Greek city of Gargara in Troas
Bronze 17mm (2.79 grams) Struck circa 350 B.C.
Reference: Sear 4089; B.M.C. 17.52,5
Laureate head of Apollo right.
ΓAΡ above horse galloping right; thunderbolt beneath.

On the Gulf of Adramytteion, between Antandros and Assos, the  territory of Gargara was famed for the fertility of its soil.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured,  provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of  Authenticity.

Gargara was a Greekk city on the southern coast of the Troad region of Anatolia. It was initially located beneath  Mount Gargaron, one of the three peaks of Mount Ida, today known as Koca Kaya  At  some point in the 4th century BCE the settlement moved approximately 5.8 km  south of Koca Kaya to a site on the small coastal plain near the modern villages  of Arıklı and Nusratlı, at which point the previous site came  to be known as Old Gargara (Ancient  Greek Παλαιγάργαρος).  Both sites are located in the Ayvacık district of Çanakkale Province in Turkey.

Mount Gargaron

Mount Gargaron has been identified with the mountain today called Koca Kaya (Turkish Great Rock), a western spur of Mount Ida with a maximum elevation of 780  m. The poet Epicharmus (fl. 540 - 450 BCE) refers to  the mountain as "snowcapped" (ἀγάννιφα), and the Etymologicum Magnum (ca. 1150 CE) knew a  tradition according to which the inhabitants of Old Gargara moved to their new  site to escape the cold of their old home. In Homer's Iliad it is said to have had an altar to Zeus at its summit, and hence is a place the god frequently visits.  In one passage Zeus is said to have come to Mount Gargaron from Mount Olympos to view the battle between the Trojans and the Acahaeans, about 50 km NE of here. In writers  of the 1st and 2nd century AD such as Statius and Lucian Zeus is said to have abducted the Trojan  prince Ganymede from Mount Gargaron while he was  hunting in the nearby forests. Lucian also represents the Judgement of Paris as taking place on Mount  Gargaron rather than in its more traditional location further to the east above Antandrus. The anonymous author of On Rivers  thought that Gargara was Mount Ida's previous name, while the Latin poet Valerius Flaccus used it as a learned way of  referring to Ida. The Etymologicum Magnum explains the name of Gargaron  either as deriving from the verb γαργαρίζειν ('to gargle') on account of the  springs thought to bubble up on the summit (an inference taken from Homer's  reference to 'many-fountained Ida' in conjunction with Gargaron), or as deriving  from γαργαρέων ('uvula')  on account of the mountain's shape.

The poet  Aratus of Soli wrote an epigram about his friend Diotimos,  who used to teach the children of Gargara their letters up on Mount Gargaron:

History

Foundation

There is no indication in the relevant passages of the Iliad that  Homer considered Mount Gargaron inhabited. This is partly confirmed by the fact  that the earliest archaeological remains found at the site (fortification walls  around the acropolis and the foundations of a temple) date no later than the 6th  century BCE. In the 7th century BCE the poet Alcman said that the settlement was inhabited  by  Leleges, an Anatolian people, but this may  simply be an inference from Homer's remark elsewhere in the Iliad that  the whole southern coast of the Troad was inhabited by Leleges.^[14] Hecataeus of Miletus (ca. 550 - 476 BCE) and Hellanicus of Mytilene (ca. 490 - 405 BCE) say  that Gargara was inhabited by Aeolian Greeks originally from nearby Assos and Myrsilos of Methymna (first half of the 3rd century BCE)  that Assos was a foundation of Methymna, hence the Aeolian ethnicity of Assos  and the secondary foundations of Gargara and Lamponeia. If Alcman was correct to indicate  the existence of an Anatolian settlement named Gargara in the 7th century BCE,  then this fact could be harmonized with the apparently contradictory story of  Gargara instead being a Greek foundation by noting that many settlements in this  region had a mixed Greco-Anatolian heritage in which the local Anatolian  population became assimilated with the Greek newcomers. With respect to how the  early settlement came to adopt the name of the mountain, John Cook, the  archaeologist who identified the site of Old Gargara on Koca Kaya, remarked  that: "What we can believe is that the people of Methymna across the strait  pointed to this bold peak as the Homeric Γάργαρον ἄκρον and that the settlers  there felt themselves entitled to appropriate the name".

