Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXVII 22-23 Mar 2023
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Mysia, Kyzikos EL Stater. Circa 500-450 BC. Warrior, nude but for crested helmet, kneeling to right, bow hanging from arm, testing arrow; tunny fish downwards behind / Quadripartite incuse square. Von Fritze I 117; Greenwell 93; Boston MFA 1490 = Warren 1511; SNG BnF 263-4; BMC 79-80. 15.95g, 20mm.
Extremely Fine. Very Rare.
From a private North European collection.
This coin, from a short series of warrior/hero types, was thought by W. Greenwell (The Electrum Coinage of Cyzicus, NC 1887) to represent either Jason or one of his Argonaut companions; given their appearance in the mythical history of Kyzikos it is not an unfair proposition.
There was a strong tradition in the ancient Greek world of relating larger, pre-existent myths to particular localities - as evidently happened with this story of Kyzikos. Many of the major early Greek myths and associated texts were particularly conducive to such secondary myth-making - the Iliad, for instance, is encyclopaedic in its incorporation of different localities in the Greek world (many seemingly added by later editors), while the stories of Odysseus' voyage home and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece were particularly convenient in that they could be made to stop off in any number of places on their journeys. Often, these connections would have been suggested by particular features of the landscape (e.g. a large hill being named as a burial ground for a hero) and verbal 'clues' in the oral and written sources of the larger myth, and we might suppose that the underlying motivation was to connect one's homeland to a famous legend in order to glorify it, or even just to bring the story 'home' and make it relevant to one's own locale - or perhaps a combination of both, for bards who were travelling and wanted to integrate the world of their audience into the legends they were reciting. Later historians and other writers repeated and refuted such stories, often having to weigh up between conflicting accounts. Apollonius Rhodius, scholar and poet in the library of Alexandria, for instance, incorporated the story of the Argonauts in Kyzikos into book one of his retelling of Jason's adventure, the Argonautica, several centuries after the minting of the present coin and when such a mythical 'history' had long since solidified.
Extremely Fine. Very Rare.
From a private North European collection.
This coin, from a short series of warrior/hero types, was thought by W. Greenwell (The Electrum Coinage of Cyzicus, NC 1887) to represent either Jason or one of his Argonaut companions; given their appearance in the mythical history of Kyzikos it is not an unfair proposition.
There was a strong tradition in the ancient Greek world of relating larger, pre-existent myths to particular localities - as evidently happened with this story of Kyzikos. Many of the major early Greek myths and associated texts were particularly conducive to such secondary myth-making - the Iliad, for instance, is encyclopaedic in its incorporation of different localities in the Greek world (many seemingly added by later editors), while the stories of Odysseus' voyage home and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece were particularly convenient in that they could be made to stop off in any number of places on their journeys. Often, these connections would have been suggested by particular features of the landscape (e.g. a large hill being named as a burial ground for a hero) and verbal 'clues' in the oral and written sources of the larger myth, and we might suppose that the underlying motivation was to connect one's homeland to a famous legend in order to glorify it, or even just to bring the story 'home' and make it relevant to one's own locale - or perhaps a combination of both, for bards who were travelling and wanted to integrate the world of their audience into the legends they were reciting. Later historians and other writers repeated and refuted such stories, often having to weigh up between conflicting accounts. Apollonius Rhodius, scholar and poet in the library of Alexandria, for instance, incorporated the story of the Argonauts in Kyzikos into book one of his retelling of Jason's adventure, the Argonautica, several centuries after the minting of the present coin and when such a mythical 'history' had long since solidified.