Dear Friends of ancient mythology! I was lucky enough to be able to add a drachm from Rhodes to my collection depicting the head of Helios. Surely I have searched for the background. But I have confined myself to the Greek Helios. The Roman Sol will possibly be another article. 1st Coin: Caria, Rhodes, struck c.205-188 BC AR - drachm, 2.50g, 14.83mm, 0° obv.: Head of Helios, slightly turned r. rev.: Rose, above ΓOPΓOΣ (magistrate), beneath P - O in l. field bow in bow-case ref.: Ashton 288; SNG Helsinki 582; SNG Copenhagen 783 VF, uncleaned, some earthen deposits Note: The similarity with Alexander the Great is highly visible, even the anastole is present. Anastole is the Greek name for a hairstyle in which the hair is brushed up from the forehead, arranged wreath like around the face, and typical in portraits of Alexander the Great. It is also compared to an ascending fountain and is supposed to symbolize the connection to the Divine Sphere. 2nd Coin: Probus, AD 276-282 AE - Antoninianus, 5.77g, 21.93mm, 120° Siscia, AD 279, 6th emission, 5th officina obv.: IMP C M AVR PROBVS P AVG Bust, in imperiale mantle, radiate, holding eagle-tipped sceptre in r. hand rev.: SOLI INVICT - O Sol, radiate, nude except chlamys waving behind him, holding whip in l. arm and raising r. hand in greeting attitude ref.: RIC V/2, Siscia 774(S); C. 659 var.; Alföldi type 76, nr. 120 scarce, about EF, dark green patina Comment of Pat Lawrence: "Oh, let's not rain on Jochen's parade. True, on stilts, of course. But old Sol is leaping onto his chariot like some old bronze group of Alexander going into battle, not like some invincible abstraction. And the horses, too, have real bodies. Note: Sometimes the raised r. hand is suggested as driving away the darkness of the night. Mythology: Helios is the Greek sun-god. As parents are considered the Titans Hyperion and Theia resp. Thias. He is brother of Eos and Selene and grandson of Uranos. However there are other reports about his origin too. So it is said that he was the son of Zeus, but usually he is seen as Titan. From his spouse Pereis the 'unresting' Helios is father of Kirke and Aietes (Hesiod,Theogony, 955ff.), by others of Pasiphae, and from Klymene father of Phaeton. Pindar names as wife of Helios the nymph Rhode (Olymp.7.54ff.). A grandchild is Medea. Homer moreover lists as Helios' children the nymphs Lampetia (= the illuminating) and Phaetusa (= the shining), whom he has created with Neaira (Odyssee, 12.131-133). Helios drives a chariot with golden reins during the day from East to West over the sky. Ahead Eos is harrying, the dawn, and Selene, the moon, is following behind. In the night he returns from West to East in a golden bowl through the Okeanos to his starting point, so that he can repeat his journey on the next morning. In the meantime the Hores have cleaned his chariot which he has got from Zeus as gratitude for the victory over the Titans. Helios - himself a Titan - stood on Zeus' side against the other Titans. The names of the four horses are known as Pyroeis, Eous, Aithon and Phlegon (Ovid, Metamorphoses II,153) or Erythraeus, Aktaeon, Lampos (bright) and Philogeos or Aethon (burning), Chronos, Astrape and Bronte, or Eos, Aethiops, Sterope and Bronte. Out of their nostrils they are said to blow the light. As god of light he heals blinds, but punishes sinners with blindness too. He is seeing and hearing all (Homer, Ilias 3.277). So he revealed the escapade of Aphrodite to Hephaistos, which is why she later took revenge on the daughters of Helios and seduced them to improper love. When Hades has raped Persephone it was Helios who could help Demeter to find the whereabouts of her beloved daughter. Take a look at the article about the Rape of Persephone. In this way Helios too was the god of oath. On the other side he who was seeing all has had several love affairs and a numerous offspring. But Hederich suggests that this only have been said because all beautiful people are always called 'beautiful like the sun. Phaethon: It is told the sad story of Phaeton, son of Helios and Klymene. He was an avid charioteer and has often clad as his father Helios. Once when he got in strife with Epaphos, a son of Zeus, who doubts that his father was the sun-god, he complained at his father and Helios to solace him promised to fulfil each of his wishes . There Phaethon wanted to drive the sun-chariot for one day. Against all objections and risks he insisted on his demand until Helios conceded. But when he mounted the chariot the horses immediately recognized that it was not the sun-god himself who guided them and began to leave the way. When Phaethon took his whip they became ferocious even more. They rushed to the North so that Bootes because of the heat jumped from his car, and when Phaethon saw the Skorpio he with shock let go of the reins. Now uninhibited the horses swept through all regions of the sky, set the clouds on fire or drove so closed to earth, that all withered and forests, cities and people burnt up. It is said that