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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Jochen1, post: 3426838, member: 103829&quot;]Dear Friends of ancient mythology!</p><p><br /></p><p>I once had a time when I was hunting for coins with river gods. The following coins originate from this time.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>1st Coin:</b></p><p>Moesia inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum, Septimius Severus, AD 193-211</p><p>AE 26, 9.27g, 26.36mm, 0°</p><p>struck under governor Aurelius Gallus</p><p>obv. AV-T Λ CEΠT - CEVHP ΠEP</p><p>laureate head r.</p><p>rev. VΠ AVP ΓAΛΛOV.NIKOΠOΛIT ΠPOC IC</p><p>Bearded river god (Istros), in hip dress, leaning l., holding in raised r. hand big</p><p>water plant and resting with l. arm on vase, from which water flows l.</p><p>ref. a) not in AMNG</p><p>cf. AMNG I/1, 1313 (for the type only)</p><p>b) Varbanov (engl.) 2663a</p><p>c) Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov (2018) No. 8.14.32.20 (plate coin)</p><p>about VF, dark green patina</p><p>[ATTACH=full]909841[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>2nd Coin:</b></p><p>Thrace, Philippopolis, Commodus, AD 177-192</p><p>AE 32, 17.89g, 31.88mm, 345°</p><p>struck under governor Caecilius Servilianus</p><p>obv. AV KAI M AV Λ KOMOΔOC</p><p>Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r.</p><p>rev. HΓE KAI CEPOVEIΛIANOV ΦIΛIΠΠ / OΠOΛEIT / ΩN</p><p>Bearded river god (Hebron), in hip dress, leaning l. on rocks(?), holding</p><p>water plant in l. hand and resting with l. arm on overturned vase from which</p><p>water flows l. ; the lowered l. hand rests on prow of ship; tree stg. behind with</p><p>several twigs and fruits</p><p>ref. Varbanov 943</p><p>Extremely rare, about VF, wonderful rev.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]909842[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Pat Lawrence: That is one beautiful Philippopolis, queen of mints issuing large river-gods, and this is one of its bests.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>3rd Coin:</b></p><p>Sicily, Gela, c.420-415 BC</p><p>AE 18 (tetras), 4.81g, 17.57mm, 210°</p><p>obv. Bull with lowered head, l.</p><p>above GELAS, beneath three pellets (for 3 onkiai = tetras)</p><p>rev. Head of river god Gela, diademed and with horns on forehead, r.</p><p>ref. SNG Copenhagen 283/5</p><p>about VF</p><p>Pedigree:</p><p>ex Baldwin&#039;s 1896, lot 202</p><p>ex coll. William C.Boyd (1840-1926)</p><p>[ATTACH=full]909843[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>In early times river gods are depicted horned because they were equated to bulls due to their wild character. Homer writes how the river Skamandros was roaring like a bull when he has been wounded. In Greece and Italy there was a famous cult of river gods. This cult was not unknown in ancient times. Especially among the indogermanic peoples the worshipping of flowing water was wide spread. It is known from the Indians, the Persians, the Thracians and the Celts. From the Germans it is not sure. The designation as &#039;river gods&#039; was not known in ancient times. Homer and Hesiod were talking of &#039;<i>ποταμοι</i>&#039; (Greek = rivers). Wether they have differentiated between the rivers itself and river gods (who lived at the bottom of the rivers or in caves) is not clear!</p><p><br /></p><p>Referring to Homer all rivers originated from Okeanos. Hesiod calls the rivers children of Okeanos and Thetis. But Skamandros is known as son of Zeus. They are immortal and participate on meetings of the gods. They are seen with many children and as ancestors of aristocratic families.</p><p><br /></p><p>Characteristic for their cult was the consecration of hair, perhaps the substitute of human sacrifice. Peleus vows the river Spercheios a ringlet of Achill if his son will come home safe. Elsewise they got the usual offerings, bulls and sheep. There were regular sacrificing e.g. in Messenia, one was sacrificing before crossing a river, so Xerxes before before crossing the Strymon or Lucullus at the Euphrat. The river gods had priests too, temples and altars.</p><p><br /></p><p>Already Homer knows the river gods as human-shaped. When in his Ilias (lib. 22, 237) Skamandros yells like a bull then this is a reminiscence of older beliefs. The most early depiction of a river god, Acheloos, is the mix of a bull and a human being. The later typus had only small horns. In Graeca Magna and in Sicily they appear as youthful men on coins of the 5th century BC. The well known type as leaning river god as on these two coins could be from the same century if one suggest Pausanias is right with his description of the figures at the Easter pedement of the Zeus temple of Olympia as Alpheios and Kladeios. But this today is seen as not correct. So this typus seems to be more probably hellenistic. The suggestion that the Centaurs are originally river gods is shortend to Nessos only.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are known about one hundred names of river gods, mostly from Greece, from Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy. But this list is not complete. In the Greek area the most famous are Acheloos and Alpheios. Italian river gods with supra-regional cult in the Roman-Italian area were Clitumnus and Tiber (as Tiberinus pater too). He also was seen as master and father of all other rivers and called by prayer. He had a sanctuary too. In the old almanac of ceremonies he was substituted by Volturnus.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Excursion: For the deeper understanding of the ancient conception of river and other gods:</b></p><p>The river gods depicted on coins are not personifications in our sense. Rivers have not been gods! They have been the expression of something divine behind the things. And that is something very different! In rivers, wells, trees or mountains turned up the divine. In this sense the depicted river god was the visible expression of this divine behind the things. In different shapes, depending on the kind of the depicted river. It is understandable that they were depicted anthropomorphic, bedded like a tired wanderer (the feet pointing to the mouth of the river!). Nevertheless it was the matter of a transcendental experience, valid for wells, trees, mountains and other deities too.</p><p><br /></p><p>This has been heavily misunderstood by the Christian monks who cut the sacred trees, e.g. Bonifatius the Donar Oak, and claimed the gods to resist it. The reminiscence on Christ hanging on the cross should have disabuse them: He too was challenged by the Romans to climb down if he really was God.</p><p><br /></p><p>We all have remains of this understanding of nature when we say about a river: He is hopping and jumping, is streaming majestically or is restricted and violated by channels. May be the actual situation of our nature could be more hopeful if we would bethink ourself of this buried view!</p><p><br /></p><p>I thank Mr. Reinhart Falter, with whom I have discussed for hours. He is responsible for the renaturation of the river Isar in Munich. His big collection of coins with river gods he has sold some years before on auctions.</p><p><br /></p><p>The attached pics show the two figures from the East pediment of the Zeus temple in Olympia which were describend already by Pausanias. The left one is Alpheios (from AERIA), the right one Kladeos (from the Photo Collection of the University of Göttingen).</p><p>[ATTACH=full]909846[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Sources:</b></p><p>(1) Der kleine Pauly</p><p>(2) Reinhart Falter, Fluß- und Berggötter in der Spätantike, Cadmus 1999</p><p>(3) Sylvia Klement, Gelagerte Flußgötter, Böhlau 1993</p><p>(4) <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/www.aeria.phil.uni-erlangen.de" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/www.aeria.phil.uni-erlangen.de">www.aeria.phil.uni-erlangen.de</a></p><p>(5) <a href="http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~aegypt/ow/zeus.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~aegypt/ow/zeus.htm" rel="nofollow">http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~aegypt/ow/zeus.htm</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Best regards[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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