Description: Lot of 3 Rare original ancient Roman coins of: Theodosius I 379-383 AD and Arcadius - Roman Emperor: 383-408 A.D. - Bronze AE 16-18mm. Obv: DN THEODO-SIVS PF AVG, pearl diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right. Rev: VIRTVS-AVGGG, Emperor standing left, head right, on ship, holding phoenix on globe and standard. His right foot is on a captive, whilst Victory sits at the helm. Mintmark: TES; left field: A. Obv./ D N ARCADIVS P F AVG, helmeted, diademed and cuirassed bust facing, holding spear and shield. Rev./ CONCORDIA AVGG, Constantinopolis seated facing, head right, holding Victory on globe and sceptre, right foot on stern of a galley. Mintmark SMKA. Obv./ D N ARCADI-VS P F AVG, pearl-diademed, draped, cuirassed bust right. Rev.//VIRTVS-EXERCITI, emperor standing left, head right, holding spear and resting left hand on shield. Victory, standing beside him, crowns him with a wreath held in her right hand. Known mintmarks SMKA. Authenticity Guaranteed! In Greek mythology , Nike was a goddess who personified victory , also known as the Winged Goddess of Victory. The Roman equivalent was Victoria . Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of Pallas (Titan) and Styx (Water) and the sister of Kratos (Strength), Bia (Force), and Zelus (Zeal). Nike and her siblings were close companions of Zeus , the dominant deity of the Greek pantheon . According to classical (later) myth, Styx brought them to Zeus when the god was assembling allies for the Titan War against the older deities. Nike assumed the role of the divine charioteer , a role in which she often is portrayed in Classical Greek art. Nike flew around battlefields rewarding the victors with glory and fame. Nike is seen with wings in most statues and paintings. Most other winged deities in the Greek pantheon had shed their wings by Classical times. Nike is the goddess of strength, speed, and victory. Nike was a very close acquaintance of Athena , and is thought to have stood in Athena's outstretched hand in the statue of Athena located in the Parthenon. Nike is one of the most commonly portrayed figures on Greek coins. Names stemming from Nike include amongst others: Nicholas , Nicola, Nick, Nikolai, Nils, Klaas, Nicole, Ike, Niki, Nikita, Nika, Niketas, and Nico. The phoenix is an immortal bird associated with Greek mythology (with analogs in many cultures such as Egyptian and Persian) that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, others that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. In the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, a tool used by folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32. The origin of the phoenix has been attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus and later 19th-century scholars, but other scholars think the Egyptian texts may have been influenced by classical folklore. Over time the phoenix motif spread and gained a variety of new associations; Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Seville are among those who have contributed to the retelling and transmission of the phoenix motif. Over time, extending beyond its origins, the phoenix could variously "symbolize renewal in general as well as the sun, time, the Empire, metempsychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise, Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of Christian life". Some scholars have claimed that the poem De ave phoenice may present the mythological phoenix motif as a symbol of Christ's resurrection. Etymology The modern English word phoenix entered the English language from Latin, later reinforced by French. The word first entered the English language by way of a borrowing of Latin phoenīx into Old English (fenix). This borrowing was later reinforced by French influence, which had also borrowed the Latin noun. In time, the word developed specialized use in the English language: For example, the term could refer to an "excellent person" (12th century), a variety of heraldic emblem (15th century), and the name of a constellation (17th century). The Latin word comes from Greek φοῖνιξ phoinīx. The Greek word is first attested in the Mycenaean Greek po-ni-ke, which probably meant "griffin", though it might have meant "palm tree". That word is probably a borrowing from a West Semitic word for madder, a red dye made from Rubia tinctorum. The word Phoenician appears to be from the same root, meaning "those who work with red dyes". So phoenix may mean "the Phoenician bird" or "the purplish-red bird". Early texts Exterior to the Linear B mention above from Mycenaean Greece, the earliest clear mention of the phoenix in ancient Greek literature occurs in a fragment of the Precepts of Chiron, attributed to 8th-century BC Greek poet Hesiod. In the fragment, the wise centaur Chiron tells a young hero Achilles the following,[clarification needed][8] describing the phoenix's lifetime as 972 times the length of a long-lived human's: A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four time a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes. Disputed origins Classical discourse on the subject of the phoenix attributes a potential origin of the phoenix to Ancient Egypt. Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, provides the following account of the phoenix: [The Egyptians] have also another sacred bird called the phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies. Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow: The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle. They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible: that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird. In the 19th century, scholastic suspicions appeared to be confirmed by the discovery that Egyptians in Heliopolis had venerated the Bennu, a solar bird similar in some respects to the Greek phoenix. However, the Egyptian sources regarding the bennu are often problematic and open to a variety of interpretations. Some of these sources may have actually been influenced by Greek notions of the phoenix, rather than the other way around. Depictions According to the Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum, the "Numidian crane" represents the phoenix on the coinage of Antoninus Pius According to Harris Rackham, Pliny the Elder's description of a phoenix in Natural History "tallies fairly closely with the golden pheasant of the Far East" The phoenix is sometimes pictured in ancient and medieval literature and medieval art as endowed with a halo, which emphasizes the bird's connection with the Sun. In the oldest images of phoenixes on record these nimbuses often have seven rays, like Helios (the Greek personification of the Sun). Pliny the Elder also describes the bird as having a crest of feathers on its head, and Ezekiel the Dramatist compared it to a rooster. The phoenix came to be associated with specific colors over time. Although the phoenix was generally believed to be colorful and vibrant, sources provide no clear consensus about its coloration. Tacitus says that its color made it stand out from all other birds. Some said that the bird had peacock-like coloring, and Herodotus's claim of the Phoenix being red and yellow is popular in many versions of the story on record. Ezekiel the Tragedian declared that the phoenix had red legs and striking yellow eyes, but Lactantius said that its eyes were blue like sapphires and that its legs were covered in yellow-gold scales with rose-colored talons. Herodotus, Pliny, Solinus, and Philostratus describe the phoenix as similar in size to an eagle, but Lactantius and Ezekiel the Dramatist both claim that the phoenix was larger, with Lactantius declaring that it was even larger than an ostrich. According to Pliny's Natural History, aquilae narratur magnitudine, auri fulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caeruleam roseis caudam pinnis distinguentibus, cristis fauces, caputque plumeo apice honestante. The story is that it is as large as an eagle, and has a gleam of gold round its neck and all the rest of it is purple, but the tail blue picked out with rosecoloured feathers and the throat picked out with tufts, and a feathered crest adorning its head. —Pliny the Elder,"Naturalis historia", X: 2 —translated by Harris Rackham, 1940, LCL: 353, pp. 292–294 According to Claudian's poem "The Phoenix", arcanum radiant oculi iubar. igneus ora cingit honos. rutilo cognatum vertice sidus attollit cristatus apex tenebrasque serena luce secat. Tyrio pinguntur crura veneno. antevolant Zephyros pinnae, quas caerulus ambit flore color sparsoque super ditescit in auro. A mysterious fire flashes from its eye, and a flaming aureole enriches its head. Its crest shines with the sun's own light and shatters the darkness with its calm brilliance. Its legs are of Tyrian purple; swifter than those of the Zephyrs are its wings of flower-like blue dappled with rich gold. —Claudian,"Phoenix", ll. 17–22 —translated by Henry Maurice Platnauer, 1922, LCL: 136, pp. 224–225 5th-century mosaic of a nimbate phoenix from Daphne, Antioch, in Roman Syria (Louvre) Appearances According to Pliny the Elder, a senator Manilius (Marcus Manilius?) had written that the phoenix appeared at the end of each Great Year, which he wrote of "in the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius and Publius Licinius", that is, in 96 BC, that a cycle was 540 years, and that it was 215 into the cycle (i.e. it began in 311 BC). Another of Pliny's sources, Cornelius Valerianus, is cited for an appearance of the phoenix in 36 AD "in the consulship of Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius".[25] Pliny states that a purported phoenix seen in Egypt in 47 AD was brought to the capital and exhibited in the Comitium in time for the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Rome by Romulus, though he added that "nobody would doubt that this phoenix was a fabrication". A second recording of the phoenix was made by Tacitus, who said that the phoenix had appeared instead in 34 AD "in the consulship of Paulus Fabius and Lucius Vitellius" and that the cycle was either 500 years or 1461 years (which was the Great Year based on the Egyptian Sothic cycle), and that it had previously been seen in the reigns first of Sesosis, then of Amasis, and finally of Ptolemy (third of the Macedonian dynasty). A third recording was made by Cassius Dio, who also said that the phoenix was seen in the consulship of Quintus Plautus and Sextus Papinius. Diffusion in later culture In time, the motif and concept of the phoenix extended from its origins in ancient Greek folklore. For example, the classical motif of the phoenix continues into the Gnostic manuscript On the Origin of the World from the Nag Hammadi Library collection in Egypt generally dated to the 4th century Flavius Arcadius (377/378-1 May 408) was Byzantine Emperor in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire from 395 until his death. // Arcadius was born in Hispania , the elder son of Theodosius I and Aelia Flaccilla , and brother of Honorius , who would become a Western Roman Emperor . His father declared him an Augustus and co-ruler for the Eastern half of the Empire in January, 383. His younger brother was also declared