Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XVII 28 Mar 2019
View prices realized
► Sale information
Find similar lots
Caracalla Æ29 of Seleucia ad Calycadnum, Cilicia. After AD 212. AV K•M•A• ANTΩNINOC, laureate bust right / [CEΛEYKE-ΩN] TΩN ΠPOC KAΛYKA Δ ΝΩ, Dionysos standing to right in biga drawn by two panthers, holding thyrsos in right hand and, kantharos in left, from which he pours wine over the head of one of the panthers which is turned back to left; to right, Silenos kneeling facing, his head turned to left and his right hand outstretched to catch some falling wine. SNG France 986; SNG Levante 746 = SNG von Aulock 5830. 13.17g, 29mm, 6h.
Good Extremely Fine; a beautiful and untouched olive-green patina. Very Rare. A wonderful, complex mythological reverse scene.
Acquired from Nomos AG;
Ex Vineyard Collection, bought privately in December 1999.
The reverse of this beautiful type depicts the Triumph of Dionysus, wherein he returns triumphant from the conquest of India. Dionysiac mythology relates that Zeus ordered Dionysus to travel to India, whose inhabitants refuse to worship him (stubbornly preferring their ancestral gods of fire and water), and to this end Dionysus gathered together a vast army, both conquering and teaching the cultivation of the vine as he went. Returning at length from the east towards Greece, Dionysus is pictured here in a chariot drawn by exotic panthers as the central figure in what the viewer would have understood to be the great procession of the god, which the Romans considered to have been the origin of their own custom of triumphal processions of conquering generals. The composition of this scene follows what must have been a widely copied prototype, which survives also in very similar format in the roughly contemporary 2nd century AD 'house of Dionysus' at Paphos.
According to a legend, when Alexander the Great reached a city called Nysa near the Indus river, the locals there related to him that their city had been founded by none other than the god Dionysus in the distant past, and their city was dedicated to the god. While the veracity of the story cannot be attested, nonetheless the cultural impact of the encounter between Alexander's Greek army and the theretofore unknown Indian world cannot be understated. Of all the many legacies of this meeting of worlds one of the most curious products emerged only centuries later in the late 4th or early 5th century AD in the shape of ancient Greek literature's last epic poem, the Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis. This 48-book work is also the longest surviving poem from antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, of which the main subject is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west, written just as the worship of the Greek gods was on the cusp of disappearing forever.
Good Extremely Fine; a beautiful and untouched olive-green patina. Very Rare. A wonderful, complex mythological reverse scene.
Acquired from Nomos AG;
Ex Vineyard Collection, bought privately in December 1999.
The reverse of this beautiful type depicts the Triumph of Dionysus, wherein he returns triumphant from the conquest of India. Dionysiac mythology relates that Zeus ordered Dionysus to travel to India, whose inhabitants refuse to worship him (stubbornly preferring their ancestral gods of fire and water), and to this end Dionysus gathered together a vast army, both conquering and teaching the cultivation of the vine as he went. Returning at length from the east towards Greece, Dionysus is pictured here in a chariot drawn by exotic panthers as the central figure in what the viewer would have understood to be the great procession of the god, which the Romans considered to have been the origin of their own custom of triumphal processions of conquering generals. The composition of this scene follows what must have been a widely copied prototype, which survives also in very similar format in the roughly contemporary 2nd century AD 'house of Dionysus' at Paphos.
According to a legend, when Alexander the Great reached a city called Nysa near the Indus river, the locals there related to him that their city had been founded by none other than the god Dionysus in the distant past, and their city was dedicated to the god. While the veracity of the story cannot be attested, nonetheless the cultural impact of the encounter between Alexander's Greek army and the theretofore unknown Indian world cannot be understated. Of all the many legacies of this meeting of worlds one of the most curious products emerged only centuries later in the late 4th or early 5th century AD in the shape of ancient Greek literature's last epic poem, the Dionysiaca by Nonnus of Panopolis. This 48-book work is also the longest surviving poem from antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, of which the main subject is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his triumphant return to the west, written just as the worship of the Greek gods was on the cusp of disappearing forever.