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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 14691898, member: 128351&quot;]Very interesting coins, indeed...</p><p><br /></p><p>Nonnos locating this myth in Arabia may also be due to the fact that Dionysos and Lycurgus are the Greek names of Arab deities worshiped by ancient Arabs in the Hauran in the Roman period.</p><p><br /></p><p>The worshipping of the god Lycurgus is known through several epigraphic dedications found in Soada (as-Suwayda), Athela (today &#039;Atil), Saba (Shahba) and other places in the Hauran, the region south of Damascus.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1532054[/ATTACH]</p><p>Altar dedicated to &quot;The god Lycourgos&quot;, found in &#039;Atil. (Annie Sartre-Fauriat and Maurice Sartre, <i>Inscriptions Grecques et Latines de la Syrie</i> XVI-1, nr. 32 (2020))</p><p><br /></p><p>Nonnos calls this Lycurgus the son of Ares: in the same region, precisely in Canatha (al-Qanawat), Ares was worshiped too, as inscriptions (again) tell us. This Arabian Ares was the hellenization of Arsa or Arsu, a camel-riding deity, and it is probably this god who is represented as a camel-rider raising hand with the legend &quot;god of the people of Canatha&quot; on a rare coin of this city (under Elagabalus) previously misattributed to Bostra. The cult of Bacchus / Dionysos is, of course, also attested in the same region: Soada (today as-Suwayda) was promoted to city-status with the name Dionysias under the Roman Empire. It has been suggested for long that this Dionysos was the hellenization of Dusares, the supreme Arab Nabataean deity, but this is challenged by Annie and Maurice Sartre in their recent publication of the inscriptions of as-Suwayda. They suggest instead that Nysa could have been an ancient name for the city...</p><p><br /></p><p>The Arab god Lycurgus was an enemy of Dionysos and probably the same as Shay al-qawm (his Arabic name?), Nabataean protector of armies and caravans, said by inscriptions &quot;who does not drink wine&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>So we find the gods Lycurgus, Ares and Dionysos well attested in the region South of Damascus, called &quot;Arabia&quot; in Antiquity, on the NW slopes of the volcanic mountain still named today &quot;Jabal al-&#039;Arab&quot;. It is the country where the Roman emperor Philip &quot;the Arab&quot; was born, at Saba (today Shahba).</p><p><br /></p><p>One character was missing to complete the myth : Ambrosia. Hence the importance of this rare coin in the OP : Ambrosia is represented on Damascus coinage! There is also another very rare Damascus coin showing Ambrosia and a male character who can be Dionysos or, more probably, Lycurgus. Only one example known:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1532052[/ATTACH]</p><p>CNG eAuction 427, lot 370 = RPC VIII, unassigned; ID 26800. Not my coin of course, I don&#039;t know who bought it - but he or she did well! </p><p><br /></p><p>The myth of Ambrosia was also represented on reliefs of the <i>adyton </i>of the Bacchus temple in Heliopolis/Baalbek, another sanctuary with deep Arab roots.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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