The Secular Games under Philip I, AD 248-249

CNG 84, Lot: 1272. Estimate $500. Sold for $300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Philip I. AD 244-249. Æ Sestertius (29mm, 14.49 g, 12h). Secular Games issue. Rome mint, 2nd officina. 9th emission, AD 249. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / SAECVLARES AVGG, she-wolf standing left, head right, suckling the twins. RIC IV 159; Banti 46. VF, green patina, minor roughness.

From the John Bitner Collection. Ex Astarte XVI (26 November 2004), lot 1811.

Continuing the tradition of Claudius and Antoninus Pius before him, the celebration of the Secular Games at the end of every century since the founding of Rome culminated during the reign of Philip I, as the city celebrated her 1,000th anniversary in AD 248. The legends on these issues almost exclusively read Saeculares Augg, and feature a similar iconography from previous games, such as the she-wolf suckling the twins, the various wild beasts paraded through the amphitheater, and a cippus inscribed for the preservation of the memory of these events.