THESSALIAN LEAGUE Larissa 196BC Greek Coin ATHENA APOLLO Healer Cult i43396

Item: i43396

 Authentic Ancient Coin of:

Greek city of
Larissa
in
Thessaly

under
Thesssalian League


Bronze Dichalkon 19mm (6.56 grams) Struck
Late 2nd – mid 1st century B.C.
Ippaitas, magistrate
Reference: Rogers 44
ΙΠΠΑI-ΤΑΣ
above and below head of

Athena

in Corinthian helmet right.
ΘΕΣΣΑΛΩΝ above and beneath
horse
galloping
right.

Following the great victory of the
Roman general Flamininus over Philip V of Macedon, in
197 B.C., the freedom of the Greeks was proclaimed at
Corinth and a number of new autonomous coinages were
initiated. Those in the name of the Thessali were struck
probably at Larissa. The Thessalian League was a
loose confederacy of feudal-like city-states and tribes
in the Thessalian valley in Northern
Greece
and was run by a
few aristocratic Thessalian families (Aleuadae
and Skopadae). The seat of the Thessalian diet was
Larissa
.

 You

Authenticity.  

In
Greek religion
and
mythology
, Athena
or Athene, also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene
, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration,
civilization, law and justice, just warfare,
mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and
skill.
Minerva
is the
Roman goddess

identified with
Athena.

Athena is also a shrewd companion of
heroes
and is the
goddess
of heroic
endeavour. She is the
virgin
patroness of
Athens
. The Athenians
founded the
Parthenon
on the
Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens (Athena Parthenos),
in her honour.

Athena’s veneration as the patron of Athens seems to
have existed from the earliest times, and was so
persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to
adapt to cultural changes. In her role as a protector of
the city (polis),
many people throughout the Greek world worshiped Athena
as Athena Polias (Ἀθηνᾶ Πολιάς “Athena of the
city”). The city of
Athens
and the goddess
Athena essentially bear the same name, “Athenai” meaning
“[many] Athenas”.

Patroness

Athenian
tetradrachm

representing the goddess Athena

Athena
as the goddess of philosophy became an aspect of the
cult in Classical Greece during the late 5th century
B.C. She is the patroness of various crafts, especially
of
weaving
, as Athena
Ergane, and was honored as such at festivals such as
Chalceia
. The metalwork
of weapons also fell under her patronage. She led
battles (Athena
Promachos or the warrior maiden Athena
Parthenos) as the disciplined, strategic side of
war, in contrast to her brother
Ares
, the patron of
violence, bloodlust and slaughter—”the raw force of
war”. Athena’s wisdom includes the cunning intelligence
(metis) of such figures as
Odysseus
. Not only was
this version of Athena the opposite of Ares in combat,
it was also the polar opposite of the serene earth
goddess version of the deity, Athena Polias.

Athena appears in Greek mythology as the patron and
helper of many heroes, including
Odysseus
,
Jason
, and
Heracles
. In
Classical Greek
myths,
she never consorts with a lover, nor does she ever
marry,earning the title Athena Parthenos. A
remnant of archaic myth depicts her as the adoptive
mother of
Erechtheus
/Erichthonius
through the foiled rape by
Hephaestus
. Other
variants relate that Erichthonius, the serpent that
accompanied Athena, was born to
Gaia
: when the rape
failed, the semen landed on Gaia and impregnated her.
After Erechthonius was born, Gaia gave him to Athena.

Though Athena is a goddess of war strategy, she
disliked fighting without purpose and preferred to use
wisdom to settle predicaments.The goddess only
encouraged fighting for a reasonable cause or to resolve
conflict. As patron of Athens she fought in the Trojan
war on the side of the Achaeans.

Mythology

Lady
of Athens

Athena competed with
Poseidon
to be the
patron deity of Athens, which was yet unnamed, in a
version of one
founding myth
. They
agreed that each would give the Athenians one gift and
that the Athenians would choose the gift they preferred.
Poseidon struck the ground with his
trident
and a salt
water spring sprang up; this gave them a means of trade
and water—Athens at its height was a significant sea
power, defeating the
Persian
fleet at the
Battle of Salamis
—but
the water was salty and not very good for drinking.

Athena, however, offered them the first domesticated
olive tree
. The
Athenians (or their king,
Cecrops
) accepted the
olive tree and with it the patronage of Athena, for the
olive tree brought wood, oil, and food.
Robert Graves
was of
the opinion that “Poseidon’s attempts to take possession
of certain cities are political myths” which reflect the
conflict between matriarchal and patriarchal religions.

