296, Lot: 144. Estimate $150. Sold for $280. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Anchialus. Commodus. AD 177-192. Æ (25mm, 8.41 g, 6h). Bareheaded, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Wreathed figure of Dionysus standing facing, half-draped, holding cantharus; behind him, a nude youth holding a filleted thyrsos. AMNG I –; SNG Copenhagen –; Varbanov –; CNG E-60, lot 56 (same dies). VF, green patina. Unrecorded in the standard works.

Dionysos, whose cult was particularly strong in Thrace, is usually shown accompanied by his female followers, the Maenads, or mythological half human creatures such as the satyrs or silenoi. The nude male youth shown with him on this coin is probably a participant in one of the races associated with the Dionysiac harvest festival, the Oschophoria.