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my-name-is-apollo · 3 months ago

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Speaking of coins, I think it's neat that we have a trinity of Apollos with uncommon characteristics:

Apollo Karneios with ram horns and ram ears, Apollo Soranus with a star diadem and a pick-axe and Apollo Vejovis with winged head, a trident and a dagger. (The last two are the results of his syncretism with Roman deities)

What's more fun about the coins of Apollo-Vejovis is that some of them put a thunderbolt under his bust or straight up show him holding it:

And I can't help but think of this being equivalent to a girl wearing her mom's makeup for the photo day

#apollo #look Apollo has already used thunderbolt in a couple of classical texts #I don't think Zeus would mind if his son borrowed it for a few minutes for a photoshoot #Okay jokes aside Vejovis is such an obscure deity (just like Soranus)#The explanation given by Gellius is that Jupiter/Jove is ultimately derived from “iuvare” which means “to help”#so Vejovis was the antithesis of Jove...doing the opposite of help #he was believed to bring harm with his arrows #So was also prayed upon to avert evils #hence his syncretism with Apollo #I also feel like they also just syncretised Jupiter with Apollo to some extent here #because soon after stating his identification with Apollo #Gellius has mentioned that a she-goat was sacrificed to Vejovius (yknow as a nod to Amalthea nursing Zeus/Jupiter #this also happens with Apollo Soranus actually #Soranus is conflated with Apollo and called the highest of the gods #and Servius notes that “highest of the gods” is a title given to Jupiter #so yeah it was a not a complete or even a direct syncretism but there was a line that connected them #and i find the implications very interesting #mine

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