Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Asia Minor is a wonderland full of strange deities. I had never heard of Ma-Enyo before. That was the reason for me to acquire this coin and delve a little deeper into this matter. And you see Greek mythology is 'a bottomless pit'. It doesn't run out by the well-known twelve Olympic gods. The Coin: Pontos, Komana Pontica, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211 AE 31, 16.36g, 31.08mm, 330° struck CY 172 era of Komana Pontica (AD 205/6) Obv.: AY K Λ CEΠ - CEOYHPOC Bust , draped and cuirassed, laureate, r. Rev.: IEPOKAICA - KOMANE Tetrastyle temple with trigonal pediment, within statue of Ma-Enyo on pedestal, radiate and holding club in ex. ET BOP (year 172) Ref.: BMC 3; Sear GIC 2156 F/about VF Note: This coin is from Komana Pontica, as distinct from the Cappadocian Komana, by which it was founded. It was laying at the river Iris and was named Hierocaesarea by the Romans. Mythology: Enyo was one of the three Graiai, the Gray Sisters, daughters of Phorkys and his wife Keto. They were born already with white-grey hair. They were called Phorcyades like their sisters, the Moires, which were grey, old goddesses too. Hesiod knew only two of them: Pemphredo with the beautiful garment, and Enyo with the saffron garment. He pointed out their lovely faces. Enyo is a warlike name, she was the destroyer of cities. Pemphredo is meaning the wasp. Later Deino, the dreadful, was added. It is said they have had together only one eye and only one tooth. Where they lived no sun and no moon was shining. It would be the cave at the entrance to the land of the Gorgones and it closely was guarded by them. But Perseus could outsmart them: He stole them their sole eye and so forced them to give away the way to the Gorgo Medusa which he wants to kill. Enyo was known already by Homer, where she together appears together with Athena and Ares with whom she encourages the Trojans to fight. Her distinguishing mark is the daimon of Kydoimos, which she wields like a weapon. Background: Ma, originally was an appelative babble word of the pre-hellenic Earth and Mother Goddess, used already in the Myenaean religion. In Asia Minor Ma namely is known from Phrygia, Lydia and Caria. In the Cappadokian and the Pontic Komana it was an independent cult with criteria of a city goddess and mistress of the hetaires. She has had a temple state with six thousand(!) hierodules (temple slaves). In spite of superimposing her old-anatolic habitus in many cases, exchanging with figures like Kybele, Hipta and Artemis Anaitis and evolving of exstatic rites Ma saved her genuine martialic features. Strabon equates Ma, the deity worshipped in Komana Pontika, with Enyo. In the form of Enyo she represented an opposite pole to the double Ares-Enyalios. Since Sulla and Catilina she was warshipped by the Romans due to her victory bringing power and equated with Bellona. Therefore the Amazones from Asia minor were regarded as battlesome death daemons of the Pontic-Anatolic Ma-Artemis-Anaitis. According to Pausanias, there was a painting of Enyo in the temple of Ares in Athens. In Aeschylus, she appears alongside Enyalios, Ares and Athena Areia in the Ephebian Oath. Ares himself always was the ferocious war god, who was known for killing only for the sake of killing. The Greek in fact despised him which is seen clearly by Homer. But this is another story. I have added the pic of a Attic red figure krater, showing Perseus and the Graiai, attributed to the Phiale Painter, dated to the Classical Period, today in the Archaeological Museum of Delos. (theoi.com). Sources: (1) Homer, Ilias (2) Hesiod, Theogony (3) Aischylos, Seven against Thebes (4) Pausanias, Voyages (5) Strabon, Geographika Secondary Literature: (1) Der kleine Pauly (2) Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen Online Sources: (1) theoi.com (2) Wikipedia Best regards
