This next coin can fit into into two of my many sub-collections. Yes, sub-collections..I tend to collect a few types, get bored and then find a different type. But I have been fairly faithful to Men and Elagabalus. I do like coins of lunar and solar depictions and first started my ancient coin collecting with Nike coins. But soon realized that the Greek coins like Terina are, well, out of my budget range. Maybe someday! I digress- as usual. Anyway, this coin fits in the Men tray and I can move it over to the "wings on things" or the Nike tray. Here's another rarer coin type..at least I hope it is. Again, looking for any other references or auctions where you have seen the coin! Trapezopolis, Caria Antoninus Pius period, 138-140 CE, 3.92g, 19.0mm RPC IV.2 941 Obv. ΤΡΑΠƐΖΟΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ Draped bust of Mên wearing laureate Phrygian cap, r.; behind his shoulders, crescent Rev. ΔΙΑ ΠΟ [ΑΙ ΑΔΡΑϹ]ΤΟΥ Winged Nemesis standing, l., plucking chiton, holding bridle My comments: great bust of Men but soft strike on legend. Interesting that the dotted border is still visible but the letters is not.
Trapezopolis... in Greek "the Table City". It was in Caria, now South-West Turkey. It was a Greek city with its citizens, its institutions, its temples, its people... But what is left of it? To get there one must drive a few km on a dust track north of Bekirler and stop near a low hill in the middle of nowhere. There is almost nothing to be seen but the wiew, no standing columns or walls, just a few remains of ruined vaults, probably medieval. Among the rubble one can walk on pottery sherds and fragments of marble blocks. It seems that no archaeologist has explored this site, but there are here and there holes dug by badgers or metal detectorists. On Turkish webpages there are a few pics from walks in what was, a long time ago, a city called Trapezopolis. Probably a Byzantine vault fragment of a Roman era monument (probably a tomb) They even show a fragment of an inscription : (...)ΔHMOΣET(...) : ΔHMOΣ, the People ! It is not difficult to restore the full formula which can be read on dozens of other official inscriptions in other cities of Asia Minor : [ἡ βουλὴ καὶ ὁ] δῆμος ἐτ[είμησαν ...] : "The Senate and the People honoured (so and so)..." There was a people, there, who voted decisions. Its authority was valued to the point of minting coins not with the emperor's portrait but with the portrait of the Demos as a laureate youth, like this one: ΔHMOC / TPAΠЄZO-ΠOΛITΩИ : "The People of the Trapezopolitans" (British Museum coin). Trapezopolis has completely vanished. There is almost nothing about it in history, except its name. Perhaps some day archaeologists will dig there, find remains of its plan, its main monuments and temples. All that remains are its coins, minted from Augustus to Septimius Severus !
