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Greek city of
Petelia
in
Bruttium
Bronze 18mm (7.93 grams) Struck circa 280-216 B.C.
Reference:
Sear 678 var; SNG Ans 602
Veiled head of Demeter right, wreathed with barley.
ΠΕΤΗΛΙΝΩΝ, Naked Zeus striding right, hurling thunderbolt and holding scepter.
This city remained loyal to Rome
during the war with Hannibal, and in consequence was allowed to continue issuing
its own bronze currency throughout the 2nd century B.C.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured,
provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of
Authenticity.
In
Greek mythology
,
Demeter was the goddess
of the harvest, who presided over
grains
, the
fertility
of the earth, the
seasons
(personified by the
Hours
), and the
harvest
. One of her surnames is Sito (σίτος:
wheat) as the giver of food or corn. Though Demeter is often described simply as
the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sanctity of
marriage
, the
sacred law
, and the cycle of
life and death
. She and her daughter
Persephone
were the central figures of the
Eleusinian Mysteries
that also predated the
Olympian pantheon.
Her
Roman
cognate is
Ceres
.
In the
ancient Greek
religion, Zeus was the
"Father of Gods and men" (πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν
τε)
who ruled the Olympians of
Mount Olympus
as a father ruled the family. He was the
god of sky
and
thunder
in
Greek mythology
.
His
Roman
counterpart is
Jupiter
and
Etruscan
counterpart is Tinia
.![The Jupiter de Smyrne, discovered in Smyrna in 1680[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpg/200px-Jupiter_Smyrna_Louvre_Ma13.jpg)
Zeus was the child of
Cronus
and
Rhea
,
and the youngest of his siblings. In most traditions he was married to
Hera, although, at the
oracle of Dodona
,
his consort was
Dione
:
according to the Iliad
,
he is the father of
Aphrodite
by Dione. He is known for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many godly and
heroic offspring, including
Athena
,
Apollo
and Artemis
,
Hermes
,
Persephone
(by Demeter
),
Dionysus
,
Perseus
,
Heracles
,
Helen of Troy
,
Minos
,
and the Muses
(by Mnemosyne
);
by Hera, he is usually said to have fathered
Ares,
Hebe
and Hephaestus
.
As
Walter Burkert
points out in his book, Greek Religion, "Even the gods who are not his
natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence."
For the Greeks, he was the
King of the Gods
,
who oversaw the universe. As
Pausanias
observed, "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". In
Hesiod's Theogony
Zeus assigns the various gods their roles. In the Homeric Hymns he is
referred to as the chieftain of the gods.
His symbols are the
thunderbolt
,
eagle
,
bull
,
and oak
.
In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer"
also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the
Ancient Near East
,
such as the
scepter
was a city on the coast of
Petelia or PetiliaBruttium
on the
Italian Peninsula
, traditionally founded by
Philoctetes
. During the
Second Punic War
it remained a
Roman
ally, while all of the other Bruttian
cities had gone over to
Hannibal
. After a long siege, it was taken by
the
Carthaginians
, its people expelled and replaced
by other Bruttians; but following the Roman victory its original population was
restored. The site of the city is now occupied by the modern town of
< in Calabria.Strongoli
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