Greek city of Soloi in Cilicia
Bronze 20mm (6.48 grams) Struck circa 150-50 B.C.
Reference: Sear 5624 var.; SNG BN 1203-6; SNG Levante 866-7
Turreted and veiled bust of Tyche right
ΣOΛEΩN, filleted piloi (caps) of the Dioscuri (Gemini twins) surmounted by stars, in exergue, monogram. An important coastal town south-west of Zephyrion and Tarsos, Soloi seems to have been a Rhodian foundation, though its coin types suggest some connection with Athens also. Early in the 1st century B.C. it was destroyed by Tigranes of Armenia, but in 66 B.C. Pompey the Great re-founded it under the name Pompeiopolis. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Tyche (meaning "luck"; Roman equivalent: Fortuna) was the presiding tutelary deity that governed the fortune and prosperity of a city, its destiny. She is the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus or Hermes.
In literature, she might be given various genealogies, as a daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite, or considered as one of the Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, or of Zeus. She was connected with Nemesis and Agathos Daimon ("good spirit"). The Greek historian Polybius believed that when no cause can be discovered to events such as floods, droughts, frosts or even in politics, then the cause of these events may be fairly attributed to Tyche. WorshipIncreasingly during the Hellenistic period, cities venerated their own specific iconic version of Tyche, wearing a mural crown (a crown like the walls of the city). Tyche had temples at Caesarea Maritima, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. In Alexandria the Tychaeon, the temple of Tyche, was described by Libanius as one of the most magnificent of the entire Hellenistic world. She was uniquely venerated at Itanos in Crete, as Tyche Protogeneia, linked with the Athenian Protogeneia ("firstborn"), daughter of Erechtheus, whose self-sacrifice saved the city. Stylianos Spyridakis concisely expressed Tyche's appeal in a Hellenistic world of arbitrary violence and unmeaning reverses: "In the turbulent years of the Epigoni of Alexander, an awareness of the instability of human affairs led people to believe that Tyche, the blind mistress of Fortune, governed mankind with an inconstancy which explained the vicissitudes of the time." DepictionsTyche appears on many coins of the Hellenistic period in the three centuries before the Christian era, especially from cities in the Aegean. Unpredictable turns of fortune drive the complicated plotlines of Hellenistic romances, such as Leucippe and Clitophon or Daphnis and Chloe. She experienced a resurgence in another era of uneasy change, the final days of publicly sanctioned Paganism, between the late-fourth-century emperors Julian and Theodosius I who definitively closed the temples. The effectiveness of her capricious power even achieved respectability in philosophical circles during that generation, though among poets it was a commonplace to revile her for a fickle harlot. In medieval art, she was depicted as carrying a cornucopia, an emblematic ship's rudder, and the wheel of fortune, or she may stand on the wheel, presiding over the entire circle of fate. The constellation of Virgo is sometimes identified as the heavenly figure of Tyche, as well as other goddesses such as Demeter and Astraea.
 Gemini is one of the constellations of the zodiac. It was one of the 48 constellations described by the 2nd century AD astronomer Ptolemy and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. Its name is Latin for "twins," and it is associated with the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology. Its symbol is  (Unicode ♊).
In Greek and Roman mythology, Castor and Pollux or Polydeuces were twin brothers, together known as the Dioskouri. Their mother was Leda, but Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini or Castores. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire, and were also associated with horsemanship. They are sometimes called the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids, later seen as a reference to their father and stepfather Tyndareus.
Soli (Greek: Σόλοι, Soloi) was an ancient city and port in Cilicia, in present day Turkey, a part of Mezitli municipality which in turn is a part of Greater Mersin. It was a colony of Rhodes, founded c. 700 BC. Soli was destroyed in the 1st century BC, and rebuilt by Pompey the Great. Thereafter, it was called Pompeiopolis (Πομπηιούπολις), not to be confused with the Pompeiopolis in Paphlagonia. The word solecism is derived from Soli, since the dialect of Greek spoken there was considered by Athenians to be a corrupted form of Attic Greek. Charles Robert Cockrell visited the site of 'Pompeiopolis' in June 1813. Examination of his travel intinery and the archaeological remains present along the coastline of southern Turkey, suggests that Soloi-Pompeiopolis is located at Elaiussa-Sebaste. 
The geographical location of the ancient city Soli of Cilicia in a modern map of Turkey. The red dot shows the position of Mersin. At the present scale, it coincides with the position of Soli which is slightly on the west.
Notable natives- Aratus of Soli (c. 315 BC/310 BC - c. 240 BC) was a Greek didactic poet.
- Chrysippus of Soli (c. 279 BC - c. 206 BC) was a Greek Stoic philosopher.
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