1. Cities

1.1. Cities as Amazons

According to tradition, many cities of Asia Minor were founded by Amazons, and for this reason these were considered as tutelary deities. By the Hellenistic period, in the cases where cities were personified on coinage, these figures were identified with their founders and represented as Amazons, standing up with one breast uncovered, carrying the pelte, and brandishing the double axe plus the symbols of each city (Cyme, Aegae, Myrina). The Temple of Hecate at Lagina of Caria is considered as an important monument: many cities of Asia Minor were depicted as Amazons on its north frieze. This depiction commemorated the peace treaty (Treaty of Amisus) between the cities and Rome after the end of the Second Mithridatic War (81 BC).¹ On coinage of the Imperial period they are often accompanied by other deities (Smyrna as an Amazon in a dexioses scene with Ares) or identified with them (Ephesus as Artemis Ephesia on coins dating to Macrinus’ reign, 217-218 AD).

1.2. Cities as Tyche

Tyche as a political deity was often identified with the city it protected. The most famous representation of this kind is the colossal statue of the Tyche of Antioch, a work by the Sicyonian sculptor Eutychides, commissioned by Seleucus I Nicator when he founded the city which bore his name on the banks of the Orontes River in Syria (c.300 BC). Because the city was founded by a king and consequently its establishment could not be traced back to the mythological past, it was depicted in the form of Tyche (=Fortune), the deified allegory on the same name. It was depicted as a female deity in a mural crown (polos) and attired in a long frilled himation, seated on a rock and brandishing wheatears, with the Orontes River at her feet depicted as a young man swimming. The lost original bronze sculpture by Eutychides, which also served as the city’s devotional statue, has been recreated thanks mainly to its depictions on coins and signet rings, and to a surviving copy.²

By the 2^nd, and mainly during the 3^rd cent. AD, these two iconographic types become merged. Therefore, on coins from Smyrna dating to the reign of Septimius Severus (193-212 AD) the city is represented as a seated Amazon donning a mural crown.³

2. Kingdoms and Provinces

2.1. Commagene

Commagene is one of the most important monumental personifications of a geographical and administrative area in the late Hellenistic mausoleum of the king Antiochus IV, at Nemrut Dag on the Taurus mountain.⁴

It was represented as a fertility deity, seated on a throne flanked by Greco-Persian and Hellenistic rulers, in a polos or crown and brandishing the Horn of Amalthea on her right hand. On a relief dating to the same period, but executed in a more Hellenistic style, she is depicted as Tyche holding the Horn of Amalthea in a dexioses scene with the king.⁵

2.2. Roman provinces

During the period of Roman conquest, the regions of the Hellenistic kingdoms were depicted on the triumphal monuments of the victors as kneeling, vanquished female figures. When they finally become Roman provinces, their iconographic type changes and they are depicted as fertility deities, in the type of Tyche and the Amazons.

Most of the Roman provinces of Asia Minor were depicted for the first time like Tyche or Amazons on coinage minted on the occasion of Hadrian’s tour. Phrygia is depicted welcoming the emperor kneeling in a dexioses scene, while on coins minted during Caracalla’s reign (211-217 AD) the province is depicted together with Caria flanking Zeus Laodicenus. The Roman province of Asia is represented as a Greek deity in the type of Tyche or Cybele wearing a mural crown, a chiton and an himation and holding a prow and a helm. These symbols alluded to the coasts of Asia Minor, the ports and wealth of the province, a large part of which originated from maritime trade.

Cappadocia was depicted on coinage minted during Hadrian’s reign (117-138 AD) as an Amazon in a short chiton, brandishing hunting weapons. The warlike nature of the personified province is attributed to the campaign the emperor waged against the Parthians during this period. Bithynia is usually represented as Tyche wearing a mural crown and holding a helm and a prow or as a fertility goddess with a plough, wheatears and the Horn of Amalthea.⁶

These pictorial types have been borrowed by types usually used for the representation of female deities, abstract ideas and cities. This is why the designers of the coins or the sculptors felt the need to accompany their creations with the relevant explanatory inscriptions, without which their identification as representations of provinces would have been impossible, even during the time of their creation.