- Katılım
- 4 Şub 2022
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- 8,537
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- 12,365
While the coinage of Abdera is renowned for its wide-ranging reverse types, it is the depiction of a griffin on the obverse of this stater [portrayals of which are seen on the vast majority of its coins] that is more informative as to the cultural make-up of this city state. This griffin is directly comparable with the griffins that appear on the coinage of Teos, Ionia and it is widely accepted that this is as a result of the migration of the people of Teos to Thrace in the middle of the 6th century BC, who were fleeing from the advances of the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great.
The earliest issues of Abdera date to very shortly after the arrival of Teian refugees in Thrace, which would suggest that it was indeed their influence that inspired the use of the griffin iconography, which then persisted throughout the following issues. This stater which was produced nearly 200 years after the first Abderan coins highlights exactly this continuation; despite the fact that it seems Teos was in fact re-founded in Ionia not long after its people had fled [Strabo, Geographica, xiv.1.30] the people of Abdera patently felt a connection with their symbol.
The reverse type of the coin, depicting Hermes with his typical attributes, seems to be related more to myth than history, possibly being an allusion to the mythological foundation of the city. Some ancient writers state that Abdera took its name from a son of Hermes, Abderus, who features in the story of the eighth labour of Herakles, when he was charged with capturing the four carnivorous mares of King Diomedes. Pseudo-Appollodorus, writing in the 1st or 2nd Century AD, provides a pithy vignette of the episode: he committed the mares to the guardianship of Abderus, who was a son of Hermes, a native of Opus in Locris, and a minion of Herakles; but the mares killed him by dragging him after them. But Herakles fought against the Bistones, slew Diomedes and compelled the rest to flee. And he founded a city Abdera beside the grave of Abderus who had been done to death [Pseudo-Appollodorus, Biblioteca, ii.5.8].
The earliest issues of Abdera date to very shortly after the arrival of Teian refugees in Thrace, which would suggest that it was indeed their influence that inspired the use of the griffin iconography, which then persisted throughout the following issues. This stater which was produced nearly 200 years after the first Abderan coins highlights exactly this continuation; despite the fact that it seems Teos was in fact re-founded in Ionia not long after its people had fled [Strabo, Geographica, xiv.1.30] the people of Abdera patently felt a connection with their symbol.
The reverse type of the coin, depicting Hermes with his typical attributes, seems to be related more to myth than history, possibly being an allusion to the mythological foundation of the city. Some ancient writers state that Abdera took its name from a son of Hermes, Abderus, who features in the story of the eighth labour of Herakles, when he was charged with capturing the four carnivorous mares of King Diomedes. Pseudo-Appollodorus, writing in the 1st or 2nd Century AD, provides a pithy vignette of the episode: he committed the mares to the guardianship of Abderus, who was a son of Hermes, a native of Opus in Locris, and a minion of Herakles; but the mares killed him by dragging him after them. But Herakles fought against the Bistones, slew Diomedes and compelled the rest to flee. And he founded a city Abdera beside the grave of Abderus who had been done to death [Pseudo-Appollodorus, Biblioteca, ii.5.8].