Dear Friends of ancient mythology! Here I would like to introduce a mythologically highly interesting coin, whose reverse side is unfortunately usually explained wrongly. This motif appears on coins of Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Verus, Herennia Etruscilla, Valerian I. and Gallienus. Coin No. 1: Cilicia, Syedra, Marcus Aurelius, AD 161-180 AE 30, 14.04g, 30.0mm, 195° Obv.: AVT KAI M A - VP ANTΩNINOC Bust, draped and cuirassed, laureate, r. before c/m AK in rectangular incus (Howgego 514) Rev.: C - V - E - ΔPE / ΩN Ares in military cloak and wearing Corinthian helmet, resting with r. hand on his shield, stg. l. between Dike, in long garment stg. l., head turned r., and Hermes, nude, wearing winged boots and with kerykeion in l. arm, stg. l., holding Ares with his r. hand. Ref.: Ziegler, Kilikien, - (rev. same dies like #121 for Lucius Verus) very rare, about VF/F Since my own coin is not in such a great condition, I use a second picture from CoinArchives: Coin No. 2: Same type as above CNG writes as note on this coin: Ares slew Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon, for assaulting Ares' daughter, Alcippe. The site where Ares came before the gods for judgement became the Areopagos (Hill of Ares) in Athens, the location of the Athenian law courts. Ares was absolved of murder. It is unknown why this event had such import for Syedra, but the scene appears frequently on its 3rd century coinage. Here I have the explanation: In late Hellenistic times the inhabitants of Syedra like the entire coast of Asia Minor had to suffer by repeated assaults of pirates. In this time of need the people of Synedra contacted the oracle of Klaros. And they got the advice to erect in their city a statue of Ares bound by Hermes and being judged by Dike. This statue was said to protect them against the assaults of the pirates. The base of the statue with the inscription of this action is preserved until now. (Literature: Götter, Städte, Feste. Ausstellung Münzsammlung München 1994, 23f.) It is interesting that we have many stories about the binding of gods, especially Ares. It seems to be a preferred Greek hobby to bind Ares. Pausanias (3.15.7) tells us that in Sparta opposite of the temple of Poseidon Hipposthenes an old statue has existed showing Ares Enyalios in chains. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Nike; the former think that Enyalius will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, and that manfulness and fortunes of war were bound to Sparta,.while the Athenians think that Nike, having no wings, will always remain where she was. In one obscure archaic myth related in Homers Ilias (5. 385-391) by the goddess Dione to her daughter Aphrodite, two chthonic giants, the Aloades, named Otus and Ephialtes, threw Ares into chains and put him in a bronze urn, where he remained for thirteen months. "And that would have been the end of Ares and his appetite for war, if the beautiful Eriboea, the young giants' stepmother, had not told Hermes what they had done," she related. "In this one suspects a festival of licence which is unleashed in the thirteenth month." Ares remained screaming and howling in the urn until Hermes rescued him and Artemis tricked the Aloadae into slaying each other. This happened on the island of Naxos. Background: The mythical and cultic binding of Ares has long evoked interest and commentary. Most scholars seek to explain these stories and practices by Ares' supposedly "dishonored" status, and both ancients and moderns have counted Ares among the "Forces of Evil" from which poleis protected themselves by a magical, prophylactic binding of his statue. But this view fails to place Ares' binding within the larger phenomenon of bound cult statues and do not account for the surprisingly complex image of the god in epic and tragedy. A brief exposition of generally neglected evidence will establish that cult statues, including Ares', were not chained to incapacitate their power, but to ensure their continued presence as protective powers. Moreover, for Ares in particular, literary and epigraphic evidence suggests that he was bound to the city as the avenging protector of the city's land and agent of Zeus' daughter Dike. The binding of Ares' cult images is not an isolated phenomenon. Several ancient authorities, clearly testify that the images of the gods were bound in an effort keep them tied to their cities. The fifth century sources on this point speak with one voice. Their consistent reference to the binding of "Daidalian" sculptures indicates a practice considered ancient even in the fifth century B.C., and the many mythical bindings of various deities, including Zeus, shows such rituals to be extremely archaic indeed. While it is true that liminal and potentially troublesome deities like Aphrodite, Artemis, and Dionysos account for the lion's share of the explicit evidence for bound cult statues, we should remember that the power of every Greek god was a double-edged sword. Apollo could be the bearer or averter of disease. Demeter could either insure the fertility of crops or drive humans into a frenzy of pre-agricultural cannibalism. The cult of Ares, I would argue, was no different in this respect. The complex rationales for Ares' binding appear most clearly in two inscriptions from southern Asia Minor, one from Pamphylian Syedra, and another example from Iconium. In both cases, an oracle bade the cities to create a statue group depicting Ares bound before Hermes and Dike. While the position of Ares as suppliant before an image of Justice could imply a malevolent and hostile relationship between Ares and the city, a closer reading of the inscription tends to undermine this reading. The relationship of Ares and Dike had earlier received considerable elaboration by none other than Aeschylus in his 'Septem' and 'Oresteia'. In these plays Ares is always portrayed as the bearer of global, retaliatory justice. It is in this capacity that Ares appears alongside Zeus and Athena at the heart of the Athenian Ephebic oath, and similar concerns likely informed Ares' binding at Syedra and Iconium. Ares was bound and placed before Dike so that his violent and retributive energies would not harm the polis. Far from diminishing the god's power, cities sought to focus Ares' potentially destructive energies outward by binding his image to the land and subjecting him to Dike. This is the Ares found alongside Athena on the Shield of Achilles and invoked in the Hymn to Ares as "ally of Themis." (Matthew Gonzales) I have added a pic of the ancient areopag in Athens from AERIA: Sources: (1) Homer, Ilias (2) Pausanias, Sparta (3) Homeric Hymns to Ares Literature: (1) Karl Kerenyi, Griechische Göttersagen (2) Matthew Gonzales: The binding of Ares in Myth and Cult Online Sources: (1) Wikipedia, Ares (2) AERIA (pic of the Areopagos) Best regards
