242, Lot: 107. Estimate $100. Sold for $360. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUDAEA, Gaza. Commodus. AD 177-192. Æ (23mm, 9.26 g, 12h). Laureate head right / Io and the Tyche of Gaza standing clasping hands. Cf. Rosenberger 129 (year 249); cf. SNG ANS 941 (year 245). Good VF, dark green patina. Rare.

Ex Triton VI (14-15 January 2003), lot 580 .

The connection of the myth of Io with Gaza is extremely tenuous, but it must have been of significance to the inhabitants; she is both named on the coinage and appears in her transformed state as a heifer. Io of Argos was transformed into a heifer by her lover Zeus, in order to hide her from his suspicious wife Hera. Hera was not deceived, and sent a gadfly to hound Io to the ends of the earth. She eventually ended up in Egypt, where her original form was restored. Io became associated with the Egyptian cow-goddess Hathor, whose temples have been found in Philistine territory. Herodotos also relates a rationalization of the myth, with Io being a Greek princess kidnapped by Phoenicians (Philistines?). There is, presumably, somewhere in ancient Gaza, a temple of Hathor-Io waiting to be found.