Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 1139. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $2000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Perinthus. Caracalla. AD 198-217. Æ Medallion (36mm, 34.50 g, 7h). Struck AD 215-217. Laureate and cuirassed bust right, seen from front, aegis over left shoulder and gorgoneion on breastplate, holding spear over left shoulder / Serapis standing left, holding phiale and cornucopiae; to left, Zeus, standing left, holding phiale and sceptre, to right, Hera, veiled, standing left. Schönert-Geiss, Perinthos 606; SNG Copenhagen -; Varbanov 3923. VF, olive patina with areas of black-green, minor hairline flan crack. Rare.

Ex Spink 152 (11 April 2001), lot 362.

This reverse shares the same obverse die with several other types commemorating both Caracalla and the city’s imperial cult. Like similar medallions throughout the region, ours could have been struck to recall a possible visit of Caracalla to Perinthus as he was making his way through the region eastward in 215 AD to fight the Persians. Caracalla closely identified himself with Serapis, the Hellenistic Egyptian god associated with healing. On our coin, Jupiter and Hera, two of the three gods making up the Capitoline Triad, Rome’s supreme tutelaries, flank Serapis, and it is quite possible that this was a local acknowledgment of the emperor’s divinity.