| Classical Numismatic Group > Triton XXVII | Auction date: 9 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 590 Price realized: 800 USD (Approx. 733 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: C. Poblicius Q.f. 80 BC. AR Serrate Denarius (18.5mm, 4.20 g, 7h). Rome mint. Draped bust of Roma right, wearing helmet ornamented with griffin's head, and at each side a feather; A above, ROMA to left / Hercules, naked, standing left, and strangling the Nemean Lion; club on ground at his feet, bow case to left, A above left, C • POBLICI • Q • F to right. Crawford 380/1; Sydenham 768; Poblicia 9; BMCRR Rome 2896; Kestner 3220-1 var. (control); RBW 1408 var. (same). Lightly toned with some iridescence, light porosity. EF. Estimate: 750 USD |  |
Match 1:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 559 | Auction date: 3 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 457 Price realized: 160 USD (Approx. 148 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: C. Poblicius Q.f. 80 BC. AR Serrate Denarius (18.5mm, 3.77 g, 7h). Rome mint. Helmeted and draped bust of Roma right; P above / Hercules standing left, strangling Nemean Lion; club at his feet, P above bow and arrows to left. Crawford 380/1; Sydenham 768; Poblicia 9; RBW 1408 corr. (obv. control letter). Iridescent toning, some light marks and scratches. Near VF. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 2:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Triton XXVII | Auction date: 9 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 585 Price realized: 2,250 USD (Approx. 2,061 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: C. Mamilius Limetanus. 82 BC. AR Serrate Denarius (18.5mm, 3.58 g, 6h). Rome mint. Draped bust of Mercury right, wearing winged petasus; to left, N above caduceus / Ulysses, wearing pileus and mariner's dress, walking right, leaning on staff in left hand and extending his right hand toward his dog, Argus, who advances toward him; C • MAMIL downward to left, LIME(TA)N upward to right. Crawford 362/1; Sydenham 741; Mamilia 6; BMCRR Rome 2726; Kestner 3152 var. (control); RBW 1370 var. (same). Lightly toned with underlying luster. Superb EF. Ex Alan J. Harlan Collection (Triton XXII, 8 January 2019), lot 828, purchased from Edward J. Waddell. Ex Tkalec (24 October 2003), lot 187. The obverse and reverse of this coin refer to the lineage of the gens Mamilia, who claimed their descent from Mamilia, the daughter of Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe, and a descendant of Mercury. The reverse scene depicts the moment when, returning home from his long wanderings in the guise of a beggar so as to surprise and kill the many suitors of his wife Penelope, Ulysses' aged dog Argus recognizes him: Soon as he perceived Long-lost Ulysses nigh, down fell his ears Clapped close, and with his tail glad sign he gave Of gratulation, impotent to rise, And to approach his master as of old. Ulysses, noting him, wiped off a tear Unmarked. . . . Then his destiny released Old Argus, soon as he had lived to see Ulysses in the twentieth year restored. (Hom. Od. 17.290 [Cowper's translation]). At last, seeing his master after so many years, the old dog dies. Estimate: 1500 USD |  |
Match 3:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 560 | Auction date: 17 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 608 Price realized: 110 USD (Approx. 103 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: C. Poblicius Q.f. 80 BC. AR Serrate Denarius (19mm, 3.78 g, 6h). Rome mint. Helmeted and draped bust of Roma right; L above / Hercules standing left, strangling Nemean Lion; club at his feet, L above bow and arrows to left. Crawford 380/1; Sydenham 768; Poblicia 9; RBW 1408 var. (control letter). Toned, scratches, deposits. Near VF. Ex La Galerie Numismatique 4 (21 April 2016), lot 121. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 4:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 561 | Auction date: 1 May 2024 |
| Lot number: 658 Price realized: 150 USD (Approx. 140 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Commodus. AD 177-192. AR Denarius (16mm, 2.80 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 192. Head right, wearing lion skin headdress / Club facing downward between bow and quiver. RIC III 253; MIR 18, 857-4/72; RSC 195. In NGC encapsulation 6291346-013, graded Ch VF, flan flaw. From the William B. Porter Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group Electronic Auction 356 (29 July 2015), lot 513. During the latter part of his reign, Commodus began associating himself with Hercules. While the Antonine emperors had traditionally associated themselves with the divine hero, Commodus appropriated the iconography more aggressively by wearing a lion skin and carrying a club, both main attributes of Hercules, and having statues of himself dressed as the god erected throughout the empire (for a bust of Commodus as Hercules, see Capitoline bust [Inv. MC 1120]; for the use of Herculean images on provincial issues of Commodus, see http://rpc.