from this time on the Africans are black. The great rivers were boiling and when Poseidon wanted to look what happened above the water he had to dive down quickly because of the heat. It was Tellus who called Zeus for help who tried to help with rain. But the rain was dried up. There Zeus took his thunderbolt and struck Phaeton. The chariot broke and Phaethon was drowned in the Eridanus. Helios in mourning veiled his head for one day and then spurned his chariot. Not until the pleas of the gods and the threats of Zeus he changed his mind and he began to do his duty again. Phaethon was put as Auriga at the sky. The tears of his sisters however became amber. (Ovid, Metamorph.; Diodor; Hyginus u.a.) The Cattle of the Sun-god: On the island of Trinakia (that is Sicily) were living seven immortal herds of fifty cattle and fifty sheep, sacred to Helios, herded by Lampetia and Phaetusa, his daughters (Odyssee, 127-133). The seer Teiresias and Kirke have had pronounced the break-up of the ship and the death of the companions if the herds would be harmed. But Odysseus allowed the landing and against his interdiction the companions butchered some of the cattle, sacrificed the bests to the gods and banquetted six days from the rest. Lampetia reported it to Helios and he asked Zeus for revenge. Zeus smashed the ship with his thunderbolt (Odyssee, 12.371-419). The number of three hundred and fifty animals is corresponding to the number of days of the ancient lunar year. Therefore it was just naturally that Helios because the companions of Odysseus have had eaten the cattle, took them the countervalue of the cattle, the days and especially the day of return.' (Kerenyi) I have added the pic of a marble bust, showing Alexander the Great as Helios. It is the Roman copy of an Hellenistic original of an unknown artist from the 3rd-2nd century BC, today in the Musei Capitolini in Rome. The resemblance with the Helios portrait from Rhodes is striking. Background: The conception of a divine being surely was inspired by the religious perceiving when looking at the sun. Homer and Hesiod describe his journey over the sky. At Homer there were already flamy steeds, at Hesiod a team of bulls. How Helios came back in the night remains unclear. Mimnermos reports a bowl in which he returns through the Okeanos from the Hesperides to the Aithiopes. Euripides and Ovid describe the gorgeous sun palace. As witness of all deeds he became a oath god besides Zeus. As creative vital force he is a symbol of life. In this sense 'Helios' means happiness, freedom and blessed with children. Even though he was called a god already by Sophokles he has an exceptional position because he didn't resides on the Olympos, and had - except of some cult sites - no terrestrial residence. As parents were mostly suggested Hyperion and Theia. Both were Titans and therefore Helios was called a Titan too, especially by the Romans. Kerenyi would like to see in the escorting women and his mother the moon goddess. His daughters, the Heliades, were changed in poplars after the death of Phaethon (which probably was an old surname of Helios) and their tears changed to amber. The Greek name elektron for amber is derived from Ηλεκτωρ, an old name of Helios. The actual island of Helios was Rhodes. According to mythology Rhodes has originated from the sea and Poseidon and his daughter Rhode watched over it. When Zeus reallocated the world he forgot Helios who was on his journey around the sky. Therefore he asked Zeus for the island of Rhodes which just raised from the sea and which he named after Rhode, who became his wife (Pindar, Olymp. 7). With Rhode he has seven daughters, the Heliades. And he was the guardian god of Rhodes. In honour of Helios each year the festival of the Halieia were celebrated by the cult priests of Haliastes and a quadriga was plunged in the sea. Everyone who was once in Rhodes and has seen the unbelievable light of this island can understand the close relation to Helios! When Demetrios I Polyorketes besieged in 304/303 BC Rhodes the Rhodians ascribed the lucky outcome of the siege to the help of their guardian god Helios. In his honour they erected the huge statue of Helios Eleutherias which under the name Colossus of Rhodes became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Colossus comes from a Phrygian word meaning just statue. The Rhodian statue was erected in 290 BC by Chares, a scholar of Lysippos. But the statue didn't survive for long. Already in 227 BC it was destroyed by an earthquake and its ruins could be visited until the 7th century AD. The Helios cult in Rhodes was the only one in classical Greek. Later he was worshipped too on the Peleponnesos, especially on the areopagus of Corinthe, in Elis where his specialname Augeias became an own deity, and in Athens too. The worship in Corinthe wasn't beginning until Hellenism when Greece opened more and more for not-Greek deities. After all it must be said that Helios was rather a not-Greek deity. Herodotos describes a multitude of these