Seleukid Coins
Demetrios II, First Reign
| Identification Number DE2-AE-01 | |
| Mint: | Nisibis1 |
| Period: | 145 - 138 BC |
| Denomination: | AE Unit |
| Weight: | 11.14 g |
| Diameter: | 21 - 21 mm (thickness up to 5 mm) |
| Obverse: | Diademed, lightly bearded head of Demetrios II right; fillet border (laurel wreath border ?) |
| Reverse: | ‘[ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ] ΔΗ[Μ]ΗΤΡΙ[ΟΥ]’ right, ‘ΝΙΚΑΤΟΡΟ[Σ]’ left (“of King Demetrios the Victor”); bearded male figure standing left, wearing polos2 and long chiton3 and carrying cornucopiae4 in left hand, holding upper right arm of female figure standing right, wearing polos, long chiton and probably peplos5, carrying cornucopiae in left hand and stretching her right hand to the male figure; ‘Η’ above ‘Ε’ in inner left field, ‘Υ’ between figures |
| Die Position: | c. 10º |
| References: | Houghton, CSE, 1018 (this coin); Hunterian Coll. III, p. 89, Nos. 23 - 24; Moore, ANSMN 31, p. 128, No. 24 (this coin); SNG Spaer, 1750 - 1751 |
| Note: | The reverse type of this bronze issue portrays two deities with identical attributes of polos and cornucopiae. According to Moore, The divine couple of Demetrius II, Nicator, and his coinage at Nisibis, the male figure represents Agathos Daimon (“good spirit”) and the female figure represents his wife Agathe Tyche (“good fortune”).6 This issue and other coins with the lightly bearded types of Demetrios II were probably minted during the latter part of his first reign, while he was campaigning against the Parthian king Mithridates I. See Ibid, pp. 136 - 143, for the dating and mint. |
1 Nisibis was the chief town of the district called Mygdonia in northern Mesopotamia (now Nusaybin, Mardin Province, southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border). Probably under Antiochus IV, the city temporarily received the dynastic name of Antioch in Mygdonia. Nisibis stood by the side of the river Mygdonius, astride important routes both from the east to west (from Arbela or Seleukeia on the Tigris to Edessa or Harran) and from the north to south (from Armenia to the Mesopotamian plain). Russell, Nisibis as the background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian, paragraph 12, mentions Pigulevskaja’s hypothesis (N. Pigulevskaja, Les villes de l’état Iranien aux époques Parthe et Sassanide, Contribution à l’histoire sociale de la basse antiquité. Paris, Mouton & Co, 1963; Russell refers to p. 51) that the Greek name for the region or valley in which Nisibis lies, “Mygdonia”, comes from the Syriac word magda’ = “fruit”, which suggests very good fertility of the area. (Russell, Nisibis as the background to the Life of Ephrem the Syrian; Head, Historia Numorum, A Manual of Greek Numismatics, Nisibis)
2 A type of headdress recorded as either tall and crownlike and associated with Hera, or shorter and associated with priestesses or Demeter figures. In archaic art, all great goddesses may wear the polos, however.
3 A garment worn by Greek men and women. It was made from two rectangular pieces of fabric (linen or wool, later also from cotton) and draped by the wearer in various ways and kept in place at the shoulders (and often also at arms and sides) by brooches or pins and at the waist by a belt.
4 The horn of plenty signifying prosperity and unlimited abundance. Its origin is connected with the events surrounding the birth of Zeus. According to ancient authors, Zeus was cared for by nymphs who fed him milk and honey. A nymph named Amaltheia owned a bull’s horn that could magically produce food or drink in limitless supply. According to another version of the myth, her goat named Aix (whose milk she fed the infant Zeus) accidentally broke off one of its horns and this became the cornucopiae. According to yet another version, Amaltheia was the goat from whom Zeus suckled milk and one of Amaltheia’s horns flowed with nectar and the other with ambrosia. After Zeus had matured, he honored Amaltheia by placing her in the sky as a constellation. In gratitude to the nymphs who had nurtured him, he presented them with a horn from Amaltheia that had the power to provide food and drink in limitless supply. (Bitner, The Cornucopia - A Horn of Plenty)
The cornucopiae is usually depicted overflowing with fruits and other agricultural produces. The depicted horns belonged to an ancient breed of wild goats known for their large horns. The word cornucopiae (plural cornuacopiae) is a combination of two Latin words, cornu (horn) and copiae (plenty). (Bitner, The Cornucopia - A Horn of Plenty)
5 A long garment worn by Greek women over chiton. It consisted of a large, rectangular piece of material folded vertically and hung from the shoulders, with a broad overfold.
6 Moore, The divine couple of Demetrius II, Nicator, and his coinage at Nisibis, pp. 133 - 134: Agathos Daimon and Agathe Tyche are not deities with specific personalities, as were the Olympian gods of Homer, but are rather more generic in nature. They are manifestations of the demoi in a collective sense, where various appellatives have been attached to them from place to place over time. ... Agathos Daimon, like Agathe Tyche as the “good fortune” of the demos, is a similar conceptual representation of the “good spirit” of departed ancestors. He is a protective spirit of the family, from that of the individual citizen to that of the king, and in a broader sense he may represent the heroic ancestral heritage of the state. He is the seed carrier, the genetic code or paterfamilias of the family, the demos, the polis and of the royal line. His function is that of progenitor, the male force – hence, his usual attribute of fruitfulness and fertility, the cornucopia. The function of his consort, Agathe Tyche, is that of generatrix or seed receiver; the two together symbolizing procreation and continued existence for the clan, the city and the people at large.
On Agathe Tyche and Agathos Daimon, see also Gasparro, Daimôn and Tuchê in Hellenistic Religious Experience.