Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 325. Estimate $2500.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $1900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Commodus. AD 177-192. Æ Medallion (43mm, 47.09 g, 6h). Silandus in Lydia mint. Tatianos, archiereus as archon. Struck circa AD 177. [ΛVT]O KΛI Λ AVPH KOMOΔOC, laureate, draped, and cuirassed beardless bust right / EΠI [APX]IEPEΩC, TATIANOV • •/CIΛANΔEΩN/K • APX in three lines in exergue, Commodus, holding scepter, driving biga left; above, Nike, flying right, crowning him with wreath. LS -; SNG München -; SNG von Aulock 8265; SNG Copenhagen -; Classical Numismatic Group 70, lot 553 (same dies). VF, dark green-brown patina with traces of gray-green, light cleaning scratches, fields smoothed. Attractive type.

This medallion may represent one of the earliest provincial commemorations of Commodus’ appointment as emperor in AD 177. The obverse legend, which begins AVT, a Greek transliteration of the Latin IMP, indicates that this issue must be no no earlier than late November AD 176, when Commodus was granted the rank of imperator by his father. Almost a month later, On 23 December AD 176, he shared a joint triumph at Rome with his father following the successful completion of a peace with the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Iazyges. A series of promotions followed throughout the next year, raising the adolescent Commodus to the position of co-Augustus and potential successor of Marcus Aurelius by the middle of AD 177. The exclusion, then, of this title (CEB in Greek) from this medallion must provide an end date for its issue then no later than mid AD 177. The reverse, with its clearly victorious imagery, would suggest the joint triumph, apparently commemorated very quickly as additional honors for Commodus were reported.