Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XX 29-30 Oct 2020
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Gordian III AV Aureus. Rome, AD 241-243. IMP GORDIANVS PIVS FEL AVG, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right / P M TR P IIII COS II P P, Apollo, bare to waist, seated left, holding branch and resting left elbow on lyre. RIC 102; C. 249 var. (draped only); Calicó 3221a; Hunter -; Biaggi 1366. 5.22g, 21mm, 12h.
Fleur De Coin. Rare.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XII, 29 September 2016, lot 954 (hammer: £6,000);
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction VIII, 28 September 2014, lot 1069.
The depiction of Apollo seated with branch and lyre, as seen on this aureus, was a reverse type never seen on an imperial coin prior to the reign of Caracalla. The iconography of Apollo as depicted here has as its origin the provincial coinage of Colophon, the city responsible for the administration of the oracle of Apollo at Claros. Milne (Kolophon and its Coinage, NNM 96, 1941) concluded that this type must have been associated with the oracle at Claros, as early Roman provincial issues suggest (see RPC II 1052). Whilst Colophon minted few coins during the imperial period until the reign of Caracalla, it would mint regularly thereafter until the cessation of provincial coinage in Ionia under Gallienus. Whilst the Roman mint may not have been consciously alluding to the Clarian cult, it has been suggested by C. Rowan (Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period, 2012) that this iconography was most likely introduced to represent an emperor's patronage and consultation of the oracle at Colophon.
Fleur De Coin. Rare.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XII, 29 September 2016, lot 954 (hammer: £6,000);
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction VIII, 28 September 2014, lot 1069.
The depiction of Apollo seated with branch and lyre, as seen on this aureus, was a reverse type never seen on an imperial coin prior to the reign of Caracalla. The iconography of Apollo as depicted here has as its origin the provincial coinage of Colophon, the city responsible for the administration of the oracle of Apollo at Claros. Milne (Kolophon and its Coinage, NNM 96, 1941) concluded that this type must have been associated with the oracle at Claros, as early Roman provincial issues suggest (see RPC II 1052). Whilst Colophon minted few coins during the imperial period until the reign of Caracalla, it would mint regularly thereafter until the cessation of provincial coinage in Ionia under Gallienus. Whilst the Roman mint may not have been consciously alluding to the Clarian cult, it has been suggested by C. Rowan (Under Divine Auspices: Divine Ideology and the Visualisation of Imperial Power in the Severan Period, 2012) that this iconography was most likely introduced to represent an emperor's patronage and consultation of the oracle at Colophon.