FISH ON COINS— ARETHUSA 



221 



reaching seeming safety in the Isle of Ortygia, close to Syracuse, 

 she welled forth in the midst of the salt sea a fountain of sweet 

 pure water. Alpheus, not to be outdone, got himself trans- 

 formed into a river to emerge also at Ortygia and to mix his 

 stream with the spring of the nymph. 



Around her head or amidst her hair on Syracusan coins 

 dart dolphins (some hold eels, which were sacred to Artemis), 

 symbolic of the sea, to show that 

 the sweetness of the fountain was 

 still untainted by the surrounding 

 salt of the ocean. ^ Sweet the 

 water may have been, but 

 Athenaeus (II. i6) characterises 

 it as " of invincible hardness." 

 These coins are the work of 

 those great masters, Cimon, 

 Euaenetus, and an unknown 

 third, the ' New Artist ' of Sir 

 Arthur Evans. 2 On an electrum 

 coin of Syracuse an octopus is 

 well delineated, while the obverse 

 shows a veiled female head in 

 profile. 3 



The octopus, judging by the fact that at Mycenae in one 

 tomb alone Dr. Schliemann excavated fifty-three golden models 

 of it, and by the many gold ornaments of which the fish forms 

 the chief or only figure, was undoubtedly a very frequent and 

 favourite subject for the craftsmen of the ' Minoan ' age, 



1 Some authorities (Preller, Griech. Myth., i. 191) believe the head to be 

 that of Artemis, not only the protectress of Arethusa, but also the goddess of 

 rivers and springs, and of the fish therein— one of her emblems was a fish. 

 Some coins show her or Arethusa's head with seaweed plaited in the hair, or 

 the hair plaited in a sort of fish-net surrounded by httle fish. The whole 

 island of Ortygia was absolutely dedicated to Artemis— no plough could cut 

 a furrow, no net ensnare a fish, \vithout instantly encountering a sea of troubles. 

 See Keller, op. cit., p. 343. The sacred fish were seen by Diodorus (V. 3) as 

 late as Octavian's reign. 



^ For an admirable account of Syracusan coin-types during the ' fine ' 

 period (41^-346 B.C.), see G. F. HiW, Coins of Ancient Sicily (London, 1903), 

 p. 97 ff., with frontispiece and pis. 6-7. On the widespread representation of 

 the Tunny on vases and coins — Carthaginian, Pontic, etc. — see Rhode, op. cit., 



PP- 73-77- 



» See G. F. Hill. op. cit., Pi. 7, 13. 



ARETHUSA, FROM A TETRADRACHM 

 OF SYRACUSE BY CIMON. 



From G. F. Hill's Handbook of 

 Coins, PI. 6, Fig. 6. 



