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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;TIF, post: 3316650, member: 56859&quot;][USER=99412]@PeteB[/USER] has a <b>very</b> interesting coin depicting Pan and Hermaphroditos.&nbsp; I&#039;m going to copy and paste it here. (Hope you don&#039;t mind, Pete.) I&#039;d love to have this coin or one like it!</p><p><br /></p><p>(Scroll down <a href="http://akropoliscoins.com/page3.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://akropoliscoins.com/page3.html" rel="nofollow">this page</a> to see the coin on his website)</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://akropoliscoins.com/Images/SS-Pan-Herm.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></p><p><b>Septimius Severus. 193-211 A.D </b></p><p><b>Hadrianopolis, Thrace; Æ 28</b></p><p>Obv: His laureate and draped bust, r.</p><p>Rev: To right, Pan, with goat legs, holding lagobolon and facing <u>HERMAPHRODITOS</u> (!!) on the left.</p><p>Note that Hermaphroditos depicts both male and female attributes. The legend of this mythological figure stems apparently from a single ancient source: Ovid, in his play Metamorphosis. He was said to have been the son of the messenger god Hermes and Aphrodite, the goddess of love. He was born a male and nursed by Naiads in the caves of Mount Ida in Asia Minor. At the age of 15 he wandered through the lands of Lycia and Caria. In his travels, he came upon a beautiful pool of clear water, in which lived the Naiad Salmacis, who was gathering flowers nearby. He decided to refresh himself by bathing in the pool. Salmacis,&nbsp; struck by his handsomeness, slipped into the pool with him and sang to him of her love. However, the youth rejected her advances. Salmacis embraced him and tried to win him over, and prayed to the gods that they be joined together as one, forever. The gods granted her prayers and the two were joined, displaying both male and female attributes of the two; hence, the name Hermaphroditos (Hermaphrodite). The coin is in VF condition, with a dark green patina. The patina is chipped on the obverse edge, with a small, hard green deposit behind Severus&#039; ear. This is an exceedingly rare coin; the second example of which I have seen in 40 years! It is not listed in the British Museum catalog, SNG Copenhagen, or in Jurukova&#039;s corpus on Hadrianopolis, though its obv. die is her V114. See Varbanov II (English), 3392 for a second example, incorrectly identified as Apollo, in my opinion. The referenced source as &quot;WW&quot; is also incorrect.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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