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Roma Numismatics Ltd
E-Sale 39  26 Aug 2017
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Lot 476

Estimate: 50 GBP
Price realized: 70 GBP
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Gordian III Æ34 of Antioch, Pisidia. AD 238-244. IMP CAES M ANT GORDIANVS AVG, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right / CAES ANTIOCH COL, she-wolf standing right under fig tree, suckling the twins; S R in exergue. SNG Copenhagen 69; SNG France 1196. 27.15g, 34mm, 7h.

Near Very Fine.

The Ficus Ruminalis was a wild fig tree on the Palatine Hill in ancient Rome near the Lupercal on the Palatine. This tree was said to be sacred to the goddess Rumina. It is also the spot where tradition said the trough containing Romulus and Remus landed on the banks of the Tiber.

Tradition said that this tree was removed by the augur Attus Navius and thenceforth stood on the Comitium. Ovid states that only vestigia remained on the original spot in his day, but Livy, in telling the story of the twins, says that the Ogulnii, aediles in 296 B.C., erected a monument that represented the twins and wolf, ad ficum ruminalem. It has also been suggested that the Plutei of Trajan are from a small enclosure wall built around the Ficus Ruminalis and a statue of Marsyas.
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