SELINOS in SICILY 450BC Gorgoneion Selinon Leaf Ancient Greek Coin i28240

Item: i28240

Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Greek city of Selinos in Sicily

Bronze Tetras 21mm (10.15 grams) Circa 450-440 BC.
Reference: Price, Selinus, Group IIB; CNS 3 (Trias); Thurlow & Vecchi 310; SNG
Morcom –; SNG ANS –; SNG Lloyd –.
Gorgoneion with four pellets in quarters of face.
Selinon leaf; four pellets around.

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Guarantee of Authenticity.

In Ancient Greece
, the Gorgoneion (Greek:
Γοργόνειον) was originally a horror-creating
apotropaic

pendant
showing the
Gorgon‘s head. It was assimilated by the
Olympian deities

Zeus
and Athena:
both are said to have worn it as a protective
pendant.
It was assumed, among other godlike attributes, as a royal
aegis,
by rulers of the Hellenistic age, as shown, for instance, on the

Alexander Mosaic and the

Gonzaga Cameo.

Homer
refers to the Gorgon on four occasions, each time alluding to the head alone, as
if the creature had no body.
Jane Ellen Harrison
notes that “Medusa is a
head and nothing more…a mask
with a body later appended”. Up to the 5th
century BC, the head was depicted as particularly ugly, with a protruding
tongue,
boar

tusks, puffy cheeks, her eyeballs staring fixedly on the viewer and
the snakes twisting all around her.

The direct frontal stare, “seemingly looking out from its own iconographical
context and directly challenging the viewer”, was highly unusual in ancient
Greek art. In some instances a beard (probably standing for streaks of blood)
was appended to her chin, making her appear as an
orgiastic deity
akin to
Dionysus.

Gorgoneia that decorate the shields of warriors on mid-5th century Greek
vases are considerably less grotesque and menacing. By that time, the Gorgon had
lost her tusks and the snakes were rather stylized. The
Hellenistic
marble known as the

Medusa Rondanini illustrates the Gorgon’s eventual transformation
into a beautiful woman.

Selinunte (Greek:
Σελινοῦς;
Latin
: Selinus) is an
ancient Greek

archaeological
site on the south coast of
Sicily
, southern
Italy
, between the valleys of the rivers
Belice
and
Modione
in the
province of Trapani
. The archaeological site
contains five temples centered on an
acropolis
. Of the five temples, only the Temple
of Hera, also known as “Temple E”, has been re-erected.

History

Selinunte was one of the most important of the
Greek
colonies in Sicily, situated on the
southwest coast of that island, at the mouth of the small river of the same
name, and 6.5 km west of that of the Hypsas (the modern
Belice River
). It was founded, according to
historian Thucydides
, by a colony from the Sicilian city
of Megara, or
Megara Hyblaea
, under the conduct of a leader
named
Pammilus
, about 100 years after the settlement
of that city, with the addition of a fresh body of colonists from the parent
city of Megara
in Greece. The date of its foundation
cannot be precisely fixed, as Thucydides indicates it only by reference to that
of the Sicilian Megara, which is itself not accurately known, but it may be
placed about 628 BCE.
Diodorus
places it 22 years earlier, or 650
BCE, and Hieronymus
still further back, 654 BCE. The
date from Thucydides, which is probably the most likely, is incompatible with
this earlier epoch. The name is supposed to have been derived from quantities of
wild parsley
(Greek:
σέλινον—selinon) that grew on the
spot. For the same reason, they adopted the parsley leaf as the symbol on their
coins.

Selinunte was the most westerly of the Greek colonies in Sicily, and for this
reason was early brought into contact and collision with the
Carthaginians
and the native Sicilians in the
west and northwest of the island. The former people, however, do not at first
seem to have offered any obstacle to their progress; but as early as 580 BCE we
find the Selinuntines engaged in hostilities with the people of
Segesta
(a non-Hellenic city), whose territory
bordered on their own. The arrival of a body of emigrants from
Rhodes
and
Cnidus
who subsequently founded
Lipara
, and who lent their assistance to the
Segestans, for a time secured the victory to that people; but disputes and
hostilities seem to have been of frequent occurrence between the two cities, and
it is probable that in 454 BCE, when Diodorus speaks of the Segestans as being
at war with the Lilybaeans
(modern Marsala), that the
Selinuntines are the people really meant. The river
Mazarus
, which at that time appears to have
formed the boundary between the two states, was only about 25 km west of
Selinunte; and it is certain that at a somewhat later period the territory of
Selinunte extended to its banks, and that that city had a fort and emporium at
its mouth On the other side its territory certainly extended as far as the
Halycus
(modern
Platani
), at the mouth of which it founded the
colony of
Minoa
, or Heracleia, as it was afterward termed
It is evident, therefore, that Selinunte had early attained to great power and
prosperity; but we have very little information as to its history. We learn,
however, that, like most of the Sicilian cities, it had passed from an oligarchy
to a despotism, and about 510 BCE was subject to a despot named
Peithagoras
, from whom the citizens were freed
by the assistance of the
Spartan