Classical

In the 5th century BCE Gargara was a member of the Delian League and paid a tribute to Athens of  between 4,500 and 4,600 drachmas as part of the Hellespontine district.  It is currently thought that the Gargarians moved from the site at Koca Kaya  down to the coast in the 4th century BCE, although this has not been confirmed  by excavation. A long inscription found at Ilion indicates that by ca. 306 Gargara was a  member of the koinon of Athena Ilias, a regional  association of cities in the Troad which held an annual festival at Ilion. The  inscription records a series of honorific decrees passed by the koinon  which praise a prominent and wealthy citizen, Malousios of Gargara, for  providing interest free loans to finance the annual festival.

Hellenistic

The local antiquarian writer Demetrius of Scepsis (ca. 205-130 BCE) relates  that Gargara received an influx of settlers who were forcibly moved their home  in  Mysia, Miletoupolis, by 'the kings' (presumably those  of Bithynia) in the late 3rd or early 2nd century  BCE. Miletoupolis was a semi-Greek settlement, and so Demetrius relates that as  a result of this influx of immigrants there are hardly any Aeolians left in  Gargara. This episode should perhaps be connection with the invasion of this  region by Prusias II of Bithynia in 156 - 154 BCE.  Elsewhere in the Hellenistic period, citizens of Gargara are found serving as proxenoi at Chios and as mercenaries at Athens, participating in a private association  of resident foreigners on Rhodes, making dedications to Ptolemy III Euergetes and his family in Egypt,  receiving honours at Ilion, and making dedications on Delos. In the 230s or 220s BCE Gargara was one  of the places at which Theorodokoi of Delphi were received, and in the 120s BCE it is  attested as a port at which customs dues was being paid soon after Attalus III had bequeathed the Asia to Rome in 133 BCE.

Roman

While Gargara continued to exist in the Roman period, we hear about it  primarily in the context of Latin literature, since it became a by-word for  agricultural prosperity in Latin poetry following Virgil's reference to it in the Georgics:

Gargara is likewise used as an expression of proverbial fertility in Ovid's Ars Amatoria, Seneca's tragedy The Phoenician Women,  and as late as the 5th century CE in the odes of Sidonius Apollinaris. Macrobius in his Saturnalia (early 5th century CE) devoted a  chapter to the question of what had given Virgil the idea of using Gargara this  way in the first place, concluding that it was an inference firstly from Mount  Ida's reputation for being well-watered in Homer, secondly from Mysia's general  reputation for fertility, and thirdly from the use of γάργαρα (gargara)  in Old Comedy to express an immense quantity of  anything.

Byzantine

Gargara appears to have been continuously occupied until at least the 9th  century CE, and perhaps as late as the 14th century CE. It was a suffragan bishopric of the metropolis of Ephesus for which we know the names of three of  its bishops: John (518 CE), Theodorus (553 CE), and Ephraim (878 CE). In  addition to possible middle Byzantine remains seen at Gargara by John Cook,  other documents such as the Epistulae Dogmaticae of Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople (715-730  CE) and the Notitiae Episcopatuum also attest Gargara's  continued existence throughout this period. Finally, four documents from the Monastery of Great Lavra on Mount Athos dating to 1284 and 1304 CE attest a  Constantine of Gargara and his family. The latest period of occupation at the  site may be represented by the nearby castles of Menteşe and Şahin Kale which  Cook thought could be either Byzantine or Genoese

Apollo Belvedere,  ca. 120-140 CE

Apollo   is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in ancient Greek and Roman religion, Greek and Roman mythology, and Greco-Roman Neopaganism. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless, athletic youth),  Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and  prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and  Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste  huntress  Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu.

As  the patron of  Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god-the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are  associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his  son  Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god  who could bring ill-health and deadly plague. Amongst the god's custodial charges,  Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds  and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musegetes) and director of their choir, Apollo  functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were  called  paeans.

