| 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 1:
| 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 2:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 560 | Auction date: 17 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 432 Price realized: 275 USD (Approx. 259 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ASIA MINOR, Uncertain. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (25mm, 15.94 g, 12h). Bare head right; c/m: female head right / Spear, sella quaestoria, and fiscus; Q below sella. RPC I 5409.78 (this coin); AMNG II 29 (Pella) note; FITA 13-19 (Thessalonica[?]). For c/m: Howgego –. Glossy black patina, light deposits, cleaning scratches, small flan crack at countermark. Fine. 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 3:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Electronic Auction 557 | Auction date: 6 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 226 Price realized: 275 USD (Approx. 253 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: MACEDON, Pella. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ (25mm, 7.24 g, 12h). Bare head right / Demeter or Kore standing left, holding grain ears. RPC I 1549 corr. (Spes holding wreath); AMNG 20 corr. (same); Varbanov 3707 corr. (same). Dark green patina, light earthen highlights, die break on reverse. VF. Rare. From the St. George Collection. Ex Belgica Collection (Classical Numismatic Group Electronic Auction 415, 28 February 2018), lot 372. RPC describes the reverse as Spes holding a wreath, this seems out of character for Spes as she is typically seen holding a flower. And the wreath is open and appears to be two grain ears instead; an attribution to Demeter or Kore seem more likely but without the addition of a scepter or torch, that identification is uncertain The reverse figure could also be that of Livia herself, as the figure appears to be veiled on some better preserved specimens. Estimate: 100 USD |  |
Match 4:
| Classical Numismatic Group > Triton XXVII Online Sessions | Auction date: 17 January 2024 |
| Lot number: 5460 Price realized: 140 USD (Approx. 129 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: ASIA MINOR, Uncertain. Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. Æ As (30mm, 11.30 g, 1h). Struck circa 25 BC. Bare head right / AVGVSTVS within laurel wreath. RPC I 2235; RIC I 486 (Ephesus?). Brown patina, pitting, some smoothing, peripheral roughness, reverse scrapes, small die flaw on obverse. VF. From the Lionel Tenby Collection. Estimate: 200 USD |  |
Match 5:
| 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 |  |
