The Usurper Jotapian

Sale: Triton XII, Lot: 738. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 5 January 2009.  Sold For $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Jotapian. Usurper, circa AD 248-249. AR Antoninianus (3.88 g, 7h). Nicopolis in Seleucia mint. IM C M F R IOTAPIANVS AV, radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / VIC-TO-RIΛ ΛVG, Victory advancing left, holding wreath in right hand, cradling palm frond in left arm. RIC IV 2a var. (obv. legend); Bland 11 (same dies); RSC 2 var. (obv. legend). Good VF. Very rare.

From the Gordon S. Parry Collection. Ex Credit de la Bourse (19 April 1995), lot 466.

Jotapian led a short-lived revolt in Syria in the autumn of AD 249 while Philip I was still emperor. Little is known of Jotapian’s background. It was said that he boasted of a relationship to Severus Alexander, and his unusual name, although otherwise unknown for a man, is attested in its feminine form "Jotape" in the royal houses of Commagene and Emesa. The extreme rarity of his coins indicates that the revolt was brief, and the crude style proves that the revolt was geographically confined, for Jotapian plainly did not control a major Roman mint. His head was brought to Rome and shown to Trajan Decius "as was customary, although Decius had not asked for it" (Aur. Vict., Caes. 29.4). In his corpus of Jotapian's coins, Bland cites 18 antoniniani in total.