Phrygia, Peltai
2nd century BCE
AE 4.60g 16.68mm
Obv: Laureate head of Zeus r. R
Rev: ΠΕΛΤΗΝΩΝ Thunderbolt
Peltai was mentioned in Xenophon’s Anabasis as a populous city, enough that the army of Cyrus the Younger stayed there for three days. We don’t know exactly what they did for those three days, but I suspect that they frequented the local amusement park. It must have been one of those “multiple land” parks, where three days is required to hit every park properly. Given the size of his army, though, lines must have been long.
By the time of Strabo, Peltai was a small village. Nowadays, we don’t even know the exact location of the ruins. The location given here is just an educated guess.
From its coinage, it appears the city must have had some strong connection to Zeus, given his image on the obverse and his thunderbolt on the reverse. It was common for cities to insist that some aspect of mythology took place within their confines, but in this case we don’t know what that was.