Augustus in 393, for the Western half. As emperors, Honorius was under the control of the Romanized Vandal magister militum Flavius Stilicho while Arcadius was dominated by one of his ministers, Rufinus . Stilicho is alleged by some to have wanted control of both emperors, and is supposed to have had Rufinus assassinated by Gothic mercenaries in 395; though definite proof of Stilicho's involvement in the assassination is lacking, the intense competition and political jealousies engendered by the two figures compose the main thread of the first part of Arcadius' reign. Arcadius' new advisor, the eunuch Eutropius , simply took Rufinus' place as the power behind the Eastern imperial throne. Arcadius was also dominated by his wife Aelia Eudoxia , who convinced her husband to dismiss Eutropius, who was holding the consulate, at the height of his power, in 399. That same year, on the 13th July, Arcadius issued an edict ordering that all remaining non-Christian temples should be immediately demolished . Eudoxia's influence was strongly opposed by John Chrysostom , the Patriarch of Constantinople , who felt that she had used her family's wealth to gain control over the emperor. Eudoxia used her influence to have Chrysostom deposed in 404, but she died later that year. Eudoxia gave to Arcadius four children: three daughters, Pulcheria , Arcadia and Marina, and one son, Theodosius, the future Emperor Theodosius II . Arcadius was dominated for the rest of his rule by Anthemius , the Praetorian Prefect , who made peace with Stilicho in the West. Arcadius himself was more concerned with appearing to be a pious Christian than he was with political or military matters, and he died, only nominally in control of his empire, in 408. > Character and works In this reign of a weak emperor dominated by court politics, a major theme was the ambivalence felt by prominent individuals and the court parties that formed and regrouped round them towards barbarians , which in Constantinople at this period meant Goths . In the well-documented episode that revolved around Gainas , a number of Gothic foederati stationed in the capital were massacred, the survivors fleeing under the command of Gainas to Thrace , where they were tracked down by imperial troops and slaughtered and Gainas dispatched. The episode has been traditionally interpreted as a paroxysm of anti-barbarian reaction that served to stabilise the East. The main source for the affair is a mythology à clef by Synesius of Cyrene, Aegyptus sive de providentia, (400) an Egyptianising allegory that embodies a covert account of the events, the exact interpretation of which continues to baffle scholars. Synesius' De regno, which claims to be addressed to Arcadius himself, contains a tirade against Goths. A new forum was built in the name of Arcadius, on the seventh hill of Constantinople, the Xērolophos, in which a column was begun to commemorate his 'victory' over Gainas (although the column was only completed after Arcadius' death by Theodosius II ). The Pentelic marble portrait head of Arcadius (illustration) was discovered in Istanbul close to the Forum Tauri, in June 1949, in excavating foundations for new buildings of the University at Beyazit . The neck was designed to be inserted in a torso, but no statue, base or inscription was found. The diadem is a fillet with rows of pearls along its edges and a rectangular stone set about with pearls over the young emperor's forehead. The Chi Rho is one of the earliest christograms used by Christians. It is formed by superimposing the first two letters in the Greek spelling of the word Christ ( Greek : "Χριστός" ), chi=ch and rho=r, in such a way to produce the monogram ☧. The Chi-Rho symbol was also used by pagan Greek scribes to mark, in the margin, a particularly valuable or relevant passage; the combined letters Chi and Rho standing for chrēston, meaning "good." Although not technically a cross, the Chi Rho invokes the crucifixion of Jesus as well as symbolizing his status as the Christ. There is early evidence of the Chi Rho symbol on Christian Rings of the third century. The labarum (Greek: λάβαρον) was a vexillum (military standard) that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol, formed from the first two Greek letters of the word "Christ" (Greek: ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, or Χριστός) - Chi (χ) and Rho (ρ). It was first used by the Roman emperor Constantine I . Since the vexillum consisted of a flag suspended from the crossbar of a cross, it was ideally suited to symbolize crucifixion . The Chi-Rho symbol was also used by Greek scribes to mark, in the margin, a particularly valuable or relevant passage; the combined letters Chi and Rho standing for chrēston, meaning "good." Authenticity guaranteed. Items will be shipped within 1 to 3 business days of purchase completion. FREE - domestic SHIPPING INTERNATIONAL $6.99 (REGISTERED-$21.00) WE COMBINE SHIPPING. If you would like to have special shipping, please contact us. All items will be sent out in protected envelope and boxed if necessary. YOU ARE BIDDING ON AN ANCIENT ITEM(S) AS DESCRIBED AND PICTURED ABOVE!!! 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Price: 95 USD
Location: Woodland Hills, California
End Time: 2024-08-08T10:43:58.000Z
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Restocking Fee: 15%
Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer
All returns accepted: Returns Accepted
Item must be returned within: 30 Days
Refund will be given as: Money Back
Denomination: ae 4
Composition: Bronze
Year: 408 AD
Material: Bronze
Ruler: Theodosius I
Date: 388 AD