 

Apollo (left) and Artemis. Brygos (potter signed), Tondo of an  Attic red-figure cup c. 470 BC, Musée du Louvre.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the 3rd century BCE, as Apollo  Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, Titan god of the sun, and his sister Artemis  similarly equated with Selene, Titan goddess of the moon  In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to  find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the 1st century, not even in  the conjurations of  Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215).  Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological  texts until the 3rd century CE.

Etymology

Statuette of the Apollo Lykeios type, Museum of the Ancient Agora of Athens  (inv. BI 236).

Apollo was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. In the traditionally Celtic lands he was most often seen as a  healing and sun god. He was often equated with Celtic gods of similar character.

• Apollo Atepomarus ("the great horseman"  or "possessing a great horse"). Apollo was worshipped at Mauvières (Indre).  Horses were, in the Celtic world, closely linked to the sun.
• Apollo Belenus ('bright' or  'brilliant'). This epithet was given to Apollo in parts of Gaul, Northern Italy and Noricum (part of modern Austria). Apollo  Belenus was a healing and sun god.
• Apollo Cunomaglus ('hound lord'). A  title given to Apollo at a shrine in Wiltshire. Apollo Cunomaglus may have been  a god of healing. Cunomaglus himself may originally have been an independent  healing god.
• Apollo Grannus. Grannus was a healing  spring god, later equated with Apollo.
• Apollo Maponus. A god known from inscriptions in Britain. This  may be a local fusion of Apollo and Maponus.
• Apollo Moritasgus ('masses of sea  water'). An epithet for Apollo at Alesia, where he was worshipped as god of  healing and, possibly, of physicians.
• Apollo Vindonnus ('clear light').  Apollo Vindonnus had a temple at Essarois, near Châtillon-sur-Seine in Burgundy. He was a god of healing,  especially of the eyes.
• Apollo Virotutis ('benefactor of  mankind?'). Apollo Virotutis was worshipped, among other places, at Fins  d'Annecy (Haute-Savoie)  and at  Jublains (Maine-et-Loire).

Origins

The  Omphalos in the Museum of Delphi.

The cult centers of Apollo in Greece, Delphi and Delos, date from the 8th century BCE. The Delos  sanctuary was primarily dedicated to Artemis, Apollo's twin sister. At Delphi,  Apollo was venerated as the slayer of Pytho. For the Greeks, Apollo was all the Gods  in one and through the centuries he acquired different functions which could  originate from different gods. In archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times  was connected with "healing". In classical Greece he was the god of light and of  music, but in popular religion he had a strong function to keep away evil.

From his eastern-origin Apollo brought the art of inspection from "symbols  and  omina" (σημεία και τέρατα : semeia kai  terata), and of the observation of the omens of the days. The inspiration oracular-cult was probably  introduced from  Anatolia. The ritualism belonged to Apollo from the  beginning. The Greeks created the legalism, the supervision of the orders of the  gods, and the demand for moderation and harmony. Apollo became the god of  shining youth, the protector of music, spiritual-life, moderation and  perceptible order. The improvement of the old Anatolian god, and his elevation to an  intellectual sphere, may be considered an achievement of the Greek people.

Healer and  god-protector from evil

The function of Apollo as a "healer" is connected with Paean , the physician of the Gods  in the Iliad, who seems to come from a more  primitive religion. Paeοn is probably connected with the Mycenean Pa-ja-wo, but the etymology is the  only evidence. He did not have a separate cult, but he was the personification  of the holy magic-song sung by the magicians that was supposed to cure disease.  Later the Greeks knew the original meaning of the relevant song "paean".  The magicians were also called "seer-doctors", and they used an  ecstatic prophetic art which was used exactly by the god Apollo at the oracles.