Euryleon
, one of the companions of
Dorieus
: and thereupon Euryleon himself, for a
short time, seized on the vacant sovereignty, but was speedily overthrown and
put to death by the Selinuntines. The causes leading the Selinuntines to abandon
the cause of the other Greeks, and take part with the Carthaginians during the
great expedition of
Hamilcar
(480 BCE) are unknown; they had even
promised to send a contingent to the Carthaginian army, which, however did not
arrive till after its defeat

The Selinuntines are next mentioned in 466 BCE, as co-operating with the
other free cities of Sicily in assisting the
Syracusans
to expel
Thrasybulus
; and there is every reason to
suppose that they fully shared in the prosperity of the half century that
followed, a period of tranquility and opulence for most of the Greek cities in
Sicily. Thucydides speaks of Selinunte just before the
Athenian
expedition as a powerful and wealthy
city, possessing great resources for war both by land and sea, and having large
stores of wealth accumulated in its temples. Diodorus also represents it at the
time of the Carthaginian invasion, as having enjoyed a long period of
tranquility, and possessing a numerous population.

In 416 BCE, a renewal of the old disputes between Selinunte and Segesta
became the occasion of the great Athenian expedition to Sicily. The Selinuntines
were the first to call in the powerful aid of Syracuse, and thus for a time
obtained the complete advantage over their enemies, whom they were able to
blockade both by sea and land; but in this extremity the Segestans had recourse
to the assistance of Athens. Though the Athenians do not appear to have taken
any measures for the immediate relief of Segesta, it is probable that the
Selinuntines and Syracusans withdrew their forces at once, as we hear no more of
their operations against Segesta. Nor does Selinunte bear any important part in
the war of which it was the immediate occasion.
Nicias
indeed proposed, when the expedition
first arrived in Sicily (415 BCE); that they should proceed at once to Selinunte
and compel that city to submit on moderate terms; but this advice being
overruled, the efforts of the armament were directed against Syracuse, and the
Selinuntines in consequence bore but a secondary part in the subsequent
operations. They are, however, mentioned on several occasions as furnishing
auxiliaries to the Syracusans; and it was at Selinunte that the large
Peloponnesian
force sent to the support of
Gylippus
landed in the spring of 413 BCE,
having been driven over to the coast of Africa by a tempest.

The defeat of the Athenian armament apparently left the Segestans at the
mercy of their rivals. They tried in vain to ease Selinuntine hostility by
ceding without further contest the frontier district that was the original
subject of dispute. The Selinuntines, however, were not satisfied with this
concession, and continued to press them with fresh aggressions, leading the
Segestans to seek assistance from Carthage. After some hesitation, Carthage sent
a small force, with the assistance of which the Segestans defeated the
Selinuntines in a battle. The Carthaginians in the following spring (409 BCE)
sent over a vast army amounting, according to the lowest estimate, to 100,000
men, with which
Hannibal Mago
(the grandson of Hamilcar that
was killed at Himera
) landed at Lilybaeum, and from thence
marched direct to Selinunte. The city’s inhabitants had not expected such a
force and were wholly unprepared to resist it. The city fortifications were, in
many places, in disrepair, and the auxiliary force promised by Syracuse and
Agrigentum (modern
Agrigento
) and

Gela, was not ready and did not arrive in time. The Selinuntines
defended themselves with the courage of despair, and even after the walls were
breached, continued the contest from house to house. However, the enemy’s
overwhelming numbers rendered resistance hopeless, and after a ten-day siege the
city was taken and most of the defenders put to the sword. According to sources,
of the citizens of Selinunte 16,000 were slain, 5,000 made prisoners, and 2,600
under the command of
Empedion
escaped to Agrigentum. Shortly after,
Hannibal destroyed the city walls, but gave permission to the surviving
inhabitants to return and occupy it as tributaries of Carthage, an arrangement
confirmed by the treaty subsequently concluded between
Dionysius
, tyrant of Syracuse, and the
Carthaginians, in 405 BCE. In the interval a considerable number of the
survivors and fugitives had been brought together by
Hermocrates
, and established within its walls.
A considerable part of the citizens of Selinunte availed themselves of this
permission, and that the city continued to subsist under the Carthaginian
dominion; but a fatal blow had been given to its prosperity, which it
undoubtedly never recovered.

