Divine Defenders

National Archaeological Museum of Naples. From Boscoreale, Villa of P. Fannius Synistor. Personifications of Macedonia (on the left) and Persia (or Asia, seated); or possibly a representation of the Macedonian ruler (see the circular shield with a star), or Antigonus Gonatas and his mother Phila. Public Domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

According to Greek belief, Pan could cause irrational terror in humans and animals, especially when his midday rest was disturbed. His sudden appearances or unseen presence in the wilderness inspired this fright, which was contagious - spreading through groups of men or animals as if the fear itself were airborne. This became known as panikos deima (πανικὸς δεῖμα) a “sudden fear sent by Pan.” It described the inexplicable terror that seized herds or armies in lonely, open places, divinely induced by Pan.

Herodotus recorded that at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), the Athenians believed Pan had inspired such terror among the Persians that they fled. In gratitude, they built him a cave-shrine on the northern slope of the Acropolis. From this association, panikos came to describe any unreasoning collective fear.

The Athenians believed Pan’s intervention at Marathon in 490 BC caused the Persians to panic and flee. So potent was this myth that they built the goat-footed god a shrine beneath the Acropolis, honoring the divinity who weaponized fear itself. Five centuries later, the same god resurfaced - this time not in marble or cult, but in silver- on the coins of a Macedonian king who, like the Athenians, owed his survival to a timely panic

In "Early Helenistic Coinage" (p.134, 1991) Otto Mørkholm notes that the obverse of Antigonus II Gonatas’s tetradrachms are

“a reference to the help of the god when he caused a panic terror among the Gauls during Antigonus’s battle near Lysimacheia in 277 BC.” 

In 277 BC, the young Antigonid king faced a Celtic army that had swept into the Balkans, sacking sanctuaries and terrorizing Greece. A Hymn to Pan by Aratus tells the story of Pan appearing amid the barbarian ranks, scattering them in supernatural confusion. SH 958 (Supplementum

"Hamburg elegiac fragment" (SH 958) is thought by Bargazzi to be a fragment of the Hymn to Pan, and by others associated with Ptolemy.

This Hymn to Pan has not survived, so what references do we have?

It has been suggested that the occasion was the marriage of Antigonus with Phila, daughter of Seleucus and Stratonice, and it was then probably that Aratus produced his Hymn to Pan in honour of Antigonus’ victory over the Celts at Lysimacheia in 277 BC, allusion being made to the panic fear which had seized the enemy in that battle.
-Loeb Introduction to Aratus, Phaenomena

In his 1919 biography of Antogonos Gonata, W.W. Tarn tells of the wedding celebration and the Hymn to Pan.

"One of his earliest acts, probably in the winter of 276/5, was to celebrate at Pella, with much circumstance, his marriage with Phila. He bade come all his friends of the old days at Eretria and Athens, and Aratos of Soloi wrote the marriage hymn in praise of the great god Pan, who had stood by Antigonos at Lysimacheia and spread his panic terror among the barbarian host. It may have been at this time that Antigonos instituted the games called Basileia, ‘the festival of kingship,’ to commemorate his achievement of the Macedonian crown;'® but it was the honours paid to Pan that were the keynote of the celebrations. He became something very like Antigonos’ patron deity."
- W.W.Tarn, Antogonos Gonatas p.174

An this reference from Vita Arati III, a late Byzantine compilation, generally placed between the 13th and early 14th centuries CE.

As Antigonus himself says in his letters to Hieronymus: when Aratus was presented to the king, he first recited the poem To Pan the Arcadian.
- Vita III Arati in Martin, Jean, ed. Scholia in Aratum vetera. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1974. 

Antigonos II was the son of Demetrius I Poliorcetes (surnamed “the Besieger”) and the grandson of Antigonus I Monophthalmus (“the One-Eyed”), one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Here's a drachm of his grandfather from Asia minor (Price 1813):

Alexander III 'the Great', 336-323 BC. AR drachm struck under Antigonos I Monophthalmos, Kolophon, c. 310-301.

Obv: Head of youthful Herakles in lion's skin headdress to right.

Rev: ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΥ Zeus seated left on low throne, holding long scepter in his left hand and eagle in his right; to left, crescent to left; below throne, Π.

Ref: Price 1813.

Here is an AE coin of his father:

Kings of Macedon. Demetrios I Poliorketes, 306-283 BC. (Bronze, 16 mm, 2.5g, 12 h), uncertain mint in Caria, c. 290-286.

Obv: Laureate and bearded head of Zeus to right.

Rev: ΒΑ Prow of galley to right; below, monogram of ΑΡ; to right, double axe.

