DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0339
670 XV. THE JEWS IN PHRYGIA.
inscribed NH6, floating on water : within it are two figures, and stand-
ing beside it a male and a female figure: on the top of the chest,
a raven, and above a dove carrying an olive-branch V M. Charles
Lenormant has published a relief found in the Catacombs at Rome,
' which represents a scene identical in all points with the Apamean
coin-type2.' This type brings together two scenes of the tale of Noah :
in one he with his wife is floating in the ark: in the other they are
giving thanks on dry land after their preservation.
Reasons have been stated above for the belief that the coin-engravers
used as their model a picture exhibited in a public place in the city 3,
probably one of a series of illustrations of Apamean legends which
adorned some public building, such as a stoa. Some time during the
second century, probably, an artist represented the tale of Noah as an
Apamean scene. In adapting the Hebrew tale to pictorial representa-
tion, the artist took as his model the form which Greek art had already
given to the myth of Danae and Perseus or of Auge and Telephos.
The ark was represented as a box like that in which Danae or Auge
had floated across the sea; and Noah and his wife were shown twice,
once in the box (like Auge on a coin of Elaea4), and once standing
beside it (like Danae on Pompeian wall-paintings5), raising their
right hands towards heaven.
That the legend of Noah was localized at Apameia is known from
other sources. A passage of the Sibylline books0, composed probably
in the imperial period, mentions that the ark (ki(3o>t6s) rested on the
hill whence the Marsyas rises; and Cedrenus mentions the same tale.
There is an obvious connexion between the by-name of the city,
1 Head Hist. Num. p.. 558. See Plate I to the writers of the arts. Auge and
1 and 2. Danae in Roscher's Lexicon; but has
2 Babelon Melanges Numism. I p. 172 : not remained unobserved by Mr. Wroth
I have not seen M. Ch. Lenormant's B. M. Catalogue of Aeolis &c. p. 130,
publication 'dansles Melanges cTArcheol. who defends the reading N60Y against
des PP. Cahier et Martin pp. 199-202.' Marx's suggestion N£OK(opou).
s See p. 432. Either a wall-painting 6 Three Pompeian pictures are de-
or a scene in low relief, which is go- scribed by Overbeds Kunstmytli. d. Zeus
verned by similar principles of compo- p. 414 after Helbig Wandgemalde der
sition, would satisfy the conditions. v. V. versch. Stadte Campaniens no. 119-
4 Auge and Telephos on a coin of 121. None of them seems to be pub-
Elaea Imhoof MG- p. 274 (a type cer- lished.
tainly influenced by Artemon's picture 6 I 261 ff, quoted on p. 454 : Cedrenus
of the finding of Danae Pliny XXXV I p. 20, Syncellus I p. 38, Stephanus
139). The explanation of the type is s.v. 'Ikoviou, Suidas s.v. Ndvvaicos, and
given by Marx in Ath.Mitth. 1886 pp. 23 f, Nonnus Bionys. XIII 522 ft'also describe
a paper which has escaped M. Babelon's a Phrygian flood in terms similar to the
attention p. 173. It also seems unknown Biblical flood.
inscribed NH6, floating on water : within it are two figures, and stand-
ing beside it a male and a female figure: on the top of the chest,
a raven, and above a dove carrying an olive-branch V M. Charles
Lenormant has published a relief found in the Catacombs at Rome,
' which represents a scene identical in all points with the Apamean
coin-type2.' This type brings together two scenes of the tale of Noah :
in one he with his wife is floating in the ark: in the other they are
giving thanks on dry land after their preservation.
Reasons have been stated above for the belief that the coin-engravers
used as their model a picture exhibited in a public place in the city 3,
probably one of a series of illustrations of Apamean legends which
adorned some public building, such as a stoa. Some time during the
second century, probably, an artist represented the tale of Noah as an
Apamean scene. In adapting the Hebrew tale to pictorial representa-
tion, the artist took as his model the form which Greek art had already
given to the myth of Danae and Perseus or of Auge and Telephos.
The ark was represented as a box like that in which Danae or Auge
had floated across the sea; and Noah and his wife were shown twice,
once in the box (like Auge on a coin of Elaea4), and once standing
beside it (like Danae on Pompeian wall-paintings5), raising their
right hands towards heaven.
That the legend of Noah was localized at Apameia is known from
other sources. A passage of the Sibylline books0, composed probably
in the imperial period, mentions that the ark (ki(3o>t6s) rested on the
hill whence the Marsyas rises; and Cedrenus mentions the same tale.
There is an obvious connexion between the by-name of the city,
1 Head Hist. Num. p.. 558. See Plate I to the writers of the arts. Auge and
1 and 2. Danae in Roscher's Lexicon; but has
2 Babelon Melanges Numism. I p. 172 : not remained unobserved by Mr. Wroth
I have not seen M. Ch. Lenormant's B. M. Catalogue of Aeolis &c. p. 130,
publication 'dansles Melanges cTArcheol. who defends the reading N60Y against
des PP. Cahier et Martin pp. 199-202.' Marx's suggestion N£OK(opou).
s See p. 432. Either a wall-painting 6 Three Pompeian pictures are de-
or a scene in low relief, which is go- scribed by Overbeds Kunstmytli. d. Zeus
verned by similar principles of compo- p. 414 after Helbig Wandgemalde der
sition, would satisfy the conditions. v. V. versch. Stadte Campaniens no. 119-
4 Auge and Telephos on a coin of 121. None of them seems to be pub-
Elaea Imhoof MG- p. 274 (a type cer- lished.
tainly influenced by Artemon's picture 6 I 261 ff, quoted on p. 454 : Cedrenus
of the finding of Danae Pliny XXXV I p. 20, Syncellus I p. 38, Stephanus
139). The explanation of the type is s.v. 'Ikoviou, Suidas s.v. Ndvvaicos, and
given by Marx in Ath.Mitth. 1886 pp. 23 f, Nonnus Bionys. XIII 522 ft'also describe
a paper which has escaped M. Babelon's a Phrygian flood in terms similar to the
attention p. 173. It also seems unknown Biblical flood.