Ancient
Greek city of Cyme in Asia Minor coins and History and Amazon Women Warriors Depicted on Them
Buy certified authentic Cyme,
Little is known about the foundation of the city to supplement the
traditional founding legend. Settlers from mainland Greece (most likely
Euboea) migrated across the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age as
waves of Dorian-speaking invaders brought an end to the once mighty
Mycenaean civilization some time around 1050 BC. During the Late Bronze
Age and early Greek Dark Ages the dialect of Cyme and the surrounding
region of Aeolis, like that of neighboring island Lesbos closely
resembled the local dialect of Thessalia and Boetia..Explore a
world of mystery, intrigue and wonder when you own authentic ancient
coins, whether to give as a gift, make a coin collection, an investment
or a to learn and preserve history for future generations, coins are
certainly it! Check it out today.
 
Example of Authentic Ancient
Coin of:
Greek City of Cyme in Asia Minor
Bronze 14mm (2.35 grams) Struck 300-200 B.C.
Reference: Sear 4188 var.; B.M.C. 17.108, 40 var.
Forepart of prancing horse right, KY above, magistrate's name below.
One-handled vase; monogram to left.
The Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes,
singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn)
are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek
mythology andClassical
antiquity. Herodotus placed
them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern
territory of Ukraine).
Other historiographers place them in Asia
Minor, or Libya._-_Pierre-Eugene-Emile_Hebert_1860_-_NG_of_Arts_Wash_DC_rotated_and_cropped.jpg/220px-Amazon_preparing_for_the_battle_(Queen_Antiope_or_Armed_Venus)_-_Pierre-Eugene-Emile_Hebert_1860_-_NG_of_Arts_Wash_DC_rotated_and_cropped.jpg)
Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea,
who participated in the Trojan
War, and her sister Hippolyta,
whose magical girdle, given to her by her father Ares,
was the object of one of the labours
of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle
with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in
classical art.
The Amazons have become associated with various historical peoples
throughout the Roman
Empire period and Late
Antiquity. In Roman
historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in
Asia Minor. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term
forwoman
warriors
Cyme (or Kymi,
also: Phriconis,
modern Nemrut) was an Aeolian city
in Aeolis (Asia
Minor) close to the kingdom of Lydia.
The Aeolians regarded
Cyme as the largest and most important of their twelve cities, which
were located on the coastline of Asia
Minor (modern day Turkey).
As a result of their direct access to the sea, unlike most
non-landlocked settlements of the ancient world, trade is believed to
have prospered. In his Histories, Herodotus makes
reference to Cyme (or Phriconis) as being one of the cities in which the
rebel Lydian governor Pactyes sought refuge, following his attempted
rebellion against the Persian King Cyrus
the Great:
Pactyes, when he learnt that an army was already on his tracks and
near, took fright and fled to Cyme, and Mazares the
Mede marched to Sardis with
a detachment of Cyrus' troops. Finding Pactyes and his supporters
gone, the first thing he did was to compel the Lydians to carry out
Cyrus' orders — as a result of which they altered from that moment
their whole way of life; he then sent a demand to Cyme that Pactyes
should be surrendered, and the men of the town decided to consult
the oracle at Branchidae as
to whether they should obey...The messengers returned home to
report, and the citizens of Cyme were prepared in consequence to
give up the wanted man.
Location
Both the author of the 'life of Homer'
and Strabo the
ancient geographer, locate Cyme north of the Hermus river on the Asia
Minor coastline, modern day "Nemrut Limanı"(in Turkish)
Map of Aegean c.200 BC showing the location of Kyme.
After crossing the Hyllus,
the distance from Larissa to Cyme was 70 stadia, and from Cyme to
Myrina was 40 stadia. (Strabo: 622)
Archaeological finds such as coins give reference also to a river,
believed to be that of the Hyllus.
Early history
Little is known about the foundation of the city to supplement the
traditional founding legend. Settlers from mainland Greece (most likely Euboea)
migrated across the Aegean
Sea during the Late
Bronze Age as waves of Dorian-speaking invaders brought an end to the
once mighty Mycenaean civilization
some time around 1050 BC. During the Late Bronze Age and early Greek
Dark Ages the dialect of Cyme and the surrounding region of Aeolis, like
that of neighboring island Lesbos closely resembled the local dialect of
Thessalia and Boetia.
Aeolis, Larissa Phrikonis. ca 4th Century BC. Æ 11mm. Horned
(?), three-quarter facing female head, turned slightly
right, in necklace / LA, bull's head right.
