Reply to Thread

Message:: [QUOTE="Jochen1, post: 8268079, member: 103829"]Dear friends of Ancient Mythology! From Nikopolis ad Istrum we know of a series of coins on which Apollo is depicted offering with a patera over an altar. In his lowered left hand he has a branch. This is a standard depiction and Pick (in AMNG) usually writes "Apollo (Bonus Evenus)". We have adopted this designation in Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis ad Istrum, as well. While looking through my coins, paying attention to details, I stumbled upon the following coin: 1st coin:Moesia inferior, Nicopolis ad Istrum, Elagabal , 218-222AE 27, 13.16g, 27.27mm, 0°struck under governor Novius Rufus Obv.: AVT M AVR - ANTWNINOC (NO ligate!)          Bust, draped and cuirassed, seen from front, laureate, r. Rev.: VP NOBIOV ROVFOV.NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICTRON          Apollo (Bonus Eventus), nude, standing l., holding in his lowered left hand           branches of field crops and in right outstretched patera over burning altar           decorated with taenia.Ref.: a) not in AMNG         b) not in Varbanov         c) Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov (2021) No. 8.26.7.10 corr.             (same dies, but ligate NO not mentioned)scarce, about VF, dark green patina[ATTACH=full]1459010[/ATTACH] On closer inspection Apollo is not holding a laurel branch as usual but a bouquet of field fruits. Among other things, a poppy head and 2 large ears of grain are visible. This is completely untypical for Apollo and speaks clearly for Bonus Eventus. Therefore, the depicted deity should correctly be called Bonus Eventus, at least "Bonus Eventus (Apollo?)". In this time, when syncretistic deities were common (see Aequitas/Nemesis etc.), it could also be called Apollo/Bonus Eventus. The first image of Bonus Eventus is found on a Republican denarius of L. Scribonius Libo from 62 BC. 2nd coinL. Scribonius Libo, gens ScriboniaAR - Denarius, 3.83g, 19.62mm, 120°        Rome, 62 BCObv.: Head of Bonus Eventus, with broad taenia r.         in front BON.EVENT, behind LIBORev.: Puteal of Scribonius, decorated with garlands and a lyre on left and right; on the           base a hammer.           above PVTEAL, below SCRIBONRef.: Crawford 416/1a; Sydenham 928; Scribonia 8a[ATTACH=full]1459011[/ATTACH] The puteal was a well enclosure or the site of a lightning strike. This was sacred to Jupiter if the strike occurred during the day, the nocturnal strike to a deity Summanus. The hammer is probably an allusion to Vulcanus as the smith of lightning.The Puteal Scribonianum stood on the Forum and had been consecrated in 204 BC (or 149 BC). L. Scribonius Libo had renovated it. The Romans loved to personify each virtue as a deity, thus holding the basic idea that the virtues were not inventions of man but of higher origin. They were the imprint of a divine being in the human soul. The name Bonus Eventus comes from Latin "evenire" = to come forth, where "evenire" and "eventus" were expressions for the happy emergence and flourishing of crops (Cato).  He was a god of the Roman age of agriculture and originally purely agrarian. Varro lists him as one of the 12 gods who are the leaders of the farmers. Sometimes he was identified with Triptolemos. With the decline of the importance of agriculture, his significance expanded already in Republican times to the general conditions of life and he became the god of all happy success (Apuleius). In imperial times, there was a temple to Bonus Eventus from an unknown time on the Campus Martius near the Baths of Agrippa (Ammian). There were also temples to him in the Roman provinces, for example at Mogontiacum, today's Mainz. Pliny describes two famous statues to him on the Capitol, which would have shown a youth with a bowl, ears of grain and poppies in his hand.... One is said to have been a marble statue of Praxiteles, which showed him together with Bona Fortuna. Adolf Furtwängler (1853-1907) concludes that it must have been Agathos Daimon. Winckelmann describes him "with a mirror in his right hand and a wreath of ears of corn in his left." The other was a bronze statue of Euphranor. Both statues were probably Greek statues that had been renamed. The one of Euphranor was perhaps a Triptolemos. Notes:(1) Praxiteles (c. 390 BC - c. 320 BC) is considered one of the most important sculptors of Greek antiquity. He worked in the stylistic epoch of the Late Classical period. He overcame the sublime austerity of Phidias and from him came the youthful ideals of the gods that we all know and love.