Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 732. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Philip I. AD 244-249. AR Antoninianus (4.39 g, 12h). Commemorating victory over the Carpi. Rome mint. Special emission in AD 247. IMP PHILIPPVS AVG, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / VICTORIA CARPICA, Victory advancing right, holding wreath in right hand, cradling palm frond in left arm. RIC IV 66; RSC 238; cf. Hunter p. lxxxix; H. Mattingly, Roman Coins from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire (London, 1960), pl. XLIV, 6 (this coin). VF, toned, minor porosity. Rare.

From the White Mountain Collection.

This coin was struck to celebrate Philip’s victory in AD 247 over the Carpi, a Dacian tribe. The Carpi, for whom the Carpathian Mountains were likely named, and the Goths formed an alliance and repeatedly attacked Roman provinces from the north. Philip I and his armies so utterly destoyed the Carpi that by the 5th century there is no longer any historical mention of them.