In the Iliad, Apollo is the healer under the gods, but he is also the  bringer of disease and death with his arrows, similar to the function of the  terrible Vedic god of disease Rudra.He sends a terrible plague to the Achaeans. The god who sends a disease can also  prevent from it, therefore when it stops they make a purifying ceremony and  offer him an "hecatomb" to ward off evil. When the oath of his priest appeases,  they pray and with a song they call their own god, the beautiful Paean.

Some common epithets of Apollo as a healer are "paion" , "epikourios", "oulios", and "loimios" . In  classical times, his strong function in popular religion was to keep away evil,  and was therefore called "apotropaios"  and "alexikakos" ,  throw away the evil). In later writers, the word, usually spelled "Paean", becomes a mere epithet of  Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing.

Homer illustrated Paeon the god, and the song both of apotropaic thanksgiving or triumph. Such songs were originally addressed to  Apollo, and afterwards to other gods: to Dionysus, to Apollo Helios, to Apollo's son Asclepius the healer. About the 4th century  BCE, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to  implore protection against disease and misfortune, or to offer thanks after such  protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo had become  recognised as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and  victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army  on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and  also after a victory had been won.

Dorian origin

The connection with Dorians and their initiation festival apellai is reinforced by the month Apellaios in northwest Greek calendars,  but it can explain only the Doric type of the name, which is connected with the Ancient Macedonian word "pella" (Pella), stone. Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially  in the oracular shrine of Delphi (Omphalos).  The "Homeric hymn" represents Apollo as a Northern intruder. His arrival must  have occurred during the "dark ages" that followed the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization, and his conflict with Gaia (Mother Earth) was represented by the  legend of his slaying her daughter the serpent Python.

The earth deity had power over the ghostly world, and it is believed that she  was the deity behind the oracle.  The older tales mentioned two dragons who were perhaps intentionally conflated.  A female dragon named Delphyne who is obviously  connected with Delphi and Apollo Delphinios, and a male serpent Typhon , the adversary of Zeus in the Titanomachy, who the narrators confused with Python.  Python was the good daemon of the temple as it appears in Minoan religion,  but she was represented as a dragon, as often happens in Northern European  folklore as well as in the East.

Apollo and his sister Artemis can bring death with their arrows. The  conception that diseases and death come from invisible shots sent by  supernatural beings, or magicians is common in Germanic and Norse mythology.^[35]  In Greek mythology Artemis was the leader of the nymphs, who had similar functions with the Nordic Elves.The "elf-shot" originally indicated disease or death attributed to the elves,  but it was later attested denoting arrow-heads which were used by witches to harm  people, and also for healing rituals.

The Vedic Rudra has some similar functions with  Apollo. The terrible god is called "The Archer", and the bow is also an  attribute of  Shiva.  Rudra could bring diseases with his arrows, but he was able to free people of  them, and his alternative Shiba, is a healer physician god.  However the Indo-European component of Apollo, does not  explain his strong relation with omens, exorcisms, and with the oracular cult.

Minoan origin

It seems an oracular cult existed in Delphi from the Mycenaean ages.  In historical times, the priests of Delphi were called Labryaden, "the double-axe men", which  indicates Minoan origin. The double-axe (λάβρυς:labrys)  was the holy symbol of the Cretan labyrinth.  The Homeric hymn adds that Apollo appeared as a dolphin and carried Cretan  priests to Delphi, where they evidently transferred their religious practices. Apollo Delphinios was a sea-god especially worshiped in Crete and in the  islands, and his name indicates his connection with Delphi  and the holy serpent Delphyne (womb). Apollo's sister Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting,  is identified with Britomartis (Diktynna),  the Minoan "Mistress of the animals". In her  earliest depictions she is accompanied by the "Mister of the animals", a male  god of hunting who had the bow as his attribute. We don't know his original  name, but it seems that he was absorbed by the more powerful Apollo, who stood  by the "Mistress of the animals", becoming her brother.

The old oracles in Delphi seem to be connected with a local tradition of the  priesthood, and there is not clear evidence that a kind of inspiration-prophecy  existed in the temple. This led some scholars to the conclusion that Pythia  carried on the rituals in a consistent procedure through many centuries,  according to the local tradition. In that regard, the mythical seeress Sibyl of Anatolian origin, with her ecstatic art, looks  unrelated to the oracle itself.However, the Greek tradition is referring to the existence of vapours and  chewing of laurel-leaves, which seem to be confirmed by recent studies.

