Messana tetradrachm

[Lelouch]

Thank you Brennos. Very interesting in the LIMC reference Caltabiano wrote she explicilty calls Messana a city goddess in 1992. But in 1993 in her own work she writes generic female charioteer.

The book by Larson is good (and importantly for me in English).
But actually it is reading Larson first which made made me go look for all the sources. She is very vague about the role of Messana
"Messana lay at the extreme northeast corner of Sicily. At the edge of the sea was a long sandy spit known as Peloris or Pelorias; the eponymous nymph of this area, as well as Messana herself, appears on the coins (figure 4.19). (Pan, Poseidon, and the local hero Pheraimon, son of Aiolos, are also important local figures.) Messana appears as the charioteer of a mule car, while on the reverse, a naked Pan is seated upon rocks as a hare leaps up before him."

Larson does seem to be precise with her word choice even though her book has the title "Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore" not all are nymphs

For the nymphs Himera, Kamarina, Pelorias, Arethusa the word nymph is explicitly mentioned by Larson along with their name.
For others like Arne she says stuff like "I tend to agree with the latter view, for nothing else in Thessalian Arne’s genealogy or the iconography of the coins points toward her identification as a nymph". For Larissa she mentions "In the Thessalian city, she seems to have been regarded as a fountain nymph, for she is depicted on Larissan coins (from about 480 onward) beside a fountain with a lion’s head spout or posing with a hydria". 

So every other nymph or female figure Larson is usually explicit on their status/role and discusses the evidence such as the coins. But for Messana she says nothing about the role she occupies.

At best Larson brings up the pan coin you mentioned but still doesn't use the word nymph at all. Like compare that to her statement about Arne or Larissa they both explicitly say nymph or not a nymph.

Either way, I don't think the coinage of Messana with Pan is sufficient evidence as Caltabiano 423 https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=14543158 shows the male driver with the pan head with the rabbit on the reverse. The pan head is not linked to only the female driver Messana (and even if it did not sure it would be prove Messana is a nymph).

 

 

Just to confirm as well, I checked the other entries in LIMC. Caltabiano writes other entries like Himera, and for Himera Caltabiano explicitly calls her a nymph https://archive.org/details/limc_20210516/Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae/LIMC V-1 Herakles-Kenchrias/page/n231/mode/2up "(Ἱμέρα, Himera) Ninfa dell'omonima città sulla costa settentrionale della Sicilia; da non confondere con la personificazione della" or Pelorias https://archive.org/details/limc_20210516/Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae/LIMC VII-1 Oidipous-Theseus/page/n157/mode/2up "(Πελωριάς) Ninfa posta in connessione con il promontorio di Capo Peloro, a nord-est della Sicilia, e ritenuta da taluni personificazione del promontorio stesso.", so Prof. Caltabiano makes a distinction between nymphs that are city goddesses and non nymph city goddesses.

Modificato 1 ora fa da Lelouch