Astragaloi on Greek Coins of Asia Minor Richard H.J. Ashton To cite this version: Richard H.J. Ashton. Astragaloi on Greek Coins of Asia Minor. Archimède : archéologie et histoire ancienne, UMR7044 - Archimède, 2019, pp.113-126. halshs-02895550 HAL Id: halshs-02895550 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02895550 Submitted on 9 Jul 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. ARCHIMÈDE N°6 ARCHÉOLOGIE ET HISTOIRE ANCIENNE 2019 1 DOSSIER THÉMATIQUE : HISTOIRES DE FIGURES CONSTRUITES : LES FONDATEURS DE RELIGION DOSSIER THÉMATIQUE : JOUER DANS L’ANTIQUITÉ : IDENTITÉ ET MULTICULTURALITÉ GAMES AND PLAY IN ANTIQUITY: IDENTITY AND MULTICULTURALITY 71 Véronique DASEN et Ulrich SCHÄDLER Introduction EGYPTE 75 Anne DUNN-VATURI Aux sources du « jeu du chien et du chacal » 89 Alex DE VOOGT Traces of Appropriation: Roman Board Games in Egypt and Sudan 100 Thierry DEPAULIS Dés coptes ? Dés indiens ? MONDE GREC u 113 Richard. H.J. ASHTON Astragaloi on Greek Coins of Asia Minor 127 Véronique DASEN Saltimbanques et circulation de jeux 144 Despina IGNATIADOU Luxury Board Games for the Northern Greek Elite 160 Ulrich SCHÄDLER Greeks, Etruscans, and Celts at play MONDE ROMAIN 175 Rudolf HAENSCH Spiele und Spielen im römischen Ägypten: Die Zeugnisse der verschiedenen Quellenarten 186 Yves MANNIEZ Jouer dans l’au-delà ? Le mobilier ludique des sépultures de Gaule méridionale et de Corse (Ve siècle av. J.-C. – Ve siècle apr. J.-C.) 199 Mark Anthony HALL Whose Game is it Anyway? Board and Dice Games as an Example of Cultural Transfer and Hybridity 213 VARIA REVUE RCHIMEDE, ARCHÉOLOGIE ET HISTOIRE ANCIENNE ASTRAGALOI ON GREEK COINS OF ASIA MINOR [1] Richard H.J. ASHTON Londres, Royal Numismatic Society [email protected] ABSTRACT Les astragales se trouvent fréquemment sur les mon- naies grecques, aux côtés d’autres symboles subordonnés servant à démarquer les étapes successives d’une émis- sion particulière. Beaucoup plus significatifs sont les cas Astragaloi appear frequently on Greek coins as one of a rares où l’astragale est le type principal ou un type secon- range of subordinate symbols, which demarcate individual daire qui est invariable ou régulier. En Asie mineure de tels issues within larger series. More significant are the rarer cas se limitent, presque sans exception, à la région qui va cases where astragaloi appear as the main type, or as an de Chypre/Cilicie jusqu’en Lycie, et à un groupe de villes invariable or regular sub-type. Within Asia Minor such cases en Ionie occidentale et ses alentours qui se distinguent par are confined, with few exceptions, to a region stretching leur proximité au centre oraculaire de Claros. En ce qui from Cilicia/Cyprus to Lycia, and to a cluster of cases in concerne ces deux régions, l’astragalomancie est attestée and near western Ionia, where the common denomina- dans d’autres sources. tor seems to be proximity to the oracle at Claros. In both La plupart des émissions monétaires s’échelonnent entre la regions astragalomancy is attested in other sources. Most fin duv e et le début du iiie siècle av. J.-C., avec un nombre of the coins concerned date from the late fifth to the early plus élevé dans la première moitié du ive siècle av. J.-C. ; third centuries BCE, especially the first half of the fourth à une pause jusqu’au temps des Sévères succède une century; then there is a gap until the Severan period and période pendant laquelle plusieurs cités représentent sur later when several cities depict on coins children playing leurs monnaies des enfants jouant aux astragales devant astragaloi before a cult-statue. In both regions astragaloi une statue de culte. Dans les deux régions, la plupart des usually appear as main types on small silver denomina- types avec des représentations d’astragales se limite à un tions and on bronze coins, and not on larger silver denom- monnayage d’argent de petite dimension ou de bronze. inations. Both phenomena at present elude convincing L’explication de ces deux phénomènes reste incertaine. explanation. À Calcédoine sur le Bosphore, où se trouvait un oracle At Kalchedon on the Bosporus, which had an oracle of d’Apollon, un astragale est le type principal sur l’avers de Apollo, an astragalos appears as the main obverse type on quelques petites monnaies en bronze du ive siècle av. J.