The colony was founded during the Greek Dark Ages by settlers from
Locris in central Greece who began by reducing the Pelasgian citadel of
Larisa near the river Hermus
Cyme developed into a regional metropolis to some thirty other towns and
settlements in Aeolis. The Cymeans were later ridiculed as a people who
had for three hundred years lived on the coast and not once exacted
harbor taxes on ships making port. Hesiod’s father is said to have
started his journey across the Aegean from Cyme. The cities of southern
Aeolis in the region surrounding Cyme occupied a good belt of land with
rough mountains in the background yet Cyme like other colonies along the
coast did not trade with the native Anatolians further inland who had
occupied Asia Minor for thousands of years. Cyme consequently played no
significant role in the history of western Asia Minor prompting the
historian Ephorus, himself a native of the city, to comment repeatedly
in his narrative of Greek history that while the events he wrote about
were taking place his fellow Cymeans had for centuries sat idly by and
kept the peace.
Politically, Cyme is assumed to have started as a settler democracy
following in the tradition of other established colonies in the region
although Aristotle concluded that by the 7th and 6th centuries BC the
once great democracies in the Greek world (including Cyme) evolved not
from democracies to oligarchies as was the natural custom but from
democracies to tyrannies.
Cyme was an important settlement long before the prominent events of the
Greco-Persian wars. Evidence has pointed to Cyme establishing itself not
as a democracy but rather a monarchy under King Agamemnon of Cyme who
supposedly married his daughter to King Midas of Lydia
5th Century BC
By the 5th century BC, Cyme was one of the 12 established Ionian
colonies in Aeolis. Herodotus
(4.138) mentions that one of the esteemed voters deciding whether or not
to support Militiades the Athenian in his plan to liberate the Ionian
Coast from Persian rule in (year BC) was Aristagoras of Cyme.
Aristagorus campaigned on the side of Histiaeus the Milesian with the
tyrants Strattis of Chios, Aeaces of Samos and Laodamas of Phocaea in
opposing such an initiative arguing instead that each tyrant along the
Ionian Coast owed their position to Darius King of Persia and that
liberating their own cities would encourage democracy over tyranny. Cyme
eventually came under the control of the Persian
Empire following the
collapse of the Lydian
Kingdom at the hands of
Cyrus the Great. Herodotus is
the principal source for this period in Greek history and has paid a
great deal of attention to events taking place in Ionia and Aeolis.
When Pactyes, the Lydian general sought refuge in Cyme from the Persians the
citizens were between a rock and a hard place. As Herodotus records,
they consulted the Greek god Apollo (supporting
the claim that they were of Ionic not eastern culture), who said after
much confusion through an oracle that he should be handed over. However,
a native of Cyme questioned Apollo's word and went back to the oracle
himself to confirm if indeed Apollo wanted
the Cymians to surrender Pactyes. Not wanting to come to grief over the
surrender of Pactyes, nor wanting the ill-effects of a Persian siege
(confirms Cyme was a fortified city capable of self-defence) they
avoided dealing with the Persians by simply sending him off to Mytilene on
the island of Lesbos,
not far from their city.
After the Persian naval defeat at Salamis, Xerxes moored the surviving
ships at Cyme. Before 480 BC, Cyme had been the principle naval base for
the Royal Fleet. Later
accounts of Cyme's involvement in the Ionian
Revolt which triggered
the Persian Wars confirm their allegiance to the Ionian Greek cause.
During this time, Herodotus states that due to the size of the Persian
army, Darius
the Great was able to
launch a devastating three-pronged attack on the Ionian cities. The
third army which he sent north to take Sardis was
under the command of his son-in-law Otaneswho
promptly captured Cyme and Clazomenae in
the process. However, later accounts reveal how Sandoces, the supposed
Ionian governor of Cyme helped draft a fleet of fifteen ships for Xerxes
I great expedition
against mainland Greece c. 480 BC. Cyme is also believed to have been
the port in which the Persian survivors of the Battle
of Salamis wintered and
lends considerable weight to the argument that Cyme was not only well
served by defensive walls, but enjoyed the benefits of a large port
capable of wintering and supplying a large wartime fleet. As a result,
Cyme, like most Ionian cities at the time was a maritime power and a
valuable asset to the Persian Empire.
Once Aristagoras of Miletus roused
the Ionians to rebel against Darius,
Cyme joined the insurrection. However, the revolts at Cyme were quelled
once the city was recovered by the Persians. Sandoces,
the governor of Cyme at the time of Xerxes,
commanded fifteen ships in the Persian military expedition against
Greece (480 BC). Herodotus believes that Sandoces may have been a Greek. After
the Battle
of Salamis, the remnants of Xerxes's fleet wintered at Cyme. Thucydides
does not provide any significant mention of place is hardly more than
mentioned in the history of Thucydides.
