The Abduction of Persephone on Coin Types of the Eastern Roman Provinces (20 min)

Presenters

Jane Evans, Temple University

Abstract

A depiction of Hades and his chariot, his arm wrapped around the waist of Persephone and she tries to throw herself out of the vehicle is seen repeatedly on the reverses of coins from the first century B.C.E. to the mid-third century C.E., from Macedonia to Egypt, Aoelis to Lydia. The dynamic iconography of the scene is known to us from a fourth-century B.C.E. fresco in a tomb in Vergina and a similarly dated mosaic in in tomb in Amphipolis, although it first appears on coins from Nysa, in Lydia, 300 years later. In the first century C.E., the type is confined to five cities in Anatolia, but in the next 200 years spreads, unchanged, throughout mints in Anatolia, Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, Macedonia, and Greece, although most of the cities that repeat the type are in Lydia, at least through the second century. While Nysa may have claimed to be the spot where Persephone was abducted (Homeric Hymn to Demeter), at least in Roman Asia, the widespread repetition of this motif signals that geographic interest is not the only reason for the choice of reverse. Strasser suggested that Sardis claimed to be where Persephone was abducted, based on coin types from the city’s mint and the celebration of the Chrysanthia Games of the second century that were probably celebrated in Sardis. I will assess possible reasons for the repetition of the motif throughout the East by examining the connection to the popularity of the Eleusinian Mysteries and parallels to the repetition of other cult images, such as that of Artemis of Ephesus. Finally, I will examine the popularity of the reverse as a revival of earlier coin types in the third century C.E., a period when many older coin types are revived for a number of issues in the Roman East.