Abstract
The paper is devoted to the aspects of the royal ideology of the King of Commagene Sam II who ruled in 130–100 BC. Based on the numismatic sources, the author examines the essence of ideology of this King, characterizing every aspect of it. Sam II minted two types of bronze chalkoi. On the obverse of fi rst type, the king portrait has radiate crown; the fi gure of standing winged Nike, a goddess of royal glory and military success with wreath in right arm and a palm branch in left is depicted on the reverse. The author supposes that the obverse of the coin of the fi rst type imitates the obverse of silver tetradrachms of the Seleucid king Antiochus VI Neos Dionysus (144–142 BC), and the fi gure of Nike is a wide-spread image in the offi cial Hellenic and post-Hellenic art since the time of Alexander the Great. The author believes that the scene of investiture was represented on the fi rst type of coins of Sam II, in which Nike crowns the king with the wreath of glory and success. Besides, the Commagene King probably was identifi ed with Helios, the Greek god of the Sun or more likely with Apollo-Helios, his local analogue, played a signifi cant part in royal ideology of the ruling house of Commagene in 65–64 BC, when the building of the sanctuary of the royal and dynastic cults on the mountain Nimrud Dagh began. The title «Fair» is associated with his attempt to appear before his subjects in the image of the solar deity. The king’s head in the Iranian tiara, warned by many Iranian and semi-Iranian kings of Hellenistic East, occupies the obverse of the second type of chalkoi of Sam II. The reverse bears the type of the thyrsus of Dionysus, a Greek god of wine, the wine trade and fertility, very popular in the period of Hellenism in the East. Therefore, the author believes that picture of the thyrsus of Dionysus refl ects also one aspect of royal ideology of Sam II, the Commagene King, associated with Dionysus, in which the king is the guarantor of fertility and material prosperity of the state. Thus, the author points out two aspects of the ideology of the Commagene King: solar and Dionysiac elements associated with the idea of the Golden Age. However, the author supposes that Sam II was not deifi ed as he had the title «God-fearing». In whole, the epoch of Sam II was the initial stage of development of the royal cult in ancient Commagene.
Keywords
Hellenism, Commagene, Sam II, Nike, Helios, Apollo-Helios, Dionysus, ideology
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