Plato describes the priestesses of Delphi and Dodona as frenzied women, obsessed by "mania" (μανία:frenzy),  a Greek word connected with "mantis" (μάντις:prophet). Frenzied women like  Sibyls from whose lips the god speaks are recorded in the Near East as Mari in the second millennium BC.Although Crete had contacts with Mari from 2000 BC,  there is no evidence that the ecstatic prophetic art existed during the Minoan  and Mycenean ages. It is more probable that this art was introduced later from Anatolia and regenerated an existing oracular  cult that was local to Delphi and dormant in several areas of Greece.

Anatolian origin

A non-Greek origin of Apollo has long been assumed in scholarship.The name of Apollo's mother Leto has  Lydian origin, and she was worshipped on the  coasts of Asia Minor. The inspiration oracular cult was  probably introduced into Greece from Anatolia, which is the origin of Sibyl, and where existed some of the oldest  oracular shrines. Omens, symbols, purifications, and exorcisms appear in old Assyro-Babylonian  texts, and these rituals were spread into the empire of the Hittites. In a Hittite text is mentioned that  the king invited a Babylonian priestess for a certain "purification".

A similar story is mentioned by Plutarch. He writes that the Cretan- seer Epimenides, purified Athens after the pollution brought by the Alcmeonidae, and that the seer's expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices were  of great help to  Solon in his reform of the Athenian state.  The story indicates that Epimenides was probably heir to the shamanic religions  of Asia, and proves together with the Homeric hymn, that Crete had a resisting  religion up to the historical times. It seems that these rituals were dormant in  Greece, and they were reinforced when the Greeks migrated to Anatolia.

Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War. He is pictured as a terrible god,  less trusted by the Greeks than other gods. The god seems to be related to Appaliunas, a tutelary god of Wilusa (Troy)  in Asia Minor, but the word is not complete.  The stones found in front of the gates of Homeric Troy were the symbols of Apollo. The  Greeks gave to him the name αγυιεύς agyieus as the protector god of public places  and houses who wards off evil, and his symbol was a tapered stone or column.  However, while usually Greek festivals were celebrated at the full moon, all the feasts of Apollo were  celebrated at the seventh day of the month, and the emphasis given to that day (sibutu)  indicates a Babylonian origin.

The Late Bronze Age (from 1700 to 1200 BCE) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu was a god of plague, invoked during plague years. Here we  have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally  bringing the plague was invoked to end it. Aplu, meaning the son of, was  a title given to the god Nergal, who was linked to the Babylonian god of the sun Shamash.  Homer interprets Apollo as a terrible god (δεινός θεός) who brings death and  disease with his arrows, but who can also heal, possessing a magic art that  separates him from the other Greek gods.  In Iliad, his priest prays to Apollo  Smintheus,  the mouse god who retains an older agricultural function as the protector from  field rats.  All these functions, including the function of the healer-god Paean, who seems to have Mycenean origin, are  fused in the cult of Apollo.

Oracular cult

 

Columns of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, Greece.

Unusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had  widespread influence:  Delos and Delphi. In cult practice, Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo (the Apollo of Delphi) were so  distinct that they might both have shrines in the same locality.Apollo's cult was already fully established when written  sources commenced, about 650 BCE. Apollo became extremely important to the Greek  world as an oracular deity in the archaic period, and the frequency of theophoric names such as Apollodorus or Apollonios and cities named Apollonia testify to his popularity.  Oracular sanctuaries to Apollo were established in other sites. In the 2nd and  3rd century CE, those at Didyma and Clarus pronounced the so-called "theological  oracles", in which Apollo confirms that all deities are aspects or servants of  an all-encompassing, highest deity. "In the 3rd  century, Apollo fell silent. Julian the Apostate (359 - 61) tried to revive  the Delphic oracle, but failed