Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Dionysos is a very complex mythological figure. Therefore I will split him into more than one contribution. Here the first: Dionysos as infant. The Coin: Thracia, Pautalia, Marcus Aurelius, AD 161-180 AE 19, 4.17g, 18.67mm, 270° Obv.: AVT KAI M AVP ANTΩNINOC bust, draped and cuirassed, bare-headed, r. Rev.: ΠAVT - AΛIΩ - TΩN Dionysos as infant sitting in a winnowing fan to the right, seen half from behind, stretching hands, ribboned thyrsos behind him Ref.: Ruzicka 60a var. (head only); Varbanov 4455 var. (= Ruzicka 60a); not in RPC IV online rare (only 1 ex.), F+, green patina Explanations: The following explanations contain a whole number of technical terms that were also new to me. I hope I have used them all correctly. Until now I had never heard of a winnower fan. Here the information I have found: A winnower fan is a wooden or (in ancient times) plaited bowl used to separate the wheat from the chaff. By swinging the fan the grain gathered in the midth and the chaff is waving over the edge.. In Latin it is called 'vannus', as 'vannus mystica' in the Eleusinian Mysteries, in Greek it is 'liknon', that's why this depiction is called 'Dionysos Liknites' too. In the Demeter cult it was a basket with the first fruits, which played a big role in the Eleusinian Mysteries (Apuleius Met. 11). See the added pic from Pompeji too! The thyrsos on the rev. looks more like a rod from the Giant Fennel (Ferula communis), in ancient times called Narthex and used to cane scholars by schoolmasters. The inside is full of pulp and used like tinder to make fire. It is said that Prometheus has used Narthex to bring the fire to men. Mythology: (1) The first Dionysos: Following the stories of the Orphics Dionysos was the son of Zeus and Persephone. Hera has instigated Titans to kill the young boy. Two of them with white coloured faces hijacked him, cut him into seven pieces and cooked them in a cauldron. When they began to roast them on spits Zeus smelled the flavour of the roast appeared and drov ethe Titans back into the Underworld where they belong. The cooked members were burnt to ashes, from which the grape-vine arose, except one which Zeus took for himself. It is said that this was the heart. but this is a word-play as i will show. It is said that Zeus has given the 'Dionysos Kradaios' to the goddess Hipte for maintenance. Hipte was a goddess of Asia Minor like Rhea. "Kradaios is ambiguous, it can be derived from kradia 'heart' but from krade 'figtree' too and then meaning an artifact made of figwood.. The basket which the priestresses of Demeter are carrying on their head was a 'liknonon', a winnowing fan, in which beeing carried in the ceremonial procession usually a phallos was lying under the fruits; an artifact which Dionysos has made from figwood." (Kerenyi, p.201) The liknites ('who is lying in the winnowing fan') was consistlenty 'revived' by the female attendants of Dionysos. (ibid.) (2) The second Dionysos: Beside the son of Persephone there was a second Dionysos, the son of Semele and Kadmos. Actually he was the son of Zeus too, who was fallen in love with Semele. When Semele prayed Zeus to come to her in the same shape as to Hera he came as lightning and Semele was killed. Zeus saved the unborn child from the belly of Semele and included him in his own thigh. At the mountain Nysa Dionysos was born a second time by Zeus and he gave the infant to Hermes or divine nurses to care for him. If you are engaged with Dionysos you can recognize many parallels to Christianity. We find the central motive of death and subsequent resurrection. We see an infant with the mission to save the world as the Orphics belief, and we have the cradle of the child Jesus! To round it up here a pic from a frieze from the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeji AD 50: Scenes from the sanctification during the Dionysian Ceremonies. In the Dionysian cult processions the liknon served as a container for secret cult objects. The bearers of these baskets had a special position in the cult and were called Liknophoroi. We see a wife lifting the veiling drapery from a plaited basket, a winnowing fan. In the basket as symbol of fertility an erected veiled phallos.A female demon beside with open wings is striking out with a long whip. Best regards
Just like buses RC, 2 come along at once. A little rough on the Obverse so I did my best with my crummy indoor light. I do recall another of this coin being posted by someone in the Nicaea section over at Forum, maybe you remember it @Jochen1 . Caracalla, Nicaea Bithynia Obverse - Antoninoc Reverse - Nikaeon Weight 1.89g Size 20mm x 15mm
Great write-up, Jochen. That is indeed a complicated mythology - it's as if these guys were just making stuff up!
Very complicated but an outstanding coin. You seem to have cornered the market on cool provincials with rare reverse types depicting Greek/Roman mythology @Jochen1 - thanks as well for the nice write-up.
As usual, great writeup, Jochen. I find these types fascinating. Mine, like @tenbobbit's, is from Nicaea, but a Julia Domna. JULIA DOMNA AE16. 2.6g, 15.7mm. Bithynia, Nicaea, circa AD 193-217. RecGen 371. O: IOVΛIA CEBACTH, draped bust right. R: NIKAIEΩN, Infant Dionysos reclining right on liknon (winnowing basket), arms raised; thyrsos behind. This next one from the same city doesn't have Infant Dionysos, but I think the iconography, with a mask of Silenos placed within the liknon, clearly associates it with the Dionysian Mysteries. COMMODUS AE Hemiassarion. 3.13g, 17.1mm. BITHYNIA, Nicaea, circa AD 177-192. RPC online 6024 (4 specimens). O: [ΑYΤ Κ Μ ΑΥΡ] ΚΟΜ ΑΝΤωΝ, laureate head right. R: ΝΙΚΑΙЄΩΝ, Mask of Silenos in profile, back-section within a liknon (winnowing-basket). From another Villa of the Mysteries frieze, a Silenos mask being held up by an attendant at a cult initiation. The young initiate shown staring into a mirroring bowl would have seen a reflection of the aged face of Silenos behind his own.
