Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Until today I have presented only coins from my collection. Today I must show another coin from CoinArchives because my own coin is too worn to give a good scan. Beg your pardon in advance! The Coin: Thessaly, Thebens, 302-186 BC AE 23, 7.63g Obv.: head of Demeter, veiled and crowned with grain-wreath, l. Rev.: ΘHBAIΩN Protesilaos, in military cloak and helmeted, armed with sword and shield, jumping from a ship's prow to l. on the beach. Ref.: Rogers 550; BMC 50; Moustaka 92; SNG Copenhagen 261 extremely rare, VF Mythology: The depiction on the reverse is playing at the beginning of the Troyan War. It shows the heroe Protesilaos jumping as the first Greek on the Troyan beach where he was killed as the first of the Greeks. Protesilaos, who is said to have been a suitor of Helena, led the men of Phylake (which later was incorporated in Thebens) on forty ships to Troy, even though he was just married (Homer Il. 2, 695ff.). When the Greeks with their ships came into the range of sight of Troy they hesitated to go on land because Thetis has prophesized Achilleus that the first going on land would be the first being killed. Thereupon Odysseus is said to have thrown his shield on land and then haved jump on it so that his feet haven't touched the ground. So Protesilaos was the first one. After having killed several Troyans he was slain by Hektor or by a friend of Aineas. Protesilaos, an uncle of Philoktetes and son of Iphiklos originally was named Iolaos, but due to the matter of his death he was renamed (Greek protesilaos = the first of the people). He was buried on the Thracian Chersonnesos near the city of Elaios where he was whorshipped as god. High elm trees planted by nymphs stood inside the sacred area and shadowed his tomb. It was said that the twigs looking over the sea to Troy were early green but soon bare too whereas the twigs turned away from Troy stayed green still in winter. When the elm trees were grown so high that it was possible to see Troy from the tops they withered and new trees grew up. In his temple were oracles especially for warriors. Severel deseases were hailed there too. His spirit once took revenge at the Persian Artyaktes. Artyaktes has disgraced his temple by whoring with broad and then from Xerxes requested the temple treasures. Soon after that Artayktes was besieged in Elaios and when he tried to flee captured. He promised the Greek to pay hundred talents for the stolen treasures and twohundred talents for himself and his son. But Xanthippos, leader of the Greek, refused his offer, and so his son was stoned to death and heself hung. Protesilaos and Laodameia Laodameia, wife of Protesilos, daughter of Akastos (according to others it was Polydora, daughter of Meleager), missed her husband so awesome that she - when he was on his joutney to Troy - made a statue of him from wax or bronze and took it with her in her bed. But that was only a poor consolation, and when she got the news of his death she asked the gods to have mercy and to allow Protesilaos to come back to her even for only three hours. Zeus allowed that and Hermes brought the spirit of Protesilaos from the Tartaros back to animate the statue. Protesilaos spoke through its mouth and conjured his wife to hesitate no longer and to follow him. As soon as the three hours were over she stabbed herself to death being in his arms. That's the reason that the depiction of Protesilaos and Laodameia was a popular motiv on sarcophaguses. Another myth tells that she was forced by her father Akastos to marry again. But she has spent her nights rather with the statue of Protesilaos until once a servant looked through the gap of the door of her bed-room. He saw her embracing someone and hold it for her lover. He told that to Akastos and he broke into her bed-room and realized the truth. Akastos didn't want her tantalized by a fruitless desire and commansed to burn the statue. But Laodameia jumped into the fire and perished together with the statue. There is another story too where Protesilaos survived the Troyan War and sailed home. He took Aithylla, sister of king Priamos, as captive on his ship. On the journey home he landed on the Macedonian peninsula of Pellene. While he went on land for seaking water Aithylla conceived the other captured women to burn the ships. So Protesilaos was forced to stay on Pellene where he founded the city of Skione. But that seems to be wrong: Instead of this Aithylla together with Astyoche and the other captives set the ships on fire at the bank of the Italian river Navaithos; this name means 'burning of ships'. And Protesilaos were not among those they kept imprisoned. History of Art: I have added the depiction of a marble statue of a wounded warrior. This is the Roman copy of a Greek original from the times of the Antonines, c.138-181, today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Here the statue is supported by a tree stump. It was surely not seen at the Greek original. But it is remarkable, that it is a sword of Greek type. The headdress, the simplicity of the body, the quasi-parallel folds of the drapery and the complicated pose in momentary action, all point to a date around or a little before the mid-fifth century B.C. for the Greek original. A second statue in the British Museum has a planklike form surrounded by waves, suggesting the statue might represent Protesilaos descending from his ship, ready to meet his fate. However, the Museum's statue was reinterpreted as a dying warrior falling backward, following the discovery of a wound carved in the right armpit. The Roman writer Pliny mentioned a so-called vulneratus deficiens ("falling warrior") as being among the works of the Greek sculptor Kresilas. An additional note Ovid (Heroides 13) has invented a letter of Laodameia to her distant lover. In it the following verse is found: Bella gerant alii, Protesilaus amet (= Wars are fought by others, Protesilaos only loves). The Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (1440-1490) is said to have updated this verse for the famous word: Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! (= Wars should be fought by others, you, happy Austria, marry!) Sources: (1) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie (2) Karl Kerenyi, Heroengeschichten (3) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon Best regards
Great thread, Jochen. Here's a coin of Skione with the head on the obverse described as Protesilaos. MACEDONIA, Skione AR Tetrobol. 2.28g, 13mm. MACEDONIA, Skione, circa 480-470 BC. HGC 3.1, 672 (R2). O: Head of the hero, Protesilaos, right. R: Σ-K-I-O, Apotropaic eye within incuse square.
@Jochen1, thank you, I always appreciate the education in mythology from your posts! Equally enjoyable with your coin or in this case a borrowed coin.