The Selinuntines are again mentioned in 397 BCE as declaring in favor of
Dionysius during his war with Carthage; but both the city and territory were
again given up to the Carthaginians by the peace of 383 BCE (Id. xv. 17);
and though Dionysius recovered possession of it by arms shortly before his
death, it is probable that it soon again lapsed under the dominion of Carthage.
The Halycus, which was established as the eastern boundary of the Carthaginian
dominion in Sicily by the treaty of 383 BCE, seems to have generally continued
to be so recognized, notwithstanding temporary interruptions; and was again
fixed as their limit by the treaty with
Agathocles
in 314 BCE. This last treaty
expressly stipulated that Selinunte, as well as Heracleia and Himera, should
continue subject to Carthage, as before. In 276 BCE, however, during the
expedition of
Pyrrhus
to Sicily, the Selinuntines voluntarily
submitted to that monarch, after the capture of Heracleia. During the
First Punic War
we again find Selinunte subject
to Carthage, and its territory was repeatedly the theater of military operations
between the contending powers. But before the close of the war (about 250 BCE),
when the Carthaginians were beginning to contract their operations, and confine
themselves to the defense of as few points as possible, they removed all the
inhabitants of Selinunte to Lilybaeum and destroyed the city

It seems certain that it was never rebuilt.
Pliny the Elder
indeed, mentions its name (Selinus
oppidum), as if it still existed as a town in his time, but
Strabo
distinctly classes it with extinct
cities. Ptolemy
, though he mentions the river Selinus,
has no notice of a town of the name. The Thermae Selinuntiae (at modern
Sciacca
), which derived their name from the
ancient city, and seem to have been much frequented in the time of the
Romans
, were situated at a considerable
distance, 30 km, from Selinunte: they are sulfurous springs, still much valued
for their medical properties, and dedicated, like most thermal waters in Sicily,
to San Calogero. At a later period they were called the Aquae Labodes or Larodes,
under which name they appear in the Itineraries.

Modern situation
and ruins

By the 19th century, the site of the ancient city was wholly desolate, with
the exception of a solitary guardhouse, and the ground for the most part thickly
overgrown with shrubs and low brushwood; but the remains of the walls could be
distinctly traced throughout a great part of their circuit. They occupied the
summit of a low hill, directly abutting on the sea, and bounded on the west by
the marshy valley through which flows the river
Madiuni
, the ancient Selinus; on the east by a
smaller valley or depression, also traversed by a small marshy stream, which
separates it from a hill of similar character, where the remains of the
principal temples are still visible. The space enclosed by the existing walls is
of small extent, so that it is probable the city in the days of its greatness
must have covered a considerable area without them: and it has been supposed by
some writers that the present line of walls is that erected by Hermocrates when
he restored the city after its destruction by the Carthaginians. No trace is,
however, found of a more extensive circuit, though the remains of two lines of
wall, evidently connected with the port, are found in the small valley east of
the city. Within the area surrounded by the walls are the remains of three
temples, all of the
Doric order
, and of an ancient style; none of
them were standing until the temple designated “Temple E” was re-erected in the
20th century, but the foundations of them all remain, together with numerous
portions of columns and other architectural fragments, sufficient to enable one
to restore the plan and design of all three without difficulty. The largest of
them is 70 m long by 25 m broad, and has 6 columns in front and 18 in length, a
very unusual proportion. All these are
hexastyle
and
peripteral
. Besides these three temples there
is a small temple or
Aedicula
, of a different plan, but also of the
Doric order. No other remains of buildings, beyond mere fragments and
foundations, can be traced within the walls; but the outlines of two large
edifices, built of squared stones and in a massive style, are distinctly
traceable outside the walls, near the northeast and northwest angles of the
city, though their nature or purpose is unclear.

