The Odyssey: Ancient Coins of Three Greek Gods

The Odyssey: Ancient Coins of Three Greek Gods

Whether Zeus and Leta, Hermes and Perseus, or Dionysus and Ariadne, the Gods of Olympus were intimately involved with the day-to-day affairs of mortals—or so the ancient Greeks believed. –The Trojan War, the mythology teaches us, began with a quarrel among the goddesses Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera. To settle the argument, Paris, the mortal prince of Troy, served as judge in a celestial beauty contest. His prize was the hand of the most beautiful woman alive; unfortunately, that woman, Helen, was already married to Menelaus, brother of the great Mycenaean king Agamemnon. The Trojans kidnapped Helen of Troy; after sacrificing his daughter to the goddess Artemis for favorable winds, Agamemnon mustered an army and set sail to get her back. Thus began the ten-year conflict that is the basis for both of Homer’s classics, The Iliad and The Odyssey. All of the gods took sides in the war. Apollo, for example, helped the effete Paris slay the great warrior Achilles.–These coins, Greek in style and origin, were struck in the second century AD, not far from the ruins of Troy, by the Elymais kings Orodes III and Orodes IV. The reverses show three major gods of Olympus: Artemis, her twin brother Apollo, and Aphrodite

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