Republic Express
The stamps with images of a person’s ankle with wings are meant to be of Mercury. The other images of a man with a horse is meant to be Eubuleus.
Mercury
Talaria are the winged sandals of the Greek god Hermes, whom the Romans called Mercury. The name is Latin, the plural of an adjective meaning “of the ankle.” The Greek terms (ptēnopédilos and pteróenta pédila) both mean winged sandals. Hephaestus is said to have made them from imperishable gold, though the source for that is unclear. Homer mentions golden sandals but not wings, and the Shield of Heracles (around 600 to 550 BC) is the earliest text to call them winged. Hermes is the main wearer, though Perseus wears them as well when he kills Medusa. Early Greek vases show Hermes in boots with a curved strap at the top, and only later did artists put wings directly on his ankles.
Eubuleus
Eubuleus is a figure in ancient Greek religion who is known mainly from inscriptions tied to mystery cults. His name is usually read as “good counsel.” Accounts disagree about who he was. Diodorus Siculus makes him a son of Demeter, while an Orphic tablet and an Orphic Hymn call him a son of Zeus, and some scholars think the name may be an epithet of Dionysus or Zagreus. One story describes him as a swineherd whose pigs were swallowed by the earth when Hades abducted Persephone, and it serves as the origin of the Thesmophoria rite. In art he is often shown as a torchbearer, possibly leading souls back from the underworld. Basically, he is hard to pin down, since the literary references are sparse.
Note
This page is complete. When I first named this web page, I focused on the stamps being air mail. Now that I’ve added a story – I chose to focus on the Italian gods pictured on the stamps – I should change the name of the page.
Contains 8 spots: own 8 – 8 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Feb 1, 2023
Stamp Details
The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.
spot |
own |
catalog |
subject |
description |
comment |
Democracy - Express
✓ |
E25 |
5₤ (oct 1945) |
|||
✓ |
E26 |
10₤ (oct 1945) |
|||
✓ |
E27 |
15₤ (jul 1947) |
|||
✓ |
E28 |
25₤ (nov 1947) |
|||
✓ |
E29 |
30₤ (jul 1946) |
|||
✓ |
E30 |
50₤ (dec 1951) |
|||
✓ |
E31 |
60₤ (dec 1947) |
|||
✓ |
E33 |
50₤ (jul 1955) |
Footnotes
Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.