But much the most remarkable of the ruins at Selinus are those of three
temples on the hill to the east, which do not appear to have been included in
the city, but, as was often the case, were built on this neighboring eminence,
so as to front the city itself. All these temples are considerably larger than
any of the three above described; and the most northerly of them is one of the
largest of which we have any remains. It had 8 columns in front and 17 in the
sides, and was of the kind called pseudo-dipteral. Its length was 110 m, and its
breadth 55 m, so that it was actually longer than the great
Temple of Olympian Zeus
at Agrigentum, though
not equal to it in breadth. From the columns being only partially fluted, as
well as from other signs, it is clear that it never was completed; but all the
more important parts of the structure were finished, and it must have certainly
been one of the most imposing fabrics in antiquity. Only three of the columns
are now standing, and these imperfect; but the whole area is filled up with a
heap of fallen masses, portions of columns, capitals, and other huge
architectural fragments, all of the most massive character, and forming, as
observed by
Henry Swinburne
, one of the most gigantic and
sublime ruins imaginable. The two other temples are also prostrate, but the
ruins have fallen with such regularity that the portions of almost every column
lie on the ground as they have fallen; and it is not only easy to restore the
plan and design of the two edifices, but it appears as if they could be rebuilt
with little difficulty.

The southernmost of the three temples, the Temple of Hera, also known as
“Temple E,” was reconstructed in the 20th century, as may be seen in the
photographs below. A 1st century BC Greek inscription on the building records
its dedication to Hera.

These temples, though greatly inferior to their gigantic neighbor, were still
larger than that at Segesta, and even exceed the great temple of Neptune at
Paestum
; so that the three, when standing, must
have presented a spectacle unrivaled in antiquity. All these buildings may be
safely referred to a period anterior to the Carthaginian conquest (409 BCE),
though the three temples last described appear to have been all of them of later
date than those within the walls of the city. This is proved, among other
circumstances, by the sculptured
metopes
, several of which have been discovered
and extricated from among the fallen fragments. Those of these sculptures that
belonged to the temples within the walls, present a peculiar and archaic style
of art, and are universally recognized as among the earliest extant specimens of
Greek sculpture Those, on the contrary, which have been found among the ruins of
the temple on the opposite hill, are of a later and more advanced style, though
still retaining considerable remains of the stiffness of the earliest art.
Besides the interest attached to these Selinuntine metopes from their important
bearing on the history of Greek sculpture, the remains of these temples are of
value as affording the most unequivocal testimony to the use of painting, both
for the architectural decoration of the temples, and as applied to the
sculptures with which they were adorned.

Coinage

The coins of Selinus are numerous and various. The earliest, as already
mentioned, bear merely the figure of a parsley-leaf on the obverse. Those of
somewhat later date represent a figure sacrificing on an altar, which is
consecrated to
Aesculapius
, as indicated by a cock that stands
below it. The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related by
Diogenes Laertius
that the Selinuntines were
afflicted with a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the
neighboring river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by
Empedocles
. A figure standing on some coins is
the river-god Selinus, who was thus made conducive to the salubrity of the city.

In
Greek mythology
Medusa (Greek:
Μέδουσα (Médousa), “guardian, protectress”)
was a monster
, a
Gorgon
, generally described as having the face
of a hideous human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Gazing
directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone. Most sources describe her as
the daughter of Phorcys
and

Ceto, though the author
Hyginus
(Fabulae,
151) interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents.

Medusa was beheaded by the hero
Perseus
, who thereafter used her head as a
weapon until he gave it to the goddess
Athena
to place on her
shield
. In
classical antiquity
the image of the head of
Medusa appeared in the
evil-averting device
known as the
Gorgoneion
.

Medusa in
classical mythology

Perseus with the Head of Medusa
,
by
Benvenuto Cellini
, installed 1554

The three Gorgon
sisters—Medusa,
Stheno
, and
Euryale
—were all children of the ancient marine
deities Phorcys
(or Phorkys) and his sister

Ceto (or Keto),
chthonic
monsters from an
archaic
world. Their genealogy is shared with
other sisters, the Graeae
, as in
Aeschylus
‘s
Prometheus Bound
, which places both
trinities of sisters far off “on Kisthene’s dreadful plain”:

Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her
sisters as beings born of monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the
fifth century began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In
an ode written in 490 BC
Pindar
already speaks of “fair-cheeked Medusa”.

In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet

Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a
ravishingly beautiful maiden, “the jealous aspiration of many suitors,”
priestess in Athena’s temple, but when she was caught being raped by the “Lord
of the Sea” Poseidon
in
Athena
‘s temple, the enraged Athena transformed
Medusa’s beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that
the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone. In Ovid’s telling, Perseus
describes Medusa’s punishment by Minerva (Athena) as just and well earned.

