Hercules’ Second Labor - A Non-Canonical Interpretation

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 527. Estimate $3000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $5000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ Drachm (33mm, 23.73 g, 12h). Labor of Hercules type. Dated RY 4 (AD 140/1). AVT [K] T AIL ADR • ANTwNEINOC EYC E B, laureate head right / Hercules standing left, lion skin over left shoulder, holding club overhead in right hand, in left hand the right arm-tentacle of the anthropomorphized Lernaean Hydra; L TETA P TOV (date) around . Köln 1347 (same dies); Voegtli type 12e; Ramage 126 (this coin); BMC -; Dattari (Savio) 8487 (same rev. die); Milne 1681b = Emmett 1545.4. Good VF, brown and green patina with area of brick-red on obverse, edge damaged in antiquity. Extremely rare.

From the James E. Cain Collection. Ex David Simpson Collection (Triton V, 15 January 2002), lot 1775; John W. Garrett Collection (Part I, Numismatic Fine Arts & Leu, 16 May 1984), lot 801.