Sale: Nomos 1, Lot: 177. Estimate CHF3250.  Closing Date: Tuesday, 5 May 2009.  Sold For CHF3500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Zeno. First reign, 474-475. Tremissis (Gold, 1.43 g 5), Rome, struck by Julius Nepos, November 474 - January 475. D N ZENO PERP F AVG Diademed, draped and cuirassed bust of Zeno to right Rev. COMOB Cross within wreath with ties below and ends closed above with a jewel; below, mint mark. Depeyrot 89/7. Lacam pl. 45, 138. RIC 3210. Very rare. Edge slightly rough, otherwise, good very fine.

For another tremissis of Zeno struck from the same reverse die see Leu 65, 21 May 1996, 536. Zeno was an Isaurian who originally was called Tarasicodissa, which was changed to the more euphonious Zeno after his marriage to Ariadne, the emperor Leo I’s eldest daughter. This coin was struck in the name of Zeno by Julius Nepos who had been appointed emperor of the West by Leo. He arrived in Rome in 474 and expelled the usurper Glycerius (who was made bishop of Salona), but in 475 he himself was driven out by the Patrician Orestes, who proclaimed his own son Romulus Augustulus emperor. A year later Orestes was killed by Odoaker and Romulus was forced into retirement; Nepos remained titular emperor in exile in Dalmatia until his murder in 480.