Death

In most versions of the story, she was
beheaded
by the
hero

Perseus
, who was sent to fetch her head by King
Polydectes
of Seriphus. In his conquest, he
received a mirrored shield from
Athena
, gold, winged sandals from
Hermes
, a sword from
Hephaestus
and Hades’ helm of invisibility.
Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, so Perseus was able
to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received
from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by
Poseidon
. When Perseus beheaded her,
Pegasus
, a winged horse, and
Chrysaor
, a golden sword-wielding giant, sprang
from her body.

Head of Medusa, gate of the
Royal Palace of Turin

Jane Ellen Harrison
argues that “her potency
only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she
is in a word a mask with a body later appended… the basis of the
Gorgoneion
is a
cultus object
, a ritual mask misunderstood.”^[6]

In the Odyssey
xi,
Homer
does not specifically mention the
Gorgon
Medusa:

Lest for my daring
Persephone
the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster’s grisly head.

Harrison’s translation states “the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the
terror out of the Gorgon.”According to

Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the
Titan

Atlas
, who stood holding the sky aloft, and
transformed him into stone when he tried to attack him. In a similar manner, the
corals
of the
Red Sea
were said to have been formed of
Medusa’s blood spilled onto
seaweed
when Perseus laid down the petrifying
head beside the shore during his short stay in
Ethiopia
where he saved and wed his future
wife, the lovely princess
Andromeda
. Furthermore the poisonous vipers of
the Sahara
, in the
Argonautica
4.1515, Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
4.770 and Lucan’s
Pharsalia
9.820, were said to have grown
from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned the
Amphisbaena
(a horned dragon-like creature with
a snake-headed tail).

Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was about to be forced into
marriage with the king. King Polydectes was turned into stone by the gaze of
Medusa’s head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon’s head to Athena, who placed it on
her shield, the Aegis
.

Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that
the tripling of Medusa into a trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the
myth:

The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general
tendency… which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given
us the Horae
, the
Charites
, the
Semnai
, and a host of other triple
groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three
but one + two. The two unslain sisters are mere appendages due to
custom; the real Gorgon is Medusa.

Modern interpretations

Psychoanalysis

An
archaic
Medusa wearing the belt of
the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted on the west
pediment
of the
Artemis Temple in Corfu
, exhibited
at the
Archaeological Museum of Corfu

In 1940,
Sigmund Freud
‘s Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa’s
Head) was published posthumously. This article laid the framework
for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster.
Medusa is presented as “the supreme
talisman
who provides the image of
castration
— associated in the child’s mind
with the discovery of maternal sexuality — and its denial.”
Psychoanalysis
continue
archetypal literary criticism
to the present
day:
Beth Seelig
analyzes Medusa’s punishment from
the aspect of the crime of having been raped rather than having willingly
consented in Athena’s temple as an outcome of the goddess’ unresolved conflicts
with her own father, Zeus
.

Feminism

In the 20th century,
feminists
reassessed Medusa’s appearances in
literature and in modern culture, including the use of Medusa as a

logo by fashion company
Versace
. The name “Medusa” itself is often used
in ways not directly connected to the mythological figure but to suggest the
gorgon’s abilities or to
connote
malevolence; despite her origins as a
beauty, the name in common usage “came to mean monster.” The book Female
Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power by Mary Valentis and Anne
Devane notes that “When we asked women what female rage looks like to them, it
was always Medusa, the snaky-haired monster of myth, who came to mind … In one
interview after another we were told that Medusa is ‘the most horrific woman in
the world’ … [though] none of the women we interviewed could remember the
details of the myth.”^[15]

Medusa mosaic (Roman period),
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Medusa’s visage has since been adopted by many women as a symbol of female
rage; one of the first publications to express this idea was a 1978 issue of
Women: A Journal of Liberation. The cover featured the image of a Gorgon,
which the editors explained “can be a map to guide us through our terrors,
through the depths of our anger into the sources of our power as women.”^[15]
In a 1986 article for Women of Power magazine called “Ancient Gorgons: A
Face for Contemporary Women’s Rage,” Emily Erwin Culpepper wrote that “The
Amazon Gorgon face is female fury personified. The Gorgon/Medusa image has been
rapidly adopted by large numbers of feminists who recognize her as one face of
our own rage.”