Gephyra (May 2005)
Contributions to Anatolian History and Numismatics 1-3
Abstract
Contributions to Anatolian History and Numismatics 1-3Under the emperor Decius the Lydian town of Philadelphia used the foundation of its identity-establishing main cult by Orestes, Iphigenia and Pylades as the theme for one of its coins, which propagated its homonoia with Ephesos. The first article looks into the background to this homonoia connection based on the family relationship of the Philadelphian cult founders with the founder of the Ephesian sanctuary, Agamemnon. Dealing with Apollo Hikesios, who appears on coins from several Ephesian issues, the second article shows that the epiklesis aims to represent Apollo as the first suppliant seeking protection at the Ephesian asylum sanctuary and thus as the founder of the Ephesian asylum. The third article is concerned with a Lycian silver coin from Araxa dating from the early 4th century BC and sporting the bust of a godly queen with a diadem. Evidence is adduced which suggests a) that this is the picture of the Lycian Mother of Gods and not of Leto, whose cult was only being introduced at about that time by the Xanthian dynast Arbinas, and b) that the belief of Leto's delivery in Araxa, attested by evidence from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, arose only in the High Hellenistic period during the heyday of Homeric philology at Alexandria and the Ptolemaic rule over Lycia.
