Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 769. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CARIA, Mylasa. Geta, as Caesar. 198-209 AD. Æ Medallion (41mm, 24.00 gm, 7h). PO CEPTI MIOC GETAC KAIC, bare-headed, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind / MU LA, CEWN in exergue, distyle temple of Zeus Labraundus, cult statue of the god within, holding labrys and spear; plain globe in pediment. BMC Caria pg. 133, 38-39 var. (reverse type); SNG Copenhagen 437 var. (same); SNG von Aulock 2630 var. (same; same obverse die); cf. Price & Trell 442-443. VF, dark green patina, smoothing in fields, small edge flaw. Apparently an unpublished variety. ($500)

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection.

All the published specimens depict a tetrastyle temple of Zeus Labraundus, with the statue of Zeus facing outward and more ornamentation on the pediment. The legends are also arranged differently. Price & Trell, for their no. 442, mention a distyle temple type, but do not provide references. Mylasa also had another temple dedicated to an avatar of Zeus, Zeus Osogoas, which Price & Trell (no. 443) describe as a tetrastyle temple, but their illustration (fig. 332) clearly shows a distyle temple similar to the present one. Was the Zeus Labraundus temple tetrastyle and the Zeus Osogoas temple distyle, and the engraver confused the two on this coin?