hecate
  .

• Thesmophoros
  (“giver of customs” or even
  “legislator”), a role that links her to the even more ancient goddess
  Themis
  , derived from thesmos, the
  unwritten law.^[36]
  This title was connected with the
  Thesmophoria
  , a festival of secret
  women-only rituals in
  Athens
  connected with marriage customs.

• Erinys
  (“implacable”), with a function
  similar with the function of the avenging
  Dike
  (Justice), goddess of moral justice
  based on custom rules who represents the divine retribution,^[38]
  and the Erinyes
  , female ancient
  chthonic
  deities of vengeance and
  implacable agents of retribution.

• Chloe
  (“the green shoot”), that invokes her
  powers of ever-returning fertility, as does Chthonia.

• Chthonia
  (“in the ground”),
  chthonic
  Demeter in Sparta.

• Anesidora
  (“sending up gifts from the
  earth”) applied to Demeter in Pausanias 1.31.4, also appears inscribed on an
  Attic ceramic a name for
  Pandora
  on her jar.

• Europa (“broad face or eyes”) at Lebadaea of
  Boeotia
  . She was the nurse of
  Trophonios
  to whom a
  chthonic
  cult and
  oracle
  was dedicated.
• Kidaria in the mysteries of Pheneos in Arcadia  where the priest put on
  the mask of Demeter kept in a secret place. It seems that the cult was
  connected with the underworld and with an agrarian magic.

Demeter might also be invoked in the guises of:

• Malophoros (“apple-bearer” or “sheep-bearer”, Pausanias 1.44.3)
• Lusia (“bathing”, Pausanias 8.25.8)
• Thermasia (“warmth”, Pausanias 2.34.6)
• Achaea, the name by which she was worshipped at
  Athens
  by the Gephyraeans who had emigrated
  from Boeotia
  .^[45][46]

• Poppy goddess
  :

Theocritus
, wrote of an earlier role of Demeter
as a poppy goddess:

For the Greeks Demeter was still a poppy goddess

Bearing sheaves and poppies in both hands. — Idyll vii.157

In a clay statuette from Gazi (Heraklion Museum, Kereny 1976 fig 15), the
Minoan
poppy
goddess wears the seed capsules, sources
of nourishment and narcosis, in her diadem. “It seems probable that the Great
Mother Goddess
, who bore the names Rhea and
Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult to
Eleusis
, and it is certain that in the Cretan
cult sphere, opium was prepared from poppies” (Kerenyi 1976, p 24).

Cult places

Major
cults
to Demeter are known at
Eleusis
in
Attica
, Hermion (in
Crete
,
Megara
, Celeae,
Lerna
, Aegila,
Munychia
,
Corinth
,
Delos
,
Priene
,
Akragas
,
Iasos
,
Pergamon
,
Selinus
,
Tegea
,
Thoricus
, Dion (in Macedonia)
Lykosoura
,
Mesembria
,

Enna (Sicily), and
Samothrace
.

Demeter of Mysia had a seven-day festival at Pellené in
Arcadia
. Pausanias passed the shrine to Demeter
at Mysia on the road from
Mycenae
to
Argos
but all he could draw out to explain the
archaic name was a myth of an eponymous
Mysius
who venerated Demeter.

Genealogy of the Olympians in Greek mythology

Consorts and children

Portrayals

• Demeter was frequently associated with images of the harvest, including
  flowers, fruit, and grain. She was also sometimes pictured with her daughter
  Persephone.

• The Black Demeter, a sculpture made by
  Onatas
  .

• Demeter is not generally portrayed with a consort: the exception is
  Iasion, the youth of Crete who lay with Demeter in a thrice-ploughed field,
  and was sacrificed afterwards – by a jealous, and envious Zeus with a
  thunderbolt, Olympian mythography adds, but the Cretan site of the myth is a
  sign that the Hellenes knew this was an act of the ancient Demeter.

• Demeter is assigned the zodiac constellation Virgo the Virgin by Marcus
  Manilius in his 1st century Roman work Astronomicon. In art, constellation
  Virgo holds Spica, a sheaf of wheat in her hand and sits beside
  constellation Leo the Lion.