(2) Euphranor was a Greek artist of the 4th century BC. Many works have been attributed to him, but only the incomplete statue of Apollo Patroos in Athens has survived. He was also a painter and wrote theoretical treatises on symmetry and colour theory. 3rd coin:Septimius Severus, 193-211AR - Denarius, 3.55g, 18.20mm        Emesa, 194-195Obv.: IMP CAE L SEP SE - V PERT AVG COS II         Laureate head r.Rev.: BONI - EVENTVSBonus Eventus in long girded double chiton, standing l., holding 2 ears of grain in his lowered left hand and a bowl of fruit in his outstretched right hand.Ref.: RIC IV/1, (Emesa) 369; C. 68; BMCR 343 var. (different legend break) Rare, VF[ATTACH=full]1459012[/ATTACH] This coin had caused me problems because Bonus Eventus is depicted here as a female deity. But at that time it was not common for deities to change their gender as they wished, as is common today in the queer community. What is striking is that the deity is depicted as it is customary for Fides. We find this representation on coins of the Flavians and the adopted emperors. With the legend FIDES they are found on Commodus, Caracalla and even on Severus (here without the legend). And that the legend does not always designate the deity depicted can be seen on coins of Gallienus or Claudius Gothicus, on which despite the legend FIDES AVG Hermes is depicted. Thus the reverse on coin #3 also depicts Fides and not Bonus Eventus! Fides means "trust, faithfulness, belief". She is depicted as a female figure with a bowl or basket of fruit in one hand and ears of grain in the other. Fides is a prerequisite of the Bonus Eventus. Without trust and faithfulness there can be no good fortune. Thus the two deities are closely linked. Art History:I found the image of a statuette of Bonus Eventus at Bertolami Fine Arts. At the 32nd auction (lot 58) a bronze statuette from the 1st-2nd century AD was sold. It depicts a naked youth with a chlamys over his left shoulder, standing on a pedestal and holding a patera. On his left hand he had ears of grain and poppy heads, which are no longer present. This statuette certainly came from a private Roman house.[ATTACH=full]1459017[/ATTACH] AgathodaimonAgathodaimon, from Greek ἀγαθός = "good, noble" and δαίμων = "demon, spirit" is often referred to as the Greek counterpart of the Roman Bonus Eventus. But this is not correct. Although he also protected agriculture and viticulture, he was more related to the Roman genii. Pausanias even counted his name only as an epithet of Zeus. He was popular in Greek folk religion. Thus it was customary at a symposion or banquet to drink or spill a few drops of unmixed wine in his honour. In Aristophanes' comedy "Peace" (421 BC), the god of war Polemos had imprisoned Eirene, the goddess of peace, in a cave. When Hermes came to help her, he said: "Now, O Greeks, is the moment when, freed from strife and fighting, we should rescue sweet Eirene and pull her out of this pit.... This is the moment to empty a cup in honour of Agathos Daimon." On the road from Megalopolis to Mainalos in Arcadia there was a temple to him (Pausanias). Agathos Daimon was the companion of Tyche Agatha (Latin Fortuna Bona).  "Tyche we know at Lebadeia as the wife of the Agathos Daimon, the Good or Rich Spirit". In the syncretic period of late antiquity, he was associated with the Egyptian Agathodaimon. The latter was regarded as the patron god for a happy future and was worshipped in the form of a serpent. Thus one sometimes finds the name "Agathodaimon" in error in the description of the Glycon snake on northern Greek coins. Around 1760, a headless marble statue of an Apollo (130-138 AD) was found in the Tiber River in Rome, which was completed with a head of Antinous found nearby. This statue was acquired by Giovanni Ludovico Bianconi in 1760. It was formerly exhibited in the Neues Palais in Potsdam and is now in the Altes Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin... From the snake coiling around the tree trunk, one can see the proximity to the Egyptian Agathodaimon.[ATTACH=full]1459014[/ATTACH] Sources:(1) Varro, De re rustica (2) Pliny, Historia Naturae (3) Cato, De agri cultura(4) Apuleius, Metamorphoses(5) Ammian, Res gestae(6) Pausanias, Perigeisis(7) Aeschylus, Eirene Literature:(1) Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, 1764(2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexíkon, Leipzig 1770(3) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Extensive Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology(4) Seth W. Stevenson, Dictionary of Roman Coins(5) The Kleiner Pauly (6) Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov, The Coinage of Nicopolis (2021), Blagoevgrad Best regardsJochen[/QUOTE]

Create my FREE Account!

Log in or Sign up

Reply to Thread

Useful Searches