In Greek and Roman mythology, the Palladium or Palladion (Greek Παλλάδιον (Palladion), Latin Palladium) was a cult image of great antiquity on which the safety of Troy and later Rome was said to depend, the wooden statue (xoanon) of Pallas Athena that Odysseus and Diomedes stole from the citadel of Troy and which was later taken to the future site of Rome by Aeneas. The Roman story is related in Virgil's Aeneid and other works. Rome possessed an object regarded as the actual Palladium for several centuries; it was in the care of the Vestal Virgins for nearly all this time. Nike (Victory) offers an egg to a snake entwined around a column surmounted by the Trojan Palladium. (Marble bas relief, Roman copy of the late 1st century AD. After a neo-Attic original of the Hellenistic era.) The Trojan Palladium was said to be a wooden image of Pallas (whom the Greeks identified with Athena and the Romans with Minerva) and to have fallen from heaven in answer to the prayer of Ilus, the founder of Troy. During the Trojan War, the importance of the Palladium to Troy was said to have been revealed to the Greeks by Helenus, the prophetic son of Priam. After Paris' death, Helenus left the city but was captured by Odysseus. The Greeks somehow managed to persuade the warrior seer to reveal the weakness of Troy: the city would not fall while the Palladium remained within its walls. The perilous task of stealing this sacred statue again fell upon the shoulders of Odysseus and Diomedes. The two stole into the citadel in Troy by a secret passage and carried it off, leaving the desecrated city open to the deceit of the Trojan Horse. Odysseus, according to the epitome of the Little Iliad (one of the books of the Epic Cycle) preserved in Proclus's Chrestomathia, went by night to Troy disguised as a beggar. There he was recognized by Helen, who told him where to find the Palladium. After some stealthy killing, he went back to the ships. He and Diomedes then re-entered the city and stole the sacred statue. Diomedes is sometimes depicted as the one carrying the Palladium to the ships. There are several statues and many ancient drawings of him with the Palladium. Diomedes with the Palladium approaches an altar According to various versions of this legend the Trojan Palladium found its way to Athens, Argos, Sparta (all in Greece) or Rome in Italy. To this last city it was either brought by Aeneas, the exiled Trojan (Diomedes, in this version, having only succeeded in stealing an imitation of the statue) or surrendered by Diomedes himself. An actual object regarded as the Palladium was undoubtedly kept in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum for several centuries. It was regarded as one of the pignora imperii, sacred tokens or pledges of Roman rule (imperium). Pliny the Elder said that Lucius Caecilius Metellus had been blinded by fire when he rescued the Palladium from the Temple of Vesta in 241 BC, an episode alluded to in Ovid and Valerius Maximus. When the controversial emperor Elagabalus (reigned 218–222 AD) transferred the most sacred relics of Roman religion from their respective shrines to the Elagabalium, the Palladium was among them. In Late Antiquity, it was rumored that the Palladium was transferred from Rome to Constantinople by Constantine the Great and buried under the Column of Constantine in his forum. Such a move would have undermined the primacy of Rome, and was naturally seen as a move by Constantine to legitimize his reign and his new capital. I was quite happy to get a rough coin but with a decent image of the palladium, shown as Minerva with shield and spear. Julia Mamaea Denarius. IVLIA MAMAEA AVG, diademed and draped bust right / VESTA, Vesta standing half-left, holding palladium and sceptre. RIC 360, Sear 8217, RSC 81. Augusta AD 225-235. Rome Denarius AR 20 mm, 3,43 g Thanks for reading and please show your palladiums SOURCE: Primarily Wikipedia
Fascinating accounts of the palladium... I had seen it on coin descriptions, but had no idea what it was. Thanks for the history lesson!