Other sites of cult

Athena also was the patron goddess of several other
Greek cities, notably Sparta, where the archaic cult of
Athena Alea
had its
sanctuaries in the surrounding villages of
Mantineia
and, notably,
Tegea
. In Sparta
itself, the temple of Athena Khalkíoikos (Athena
“of the Brazen House”, often
latinized
as
Chalcioecus) was the grandest and located on the
Spartan acropolis; presumably it had a roof of bronze.
The forecourt of the Brazen House was the place where
the most solemn religious functions in Sparta took
place.

Tegea was an important religious center of ancient
Greece, containing the Temple of
Athena Alea
. The
temenos was founded by
Aleus
,
Pausanias
was informed.
Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and
Archaic periods take the forms of horses and deer; there
are
sealstone
and
fibulae
. In the Archaic
period the nine villages that underlie Tegea banded
together in a
synoecism
to form one
city. Tegea was listed in
Homer
‘s
Catalogue of Ships
as
one of the cities that contributed ships and men for the
Achaean assault on Troy
.

Judgment of Paris

Aphrodite is being surveyed by Paris, while
Athena (the leftmost figure) and Hera stand
nearby.
El Juicio de Paris

by
Enrique Simonet
,
ca. 1904

All the gods and goddesses as well as various mortals
were invited to the marriage of
Peleus
and
Thetis
(the eventual
parents of
Achilles
). Only
Eris
, goddess of
discord, was not invited. She was annoyed at this, so
she arrived with a golden apple inscribed with the word
καλλίστῃ (kallistēi, “for the fairest”), which she threw
among the goddesses. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena all
claimed to be the fairest, and thus the rightful owner
of the apple.

The goddesses chose to place the matter before Zeus,
who, not wanting to favor one of the goddesses, put the
choice into the hands of Paris, a
Trojan
prince. After
bathing in the spring of
Mount Ida
(where Troy
was situated), the goddesses appeared before Paris. The
goddesses undressed and presented themselves to Paris
naked, either at his request or for the sake of winning.

Paris is awarding the apple to Aphrodite,
while Athena makes a face. Urteil des
Paris by
Anton Raphael Mengs
,
ca. 1757

Still, Paris could not decide, as all three were
ideally beautiful, so they resorted to bribes. Hera
tried to bribe Paris with control over all
Asia
and
Europe
, while Athena
offered wisdom, fame and glory in battle, but Aphrodite
came forth and whispered to Paris that if he were to
choose her as the fairest he would have the most
beautiful mortal woman in the world as a wife, and he
accordingly chose her. This woman was
Helen
, who was,
unfortunately for Paris, already married to King
Menelaus
of
Sparta
. The other two
goddesses were enraged by this and through Helen’s
abduction by Paris they brought about the
Trojan War
.

The Parthenon
,
Temple of Athena Parthenos

Masculinity and feminism

Athena had an “androgynous compromise” that allowed
her traits and what she stood for to be attributed to
male and female rulers alike over the course of history
(such as Marie de’ Medici, Anne of Austria, Christina of
Sweden, and Catherine the Great)

J.J. Bachofen advocated that Athena was originally a
maternal figure stable in her security and poise but was
caught up and perverted by a patriarchal society; this
was especially the case in Athens. The goddess adapted
but could very easily be seen as a god. He viewed it as
“motherless paternity in the place of fatherless
maternity” where once altered, Athena’s character was to
be crystallized as that of a patriarch.

Whereas Bachofen saw the switch to paternity on
Athena’s behalf as an increase of power, Freud on the
contrary perceived Athena as an “original mother goddess
divested of her power”. In this interpretation, Athena
was demoted to be only Zeus’s daughter, never allowed
the expression of motherhood. Still more different from
Bachofen’s perspective is the lack of role permanency in
Freud’s view: Freud held that time and differing
cultures would mold Athena to stand for what was
necessary to them.

Larissa, sometimes written Larisa on

ancient coins and inscriptions, is near the site of the

Homeric Argissa. It appears in early times, when

Thessaly

was mainly governed by a few aristocratic

families, as an important city under the rule of the

Aleuadae

, whose authority extended over the whole

district of

Pelasgiotis

. This powerful family possessed for many

generations before 369 BC the privilege of furnishing

the tagus, the local term for the

of the combined Thessalian forces. The

principal rivals of the Aleuadae were the

Scopadac

of

Crannon

, the remains of which (called by the Turks

Old Larissa) are about 14 miles south west. The

inhabitants sided with

Athens

during the Peloponnesian War.

As the chief city of ancient

Thessaly, Larissa was directly annexed by Philip II of

Macedon in 344, and from then on Larissa was under

Macedonian control; in 196 B.C. Larissa became an ally

of Rome and was the headquarters of the

Thessalian League

.

Coordinates

39°38.5′N

22°25′E