Dear friends of ancient mythology! The myth of Perseus is well-known. Here is a rare coin showing him together with Diktys, who saved him and his mother Danae. This gives me the opportunity to write about this not so well known part of the mythology of Perseus, and about his mother, the beautiful Danae. 1st coin: Cilicia, Tarsos, Caracalla, AD 198-217. AE 34, 18.3g, 33.64mm Obv.: AVT KAI M CEVHPOC ANTΩNEINOC CEB in the left and right field Γ B in r. field one below the other AM / K Perseus standing r., holding Harpa in lowered right hand and statuette of Apollo Lykeios with 2 wolves in his raised left hand, greeting fisherman Diktys, who is walking r. and looking back l., carrying with both hands a long pole with a fish hanging from the lower end and a basket from the upper end. Ref.: Cox Adana Museum 189 in ANS NNM 92, 189 (from where I have taken the legends) . extremely rare, F+, only 1 ex. listed in Ancient Coin Search, sold in 2011 at CNG Auction 88, lot 1009, for $4000! Notes: (1) Demiurge office: the demiurge was one of the most important officials of the city in Tarsos. His main duty was to manage the financial affairs of the city. Caracalla held this office on an honorary basis on the occasion of a large grain donation in 216, because his troop deployments to the east had also placed a heavy burden on the provincial capital of Tarsos. (2) Tarsos was probably the city that advertised its titles the most. Thus it received the additional designations AΔPIANOC under Hadrian, CEVHPIANOC under Septimius Severus and ANTΩNEINIANOC under Caracalla. On coins even the name ANTΩNEINOΠOLIC appears! (3) AM / K stand for Greek A = ΠPΩTH (the first), M = MEΓICTH (the greatest) and K = KAΛΛICTH (the most beautiful). (4) Γ B are the Greek numerical values 3 and 2 and mean: the 3 administrative districts of Cilicia, Isauria and Lycaonia which belonged to Tarsos, and the 2 temples of the imperial cult which Tarsos possessed. The mythological background is clearly clarified by the image of Perseus. However, there are other coins of a fisherman, with exactly the same fishing gear. 2nd coin: Cilicia, Anazarbos, Gordian III, 238-244. AE 31, 17.94g, 201°. struck AD 242/3 (year AXC = 261) Obv.: AVT K M ANTΩNINOC ΓOPΔIANOC CE Bust, draped and cuirassed, wearing radiate crown, r. Rev.: ANAZAPBO - V ENDOΞ MHTPO Fisherman, in working clothes and wearing Phrygian cap, seated on rock.l., head turned r., supporting himself with left hand and holding fishing gear in raised right hand. in the left and right field Γ - B in ex. ET AΞC Ref.: SNG of Aulock 8668; SNG Levante 1486; SNG Paris II, 2108; Lindgren 1441; BMC Lycaonia etc. 37, no.31 extremely rare, S+/ almost SS, attractive contrasting patina. Legends taken from Ziegler, Münzen Kilikiens aus kleineren deutschen Sammlungen, p.143, no.1114/5 (identical dies!) As there is no mythological reference here, this is a rare depiction of an ancient craft. Danae: Danae (Greek = the Danaean) was the daughter of the Argive king Akrisios and Eurydike (Apollodor) or Aganippe (Hyginus). Since Akrisios wanted a son, but was already of advanced age, he consulted the Delphic Oracle. The oracle warned him against a male offspring: Danae would bear a son who would kill him. Thereupon he locked Danae in an iron room under the earth and had her closely guarded. This was to be seen for a long time in Argos, until the tyrant Perilaos had it destroyed (Pausanias). But Zeus, who had fallen in love with her, came to her through the roof as golden rain and seduced her, and she bore him Perseus. When Akrisios once heard the voice of the playing boy Perseus from the Thalamos and thus learned that his daughter had nevertheless given birth, he killed the nurse, but carried the daughter with her son to the altar of Zeus, where she was to swear the truth about her father. He did not believe his daughter's statement that it was Zeus. He suspected his brother Proitos, with whom he had already quarrelled in the womb. Not wanting to kill his daughter, he had her and Perseus locked in a wooden box and thrown into the sea. But Zeus held his hand over them. Diktys: Diktys (Greek = "the net") was a fisherman and brother of King Polydektes (Greek = "the allgrabber") on the small Cycladic island of Seriphos in the Aegean Sea. Both were sons of Magnes with a naiad, Naias Seriphia, an otherwise unnamed spring nymph on Seriphos (perhaps a daughter of the river god Peneios in Thessaly). She had fled Magnesia in Thessaly together with her two sons. Through the water she brought with her, she made the island habitable for humans (Apollodorus). According to others, Diktys and Polydektes were descendants of Poseidon with Kerebria (Joannes Tzetzes ad Lykophron) or of Peristhenes, the grandson of Nauplios, with Androthoe, the daughter of Perikastor (Schol. ad Apoll. Rhod.). One day the sea washed a large box onto the beach. Diktys recovered it with his net and when he opened it, he found Danae and her son Perseus safe and sound inside. He brought them both into his house and treated them as his own relatives. Perseus he brought up as his son and took care of Danae. The further fate: There are several variants of the further story, for example by Hyginus. This is the version of Apollodor: But now Polydektes fell in love with Danae and tried to force her to marry him. Since Perseus stood in his way, he sought to eliminate him. He pretended to want to marry Hippodameia, for whom he still needed a wedding gift. Each guest was to donate a horse to him. Since Perseus had no horse, he promised to bring him the head of Medusa, which was known to petrify all who saw it. Polydektes agreed because he hoped to get rid of him that way. When Perseus happily returned to Seriphos sooner than expected with the head of Medusa and his wife Andromeda, who had been won in Ethiopia, he found Danae and Diktys begging for protection at the altars where they had had to flee from the violence and lust of Polydektes. Perseus freed