Dear Friends of ancient mythology! It was my intention to write an article about Mantho already since a longer time. Now where we have had a thread about the sibyl Heliope I want to recapitulate what we have found so long to add it to the mythology thread. The coin: Thessaly, Pelinna, 400-344 BC AE 20, 5.89g, 19.57mm, 30° Obv.: Veiled bust of the sibyl Mantho, daughter of the seer Teiresias, with rolled-up hair, r. Rev.: ΠEΛIN - NAIEΩN Horseman, helmeted and wearing military cloak, with couching lance galopping r.; in the field beneath monogram made from Δ and Π. Ref.: SNG Copenhagen 191; Rogers 433 F+, thick green Patina The case with Mantho, often called Manto (without h) is a bit confusing, because there are several persons with the same name: and then there is Daphne, who is said to be Mantho too. (1) Manto, daughter of Herakles. According to Servius, some held that this was the Manto for whom Mantua was named. (2) Manto, daughter of the seer Polyidos from Corinth. She and her sister Astykrateia were brought to Megara by their father, who came there to cleanse Akathoos for the murder of his son Kallipolis. The tomb of the two sisters was shown at Megara in later times. (3) Manto, daughter of another famous seer, Melampos. Her mother was Iphaneira, daughter of Megapenthes, and her siblings were Antiphates, Bias and Pronoe.. (4) Manto is remembered in De mulieribus claris, a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccacio, composed in 1361–62. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature. Our Mantho is mentioned as one of the sibyls by Balthasar Porreflo, who wrote in Spain in 1621, "Besides these twelve already stated there are others mentioned, such as Mantho, Daphne daughter of Tiresias . . . Cassandra, Xenoclea, Melisa and Lampusa" But let us begin from the start. Mythology: Mantho was the daughter of the famous seer Teiresias from Thebes. Her mother was never mentioned, but her sister Historis. She was a prophetess too, the first one for the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes, where monuments of her existed: a stony seat in the Pronaos of the Ismenion (Paus. ix. 10. § 3), and subsequently of the Delphian and Clarian Apollo. Ovid (Met. VI, 257) reports, that she have invoked the inhabitants of Thebes to warship Latona, mother of Apollo and Artemis. After the taking of Thebes by the Epigoni, she, with other captives and the tenth part of the booty, was dedicated to Apollo at Delphi. The god sent the captives to Asia Minor, where they founded the sanctuary of Apollo not far from the place where afterwards the town of Kolophon was built. Rhakios, a Cretan, who had settled there before, married Manto, and became by her the father of Mopsus, the seer. According to Euripides, she had previously become the mother of Amphilochos and Tisiphone, by Alkmaion, the matricide and leader of the Epigoni (Apollod. iii. 7. § 7.). Being a prophetess of Apollo, she is also called Daphne, meaning the laurel virgin (Diod. iv. 66). (Greek daphne = laurel). According to the Greek mythology Daphne was the daughter of the Thessalian river-god Peneios. Like Artemis she was a virgin huntress. When once Apollo has chided Cupido for his use of the bow Cupido waited for his revenge. And when once Apollo saw Daphne bathing in a pool he took his bow and shot Apollo with a golden arrow and Daphne with an arrow made of lead. Thus Apollo fell in eternal love for Daphne, but Daphne spurned all love forever. Apollo chased her and she fled. Exhausted she came to the banks of her father Peneios and cried for help, to make her less lovable for Apollo. And he changed her into a laurel-tree: Her hair became leaves, her arms branches and her head a tree top. But Apollo loved her still. He embraced the branches and kissed the wood. From that time on Apollo loved the laurel above all trees and he always was wearing a laurel wreath. The truth of the matter can be the following: Daphne was the daughter of Teiresias, the blind Theban Prophet who gave birth to her during the seven years when he had been a woman. His other daughter, Manto, the mother of Mopsus, the seer, he sired after he was a man again. Daphne and Manto were both taken captive when Thebes fell in the generation before Troy. Manto was sent to Ionia where she married Rhacius, King of Caria, by whom she had Mopsus - said to be the son of Apollo. Daphne remained a virgin and was sent to Delphi; most likely to add the power of Teiresias to the Delphi oracle which had been taken over by the Apollonians. There she became the Sibyl. There are some who say that Manto had her name changed to Daphne when she was sent to Delphi, but this is perpetrated by Apollonians who forget that the Sibyl spurned Apollo's love, while Mopsus was the son of Apollo and Manto. Later Manto appears as sibyl. These were certain renowned women inspired by heaven with prophecy and other celestial knowledge. They are generally regarded as numbering ten, residing usually in the following places : Persia, Libya, Delphi, Erythraea, Samos, Tiburtis, Cumae in Aiolia, Ancyra in Phrygia, and Marpessa on the Hellespont. The most celebrated of all was the Cumean Sibyl, variously called Amalthea, Demophile, Herophile, Daphne, Manto, Pheimonoe, and Deiphobe; she conducted Aeneas to hell, and offered successively nine, six, and at last three prophetic volumes to Tarquinius (Look at the thread about the Sibyls). Strabo in his Geography mentions several sibyls more. In Verg. Aen. 10, 198 is mentioned a presaging nymph Manto, later by the river-god Tiberis mother of Bianor or Ocnus, who named the city of Mantua in honour of his mother. The pic of Manto is taken from a handwriting of Giovanni Bocccio's De mulieribus claris. Thanks to BNF, Francais 599, Folio 25v. Sources: (1) Apollodor, Bibliotheke (2) Strabo, Geography (3) Vergil, Aeneis (4) Ovid, Metamorphoses (5) Pausanias, Voyages Secondary literature: (1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (2) Der Kleine Pauly (3) A mythological dictionary By Charles Kent, William Charles M. Kent (4) www.goddess.org/vortices/notes/delphi.html (5) Wikipedia Best regards
@Jochen1, merely reading this warrants something more nearly within range of the of time and attention that you put into writing it. (...This from an American; short attention span; Guilty As Charged.) Hoping to do so! (...It's 2 A.M. here; maybe that compounded the net effect.)
On this other type of Pelinna, Manto and the horserider switch sides. THESSALY, Pelinna AE Chalkous. 2.42g, 17.8mm. THESSALY, Pelinna, late 4th – early 3rd centuries BC. Rogers 430; HGC 4, 278; SNG Cop 190. O: Thessalian horseman on horse prancing left. R: ΠΕΛΙ-ΝΝΑI, Manto seated right, opening casket. Ex BCD Collection, with his handwritten tag stating, "Procured at Cierium"
In the revelant volume of the Handbook of Greek Coinage, it suggests that she "opens her oracular box or conjures the spirit of Teiresias." I wondered how they arrived at latter idea, but then came across the interesting piece below sold by CNG in 2012. The reverse is described as "Mantho standing facing, head left, holding open casket and gesturing towards the half image of her blind father Tiresias, facing right, who emerges from the underworld holding a dagger."
