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The inscription means ‘Macedonians First.’ Artemis on the front of the coin was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Her Roman equivalent is Diana. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and protector of young girls, bringing and relieving disease in women. She often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows, as can be seen on her shoulder on the coin.

There are two types of inscriptions found on the reverse of Alexander coins. The primary inscription is ALEXANDROU (of Alexander) and ALEXANDROU BASILEWS (of Alexander the King). The “of” refers to the “coin of Alexander”. The title “King” found on certain coins varied according to region and time period. The Greek speaking people were not partial to the idea of being ruled by any king and therefore the title is not generally found on Alexander coins of mainland Greece.

This coin is a city commemorative, with Roma on the obverse side and the legend VRBS ROMA, The City Of Rome. Rome, it was said, was founded by the twins Romulus and Remus. Of course, this was a myth; in fact it was the city’s “foundation myth.” The two stars on the reverse represent the dioscuri (the twins Castor and Pollux). In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores.

Ariarathes I was successful and extended the borders of the Cappadocian Kingdom as far as the Black Sea. After Alexander’s death, Perdiccas designated Eumenes to rule the area. Ariarathes was defeated, captured and crucified, but due to Macedonian infighting Ariarathes’ son recovered his inheritance. He left the kingdom to a line of successors, who mostly bore the name of the founder of the dynasty. Under Ariarathes IV, Cappadocia became an ally of Rome. The kingdom maintained independence until A.D. 17, when the Tiberius reduced Cappadocia to a Roman province.

Located on a peninsula extending from Europe into the Aegean on the west and the Dardanelles on the east, its name derives from the ancient Greek word for peninsula. Little is known about this city, apart from its coinage.

In place of the archer used on the reverse of silver drachms, these larger coins usually show other scenes such as the goddess Tyche giving a diadem to the king. Around the scene are lines of inscription, which rarely fit entirely on the flan. The dynastic name ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ (Arsaces) is found on almost every coin. Between the heads of Tyche and the king there is usually a Greek numeral indicating the year of the Seleucid era. Year dating was common on Seleucid coins but rare on Parthian issues from mints other than Seleucia.

It was located in southeastern Iran fronting on the Persian Gulf. The kings of Persis retained a degree of autonomy under the Parthians, due primarily to their role as the guardians of Zoroastrianism. The last king of Persis, Ardeshir V, fomented a successful revolt against the Parthians and became the first Sasanian king.

Coins of Persis were made for local use only, and were struck in small numbers. They have always been scarce and rare, and still are.

He came to Rome shortly after turning 18 and Marcus Aurelius made him a senator. He is credited with strengthening and reviving an empire facing imminent decline and, through the same policies that saved it, causing its eventual fall. Severus eliminated the dangerous praetorians, unified the empire after turmoil and civil war, strengthened the army, defeated Rome’s most powerful enemy, and founded a successful dynasty. His pay increases for the army, however, established a severe burden on Rome. Future emperors were expected to increase pay as well. These raises resulted in ever-increasing taxes that damaged the economy. Some historians believe high taxes, initiated by Severus policies, played a significant role in Rome’s long-term decline.

An intelligent, talented and beautiful woman, Julia Domna exercised great influence during her husband’s reign and practically administered the empire for her sons.

When Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its own coinage in the late 5th century B.C., it chose local types for its coins. The obverse depicted the nymph of the local spring, Larissa, for whom the town was named; probably the choice was inspired by the famous coins of Kimon depicting the Syracusan nymph Arethusa. The reverse depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, which was well known for its horses.

It was tamed by Bellerophon who rode it into battle against the fire-breathing monster known as the Khimaira (Chimera). Later the hero attempted to fly to heaven but Zeus caused the horse to buck throwing him back down to earth in disgrace. Pegasus’ name means either “of the spring” from the Greek word pêgê, or “sprung forth” from the word pêgazô. The first alludes to the steed’s connection with various springs, and the latter to its birth from the Gorgon’s neck.

Athens and Corinth produced the most significant early coinages and two of the most famous types in the ancient Greek world: the Owl of Athens and the Pegasus, or “colt,” of Corinth.

As a fertility deity she was invoked by women to aid conception and delivery. Though perhaps originally an indigenous woodland goddess, Diana early became identified with Artemis. The most famous place of worship for the goddess was the grove of Diana Nemorensis (“Diana of the Wood”) on the shores of Lake Nemi at Aricia (modern Ariccia), near Rome. In Roman art Diana usually appears as a huntress with bow and quiver, accompanied by a hound or deer.

