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Message:: [QUOTE="GinoLR, post: 8088501, member: 128351"]Many things have been posted on this board about the so-called Tyche of Antioch. Antioch on the Orontes was a Greek city founded by Seleukos I Nikator on 22 Artemisios (= May) 300 BC on the site of a pre-existing village called Bottia. Seleukos built a temple there dedicated to Zeus Bottios - Zeus of Bottia, le local Syrian Baal traditionally worshipped there - and commissioned a monumental bronze statue of the Tyche (the Fortune) of the new city. He entrusted for this a then famous artist, Eutychides of Sicyon who was a pupil of Lysippus. Eutychides created a new concept which would become a popular icon: a veiled virgin wearing a turreted crown, sitting on a rock, a small nude masculine figure swimming in a water stream at her feet. [ATTACH=full]1405541[/ATTACH] Small-scale reproduction of the Tyche of Antioch, found in Antarados (Tartus, Syria). Louvre Museum. The walled or turreted crown may have had an Assyrian origin, for in the 7th c. BC it was the crown worn by Libbali-sharrat, queen of Assyria and wife of Assurbanipal; and in the 4th c. BC it was also the crown worn by Aphrodite on Evagoras of Cyprus' coins, or by Cybele on coins from Asia Minor. What was new was crowning a veiled virgin with it, and of course the swimming figure under her feet, symbolizing the Orontes river, while in Greek tradition river-gods were always depicted as human faced bulls. Some time after several cities in Asia Minor and Phoenicia started minting coins with the profile of their own turreted-crowned Tyche on the obverse, but most were depicted like Cyprian Aphrodite, I mean not veiled. In the 2nd c. BC cities like Sidon and Arados adopted the Antioch-style veiled Tyche. In Antioch itself the veiled and seated Tyche by Eutychides did not appear on coins until the Armenian occupation, in 70/69 BC. After this, the statue became the symbol of Antioch and would often be represented on coins from the reign of Augustus until Justinian in 527/8. [ATTACH=full]1405546[/ATTACH] Elagabalus, Antioch, AE tetrassarion. Obv.: AY KAI M AY ANTΩNЄINOC CЄ Laureate head of Elagabalus to right. Rev.: ANTIOXЄΩN M KOΛΩNIA / Δ - Є / S - C The Tyche of Antioch, turreted and veiled, seated left on rock, holding grain ears in her right hand; above; ram running left; below, river-god Orontes swimming left. [ATTACH=full]1405562[/ATTACH] Antioch, c. 310-313 under Maximinus Daia. This Tyche was copied by several North Syrian and Mesopotamian cities who adopted on their own coins a veiled Tyche seated on a rock with a swimming river-god at her feet. For example in Samosata, Commagene, under Antiochos I Theos (c. 69-34 BC), in Nisibis, Carrhae and Edessa in the 3rd c., even as far as Side in Pamphylia. Not only on coins : in Palmyra for example there are reliefs of the Tyche of Palmyra modeled after the Antioch prototype. [ATTACH=full]1405547[/ATTACH] Philip the Arab, Samosata. The river-god is replaced by Pegasus. [ATTACH=full]1405548[/ATTACH] Severus Alexander, Carrhae. [ATTACH=full]1405551[/ATTACH] The Tyche of Palmyra (Yale Museum) In Antioch itself this Tyche became a matter of local folklore, especially after christianity had become the religion of the Empire and Paganism denigrated as a satanic religion with human sacrifices. The Byzantine historian John Malalas, who was from Antioch, included in his Chronographia (c. 570) popular stories about the Tyche. He said she was originally a young virgin named Aimathe who was sacrificed by order of Seleukos when he founded the city, after which "he set up a bronze statue of the slaughtered girl as Tyche in the city above the river, and immediately made a sacrifice to Tyche." There was also a gilded bronze group in Antioch theatre showing the muse Calliope in the guise of Tyche being crowned by one or two emperors, and for Malalas it was another poor virgin girl sacrificed by Trajan after the devastating 115 earthquake : "He completed the theatre of Antioch, which was unfinished, and he placed in it a gilded bronze statue of the girl he had sacrificed. The statue stood above four columns in the middle of the nymphaion in the proscenium; she was seated above the river Orontes and was being crowned by the emperors Seleukos and Antiochos in the guise of the city's Tyche." (11, 9). This is probably the group which is represented on Severus Alexander coins. [ATTACH=full]1405552[/ATTACH] Severus Alexander, Antioch. The Tyche on the reverse is flanked by another Tyche without the turreted crown and an emperor who is crowning her. This must be a depiction of the Calliope group described by John Malalas. The Antiochians nevertheless held on to their Tyche, despite such anti-pagan stereotypes. Antioch was perhaps the city of the Empire in which Christianity was the most deeply rooted: it was in Antioch that the very term "Christian" was first coined, and it is likely that the majority of Antiochians were Christians as soon as the 3rd c. But, obviously, there were still influent Pagans in Antioch in the early 6th c. and this is reflected on local coinage. The pentanummia of Justin I (518-527) and of the beginning of the reign of Justinian in 527/8 minted in Antioch show on their reverse the Tyche of Antioch in a distyle shrine. These 6th c. coins are probably the very last ones in the Empire with a clearly Pagan type. [ATTACH=full]1405554[/ATTACH] Justin I (518-527), pentanummion of Antioch. In 528 a devastating earthquake wiped Antioch off the map. Justinian rebuilt it entirely and re-founded the city with a new name, a pious and Christian one this time, Theoupolis ('City of God'). The old Tyche idol who could not protect the city against God's wrath probably disappeared and - was it on purpose or not? - the new follis and half-follis soon minted in Theoupolis had an original obverse, like in no other mint: the emperor enthroned facing, holding vertical sceptre and globus cruciger. [ATTACH=full]1405555[/ATTACH] Justinian, follis of Theoupolis (former Antioch). At first sight, there is no relation between this enthroned Justinian and the Tyche of Antioch (except that both are seated). But it is likely that there was one, that this enthroned Justinian was seen by some as the new form of the Tyche. In the late 13th c. a western monk copied the Peutinger Table, after a late Roman document which no longer exists. On this 13th c. copy three city-goddesses are represented : Roma, Constantinopolis and Antiochia. The city-goddess of Antioch is enthroned facing, wearing a curious crown with three protruding elements, holding a vertical spear and putting her left hand on the head of a small nude figure at her feet, extending right arm. This city-goddess very much resembles the enthroned Justinian of Antioch coins of c. 530, much more than the classical Tyche of Antioch... But the little nude figure at her feet extending arm was not on Justinian coins, and is obviously reminiscent of the river-god Orontes on Eutychides' statue. [ATTACH=full]1405556[/ATTACH] Please (if you were patient enough to read all this) post your Tyches of Antioch, your Tyches imitating Antioch and your enthroned Justinians ! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/QUOTE]

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