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/). The appropriation of this imagery went to apparently megalomaniacal lengths. According to Dio (73.15), Commodus in AD 190 ordered that the names of the months be changed to correspond with his name and titles – Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Herculeus Romanus Exsuperatorius Amazonius Invictus Felix Pius, and that each legion replace its epithet with Commodiana. Shortly thereafter, when fire had destroyed a large section of Rome, Commodus used it as an opportunity to re-found the city as a whole and, thereby, identify himself completely with Hercules, who was considered the founder of many ancient Greek cities. Commodus ordered the restored city to be called Colonia Lucia Annia Commodiana, its citizens were now know as Commodiani, and the Senate was restyled as the Senatus Commodianus Fortunatus. All of this revitalization on his part, Commodus believed, would bring about a new Golden Age. In the autumn of AD 192, Commodus officially adopted the name Hercules; it was at this time that his portrait on the coinage began to show him wearing a lion skin. This transformation was brief, however, for, on 31 December AD 192, only three weeks after assuming the tribunician power for the eighteenth time, he was assassinated by an athlete in his bath. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 5:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Triton XXVII | Auction date: 9 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 971 Price realized: 19,000 USD (Approx. 17,402 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Constantine XI Palaeologus (Dragases). 1448-1453. AR Eighth Stavraton (13.5mm, 0.59 g, 12h). Constantinople mint. Facing bust of Christ Pantokrator, holding Gospels in both hands; [I]C - [XC], each with macron above, flanking head of Christ; sigla: • | • / Crowned facing bust of Constantine, wearing loros; •/K/• | •/C/• flanking. DOC 1789; Bendall, Coinage 135 (this coin); SB –. Toned. EF. Rare. From the James Fox Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 40 (4 December 1996), lot 1964. Constantine XI, a member of the last Byzantine dynasty, the Palaeologan, was a heroic figure despite being fated to be the final Byzantine ruler. One of the younger sons of Emperor Manuel II, Constantine distinguished himself during the siege of Constantinople in 1422 during the last days of Manuel II's rule. After Manuel suffered a stroke and became incapable of governing, Constantine's older brother, future emperor John VIII, took the reins of the government on behalf of his father. However, John's first priority was to seek to rally support for the Byzantine state against the ascendant Ottomans. In pursuit of this objective, he embarked on a tour of Western Europe. In his stead, he left his younger brother Constantine as regent and granted him the title of despot. Constantine effectively administered what was left of the shrinking Byzantine State in his brother's absence, but John's quest to enlist western support for Byzantium was ultimately unsuccessful. Once John assumed the imperial mantle upon the death of Manuel II, Constantine was tasked with governing one of the few remaining possessions of the once-illustrious Byzantine Empire-the Depostate of Morea. Constantine again proved himself a capable ruler and administrator, using the limited resources he had at his disposal to recover Morea from the Franks who had occupied the Peloponnesos since the Fourth Crusade. Ultimately, Constantine's Morea encompassed the entire Pelponnesos and, along with Epirus, constituted the bulk of Byzantine possessions outside of Constantinople which was itself quickly shrinking into a city-state as more and more territory was lost to the Ottomans. When John died in 1448 without issue, Constantine was designated as his successor and called to assume the fateful position of emperor. Crowned at the citadel at Mystras, Constantine traveled from Morea to Constantinople in a hired Catalan galley-a succinct representation of how miserably Byzantine power had dwindled by the mid 15th century. The Byzantine fleet had been previously destroyed during the reign of John VI in a disastrous naval engagement in 1349 with the Genoese. All Constantine could do in his new station as emperor was prepare for the inevitable attack by the Ottomans. He worked to repair the city walls and recruit and muster as many soldiers as possible to mount his final defense of the city. As part of that effort, coins such as this rare example were minted to pay the mostly hired soldiers. The attack came in late May of 1453. Constantine himself manned the ramparts and fought valiantly during the city's final defense. He was ultimately killed upon the city walls and his corpse mutilated by the invaders. Thus ended the Byzantine Empire, an institution that lasted nearly a millennium and outlasted its parent Western Roman Empire by five centuries. Estimate: 7500 USD |  |
