ALEXANDER II Zabinas 128BC Antioch SELEUKID Dionysus Ancient Greek Coin i47340

Description: Item: i47340 Authentic Ancient Coin of: Greek Coin of Seleukid Kingdom Alexander II Zabinas - Reigned: 128-123 B.C. Serrate Bronze 18mm (5.84 grams) Apameia on the Oxios mint, struck circa 128-123 B.C. Reference: HGC 9, 1166 (R1); SC 2242 Head of Dionysus right, wreathed with ivy. ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ / ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ, Winged Tyche standing left, holding tiller and cornucopia; symbols and monograms to left. Claiming to be an adopted son of Alexander Balas, Zebina rebelled against Demetrios II with the backing of Ptolemy VII of Egypt. Five years later he was defeated by the forces of Cleopatra and her son Antiochos VIII. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity. Tyche (Greek for luck; the Roman equivalent was Fortuna ) was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. Increasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities had their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown (a crown like the walls of the city). The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche. Stylianos Spyridakis concisely expressed Tyche's appeal in a Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: "In the turbulent years of the Epigoni of Alexander , an awareness of the instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the vicissitudes of the time." In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite , or considered as one of the Oceanids , daughters of Oceanus and Tethys , or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon ("good spirit"). She was uniquely venerated at Itanos in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia, linked with the Athenian Protogeneia ("firstborn"), daughter of Erechtheus , whose self-sacrifice saved the city. She had temples at Caesarea Maritima , Antioch , Alexandria and Constantinople . In Alexandria the Tychaeon, the temple of Tyche, was described by Libanius as one of the most magnificent of the entire Hellenistic world. Tyche appears on many coins of the Hellenistic period in the three centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean. Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of Hellenistic romances , such as Leucippe and Clitophon or Daphnis and Chloe . She experienced a resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly sanctioned Paganism , between the late-fourth-century emperors Julian and Theodosius I who definitively closed the temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot. In medieval art , she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia , an emblematic ship's rudder, and the wheel of fortune , or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate. The constellation of Virgo is sometimes identified as the heavenly figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as Demeter and Astraea . Dionysus is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in Greek mythology . Alcohol, especially wine, played an important role in Greek culture with Dionysus being an important reason for this life style. His name, thought to be a theonym in Linear B tablets as di-wo-nu-so (KH Gq 5 inscription), shows that he may have been worshipped as early as c. 1500–1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks ; other traces of the Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete . His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany , "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion , and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians . Dionysus was the last god to be accepted into Mt. Olympus. He was the youngest and the only one to have a mortal mother. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre . He is an example of a dying god . The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a mature male, bearded and robed. He holds a fennel staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus . Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth: the literature describes him as womanly or "man-womanish". In its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession (thiasus) is made up of wild female followers (maenads) and bearded satyrs with erect penises . Some are armed with the thyrsus, some dance or play music. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers, and is sometimes attended by a bearded, drunken Silenus . This procession is presumed to be the cult model for the human followers of his Dionysian Mysteries . In his Thracian mysteries, he wears the bassaris or fox-skin, symbolizing a new life. Dionysus is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods. Also known as Bacchus, the name adopted by the Romans and the frenzy he induces, bakkheia. His thyrsus is sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey. It is a beneficent wand but also a weapon, and can be used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. He is also called Eleutherios ("the liberator"), whose wine, music and ecstatic dance frees his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subverts the oppressive restraints of the powerful. Those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. His cult is also a "cult of the souls"; his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings, and he acts as a divine communicant between the living and the dead. In Greek mythology, he is presented as a son of Zeus and the mortal Semele , thus semi-divine or heroic: and as son of Zeus and Persephone or Demeter , thus both fully divine, part-chthonic and possibly identical with Iacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries . Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity and a more powerful god from Thrace or Phrygia such as Sabazios or Zalmoxis . Alexander II Zabinas, ruler of the Greek Seleucid kingdom , was a counter-king who emerged in the chaos following the Seleucidian loss of Mesopotamia to the Parthians . Zabinas was a false Seleucid who claimed to be an adoptive son of Antiochus VII Sidetes , but in fact seems to have been the son of an Egyptian merchant named Protarchus. Antioch , Apamea , and several other cities, disgusted with the tyranny of Demetrius, acknowledged the authority of Alexander. He was used as a pawn by the Egyptian king Ptolemy VIII Tryphon , who introduced Zabinas as a means of getting to the legitimate Seleucid king Demetrius II , who supported his sister Cleopatra II against him in the complicated dynastic feuds of the latter Hellenistic dynasties. Zabinas managed to defeat Demetrius II, who fled to Tyre and was killed there, and thereafter ruled parts of Syria (128 BC-123 BC), but soon ran out of Egyptian support and was in his turn was defeated by Demetrius' son Antiochus VIII Grypus . Zabinas fled to the Seleucid capital Antiochia , where he plundered several temples. He is said to have joked about melting down a statuette of the goddess of victory Nike which was held in the hand of a Zeus statue, saying "Zeus has given me Victory". Enraged by his impiety the Antiochenes cast Zabinas out of the city. He soon fell into the hands of robbers, who delivered him up to Antiochus, by whom he was put to death, in 122 BC. The name "Zabinas" means "the purchased slave", and was applied to him, deprecatingly, in response to a report that he had been bought by Ptolemy as a slave. For reasons unknown, Alexander II was the only late Seleucid not to use epithets on his coins. Several of his coins are extant. Preceded byy Antiochus VII Sidetes Seleucid King 128–123 BC Succeeded by Antiochus VIII Grypus and Seleucid Empire Σελεύκεια Seleúkeia 312 BC–63 BC ↓ The Seleucid Empire in 301 BC. The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state ruled by the Seleucid dynasty founded by Seleucus I Nicator following the division of the empire created by Alexander the Great . Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexander's near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia , the Levant , Mesopotamia , Kuwait , Persia , Afghanistan , Turkmenistan , and northwest parts of India . The Seleucid Empire was a major center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek-Macedonian political elite dominated, mostly in the urban areas. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by emigration from Greece . Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army . Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands. Much of the eastern part of the empire was conquered by the Parthians under Mithridates I of Parthia in the mid-2nd century BC, yet the Seleucid kings continued to rule a rump state from the Seleukid Kingdom until the invasion by Armenian king Tigranes the Great and their ultimate overthrow by the Roman general Pompey . 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Price: 140 USD

Location: Rego Park, New York

End Time: 2024-04-17T02:24:31.000Z

Shipping Cost: 4.5 USD