Roman and
Byzantine eras
Polybius records that
Cyme obtained freedom from taxation following the defeat of Antiochus
III, later being incorporated into Roman Asia
province. During the reign of Tiberius,
the city suffered from a
great earthquake, common in the Aegean. Other
Roman sources such as Pliny
the Elder mention Cyme as
one of the cities of Aeolia which
supports Herodotus'
similar claim:
Nero & Diva Agrippina Jr Æ 15mm of Aeolis, Cyme. Circa 54-59
AD. QEON NERWNA KUMAIWN, young laureate head of Nero right /
QEAN AGRIPPINAN, veiled head of Agrippina Jr right.
The above-mentioned, then, are the twelve towns of the Ionians. The
Aeolic cities are the following:- Cyme, called also Phriconis, Larissa,
Neonteichus, Temnus, Cilla, Notium,
Aegiroessa, Pitane,
Aegaeae, Myrina,
and Gryneia. These are the eleven ancient cities of the Aeolians.
Originally, indeed, they had twelve cities upon the mainland, like
the Ionians,
but the Ionians deprived
them of Smyrna,
one of the number. The soil of Aeolis is
better than that of Ionia,
but the climate is less agreeable.
Archaeological coinage exists from the Roman Imperial era from Nero to Gallienus.
The river god Hermos, horse with their forefoot raised and victorious
athletes are typical symbols commonly found on period coinage minted at
Cyme.
Later under the leadership of the Eastern
Roman Empire, Cyme became a bishop's
see.
Archaeology
Archaeologists first started taking an interest in the site in the
middle of the 19th century as the wealthy landowner D. Baltazzi and
later S. Reinach began excavation on the southern necropolis. In 1925,
A. Salaç, working out of the Bohemian Mission, uncovered many
interesting finds, including a small temple to Isis,
a Roman porticus and
what is believed to be a 'potter's house'. Encouraged by their
successes, Turkish archaeologist E. Akurgal began
his own project in 1955 which uncovered an Orientalising ceramic on the
southern hill. Between 1979-1984, the Izmir Museum carried out similar
excavations at various locations around the site, uncovering further
inscriptions and structures on the southern hill.
Geophysical studies at Cyme in more recent years, have given
archaeologists a much greater knowledge of the site without being as
intrusive. Geomagnetic surveys of the terrain reveal additional
structures beneath the soil, as yet untouched by excavations.
Statue of a young woman; late Hellenistic, 1st century BC,
Cyme (Namurt).
The northwest side of the southern hill was utilized as a
residential neighborhood during the entire existence of the city.
Only a limited area of the hill has been investigated. It has been
verified that there were at least five successive phases of
building. 1. A long and straight wall going from north to southeast
represented the most ancient building phase. In the wall there are
visible traces of a threshold linking two rooms. There is
uncertainty as to the chronology of the wall, but what is sure is
that is was built before the end of the 5th century BC. 2. Two rooms
(A and B), that were part of a building dating back to the end of
the 5th century BC, belong to the second phase. The building appears
to be complete on the northern side, but could have also had other
rooms on the southern side, where the entrance to room A opened up.
The western wall of room A, was constructed with squared limestone
blocks, and also acted as a terracing wall connecting the strong
natural difference on the side of the hill. At the foot of this wall
there was a cistern excavated in the rock that gathered water coming
from the roof of the house. The cistern was filled with debris and
great amounts of black and plain pottery dating back to the late
Hellenistic Age. 3. Some walls that belonged to the Imperial Roman
Period were constructed by means of white mortar and bricks. During
this phase a service room east of room A, with a floor that was made
of leveled rock, was built. In the area of the cistern, by now
filled, a new room decorated by wall paintings was also built. 4. A
large house occupied the area during the Late Roman Period. The
rooms were constructed using reused materials, but without the use
of mortar, and often enriched by polychrome mosaics. Access was
gained by a ramp placed at the edge of the southwestern part of the
excavation. Still, what needs to be clarified is the extent of the
building, whose destruction is placed between the end of the 6th
century to the beginning of the 7th century AD. 5. The final phase
is represented by some superficial structures found at the northern
part of the excavation. There is a long wall going from the
northwest to the southeast and a ramp built with reused blocks, with
the same orientation as the wall. The wall and the ramp could be
proof that this area was utilized during the Byzantine Age.
Trivia
Cyme was the birthplace of the historian Ephorus;
and Hesiod's
father, according to the poet (Op. et D. 636), sailed from Cyme to
settle at Ascra in Boeotia;
which does not prove, as such compilers as Stephanus and Suidas suppose,
that Hesiod was
a native of Cyme.
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