Obolos 20

BITHYNIA. Cius. Maximus, Caesar, 236-238. (Bronze, 22 mm, 6.03 g, 1 h). Γ ΙΟΥ ΟΥΗ ΜΑΧΙΜΟC Κ Γ ΙΟΥ ΟΥΗΡ ΜΑΧΙΜΟC Κ. Rev. ΚΙΑΝΩΝ Hylas advancing right, his cloak billowing out behind him, extending right arm and holding vase in left. BMC -. Lindgren & Kovacs -. Lindgren III -. RG -. RPC VI Online -. SNG Copenhagen -. SNG Hunterian -. SNG Righetti -. SNG von Aulock -, but cf. 518 for the same reverse type on a coin struck under Volusian. Unpublished. Brown patina. Very fine.

From a Swiss collection, acquired prior to 2000.

Hylas was a young man who became Herakles' page and bore his weapons. He was apparently very good looking and, one day went to a pond to draw water. This reverse type shows him carrying what is presumably meant to be a water vessel, and turning his head back to let Herakles know where he was going. However, because of his outstanding looks, a group (school?, swim?, gaggle?) of water nymphs who happened to inhabit that pond inveigled him into the water and took him to live with them. There is a famous painting by J. W. Waterhouse in the Manchester Art Gallery that shows the nymphs, portrayed as rather pre-Raphaelite naked English girls, drawing him - he's holding his water pot in his left hand - into the pond, where they will, presumably, take turns ravishing him. It is a perfect example of what might be termed Victorian "soft porn": i.e., as long as it is meant to be a "Classical scene", anything goes!