View reverse of coin
Dekadrachm. Obverse: Persephone
413-400 B.C.
Syracuse, Sicily
Silver
Diameter - 36 mm; weight - 42.47 g
Here, on one of the largest Greek coins, a dekadrachm
from the city of Syracuse, we can see Persephone, the daughter of the
goddess Demeter and consort of Hades, the god of the Underworld. Once,
when Persephone was gathering flowers in the company of nymphs, Hades
unexpectedly appeared in his chariot from beneath the ground and carried
her off to the realm of the dead. Demeter, the goddess of fertility,
looked everywhere for her daughter and finally threatened Zeus himself
that she would stop giving harvests and would starve all humans to death.
Zeus gave in to Demeter and sent Hermes to bring Persephone back from
the Underworld.
Hades was obliged to obey Zeus's command, but he nonetheless
dared a piece of trickery: he cunningly made Persephone swallow a few
pomegranate seeds, knowing that if anyone ate the least thing in the
Underworld they would inevitably return there. As a result Persephone
spent part of the year with her mother on the earth, and part in the
Underworld. There she felt herself to be an entirely legitimate and
wise ruler. In contrast to her stern husband, who knew no pity, she
was kind to people. It was she, for example, who returned Eurydice to
Orpheus and Alcestis to Admetus, admiring their self-sacrificing love
for their wives. On the Hermitage coin, which is the work of the famous
artist Euainetos, Persephone is depicted as a young woman with a luxuriant
coiffure embellished by a wreath of wheat stems without ears (in contrast
to Demeter), as a sign that while she is in the Underworld the earth
will not produce a harvest.
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