The Secular Games under Philip I, AD 248-249

233, Lot: 349. Estimate $100. Sold for $92. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Philip I. AD 244-249. AR Antoninianus (24mm, 4.21 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck AD 244-247. Radiate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Roma seated left on shield, holding Victory and scepter. RIC IV 44; RSC 165. EF, lustrous.

From the John Bitner Collection of Secular Games Coinage. Ex Rauch 70 (14 November 2002), lot 775.

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.