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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jochen1, post: 5408490, member: 103829&quot;]Dear Friends of Ancient Mythology!</p><p><br /></p><p>In itself this is an unremarkable coin, an AE17 of Septimius Severus from Ephesos in Ionia.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Coin #1:</b></p><p>Ionia, Ephesos, Septimius Severus, 193-211.</p><p>AE 17, 2.6g, 225°.</p><p>Obv.: AV K Λ [CEΠ - C]EVHPOC</p><p>Bust, draped, laureate, r.</p><p>Rev.: EΦEC - I / ΩN</p><p>Wild boar, pierced by spear, running r.</p><p>Ref.: unpublished</p><p>Very rare, good F</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1234153[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>Note:</b></p><p>A similar reverse is known from Caracalla, BMC 280, and from Macrinus, SNG Copenhagen 438.</p><p><br /></p><p>But once again this coin shows the amount of information and knowledge one can gain from it, if one only takes the time to examine it more deeply. For if you look more closely at the reverse depiction, you will find the following mythological background:</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin deals with the founding legend of Ephesos. The local Ephesian legend about the founder of the city, Androklos, a son of Kodros, probably developed relatively late, probably only in the 5th century under Athenian influence, and the oldest source we know is <i>Kreophilos</i>. According to this, the Delphic oracle gave Androklos the order to settle the colonists where a fish and a boar would give them a sign. After a long search, the Greeks pulled their ships ashore at the mouth of the river Kaystros and fried fish. One of them fell out of the pan together with some coal, and from the bushes thus ignited a boar jumped out, which Androklos chased over the mountain slope and finally killed with a spear at the <i>Hypelaios</i> spring. We also know from Strabon and Pausanias that Androklos subsequently chased away the native Carian-Lelegian population, with the exception of those settling at the Artemision, and lost his life in battle against the autochthones when he assisted the city of Priene against them.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coin #2:</p><p>Ionia, Ephesos, Gallienus, 253-268</p><p>AE 27, 7.69g, 30°.</p><p>Obv.: AVT K ΠOΛ ΛIK - ΓAΛΛIHNOC</p><p>Bust, draped and cuirassed laureate, r.</p><p>Rev.: EΦECIΩN - .Γ NEΩKOPΩN.</p><p>Androklos, nude, with skin of boar over shoulder, walking r., with spear over left shoulder, small round shield in his lowered right hand, behind him on the left a tree with branches and leaves.</p><p>Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 512; SNG Munich 54</p><p>almost VF, dark green patina</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1234154[/ATTACH]</p><p><b> Background:</b></p><p>Androklos was distinguished by his high birth (son of a king) and great courage (killing a boar), but he also served the Greek cause against the &quot;barbarians&quot; when he helped defend Priene. It should be noted only in passing that the latter was, by the way, exactly the opposite of the Ephesians&#039; way of acting at the beginning of the Persian Wars.</p><p><br /></p><p>The boar appears in the Androklos myth, as in Herackes, in a territory belonging to Artemis. On the one hand, its killing allows the settlers to make the land arable, but its mere existence indicates that the future city can be built in land that is still largely uncultivated, without the numerically small group of colonists being threatened by established older local communities. The fish, on the other hand, symbolise on the one hand the proximity to the sea and another source of food as well as the <i>Hypelaios </i>(source of the olive tree) mentioned in the myth as the place where the boars were killed, which in turn implies the existence of fresh water and olives. The oracle&#039;s reference to the boar thus provides the settlers with one of several framework conditions favourable to founding a city; however, it hardly means game as a source of food, which, according to numerous archaeozoological studies, played as little of a role in ancient cities as it does today.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Beyond the general meaning of this animal as an inhabitant of uncultivated land, however, a specific reference to the &quot;<i>land of Artemis Ephesia</i>&quot; could have been intended. Thus, on the one hand, the myth could point to a very early equation of the Ephesian goddess with Artemis, even before colonisation, and on the other hand to the knowledge of the Delphic priesthood about a former Mycenaean trading post on the mountain now called <i>Ayasoluk</i>. At the foot of this mountain, which at that time lay on the coast, the Artemision was to have been built as a monumental temple district from the 8th/7th century BC onwards, but according to recent evidence, the site had at least already been used in Mycenaean times.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Literature:</b></p><p>(1) Forum Archaeologiae - Journal of Classical Archaeology 14 / III / 2000.</p><p>(2) Der Kleine Pauly</p><p><br /></p><p>I have added 2 pictures:</p><p>(1) Androklos kills the boar; relief frieze from the so-called Hadrian&#039;s Temple at Embolos in Ephesos (Austrian Archaeological Institute, archive, photo Th. Römer. Ephesos being excavated by the Austrians)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1234155[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>(2) The remains of the Heroon of Androklos in Ephesos, erected in memory of the city&#039;s founder, later converted into a fountain. Renewed in Byzantine times (Own photo from our visit in March 2011)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1234156[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Best regards[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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