That Demetrius had conquered India was shown on his coins. On higher denominations, the king was depicted wearing an elephant skin over his head, a symbol of the subjection of India since the campaigns of Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.). The reverse of the trichalkon is also meaningful. With his conquests in India, Demetrius had won control over long tracks of the Silk Road. With this coin image he showed that trade was in his hands: It depicts a kerykeion, a caduceus guarantying sanctity to its possessor and the symbol of the Greek god of trade, Hermes (the Roman Mercury).

They were the feudatories of the Western Chalukyas and often claimed as their descent from the Yadavas of Dwarka, Lord Krishna’s clan. These coins of Yadavas of Devagiri, called ‘padma tankas’ in the literature from their central motif of a padma or lotus, were the coins of the Devagiri treasury. The gold coins were not flat, but cup shaped due to the force of the central punch.

He was the last most powerful and great sovereign of the Mughal crown. During his rule, the Mughal Empire reached its epitome. This gold Mohur of Aurangzeb was issued by Burhanpur mint. The obverse side of this coin depicts a Persian legend “Sikka Zad Dar Jahan Chu Mihr-e-munir Badshah Aurangzeb Alamgir” with Hijri date 1108 on it. The reverse side of this Mohur depicts Julus formula with Regnal year ‘41’ towards the middle right and mint name at the bottom of the coin. Aurangzeb died in 1707 AD leaving a large empire which lasted nearly half a century and led to dissolution due to his policy.

He is included as one of the twelve Olympian Greek Gods,son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, or as said in  the Cretan version, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the Greek underworld. He was known also as the driving force behind ancient Greek theater and the one who inspired joyful worship and ecstasy, in festivals and celebrations. He was also known as the Liberator , freeing one from one’s normal self, by madness, ecstasy or wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mingle the music of the aulos (ancient greek musical instrument) and to end up all worries and thoughts.

On the reverse, Heracles is depicted holding club and lion skin. The most famous of all his myths are the Twelve Labours. The story goes that in a fit of madness (inflicted on him by Zeus’s wife Hera), Heracles killed his wife Megara. He asked the Oracle of Apollo in Delphi how he could atone. He was told to travel to Tiryns and do the tasks asked of him by King Eurystheus (his cousin through his mortal mother). For twelve years, he traveled all over to complete these incredible tasks. The first task was traveling to Nemea and slaying the Nemean Lion, a fierce beast terrorising the countryside. This monster of a lion had a hide was so tough that no arrow could pierce it. Heracles stunned the beast with his olive-wood club and then strangled it with his bare hands. Athena urged him to skin the lion, using the lion’s own sharp claws.

Dionysos and Heracles were both patron gods of Thasos.

The profile head of the goddess Roma—the personification of Rome—was the most popular image depicted on silver denarii in the second and first centuries BC. She embodied and idealised certain of Rome’s ideas about itself, its advancement and its eventual domination of its neighbours. Roman political, moral and religious ideas were portrayed through Roma in different forms: coins, sculptures and architectural designs, even in official games and festivals but seldom in a commonplace or domestic context, as Roma was a construction of Roman state patronage. Though her depictions have been influenced by other goddesses at the time, such as Rome’s Minerva, her Greek equivalent Athena and the various manifestations of Greek Tyches, Roma stands out as a symbol of “natural” dominance, with her promise of protection to those who obeyed or cooperated with her, and her “manly virtue” as fierce mother of a warrior race.

He is the son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, also known as Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. Helios was described as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, who drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day to earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night.

The Colossus of Rhodes, the sixth of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was a huge statue of Helios measuring 32 meters (100 feet) high, built at Rhodes in 280 B.C. but destroyed by an earthquake later in that century. It has inspired many later sculptures including the Statue of Liberty.

Rhodian plinthophoroi were with some certainty introduced around 190 BC. and continued for a century until the end of the first Mithridatic War in 84 BC. The term plinthophoric used to describe this period of Rhodian coinage refers to the characteristic square incuse on the reverse of this series: Greek πλίνθος translates as “brick” or “ingot.” The Greek for rose was ρόδov (rhodon). It was also the name of the nymph Rhodos, daughter of Aphrodite.

The obverse displays St. Mark standing at the left; at the right the doge kneeling, holding a staff or banner, alongside which is the word DVX. The inscription around the border is the doge’s name to right, and to left S. M. VENET(VS or I). On the reverse is the figure of Christ, surrounded by stars, in a pointed oval technically known as a mandorla. The legend is SIT.T.XPE.DAT. Q. TV.REGIS.ISTE.DVCAT (Sit tibi Christe datus, quem tu regis, isle ducatus, ‘Let this duchy which thou rulest be dedicated to thee, O Christ’.)

She was eventually equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy. Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, along with Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.

