Many cities in the oriental provinces of the Roman Empire worshipped their own city-goddess called in Greek the Tyche, the Fortune or Destiny of the city. In every city there was a temple called the Tychaion, a name that means "statue of the Tyche" but also "temple of the Tyche". Though the local Tyche was supposed to be the goddess of this city and not any other city, the statues were almost identical. In North Syria, Cilicia, Mesopotamia, almost all Tyches were represented veiled, seated on a rock, a river-god swimming at their feet, like the Hellenistic statue of the Tyche of Antioch made by the sculptor Eutychides. In South Syria, Palestine, Arabia, the Tyche was a standing figure holding a cornucopia and/or a long sceptre, one foot resting on some object, head or prow for example. On 3rd c. coins, most of them minted under Elegabalus, these Tyches were often represented in an architectural frame, described as a tetrastyle temple with a triangular pediment and a central arch. Sometimes there are tiny statues between columns. It is always the same architecture. It does not represent the facade of the temple but the inner shrine, the adyton, where the statue was standing. Some examples of Tychaion coins from different cities (not my coins) One of these temples is well-preserved enough to show this inner shrine. It is in a small South Syrian town, Sanamein (ancient Aere). Aere was not a polis, a city, but had her own Tyche in her temple. We can still see the bottom of the cella with the central niche flanked by columns, there must have been a triangular pediment but it has vanished. Interior of the Tychaion of Sanamein (Syria). It's the best preserved I know. Now, the problem... This architecture is always the same in many cities, and it is possible to ID coins only when the legend is readable, at least a part of it. But in archaeological digs, you often find bronze coins in terrible condition, and it is not always possible to clean them properly. Hence the frustration when you have a worn and corroded Tychaon coin you cannot ID with confidence because no part of the legend is readable... Tychaion coins from an archaeological dig. Some could be identified (Bostra, Caesarea, Antipatris) but for others it's a total frustration... Please you can post your Tychaion coins if you have any...
Quite interesting. The only ones of this type that I'm aware of in my collection are two very low-grade ones from dirtyoldcoins bulk lots. Both are decrepit and one has hideous BD (and one can just barely make out a temple - it would be only Fair without the BD.)
Collecting Roman Provincials, one ends up with lots of Tyches and lots of temples, but not always (or even often) together. Here is one more style in which Tyche is represented by her bust within the shrine. Notice that this would appear to be the same style of structure as shown above, with the round arch atop two columns. The outer two columns and the triangular pediment are not shown (but implied). Sometimes this reduced design appeared on large bronzes, but it was especially well-suited to smaller module coins. Syria, Laodicea ad Mare. Elagabalus AE17 (4.29g) This coin = RPC VI, 8177 (#23, illustrated), ex Salton Collection = Salton-Schlessinger FPL 27 (Fall 1958), Lot 133 Here's another representation of Tyche holding two temples (to represent Nicomedia's Double-Neokorate status) -- but these ones are not Tychaia (unless there was "temple-sharing"; see below). These temples are a "stock image" on most Neokoros coins (usually just one, but occasionally up to three or four temples) -- always with regular columns (4 or more depending on perspective), triangular pediment with small decoration & curved adornments at all corners (size permitting).: Bithynia, Nicomedia. Otacilia AE27 (11.21g) This coin = Lindgren & Kovacs (1985) 177 = RPC VIII (Temp) 20005, ex. 5 = Antioch 15 (1 Jun 1998), Lot 100, ex H.C. Lindgren (1914-2005) Collection To be Neokoroi ("temple bearers," a privileged status), at least one temple had to be a Temple of the Imperial Cult (worship of the divine Emperor). "Temple-sharing" was practiced in the Greek world, so I'm not sure one of these temples could be doing double-duty. (Thessalonica's Neokoros coins show a Kaberion, which I suspect doubled as the Imperial Cult's temple.)
Some of the temples pictured are distinct from the other ones. I didn't know that, about the regional differences of Tyche's representation.
You are right, it's a simplification of the Tychaion architetural frame. We can say that in Antioch : here is a (much worn, sorry, that's the only one I got) 8 assaria of Philip the Arab & Son : (coin minted c 248) But three centuries later the same monument, simplified, is depicted on this Byzantine pentanummion of Justin I : it's the same statue, but the architecture shown here is just the two central columns supporting the arch. Lateral columns and roof with triangular pediment are implied.
Hi All, The Alexandrian Tyche temples of the 2c. come with her reclining (see https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=7921808) or standing (see https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=9491318). Sadly, neither coin is mine. - Broucheion
Very interesting about the Byzantine pentanummi still showing that building! I'd forgotten about that, though I have some examples (mostly low grade like the one below). (expandable) One of the last vestiges of pagan imagery on Roman/Byzantine coinage, I suppose. (I think mid-way through Justinian's reign is when Victory becomes a male "angel" on the AV Solidus? Victory may have survived longer on the Tremissis and/or Semissis. Justin II Solidi are the last appearance of Constantinopolis personified.)
I think this typical architecture of the Tychaion (tetrastyle, triangular pediment with central arch) is not always just the frame of the adyton, at the bottom of the cella like in Sanamein. It can be the whole temple. There are in Bostra (Bosra ash-Sham, Syria) 4 conspicuous columns at a crossroads, not aligned with the streets but at 45°. The gap between the 2 central columns is larger, we can understand there was a central arch. Behind the columns there is no depth : just a monumental central exedra. Howard C. Butler in 1914 understood this monument as a huge niche behind 4 high columns. Because it was at a crossroads archaeologists identified it as a nymphaeum, a monumental public fountain. But recent excavations found there no trace of hydraulic mortar, no basins, no pipes or aqueducts (after all, there is no source of running water in Bostra, water was taken from large pools). The present identification of this monument is a "monumental exedra" of the 2nd c. and the Severian period. Could it be the local Tychaion? A coin of Bostra minted under Severus Alexander shows the Tyche of Bostra (holding a trophy and a cornucopia, flanked by two much smaller centaurs who could mean the Tyche had colossal proportions) in her architectural frame (Not my coin). There are older coins of Bostra with the Tyche, but none with the architecture. There is a parallel in Nysa Scythopolis (Baysan / Beth Shean, Israel): a tetrastyle facade at a crossroads with just a stairway and an exedra behind. Like in Bostra, there is a local coin of Elagabalus showing the Scythopolis Tychaion (not my coin again, sorry). I have found no archaeological publication that considered this hypothesis, in Bostra or in Scythopolis. The only hypothesis I read is that these monuments could be linked with the imperial cult, because at Scythopolis there was the base of a statue of Marcus Aurelius in front of the facade. But hey didn't find it in the central exedra !