sun cults. Regarding to Platon Helios and Apollon should be venerated together and indeed about since 5th century these two deities were merged more and more, so that Phoibos Apollo too was seen as sun-god. In Megalopolis both were worshipped together as Soter, redeemer. This was forced by Orphic theocrasy, Stoic philosophy and by the astrology which came from the East. Under this influence and based on the Phrygian Mithras and the Syrian astral god Sol Invictus he finally became the Roman Imperial God. But that is another story. The "Cattle Problem" of Archimedes: Speaking about the cattle of the sun-god one should at least mention this famous mathematical problem, known too as problema bovinum. In AD 1733 Lessing, an important poet of the German Enlightenment and librarian of the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel edited the translation of a Greek poem which described a mathematical problem. It challenged the reader to find the correct number of cattle in the herd of the sun-god. In the title of this poem is named Archimedes and it is said that he has sent it in a letter to Eratosthenes so that the mathematicians in Alexandria may examine it. But this claim is doubted because this problem has not been mentioned by any ancient mathematician. "Compute, O friend, the number of the cattle of the sun which once grazed upon the plains of Sicily, divided according to color into four herds, one milk-white, one black, one dappled and one yellow. The number of bulls is greater than the number of cows, and the relations between them are as follows: White bulls = 1/2 + 1/3 black bulls + yellow bulls Black bulls = 1/4 + 1/5 dappled bulls + yellow bulls Dappled bulls = 1/6 + 1/7 white bulls + yellow bulls White cows = 1/3 + 1/4 black herd Black cows = 1/4 + 1/5 dappled herd Dappled cows = 1/5 + 1/6 yellow herd Yellow cows = 1/6 + 1/7 white herd If thou canst give, O friend, the number of each kind of bulls and cows, thou art no novice in numbers, yet can not be regarded as of high skill. Consider, however, the following additional relations between the bulls of the sun: White bulls + black bulls = a square number, Dappled bulls + yellow bulls = a triangular number. If thou hast computed these also, O friend, and found the total number of cattle, then exult as a conqueror, for thou hast proved thyself most skilled in numbers." Note: Please, don't try to solve this problem! It was solved by using computers in 1965 by mathematicians of the University of Waterloo in Ontario. It is a so-called system of Diophantine equations of Pell and its smallest solution has 206.544 decimal places! I have added (1) the pic of a cutting of an Attic red-figured vase painting of an unknown painter, high Classic, today in the British Museum, London. It shows Helios or perhaps Phaeton driving the sun-chariot into the dawning. (2) the pic of an Attic red-figured vase painting of the Eleusinian painter from the late Classic, c.350 BC, today in the Heremitage in St.Petersburg. It shows the bowl in which Helios each night is sailing from the sunset in the West around the Okeanos to the East to be back early enough at sunrise. On this depiction Herakles is sitting in the bowl which he has borrowed from Helios to reach Geryon's cattle. (3) and at last the pic of an oil painting of Nicolas Poussin, 'Helios and Phaeton with Saturn and the Four Seasons', painted 1629-1630, today in the Gemäldegalerien Berlin. We see Phaeton kneeling before his father Helios and asking for the sun-chariot. Helios is depicted as youthful Apollon resting on his lyra. Sources: (1) Hesiod, Theogony (2) Homer, Ilias (3) Homer, Odyssee (4) Apollodor, Bibliotheka (5) Pindar, Olympic Odes (6) Ovid, Metamorphoses Literature: (1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon (2) Head, Historia Numorum (3) Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Mythologie (4) Der Kleine Pauly Online Sources: (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes'_cattle_problem (2) http://home.arcor.de/angelion/koloss/koloss1.html (3) www.theoi.com I hope there was something new for you. Enjoy Jochen
Excellent write-up with very very expressive photos. The reverse of the second coin must be reminiscent of Constantine the Great driving a quadriga.
Phrygia, Laodikeia/Laodiceia ad Lycum. Pseudo-autonomous. Time of Antoninus Pius; 138-161 AD. Struck c. 139-147 AD. Æ17 mm; 2.75 gm; 6h. Aelius Dionysius Sabinianus, [Αιλιοσ Διονυσιοσ Cαβινιανοσ] Magistrate. Obv: Bust of Helios r., radiate, wearing chlamys; border of dots. Rev: ΛΑΟΔΙ ΔΙΟΝΥ. Cornucopiae containing corn and fruit, on the bend of the horn sits infant Ploutos, his r. hand raised toward a hanging ear of corn; border of dots. BMC 98 [M.J. Borrell 1845]. Pl. XXXV 8. SNG Cop. 535; F. Imhoof-Blumer, MG 403, no. 116, pl. G, no. 27.
Great write up IMP C M AVR PROBVS P AVG Radiate, mantled bust left holding eagle tipped scepter SOL INVICTO Sol in spread Quadriga holding whip KAΓ in ex Serdica 277 AD RIC 864 Bust type H 3.84g Scarce Published on Probuscoins.fr