them by showing the head of Medusa to Polydektes and his friends, who were sitting at a feast, and turned them all into stone. Since then, Seriphos has been one of the rockiest islands in the Cyclades. Visitors to the island are still shown this circle of rocks (Pausanias). Afterwards, Diktys was appointed king of the island by Perseus (Pindar). Perseus went to Argos and Danae followed her son and stayed there with her mother Eurydike, while Perseus went to look for Akrisios. The latter had fled to Larissa in Pelasgia out of fear of the oracle. There Perseus had been invited to the funeral celebrations that King Teutames was holding in honour of his dead father and took part in the pentathlon. As he threw a discus aloft, it was so deflected by the wind and the will of the gods that it fell on the foot of Akrisios and killed him. Thus the oracle had been fulfilled even against the will of Perseus. A heroon was erected for Akrisios. Background: In Christian times, Danae was regarded on the one hand by the Church Fathers as the epitome of venal love, but in the Middle Ages as a symbol of shamefulness and as a prefiguration, a foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary, since she had conceived without a husband. This second idea is still alive in J. Grossaert's painting of 1527 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), in which Danae is dressed in the blue that corresponds to the rules for Mary. More often, however, Danae was seen as the woman who fell for the temptation of gold, with which everything can be bought. In addition, this myth also shows that no human caution can help against fate. In this respect, the fate of Akrisios is a tragedy in the ancient sense. Literary history: A poignant "Lamentation of Danae" has come down to us from Simonides of Kos (557/6-468/7 BC). Then, of course, the great tragedians took up this theme. Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) wrote the satyr play "Diktyoulkoi" (= "The Net Pullers") in the first half of the 5th century, Sophokles (497/6-406/5 B.C.) wrote "Akrisios" and Euripides (480 or 485/4-406 B.C.) wrote a trilogy of tragedies, of which "Danae" has disappeared and "Diktys" has only been preserved in fragments. Art history: Art loved the Danae myth. Danae was depicted clothed in vase painting, naked in Pompeian wall painting (House of G. Rufus). In the Renaissance and Baroque, Danae was a popular subject in the visual arts, as it gave artists the opportunity to present an unclothed woman. Here is a small series of artists from whom there is a "Danae": (1) Correggio (1489-1534): "Danae", 1531 (Rome, Galeria Borghese). (2) Titian (1488/90-1576) painted a whole series of 6 versions in total. (3) Tintoretto (1518-1594), "Danae", 1570, Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (4) Oracio Gentileschi (1563-1639), "Danae", 1623, Cleveland Museum of Art (5) Rembrandt (1606-1669), "Danae", 1636, Hermitage, St Petersburg, later reworked by him. This painting was the subject of a serious attack in 1985. And from more recent times: (6) Gustav Klimt (1867-1918), "Danae", 1907, Galerie Würthle, Vienna. By Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), there is the delicate bronze figure "Danae and Perseus" at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. I have chosen the following pictures: (1) The first image shows Danae and the gold shower of Zeus. It is found on a Boiotic red-figure bell crater from the period 450-435 B.C. Today it can be seen in the Louvre in Paris. (2) The second scene shows Danae and her infant son Perseus abandoned in a chest at sea. They are surrounded by a flock of seagulls. Attic red-figure Leukythos, attributed to the Icarus Painter, c. 490 BC, Late Archaic/Early Classical, now in the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design in New York (detail). (3) The last ancient representation is an Attic red-figure Leukythus, attributed to the Providence Painter, c. 480-470 BC, Early Classical, now in the Museum of Art in Toldeo, Spain. King Acrisius is seen on the right, ordering his daughter and her son Perseus to be set adrift in a box at sea. The infant Perseus is already sitting in the box while Danae prepares to climb in. (4) Of the Renaissance painters, I chose the painting by Corregio because I like so much the two putti checking the gold for authenticity at the bottom right. Sources: (1) Homer, Ilias (2) Apollodor, Bibliotheke (3) Ovid, Metamorphoses (4) Hyginus, Fabulae (5) Pausanias, Periegesis Literature: (1) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, 1770 (2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie (3) Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen (4) Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie (5) Aghion/Barbillon/Lissarrague, Reclams Lexikon der antiken Götter und Heroen, 2000 Online Sources: (1) theoi.com (2) acsearch.info (3) wildwinds.com (4) Wikimedia Best regards Jochen
There might be a coin from Argos depicting Danae. BMC Peloponnesus (1887) p. 148 #149, pl. 28 #11; weight not given; 17mm ✓ Supposedly this coin depicts Perseus’ mother Danae because her head is thrown back and her dress is raised similarly to vase depictions of Zeus’ golden rain. Unfortunately the figure in the picture looks very similar to coins of Argos also minted under Hadrian supposedly depicting king Diomedes, “Goddess sucking infant”, or the statue of Hera by Polycleitus. Alan Walker calls the seated figure Hera. Thus we have no certainty who is on the reverse. There is a mythological connection between Danae and Argos. Apollodorus tells us “Perseus hastened with Danae and Andromeda to Argos in order that he might behold [his grandfather, king] Acrisius.” Perseus’ oddly-named daughter was buried in Argos and her tomb was something of a tourist attraction in ancient times. (Pausanias wrote “In Argos, by the side of this monument of the Gorgon, is the grave of Gorgophone (Gorgon-killer), the daughter of Perseus.)