Ref: Newell 167

Around 270 BC, Antigonus Gonatas issued a new type of silver tetradrachm, replacing the long-familiar types of Alexander the Great: Heracles in lion-skin, Zeus enthroned, that dominated commerce across the eastern Mediterranean. On his coins, the head of Pan appears in relief upon a Macedonian shield, his horns curling above a lagobolon (a curved throwing stick used by ancient Greek hunters) resting on his shoulder; on the reverse, Athena Alkidemos strides forward, hurling a thunderbolt and brandishing a shield adorned with the aegis. Around her runs the legend ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΓΟΝΟΥ - “of King Antigonos” - an open declaration of dynastic independence.

Kings of Macedon, time of Antigonos II Gonatas to Demetrios II Aetolicos, 246-229 BC. Tetradrachm (Silver, 31 mm, 17.02 g, 7 h), Amphipolis.

Obv: Horned head of Pan to left, wearing goat's skin tied around his neck and with lagobolon behind; all within the center of a Macedonian shield adorned with seven stars within double crescents.

Rev: BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIΓONOΥ Athena Alkidemos striding to left, hurling thunderbolt with her upraised right hand and holding shield with her left; in left field, Macedonian helmet with transverse crest; in right field, HΛ monogram.

Ref: Panagopoulou Period III, Group 7, 29 (O8/R28).

lagobolon - for hunting hares

During the Period III, Group 7 (246-229 BC) defined by Panagopoulou, the Pan/Athena tetradrachms (Amphipolis) continue as the land-army/ Balkan face of finance, while a new Poseidon-Apollo series ramps for Aegean/naval theaters.

Antigonus’s reign (277-239 BC) spanned the volatile century that followed the fragmentation of Alexander’s empire. Having restored order after the Gallic invasion, he repelled Pyrrhus of Epirus in 272, endured the Chremonidean War against a Ptolemaic-backed Greek coalition (267 - 261), and secured a precarious peace that lasted for decades.

His rule, though seldom celebrated for conquest, was one of consolidation - a king of maintenance rather than expansion. Between 246 and 232 BC Macedon shifts from triumphant consolidation to managed defense: losing Corinth, countering Achaean/Aetolian pressures, and adapting to Ptolemaic sea power.

Antigonus II Gonatas (to 239 BC) faced resurgent Greek leagues and in 243 BC he lost Corinth to Aratus of Sicyon the Achaean League. Agis IV of Sparta (c. 265–241 BC) was one of the last reforming kings of the Eurypontid line. His reforms (244–241) destabilized the Peloponnese further.

Antigonus II Gonatas died of natural causes c. 239 BC in Macedonia, likely at Pella or Demetrias, after forty years on the throne he was suceeded by his son Demetrius II Aetolicus (239-229).

Under Demetrius II (239–232) there was continual war with the Aetolian League and erosion of Macedonian influence in southern Greece; policy oriented to defending Macedonia/Thessaly and managing Balkan frontiers rather than projecting power deep into the Peloponnese. There is reduced volume of these Pan tetradrachms during this period compared with the inaugural waves, die introduction slows and control-mark systems (e.g., crested helmet + monogram such as ΗΛ) stabilize. Hoards of Pan tets are concentrated in Macedonia/Thrace, aligning with ongoing garrison pay and frontier defense rather than a one-off commemorative burst.

Athena Alkidemos (Ἀλκίδημος, “the defender of the people”) was the chief protective goddess of the Macedonian kingdom - particularly of Pella, the old royal capital—and her cult became a cornerstone of Antigonid royal ideology.

Pan-Athena coinage symbolized defense, divine guardianship, and continuity: Pan the sudden protector, Athena the deliberate strategist, together proclaiming the resilience of Macedon. Replacing Alexander’s imagery with his own mythic emblem, Antigonus II proclaimed divine favor on Macedon’s shield. As the Athenians once carved a shrine to the god who saved them through panic, Antigonus Gonatas immortalized the same god on his currency.

References:

• Barigazzi, A. (1974), ‘Un frammento dell’Inno a Pan di Arato’, Rh. Mus. 117, 221-246.

• Peruch, Serena Evelina. 2023. “The Mythology of Power in Antigonos II Gonatas’ Propaganda.” Selected Proceedings of the Classics Graduate Student Symposia at the University of Florida 2: 60-89.

• The Making of a King: Antigonus Gonatas of Macedon and the Greeks by Robin Waterfield. Oxford, 277 pp., September 2021, 978 0 19 885301 5

• Vita III Arati in Martin, Jean, ed. Scholia in Aratum vetera. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1974.

• Tarn, William Woodthorpe. Antigonos Gonatas: King of Macedonia, 276-239 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913.

• Mørkholm, Otto. Early Hellenistic Coinage: From the Accession of Alexander to the Peace of Apamea (336–188 B.C.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. p. 134.

• Brett, Agnes Baldwin. “ATHENA ΑΛΚΙ∆ΗΜΟΣ OF PELLA.” Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society) 4 (1950): 55–72.