Ships on Roman Provincial Coins in the Southern Levant: Voyages on the River Styx

Abstract

This paper suggests that some warships depicted on coins of southern Levantine coastal
mints, and surprisingly also some inland mints, owe their appearance to local myth. Greek
mythologies — and a Talmudic legend referring to a miraculous Argonaut trip from
Tiberias to Paneas—are adduced to reconstruct the netherworld course of the River Styx
as it flowed from Arabia to Sidon passing by the Yarmukh River and the towns of Gadara,
Tiberias and Paneas. It is possible that other war-ships on southern Levant coins have
mythological associations.