The Poet Aratus

Sale: Triton XIII, Lot: 1506. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 4 January 2010.  Sold For $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Gordian III. AD 238-244. Æ Hexassarion (18.59 g, 6h). Pompeiopolis (Cilicia) mint. Dated CY 306 (AD 240/1). Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right; gorgoneion on breastplate / Bareheaded and draped bust of Aratus(?) right; A/ς (value) above ς/T (date) to right. SNG France 1250; SNG Levante -; SNG von Aulock ;- SNG Copenhagen - . Near VF, pale green patina with dusty earthen overtones. Very rare.

Born at Soli (Pompeiopolis) and a contemporary of the Helleistic poets Callimachus and Theocritus, Aratus was a disciple of the Peripatetic philosopher Praxiphanes and was acquainted with several important scholars, including the Stoic philosopher Zeno, as well as Callimachus, and Menedemus, the founder of the Eretrian School of philosophy. In 276 BC, he was invited to the court of the Macedonian king Antigonus II Gonatas, to compose a poem on that king’s victory over the Gauls the previous year. His most famous poem and major extant work, Phaenomena ("Appearances"), describes the constellations and other celestial phenomena, as well as weather lore. Aratus subsequently spent time at the court of Antiochus I Soter of Syria, but later returned to Pella in Macedon, where he died about 240 BC.