A law-giver and healer, Apollo brought order to humankind and was the source of all medical knowledge. Furthermore, Apollo served as the chief patron of prophets, the source of the gift of prophecy. He was thought to reside at Delphi, the center of oracular thought in the ancient Mediterranean.

On the reverse, the dioscuri are depicted before their horses. Castor and Pollux (the Dioscuri) are figures from Greek and Roman mythology considered the twin sons of Zeus or Jupiter. Semi-divine figures, they were credited with the role of saving those in trouble at sea or in grave danger in war and were particularly associated with horses and sports. The brothers were linked with Sparta especially and had their own temples in Athens and on Delos. The Dioscuri were the patrons of the Roman knights and played an important role in martial ceremonies into the imperial period.

His reign marked the height of the Roman Empire, usually given as c. 117 CE, and provided a firm foundation for his successor. Hadrian is best known for his literary pursuits, his substantial building projects throughout the Roman Empire, and, especially, Hadrian’s Wall in northern Britain. Hadrian was deeply interested in literature – especially Greek literature – and Egyptian mysticism and magic. He was among the most highly cultured of the Roman emperors – even among the famous best five – wrote his own poetry and other works and insisted on personally supervising as many of the building projects he had commissioned as he possibly could.

He had a distinguished military career, and Diocletian nominated him as junior emperor in 293 A.D. (at which point Galerius divorced his wife and married Diocletian’s daughter Galeria Valeria (q.v.)). Galerius successfully ruled Egypt and supposedly incited Diocletian to persecute the Christians; he became Augustus in 305 when Diocletian abdicated.

As Augustus of the east, Galerius was theoretically subordinate to the Western emperor but managed to appoint two favourites, Maximinus and Valerius Severus, as the junior Caesars. Upon the death of Constantius, he grudgingly allowed Constantine to become Caesar, but insisted that Severus be Augustus.

Maxentius soon overthrew Severus, and Galerius invaded Italy but was forced to retreat. He summoned Diocletian and Maximian to meet him and declare Maxentius a usurper in 308 A.D.; they appointed Licinus in his place. Galerius grew sick in 310 A.D. and feared the illness was retribution from the Christian god, so he reluctantly lifted some of his persecution. He died in 311 A.D..

The coins commemorating the founding of Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire depict Constantinopolis (Constantinople deified), with Victory on the prow of a ship.  The victory on a prow type alludes to the naval victory of Crispus and his subsequent capture of Byzantium (soon to be re-named Constantinople).

While retaining a profile of the Greek goddess Athena on the obverse and an owl (one of her symbols) on the reverse, several elaborate additions had been made to the older style of tetradrachm coinage’s design.

The most noticeable change in the new tetradrachm is the fact that Athena now wears a helmet with three crests, emphasizing the fact that she was the goddess of war as well as wisdom. A mythological creature, which can be either Pegasus or a griffin, is to be found on the side of the helmet.

Athena’s owl perches upon an amphora–a large, often ceramic vessel, used to transport and store a variety of products such as wine or olive oil–that serves as a symbol of Athen’s prowess in the olive oil trade. Inscriptions recording the date of issue and the city magistrate that produced the coins were also added.

As for being the patron goddess of Athens, this was the result of a contest between Athena and Poseidon, Zeus’ brother, her uncle, and the god of the sea. The rules were simple: each god would give the city one gift, and whichever gift the citizens liked better would determine the winner. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident, whereby a mighty salt-water spring arose from the crack.

Athena gave the city the olive tree.

Medusa was finally slain by the Greek hero Perseus, who beheaded her while she slept and gifted her severed head to Athena. Even when completely severed from her body, Medusa’s head continued to turn anyone who gazed upon it into stone.

Athena accepted the gift and placed it on her aegis (a goatskin shield). It’s said that the head protected Athena during many battles and even the supreme god Zeus wore the image of the Gorgon’s head on his breastplate. Athena and Zeus, along with several other major Olympian deities are hardly ever depicted without the Gorgoneion. In this way, Medusa’s head eventually morphed into a symbol of protection.

It was a central part of Tokugawa coinage. The Keichō era koban, a gold piece, contained about one ryō of gold, so that koban carried a face value of one ryō. However, successive mintings of the koban had varying (usually diminishing) amounts of gold. As a result, the ryō as a unit of weight of gold and the ryō as the face value of the koban were no longer synonymous.

According to a miraculous legend, a poor woman who was starving in prison was saved when her daughter gave her breast milk. Caught in the act, the daughter was not punished, but recognised for her pietas. Mother and daughter were set free, and given public support for the rest of their lives. The site was regarded as sacred to the goddess Pietas (consecratus deae) because she had chosen to manifest her presence there. The story exemplified pietas erga parentes, the proper devotion one ought to show to one’s parents.

