The Luck of Soloi

On the obverse, a veiled woman wears a city's walls as a crown, a weak strike enhancing the effect of the veil. On the other side, two felt caps under two stars, tied with ribbons and wreathed in laurel. A word below ΣΟΛΕΩΝ, "of the people of Soloi" with an AΠ monogram below. The veiled woman is Tyche goddess of fortune. The Greek word tychē itself translates directly as "luck", "fortune", or "chance". It is derived from the Greek verb tynchanō (τυγχάνω), which means "to happen" or "to befall".

The coin

Civic issue of Soloi, Cilicia. AE unit, circa 150-65 BC BC (6.34 g, 18 mm, 12h). Obv: turreted, veiled and draped bust of Tyche right. Rev: ΣΟΛΕΩΝ. Filleted and laureate piloi of the Dioskouroi, each surmounted by a star; AΠ monogram below. Ref: Ziegler 583-586; SNG BN 1203-1205; SNG Levante 866-868 var.

Soloi and Solecisms

Soloi stood on the coast of Cilicia, the southeastern shelf of Asia Minor facing Cyprus, southwest of Tarsos on the western edge of modern Mersin in Turkey. Alexander the Great, fined the city 200 talents of silver in 333 BC for its Persian sympathies (Arrian, Anabasis 2.5.2).

After Lamus one comes to Soli, a noteworthy city, the beginning of the other Cilicia, that which is round Issus; it was founded by Achaeans and Rhodians from Lindus. Since this city was of scant population, Pompey the Great settled in it those survivors of the pirates whom he judged most worthy of being saved and provided for;⁠ and he changed its name to Pompeïopolis. Among the famous natives of Soli were: Chrysippus the Stoic philosopher, whose father had moved there from Tarsus; Philemon, the comic poet; and Aratus, who wrote the work hand entitled The Phaenomena, in verse.
-Strabo, Geography 14.5.8, trans. H. L. Jones

Aratos the poet, popularized the names and configurations of the constellations in his 3rd-century BC poem, Phaenomena, which was based on an earlier astronomical work by Eudoxus. Aratos, was a son of this city, died perhaps a century before this coin was struck.

The Growth of Cilicia, Wilkinson, James K. (1959). Cicero's governorship of Cilicia. University of Birmingham. M.A.

Diogenes Laertios, in 3rd century CE, tells of the Athenian lawgiver, Solon, founding the town: "he lived in Cilicia and founded a city which he called Soli after his own name. In it he settled some few Athenians, who in process of time corrupted the purity of Attic and were said to “solecize.”" (Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 1.51). The tale contradicts the Rhodian tradition and the chronology, but it stuck: a solecism is still an error of speech, named for the Greek spoken at Soloi.

Small change for anxious times

By the time this bronze was struck, Seleukid authority over Cilicia had waned. Strabo blames the rise of the pirate fleets on the usurper Diodotos Tryphon and "the worthlessness of the kings who by succession were then reigning over Syria and at the same time over Cilicia" (Geography 14.5.2). While the coast turned dangerous, the cities coined for themselves.

The civic bronzes of Soloi in the second and first centuries BC include: Athena with an owl or an eagle, Artemis, Helios, Demeter with a cornucopia, and this type. At 6.45 g and 18 mm it sits in the middle of the city's bronze denominations. The letters AΠ monogram below the caps presumably recognize the magistrate responsible for the issue.

The goddess who wears the walls

Tyche is fortune made a person, and every Hellenistic city had its own: the guardian luck of the place. Her turreted crown is a ring of city walls in miniature, and the veil marks her as the city's matron rather than an Olympian. The type descends from a famous statue of Tyche by Eutychides of Sikyon, a pupil of Lysippos, made for the Syrians on the Orontes, the seated city goddess of Antioch, and that the statue was held in high honor there (Description of Greece 6.2.7).

Two caps, two stars

The Dioskouroi, "sons of Zeus," are the twins Kastor and Polydeukes. Their round felt caps, the piloi, stand in for the gods themselves, and the stars above them are their sign in the sky, the constellation we call Gemini. Here the caps are tied with fillets, the woolen ribbons of consecration, and wreathed in laurel.

The twins' business was rescue at sea. The Homeric Hymn to the Dioskouroi describes storm-caught sailors praying to them, and the twins darting through the air to still the winds and smooth the waves (Homeric Hymn 33). Greek and Roman seamen read the paired electric glow that sometimes crowns masts and rigging in a storm, St. Elmo's fire, as the twins' visit; Pliny records the sailors' rule that twin stars meant salvation and a single star danger (Natural History 2.101)

A new name for Soloi

Plutarch says Pompey, defeated the pirates at Korakesion in 67 BC, and restored "the city of Soli, which had lately been devastated by Tigranes, the king of Armenia" (Pompey 28). Pompey felt the men should be moved "from the sea to land" and tamed by town life and farming (Pompey 28.3). Strabo completes the story: "Since this city was of scant population, Pompey the Great settled in it those survivors of the pirates whom he judged most worthy of being saved and provided for; and he changed its name to Pompeïopolis" ( Geography 14.5.8).

The renaming gives this coin its practical terminus. Coins struck after it read ΠΟΜΠΗΙΟΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ, and the new city counted a civic era from 66/65 BC: an issue dated local year 229 falls in CE163/164, which sets the date for Pompeïopolis. On the usual dating, then, bronzes signed ΣΟΛΕΩΝ end in the mid 60s BC.

Bibliography

• Diogenes Laertios. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 1.51. Translated by R. D. Hicks. Loeb Classical Library.

• Homeric Hymn 33, To the Dioskouroi. Translated by H. G. Evelyn-White. Loeb Classical Library.

• Pausanias. Description of Greece 6.2.7. Translated by W. H. S. Jones. Loeb Classical Library.

• Plutarch. Pompey 28. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library.

• Strabo. Geography 14.5. Translated by H. L. Jones. Loeb Classical Library.

• Arrian, Anabasis 2.5.

• Pliny, Natural History 2.101.

• George Francis Hill, Catalogue of the Greek Coins of Lycaonia, Isauria and Cilicia, BMC 21 (London, 1900)

• Levante, Edoardo. Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Switzerland I: Levante-Cilicia. Bern, 1986.

• Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, France 2: Cabinet des Médailles, Cilicie. Paris, 1993.

• Ruprecht Ziegler, Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum, Deutschland: Pfälzer Privatsammlungen, Band 6: Isaurien und Kilikien (Munich: Hirmer, 2001), catalogue nos. 1 to 1486, 93 plates.

• Wildwinds. "Ancient Coinage of Soloi, Cilicia." Reference listings for the civic bronzes, the Pompeiopolis era coins, and BMC 55.