-C. some small, rare, fourth century bronzes. In general, given Puisque presque tous les exemples that almost all occurrences of astragaloi on coins as main monétaires figurant un astragale, types or invariable symbols comme type principal ou signe belong to regions where astra- fixe, appartiennent aux régions où Keywords galomancy is attested from l’astragalomancie est attestée dans Mots-clés Antandros, other sources, in the much d’autres sources, l’attention des Antandros, astragaloi, rarer cases where astragaloi historiens et archéologues pourrait astragale(s), astragalomancy, astragalomancie, gagner à se porter sur les cas, beau- Cilicia, feature prominently on coins Calchédoine, Cyprus, of cities (e.g. Antandros in the coup plus rares, où des astragales Chypre, Ionia, Troad) where there is no other se trouvent sur les monnaies de Cilicie, Kalchedon, evidence for astragalomancy, it cités comme Antandros du Troade, Claros, Klaros, Ionie, could be profitable for historians dont aucune source ne laisse présu- Lycia, Lycie, Pamphylia, and archaeologists to keep an mer d’un lien avec l’astragaloman- Pamphylie, Pisidia. alert eye open for it. cie, du moins jusqu’à présent. Pisidie. Article accepté après évaluation par deux experts selon le principe du double anonymat 113 ARCHIMÈDE ARCHÉOLOGIE ET HISTOIRE ANCIENNE N°6 2019 - p. 113 à 126 Dossier « Jouer dans l’Antiquité : identité et multiculturalité » Astragaloi are dice usually made from the knuck- throw of astragaloi in dice-games was called an lebones of sheep or goats and were used in games, Aphrodite. [6] At Paphos, a city particularly sacred as well as in oracular divination by sortition from to Aphrodite, an astragalos appears as a symbol on a pre-existing list of answers. [2] They appear fre- a series of staters (bull standing l. / eagle flying l.) quently on Greek coins, but in most cases they are and fractions of the city from the mid-fifth century control symbols which are subordinate to the main (fig. 2); [7] the only other symbol recorded on this reverse type and serve simply to demarcate an series is an ivy-leaf, a symbol of Dionysos, who was issue within a series from other issues bearing dif- also an oracular deity. [8] An astragalos recurs as an ferent symbols. Thus, to cite one of many exam- unchanging symbol above Aphrodite’s dove on some ples, an issue of early hemidrachms of Rhodes has fourth century staters of Paphos (fig. 3). [9] An astra- a small astragalos accompanying the main reverse galos within a dotted border is the reverse type of a type (fig. 1), but half-a-dozen other symbols within series of fifth century staters and fractions with on the the same series appear on other near-contemporary obverse a man-headed bull recumbent right with head issues - club, grapes, thorny branch(es), helmet, reverted, which were formerly attributed to Paphos pilos, grasshopper. [3] It seems clear that there is but are now assigned to an uncertain mint elsewhere no thematic link among them, and that they may on Cyprus (fig. 4). [10] well have been selected more or less at random. Elsewhere on Cyprus, astragaloi are found as More significant are cases where theastragalos is a unchanging symbols on mid-fifth century staters and main type or an unchanging (or dominant) subordinate tetrobols of Idalion, accompanied by a second symbol symbol or adjunct. Here a clear pattern emerges in of an ivy-leaf or a vine-leaf, both symbols of Dionysos Asia Minor, for, with few exceptions, all the examples (fig. 5). [11] At Kition an astragalos appears under a identified cluster in two distinct areas. The first is an arc recumbent lion on the obverse of some fifth century of territory stretching over Cyprus, Cilicia, Pamphylia, staters. [12] Pisidia and Lycia, where there was a long tradition of oracular activity, including astragalomancy, and [1] I am particularly indebted to Philip Kinns for close associations with the legendary seers Mopsos, patiently guiding me through the complexities of the his brother Amphilochos, and Kalchas. The second late classical and early Hellenistic coinages of western Ionia. cluster is formed of mints on or near the central coast [2] See Graf 2005, esp. 58-66, and Nollé 2007, esp. of Ionia, whose common denominator is proximity to ch. 2 and 3. the oracular site of Klaros, where, as we shall see, [3] See Ashton 2001: 99-100, n. 13-24. forms of divination included astragalomancy. [4] Nollé 2007, 14 with refs in n. 73. [5] Ibid., 269-276. [6] Graf 2005, 63-8; Schädler 1996. [7] Destrooper 2007, 21-22 and pl. II, 15; CYPRUS, CILICIA, PISIDIA, AND LYCIA Macdonald 1901, 3. [8] Ibid., 2; BMC 18-38; Lederer 1931, 258-9; RE Astragaloi occur on several coin issues from Cyprus, s.v. Losung (Ehrenberg) cols 1459/60; BMC Lycaonia, Isauria, Cilicia, p. xlvi-xlvii. where their use in divination is attested epigraph- [9] BMC 47.