Beiträge zur kleinasiatischen Münzkunde und Geschichte 6-9

• Main Author: Johannes Nollé
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Akdeniz University 2009-11-01
• Series: Gephyra
• Online Access: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/gephyra/issue/45193/565932?publisher=nalan-eda-akyurek-sahin
• ISSN: 1309-3924; 2651-5059

The first chapter discusses in detail the main type of Imperial coinage minted by the Pisidian city of Selge. This type is shown to depict the city's principal sanctuary of Zeus and Heracles and not a styrax press as Suzanne Amigues recently tried to prove. Though apparently rooted in ancient Anato­lian traditions, the sanctuary also served as a venue for the rites of the Roman emperor-worship and for the festivals of the Epinikia. The second chapter deals with the representation of a myth on an Imperial coin from the small Lycian mountain town of Arneai. The coin depicts a sexual assault by the lecherous god Pan on a fount nymph who wards off the indecent act (gr. arneomai) and was thereupon given the name Arne («she who says no»). It is in her eponymic function that the nymph is shown on the coin of this small Lycian town. The local mythical tradition and the concomitant Greek interpretation of its name conceal the Lycian or Luvian origin of the toponym which in this language more or less means <place of fount> and aptly describes Arneai s abundance of water. A parallel to the Greek interpretation of the nymph's name Arne is known from the Arkadian city of Mantineia, where the name of the eponymous fount nymph was also interpreted as meaning <she who says no>. The third chapter is about the stone bridge spanning the Meander river near the Carian city of Antiocheia mentioned by Strabo and depicted on Antiochene coins in the period from Decius to Gallienus. After an outline of the significance of the bridge both for the entire West-East traffic through the Meander valley and for the logistics of the Roman army in the years 260-1 CE, some aspects of the coin images are discussed in detail. A long-legged water bird reminds of the bird meadows, already described by Homer, along the big rivers in western Asia Minor. The bridge is always depicted with the river god Meander reclining on it, occassionally also with the Tyche of Antiocheia and with Athena. The cult of Athena is said to stem from the eponymous little city which was allegedly founded in the Meander valley by the Athenean King Kranaos and is said to have been absorbed into Antiocheia when the Seleucid king Antiochos I carried out a synoikism. King Kranaos is reputed to have also founded other cities in Caria, namely Kranaos near Kaunos (?) and Halicarnassos. In reference to this founder Antiocheia construed not only a relationship with Athens but also with other Athenian foundations such as Samos and Erythrai. The strategic significance of the Antiochene bridge and the early conclusion of a pact with the Romans won the city on the Meander the favour and promotion of the rulers on the Tiber. As early as in Republican times Antiocheia introduced cults of loyalty to Roma and to the Capitoline triad. In gratitude for the support given to Rome Gallienus elevated the games of the Capitoline festival to a privileged agon. One variety of Gallienic bridge coins represents as phalloi the floods of the Meander river rushing between the pillars of the bridge. This depiction by an idiosyncratic die cutter evokes the many stories about the fertility of the rivers and of the Me­ander in particular. Some of these stories say that young girls who before their wedding would take a traditional bath in the river and, as a tradition has it, would offer their virginity to the Meander and were made pregnant. A hitherto unknown coin minted by the south Phrygian city of Eriza under Commodus and punched with a hole to serve as an amulet is not only an important addition to the corpusculum of Hans von Aulock (in Phrygien I) but also provides an ocassion for some remarks on the location, history and importance of this small country town. On the basis of a detailed examination of the existing evidence the author shows that the city is in all probability to be located at the site where a Hellenistic inscription with the city's name was found, namely in the Karahiiyiik area in the northern Acıpayam plain. The city of Themisonion, which Ramsay and other scholars believed to have been situated in Karahüyük, is to be identified with the ruins of Dodurga near the mountains in the southern part of the Acıpayam plain. Converted into a fortified polis in the Hellenistic period, Themisonion exercised control over the two southern access ways, formed by the Indos river, to the Acıpayam plain, which was of great importance for the through-traffic between the Meander valley and the Kibyratis/ Pamphylia. While Eriza controlled the northern portion of the plain, the southern portion belonged to Themisonion. There the Kazanes river, which drained the Acıpayam plain and is depicted in the form of a river god on coins minted by Themisonion, flows into the Indos river. Within the context of the very limited coinage issued by Eriza (and also by Themisonion) possible reasons are given for the very moderate degree of monetisation of regions heavily characterised by agriculture. Further aspects of this article concern the presentation of an equestrian god (identified with Sozon) with a double axe on the reverse of the coin and the cognomen of Tiberius Claudius Pardalas mentioned on the coin as the supervisor of this coin issue.