Athens, Tetradrachm, c. 465-455 BC “Five hundred years before Christ in a little town on the far western border of the settled and civilized world, a strange new power was at work. Something had awakened in the minds and spirits of the men there which was so to influence the world that the slow passage of long time, of century upon century and the shattering changes they brought, would be powerless to wear away any deep impress. Athens had entered upon her brief and magnificent flowering of genius which so molded the world of mind and spirit that our mind and spirit to-day are different. We think and feel differently because of what a little Greek town did during a century or two, twenty-four hundred years ago.” Edith Hamilton, from The Greek Way As collectors of ancient coins, we own objects produced millennia ago, produced by people who were very much like us. They had their aspirations, needs, vices and virtues, much as ours today. The coins that we own speak to us at many levels, as markers of history, works of art and expressions of the human spirit and heart. One of the most remarkable achievements of the ancient world was the establishment of the principle of democracy. Athens was the first city-state to start selecting citizens to serve terms to manage the levers of state. As with many human endeavors, the democracy practiced by Athens was limited, excluding large swaths of her population as citizens, including women, slaves and the foreign born. Still, the concept of citizens serving to pass laws was remarkable, during an age dominated by kings, oligarchs and tyrants wielding absolute power over their people. The very word democracy has, as its root, the Greek word for people, demos. It is the people who govern, in the interest of the country at large. Syracuse, Tetradrachm, Second Democracy, 466-406 BC So, in the spirit of the democratic spirit that we inherited from Athens and Republican Rome, let's see ancients that symbolize democracy or show people in the act of voting! Oh yes, and don't forget to vote in the November 3rd election.
I’m only 25 but ever since I was legal age to vote, I’ve exercised my god given right to vote for someone who will never win! Green Party 2020!
https://media.nationalgeographic.org/assets/photos/230/057/ad138da5-b1e6-4889-96d2-80e52cf92a4f.jpg Is this your photo of the ostraka? In the Greek form, the person with the most votes was banished from the city for ten years. Of course the 'winners' tended to go to an enemy and return later worse than ever but the idea was to get rid of the single most disruptive person that was a danger to the state. Politicians had to take care that there was someone else more generally hated than they were. I suppose, then as now, it was hard to pick just one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracon#Ostracism
Josiah Ober's The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece is a great book on the topic of the genesis of democracy (and more).
NOT MINE BUT NEARLY. Enigmatic, possibly a reference to the "2" tyrant killers. O Demos-of the people of Athens. From the Rome-Pontic times, but which side? I plump for Mithradates being the Tyrant. Any ideas anyone? Anyone care?
Crazy patina on this ROUGH voting type. Cilicia, Anazarbus. Nero. A.D. 54-68. Æ hemiassarion. CY 86 (A.D. 67/8). Laureate head of Nero right / Boule seated left, dropping pellet into voting urn. Demos Lydia, Tralleis. AE22. ΠYΘIA Phrygia, Apamea. Demos AE24
Let me add another coin to the mix: Roman Republic, 280-276 BC, Anonymous Aes Grave, Quadrans And one more: Claudius, Sestertius, Spes Augusta, Gaul (probably Lugdunum), c. 41-42 AD While Claudius ruled as emperor, from 41-54 AD, he did have republican sympathies throughout most of his life.
