287, Lot: 322. Estimate $100. Sold for $120. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Domitian. AD 81-96. Æ Drachm (35mm, 23.97 g, 12h). Dated RY 14 (AD 94/5). Laureate head right / Triumphal arch with three bays between columns, two windows above; roof surmounted by statuary group of Domitian driving horses between trophies; L IΔ (date) across field. RPC II 2708; Köln 410; Dattari (Savio) 542-3; K&G 24.224. Near Fine, brown, red, and blue-green patina, rough surfaces.

From the Greenpoint Collection.

While often assumed to depict a local Egyptian monument, Fred Kleiner (“An arch of Domitian in Rome on coins of Alexandria,” NC 1989, pp. 69-81) has convincingly argued that the arch was erected elsewhere, almost certainly in the capital, to commemorate Domitian’s victories in Germany. Indeed, Suetonius (Dom. 13.2) records that the emperor erected so many arci – Latin for arches – in Rome that a Greek punster wrote on one of them ἀρκεῖ (enough).