Rare Mythological Type

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 477. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $10000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

TROAS, Abydus. Caracalla. AD 198-217. Æ 38mm (26.29 g, 6h). Struck AD 215-217. AV K M AVPH ANTWNEINO C, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / ABVDHNW N above, HPW downward to right, LAIANDPOC in exergue, Leander swimming right across Hellespont toward tower containing Hero standing left, who holds a lighted lamp in extended right hand; to left, sheathed sword set on rock outcropping; above, Eros flying right, holding wedding torch. M. Price, “Greek Imperial Coins,” NC (1971), p. 129 and note 4; BMC p. 7 note; SNG München -; SNG von Aulock -; SNG Copenhagen -; Mionnet II 58. EF, black-brown patina with some green and lighter brown overones, hairline flan crack. Extremely rare.

The tragic love-story of Hero and Leander was a popular theme with Classical and Renaissance poets and playwrights. Leander was a young man from Abydus, located on the Asian side of the Hellespont. Across the water in Sestus lived Hero, a virgin and priestess of Aphrodite. Enamored of Hero, Leander would swim each night two miles across the strait to woo her and would swim back to Abydus in the early morning. To guide him in this dangerous journey, Hero would climb a tower on the shore near Sestus with a lamp. One stormy night, however, Leander, drowned when the storm put out the light. When Hero became aware of his death, she cast herself in despair from the tower into the waters below, and she too drowned.