LESBOS. Mytilene. Caracalla, 198-217. Medallion (Bronze, 45 mm, 53.38 g, 7 h), Kornelianos, strategos, 209-211. [...]PHΛI MAPKOC AY ANTΩNЄINOC [...] Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Caracalla to right, seen from behind. Rev. EΠI C[TP KOP]NHΛIAN[OY TOY] ΦΙΛΩΛ [ΦΙΛΩT/A] // MYTIΛHNAI/ΩN The city-goddess seated left on throne, holding patera in her right hand and xoanon of Dionysos in her left. Babelon, Waddington, -. BMC -. Münzen & Medaillen Numismatics I (1997), 190 (same dies). SNG Copenhagen -. SNG Glaswow -. SNG München -. SNG Leypold -. SNG Tübingen -. SNG von Aulock -. Winterthur -. Of the highest rarity, the second known example. Some deposits, otherwise, about very fine.


The small object the city-goddess of Mytilene is holding in her left hand is a xoanon, a wooden sculpture of Dionysos, whose discovery by fishermen of Methymna is described in detail by Pausanias: 'I am going to tell you a Lesbian story. The fishermen of Methymna found that their nets dragged up from the sea a face made of olive wood. Its appearance suggested a touch of divinity, but it was foreign and unlike the features of Greek gods. So the Methymnians asked the Pythia what god or hero it portrayed, and she instructed them to worship Dionysos Phallen. Whereupon the people of Methymna kept for themselves the wooden image out of the sea, and worshipped it with sacrifices and prayers, but they sent a bronze copy to Delphi.' (Paus. 10.19.3).