| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 553 | Auction date: 3 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 422 Price realized: 225 USD (Approx. 204 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: SYRTICA, Sabratha. temp. Augustus to Tiberius. 27 BC-AD 37. Æ Quadrans (16mm, 3.47 g, 11h). Head of Hermes right, wearing winged petasus / SB RTN in Neo-Punic script in two lines. RPC I 824; MAA 46; Müller 51. Earthen brown patina. VF. Extremely rare, only two in RPC, five in CoinArchives but only one other with this exact reverse legend. From the Aleph Collection. Ex Roma E-Sale 52 (10 January 2019), lot 397. Estimate: 150 USD |  |
Match 1:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 553 | Auction date: 3 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 421 Price realized: 100 USD (Approx. 91 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: SYRTICA, Sabratha. temp. Augustus to Tiberius. 27 BC-AD 37. Æ Semis (19.6mm, 5.31 g, 12h). Sarapis standing facing, raising right hand and holding spear; crescent to right / Capricorn right, holding globe between forehooves, cornucopia on its back; rudder below. RPC I 822; MAA 41; Müller 63; SNG Copenhagen 46. Dark green and brown patina with touches of red, some roughness, minor deposits. Near VF. Very rare. From the Aleph Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group Electronic Auction 426 (8 August 2018), lot 445. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 2:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 559 | Auction date: 3 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 328 Price realized: 2,250 USD (Approx. 2,083 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ASIA MINOR, Uncertain. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (16mm, 5.38 g, 1h). Bare head right / Prow right; Q below. RPC I 5411; FITA p. 13-19. Earthen red-brown patina, light porosity. Near VF. This issue has previously been attributed to a Macedonian mint with identification of the portrait as Brutus (Friedlander) or Caesar (Grant). RPC presents a case for a Cilician or Syrian origin, supported by find data, with a suggestion that the portrait is Octavian. Issues of similar portrait style, perhaps by the same engraver, include the Princeps Felix coinage, RPC 4082-3, from Cilicia. New find data indicates with relative certainty that these coins originated in northern Asia Minor. It is possible that both sets of Cilician or Syrian issues portray Sosius, a leading general of Mark Antony. Sosius was quaestor (symbolized on this coinage with a Q and the symbols of the office) in 39 BC. The island of Zacynthus, a fleet station of Antony's, issued coins in the name of C SOSIVS Q (RPC 1290), C SOSIVS IMP (RPC 1291), C SOSIVS COS DESIG (RPC 1292), and C SOSIVS COS (RPC 1293). The first of these issues coincides with the dating of this coin. Note that both include the "Q" for questor. Sosius was governor of Syria in 38 BC. Antony supported Herod the Great against his rival Antigonus, and Josephus describes how Sosius commanded the Roman forces in support of Herod's claim. Sosius captured the island and town of Aradus in 38 BC and Jerusalem in July of 37 BC, for which he was acclaimed Imperator. Josephus notes that he was about to allow the soldiers to loot the fallen city and slay its inhabitants, when Herod intervened. Herod asked if the Romans, by emptying the city of money and men, had a mind to leave him to become king of a desert and paid the troops a donative instead, with Sosius himself receiving a "most royal bounty". Sosius called the defeated king the feminine name "Antigona" and imprisoned him for Antony to later execute. In 36 BC, Sosius assisted Octavian and Agrippa against Sextus Pompey and afterward probably stayed in Rome, where he celebrated a triumph in 34 BC and was consul along with Domitius Ahenobarbus in 32 BC. During his consulship, he rebuilt the Temple of Apollo, which had been constructed in 431 BC. He introduced a measure in the Senate to censure Octavian, but this was vetoed by a tribune. As war between Octavian and Antony approached, Sosius fled Octavian and Rome along with some 300 senators. At Actium in 31 BC, Sosius commanded the left wing of Antony's naval forces. This wing of heavy ships entered the battle first, but was overwhelmed by the smaller, faster ships of Agrippa, commander of Octavian's fleet. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and Antony escaped through the opening created by the movement. Sosius fought on, eventually surrendered, and was spared by Octavian. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 3:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 557 | Auction date: 6 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 259 Price realized: 160 USD (Approx. 147 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ASIA MINOR, Uncertain. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (20mm, 7.57 g, 12h). Bare head right / Spear, sella quaestoria, and fiscus; Q below sella. RPC I 5409; AMNG II 29 (Pella) note; FITA 13-19 (Thessalonica[?]). Earthen red-brown patina, light pitting. VF. From the St. George Collection. The similarity of this coin's reverse to that of Aesillas led to the earlier attribution of this issue to Macedonia. Unlike the more typical club of Hercules, the presence of a spear (hasta) suggested the issuer to be an as-yet-unknown quaestor propraetore, who, unlike Aesillas, would have held the power of imperium. Based on this assumption, Grant gave the issue to M. Acilius at Thessalonica, whom he tentatively identified as Caesar's governor of Macedonia in the final year of the Dictator's life. The style of the portrait is identical to a coin of the possible Cilician Colonia Iulia Veteranorum (RPC I 4082). That coin bears the additional obverse legend PRINCEPS FELIX, a title which clearly identifies the portrait as Augustus. Imhoof-Blumer and Grant both assigned the issue to the southwestern areas of the Black Sea, but to date no specimen of our coin has turned up in sites there, as one might expect if that region were its point of origin. Since the publication of RPC I, four specimens have been recorded in the Amasya Museum, with additional specimens in Samsun and Amasra, indicating without any real doubt an origin in northern Asia Minor. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 4:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 553 | Auction date: 3 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 361 Price realized: 180 USD (Approx. 163 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: PHOENICIA, Berytus. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (21mm, 6.28 g, 12h). P. Quinctilius Varus, legatus Syriae. Struck 6-4 BC. Bare head right / Two legionary aquilae between two signa. Sawaya Series 18, 272 (D62/R121); RPC I 4535; Rouvier 493. Brown patina, roughness, minor deposits, cleaning scratches. Near VF. From the J.K. Biblical Collection. Ex Agora Auctions 78 (30 October 2018), lot . Up until his final battle, Publius Quinctilius Varus was one of the most celebrated of Augustus' generals. He had been consul in 13 BC (along with the future emperor Tiberius), governor of Syria from 7-4 BC, where he had sent two legions into Judaea to quell local unrest after the territory was converted to a Roman province, and subsequently governor of Germania. By AD 9, Augustus had decided to straighten (and thereby shorten) Rome's borders by conquering the vast region of Germania beyond the Rhine. He assigned Varus to develop the region without war, but the mixed Gauls and Germans living there were not prepared to accept Romanization. The Cherusci, along with other allies, ambushed Varus in the Teutoburg Forest of northwest Germany, and there annihilated the XVII, XVIII and XIX Roman legions in a pitched battle that lasted for three days. Varus, sensing doom, committed suicide, and when Augustus heard of the disaster, he tore his clothes and screamed, "Varus, give me back my legions." No further attempts were made to subdue the Germans beyond the Rhine until the reign of Domitian, and Varus was blamed for the collapse of imperial policy in Germany. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 5:
| Leu Numismatik AG > Auction 15 | Auction date: 1 June 2024 |
| Lot number: 191 Price realized: This lot is for sale in an upcoming auction - Bid on this lot  | |
| Lot description: SYRIA, Seleucis and Pieria. Antioch. Pseudo-autonomous issue, time of Augustus, 27 BC-AD 14. Trichalkon (Bronze, 19 mm, 7.10 g, 11 h), P. Quinctilius Varus, legate of Syria, CY 27 (Actian Era) = 5/4 BC. Laureate head of Zeus to right; behind, palm frond. Rev. [ΑΝΤΙ]ΟΧΕΩΝ ΕΠΙ ΟΥΑΡΟΥ / ZK The Tyche of Antioch seated to right on rock, holding palm branch in her right hand; below, river-god Orontes swimming right. CNG E-Auction 545 (2023), 429 corr. (same dies, but palm frond not noted). McAlee 87A (same obverse die). RPC I 4252 var. (no palm frond). Extremely rare and of great historical interest. A beautiful example of this interesting issue with very attractive earthen highlights. The reverse struck slightly off center, otherwise, good very fine. Ex Naumann E-Auction 114, 6 March 2022, 599. The extremely unusual palm frond behind the head of Zeus appears only on a single die of Varus from the year 27 after the Actian Era, corresponding to our year 5/4 BC. As a military victory symbol, F. Kovacs associates it with the expedition of the Syrian governor to Jerusalem in 4 BC. The background was Varus' involvement in the inheritance dispute of Herod, who in 5 BC accused his son and heir Antipater of attempted patricide. In his capacity as the governor of Syria, Varus was tasked with overseeing the adjudication of this matter. He sentenced the accused to death, a judgment ratified by Augustus and carried out in March 4 BC, mere days before the passing of Herod the Great. Prior to this, the monarch had designated his son Archelaus, born of his union with Malthake, as his successor. The ensuing inheritance dispute with Herod Antipas and Herod II prompted Varus to send the three brothers to Rome for judgment. In spring 4 BC, the Roman procurator Sabinus traveled to Jerusalem. Defying the governor's directives, he attempted to appropriate Herod's estate and loot the temple treasury, sparking a Jewish rebellion. Sabinus and his retinue soon found themselves besieged by insurgents within a fortress in Jerusalem, only being freed when Varus himself appeared on the scene with a relief force of two Syrian legions. Faced with the spreading revolt, the governor cracked down hard and, according to Josephus, had the uprising crushed and 2,000 Jews crucified. This resounding military success may explain why a palm branch appears as a symbol of victory on our coin, which was likely minted in the summer of 4 BC. Rome remained victorious, but the suppression of the uprising and the mass execution of insurgents undoubtedly fueled hatred against the occupying power and laid another cornerstone for the later Jewish rebellions against the Empire. From a Roman standpoint, however, the quelling of the rebellion marked a resounding success, propelling Varus further along the trajectory of his career. In 7 AD, he became the first governor of the newly established province of Germania. Two years later, instead he gained eternal infamy when he fell victim to the ambush orchestrated by Arminius, which culminated in the devastating Battle of the Teutoburg Forest where Varus' entire army was annihilated. Varus, in despair, met his tragic end by his own hand, marking the abrupt end of his illustrious career and prompting the withdrawal of Roman troops from the new Germanic province. Estimate: 2500 CHF |  |
