The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

QUAESTIONES CYRENAICAE. 171
129 of Diodorus and how ;
important a personage was the
Athenian heiress, we learn from the fact that after the
death of her husband and her return to Athens she
married no less a person than Demetrius Poliorcetes. 130
Along the same lines we can get an adequate explanation
of the Hermes on a reverse of nOAIAN@EY
(No. 75), which precedes the coin of EIAnNO$.
Six explains the type of Hermes as being simply
a general reference to the commercial prosperity of
the age. Surely a more complete explanation is
needed for so startling an innovation, for this is
the first silver coin (except a few small fractions) in
the whole Cyrenaic series which does not show the
silphium plant, or its seed, as a main type. Hermes
is doubly connected with Aphrodite, as a god of
fertility and as a guide. He it is who brings together
Aphrodite and Anchises, Eurydice and Orpheus,
Omphale and Heracles. On a fine relief from South
Italy 131 we find him standing with caduceus, facing
Aphrodite, on whose arm is Eros holding the lyre
(as on No. 76). At Athens, the home of Ophellas's
bride, we find a cult of Hermes Fi flu/Kerrey, Aphrodite,
and Eros Wflupoy. 132 It does not, then, seem too fanciful
to see in the Hermes type another allusion to the
marriage of Ophelias.
29 XX. 40. *O de 'OeXXar . . . npbs p.fv
The head on the issues of
'
A.6rjvaLovs Trepi (rv/u/Ma^i'a? die-
7rtfj.TTTO yeyap-TjKcos ~Ev6vdiKr)v rr]v MtXriaSou dvyarepa TOV TTJV 7rpoo~rjyopiav
(pepovros fls TOV o~TpnTtjyfjO-avTa TWV ev MapadStvt VIKYJO-UVTUV. dia 617
Tavrrjv rrjv (7nyap.iav KOL rrjv a\\r)v (nrovSrjv (j?f } vrrijpxev d7ro$fttfiyp.tvos
f Trjv iro\iv Kal TroXXol ra>i> *AdT}vaia>v 7rpodvfj.a>s vTrrjuovaav fls rf)v
oT-pareinv [against Carthage].
30
Plutarch, Vit. Dem. xiv, who calls her Eurydice, whereas in
Diodorus the name is Euthydice.
81
Figured in Roscher's Lexicon, s.v. Eros, vol. i, p. 1351.
132
Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Hermes, 8. 1, cols. 741, 757.
N 2