The dictator Pesistatos seized power in 561 BC and demoted and by-passed other powerful aristocrats and clans. By the time he died in 528/7 BC Athens was a wealthy and strong city and power devolved to his sons Hipparchos and Hippias. Whether for aristocratic pride or revenge either for an insult to their sister or even a unrequited love of Hipparchos for Harmodius the scene was set for Harmodius and Aristogeiton to lead a group of Athenians to kill them under the political guise of liberating Athens from tyranny.. At the Panathenian games the deed was carried out-but not completely. Whilst Hipparchos was stabbed to death Hippias fled. Harmodius was killed by bodyguards and Aristogeiton was taken alive and then tortured to death. Thus the reasons for the killing may not be actually altruistic and what happened next was a stronger and crueler dictatorship under the surviving Hippias that was only ended with Spartan help. Democracy was soon after founded under the reforms of Cleisthenes The motives and intention of the " tyrant killers" are doubtful or have been muddied and their actions didn't directly lead to liberation from tyranny and even worse it was monarchical militaristic Sparta to whom the credit for liberation must be given. However soon a bronze statue group was commissioned of the Athenian heroes by a sculptor named Atenor and probably placed in the agora. It was subsequently taken as war booty by Xerxes in 480 BC and re-erected in Susa. After the Persian defeat another group statue of the tyrannicides was sculpted by Kritios and Nesiotes to replace it in 477/6 BC It seems that this is the statue that was copied and copied again coming down to us from Roman copies, whilst the Atenor group, which had been returned by Alexander the Great and placed next to the replacement has been totally lost. Here we come to the coinage that may depict the tyrant killers. On the imitation New Style whose mint status is unclear despite it having the Athenian ethnic, the words O DEMOS ("of the (Athenian) people") surround the owl upon overturned amphora and has a single figure symbol in a striking pose. Other claims for this figure have been proposed such as Theseus and more popularly Perseus but the favourite is Harmodius . It is from the 2nd statue group that the original identification comes from , however Jongkees, J.H. "Notes on the coinage of Athens-V11 O Demos and Atenor's tyrannoktones" Mnemosyne , third series Vol 13 phase 2 (1947), seems to favour the unknown Atenor group based on reconstructions from vase and other small ceramic depictions. A post-Sullan New style 2 magistrate silver coinage also features the tyrant killers: both of them this time. Whilst the identification of this New Style symbol is not in doubt maybe the date allocated and thus the position in the chronology is in error? 2 magistrate coins appear in the immediate run-up to the siege by Sulla and another controversial type " Kernos" had been placed there by Morkholm Thus maybe the 2 tyrant killers Athenian originated New style is not post Sullan and then it will mean that an obversed die linked coin " Isis" must also be pre-Sullan. This accommodation would be difficult to resolve though, especially since ,in all likely-hood, Mentor appears again as a mint magistrate and definitely in a post Sullan overstrike coin of "Apollo with Lyre":a type only rediscovered in 1975 It was Jongkees who thought that the O Demos coins must be by Pontic supporters in origin using Atenor's original grouping and thus the definite pro-Roman coinage of Mentor-Moschion used the other grouping by kritios & Nesiotes. It can be seen that these theories of who are the liberators and who are the people of Athens seems to be a stick wielded by both sides and leads us nowhere in the determining of the ownership of the O Demos type. Neither does the coin hoard evidence lead us anywhere. The Cesme hoard contains Pergamene cistophori variously dated as 95-90 BC by the Boston MFA and 76-67 BC by another source amongst possibly others. If the latter that means that the hoard contained Pergamene cistophori produced when the city was back in Roman control so must have been buried by someone during the 3rd Mithridatic war in Roman controlled Cesme. It doesn't stop the O Demos and other coins in the hoard being war loot: the Bityhnian tetradrachm of Nicomedes ll- it is probably war loot and so is the Mithradates portrait / drinking pegasos piece dating to 89/88 BC probably minted in Pontos or the Bosporus. If the motives of the 2 tyrant killers and the associated coinage are difficult to resolve than it will be no surprise that their famous Roman copy group statue in Naples is proving to be so too. The statue is a reconstruction both of original pieces and in the imagination of the conservator. A more likely pose of Harmdios has been mooted which seems more in tune with the O Demos pose. The truth is so ephemeral, try to touch it and it disappears !
A post-Sullan NewStyle featuring the tyrant killers. NOT IN MY COLLECTION. If anyone knows of one for sale contact me. This coins existence essentially leads one to the position that the tyrant in question was Mithradates and his Pontic supporters
L. Cassius Longinus, 63 BC. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.57g, 7h). Rome mint. Obv: Veiled head of Vesta left, waring veil and diadem, kylix behind, control mark before (I). Rev: Male figure standing left, dropping a tablet marked "V" into a cista; LONGIN•III•V downwards to right. Ref: Crawford 413/1; Cassia 10; Sydenham 935.
