CNG 88, Lot: 750. Estimate $500. Sold for $2100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Pautalia. Septimius Severus. AD 193-211. Æ Pentassarion (31mm, 16.23 g, 6h). C. Aelius Oneratus, hegemon. Laureate and cuirassed bust right / Coiled serpent right between two trees. Ruzicka 263; Varbanov 4652 (same dies as illustration). Near EF, dark green patina, some areas of weak strike. A choice example.

From Group CEM.

For the ancient Greeks and Romans, the serpent was an important object of potent symbolic value. Viewed as a chthonic deity due to its physical appearance and its habitat, the serpent was associated in Greece with Gaia and her holy places. Because serpents frequently hold and defend their ground when threatened, they were natural guardians of such sacred spaces – groves, springs, or caves. Although in later Olympian mythology, the serpent was something to be overcome – for example the slaying of Pytho by Apollo at Delphi – in certain areas of the empire, the serpent remained an integral component of the local religion.