Its type is one of the most artistic on the coins of Southern Italy and, indeed, elsewhere in the Greek world. The Sybaris elite were renowned for their indulgences, giving root to the modern work “sybarite.” It was said that Sybarite chefs were able to patent their recipes, and the games hosted by this city state were more elaborate than those of Olympia. There was an uprising in 510 B.C., squelched by the elite. Rebels took refuge in nearby Croton. Sybaris demanded their extradition. When Croton refused, Sybaris attacked Croton. Although vastly outnumbered by the Sybarite forces, Croton managed to repel the attack and destroyed Sybaris. To prevent Sybaris from ever being resettled, it then diverted the Crathis River to pass through the center of the old city. Because of this, remnants of the center of Sybaris have never been uncovered, and coins are among the few surviving artifacts of this fascinating city-state.

According to myth, the island sprang from the sea to be conferred upon the sun god, Helios, by Zeus who had neglected to include him when dispensing existing cities and islands to the gods. The prevaling design bore a head of Helios on the obverse and an opening rose on the reverse. The Greek for a rose was ρόδov (rhodon). It was also the name of the nymph Rhodos, daughter of Aphrodite. She in turn was linked to Helios as the mother of seven sons she bore him.

2,700 years ago, when the people of ancient Greece found that they were running out of farmland to feed their growing population, they began to look for new colonies to settle. Thus began the movement of large populations of Greeks to Sicily and Southern Italy, which became known then, and is sometimes still referred to today, as Magna Graecia.

Although most of the cities were established during that early settlement period around 700-600 BC, the city of Herakleia was founded about 430 BC as a compromise between the Athenians and the Tarantines (from Tarantum) who were fighting for control of Siris, a nearby city. Interestingly enough, in the end both cities continued to exist and eventually became one city.

In Roman mythology, Janus is the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, endings and time. Most often depicted as having two heads, facing opposite directions; one head looks back at the last year while the other looks forward to the new, simultaneously into the future and the past. According to a legend, he had received the gift to see both future and past from the god Saturn in reward for the hospitality received. Janus-like heads of gods related to Hermes have been found in Greece, perhaps suggesting a compound god.

In Greek religion and mythology , Athena, is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, just warfare, mathematics, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena.

Best know for the successful expansion of Rome into Britain and parts of Africa and the Middle East, Claudius was an accomplished leader who brought forth improvements to the empire’s judicial system, passed laws protecting enslaved workers, extended Roman citizenship and gave citizens more rights.

In power for almost 500 years, the Parthians are one of the most important dynasties of the post-Hellenistic and pre-Islamic Middle East. This Iranian dynasty revived pre-Hellenistic traditions, such as royal titles and regalia, which were then passed on to the Sasanians and also later Islamic dynasties.

The name Philip (Greek Phílippos) means “lover of horses”. Seleucid kings were mostly named Seleucus and Antiochus; “Philip” was used by the Antigonid dynasty as a royal name, and its use by the Seleucids, who were descended from the Antigonids through Queen Stratonice, was probably meant to signify that they were heirs of the latter.

These lustrous gems, adorned with warm hues, have been highly esteemed for countless centuries. Intriguingly connected to the concept of sight and observation, tiger’s eye is believed by many cultures worldwide to possess the power to repel evil spirits. In ancient Egypt, this captivating stone was used to embellish statues’ eyes, symbolising the divine ability to perceive. With its associations of courage and integrity, tiger’s eye served as a talisman for Roman soldiers, who wore it into battle for protection and bravery. Throughout history, this gemstone has been regarded as a guardian of resources and a symbol of lasting prosperity.

This beautiful mineral, often compared to lapis lazuli, is a member of the feldspathoid group and is renowned for its striking appearance and metaphysical properties. With its rich blue color reminiscent of a starry night sky, sodalite is not only prized for its aesthetics but also cherished for its believed healing and spiritual properties. Associated with enhancing intuition, communication, and intellectual abilities, this stone has been used by various cultures throughout history to promote clarity of thought and emotional balance. As a symbol of harmony and inspiration, sodalite continues to enchant both gem enthusiasts and those seeking to harness its positive energies.

A variety of chalcedony, white agate is prized for its gentle appearance, featuring layers of white and sometimes translucent bands that create a soothing and elegant effect. With its soft and calming energy, this gemstone is believed to promote tranquility and emotional stability, making it a popular choice for those seeking inner peace and balance. White agate has also been cherished for its healing properties, thought to enhance mental clarity and foster a sense of clarity and focus. Whether admired for its visual allure or appreciated for its metaphysical qualities, white agate continues to be cherished and sought after by gem enthusiasts and spiritual seekers alike.