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The Rape of Persephone
Like Eleusis in Central Greece, Kyzikos was also an important center for the worship of Persephone. Among the most ancient of the deities in the Olympian pantheon and with connections to a pre-Hellenic mother earth goddess, she was, in her incarnation as Kore, the unmarried maiden, closely associated with Demeter, or Deo, the woman as matron and mother. Later adapted to create the mother-daughter pair and incorporated into traditional Classical mythology, Demeter remained connected with fertility, particularly that of the earth, while Persephone became the queen of the Underworld and whose part in the Eleusinian Mysteries offered the hope of life after death.
According to the tradition myth, as related in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, [verses 15-18], Hades fell in love with Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, and asked Zeus for permission to marry her. Zeus did not wish to offend his brother by refusing, but knew also that Demeter would not forgive him if Persephone were committed to the underworld. Zeus stated that he would neither give nor withhold his consent. This emboldened Hades to abduct Persephone, as she was picking flowers in a meadow, and carry her away in his horse-drawn chariot to the underworld, as is depicted on this coin's reverse.