296, Lot: 192. Estimate $200. Sold for $950. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

PHOENICIA, Tyre. Gordian III. AD 238-244. Æ (31mm, 21.39 g, 12h). Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Dido, holding short scepter and cornucopia, standing left between two sailors on deck of galley; below, murex shell surrounded by small fish. Rouvier 2431; BMC –; AUB 265. Near VF, greenish-brown patina, just a trace of light earthen deposits.

Dido was the daughter of King Mutgo of Tyre and sister of Pygmalion, who upon succeeding his father as king had Dido’s husband Sichaeus killed in an attempt to gain possession of his immense wealth. Dido, with a numerous body of friends and followers, succeeded in escaping from Tyre, carrying with them all of Sichaeus’ treasures. On arriving at the spot which they had selected as the seat of their new home, they asked the natives for only so much land as they could enclose with a bull's hide. When this was readily granted, she had the hide cut into strips and with them enclosed a spot on which she built a citadel called Byrsa (“hide”). Around this citadel grew the city of Carthage.