Severus Alexander as Priest of Asclepius
From the Levante Collection

CNG 94, Lot: 899. Estimate $1000. Sold for $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Aegeae. Severus Alexander. AD 222-235. Æ (37mm, 26.07 g, 6h). Dated CY 227 (AD 230/1). AVT K AΛЄΞANΔPON APX MЄ OIK ACKΛH, draped half-length bust right, wearing diadem, holding serpent-entwined staff of Asclepius / AΛЄΞANΔPVΠOΛIC AΔPIANωN around, AIΓAIωN in exerge, emperor on horseback right, extending arm in salute; ZOC (date, but largely indistinct) below horse. F. Imhoof-Blumer, “Zur griechischen und römischen Münzkunde,” RSN XIII/XIV (1908), p. 202, 2; SNG France 2365 = Waddington 4079 (same dies); SNG Levante 1772 (this coin). VF, brown patina with a few spots of green, minor roughness. Very rare.

A most unusual coin with a fascinating obverse. SNG Levante and SNG France (both cataloged by Edoardo Levante) describe the obverse as depicting Severus as priest of Asclepius, holding the god’s serpent staff and wearing a sacerdotal diadem. The coin also features a highly interesting obverse legend that is open to debate. Imhoof-Blumer (op. cit.), publishing a coin from his own collection, read the second half of the obverse legend as APX NЄOIK ACKΛH, which he expanded to άρχ(ιερεύς) νεοικ(ου) Aσκλη(πιείου), or the “dedicator of the rebuilt temple of Asclepius”. A. M. Woodward (“The neocorate at Aegeae and Anazarbus in Cilicia,” NC 1963, pp. 5-10), found Imhoof-Blumer’s reading of NЄOIK untenable, arguing the “N” is in fact an “M”, thus reading APX MЄ (άρχιερευς μεγιστος or “greatest high priest”), a Greek take on the Latin Pontifex Maximus. Publishing a seemingly unique piece dated to the following year with an obverse legend ending OIKЄ ACKΛH and with a reverse with Tyche holding a model of the temple of Asclepius, Woodward took the OIKЄ to stand for οικειον, i.e. “kinsman of Asclepius”. Finally, Edoardo Levante, in the SNG France volume, expands the legend as APX[IEPEA] ME[ΓICTON] OIK[OVMENHC] K[AI] ACK[ΛEΠIOV], or “on behalf of the pontifex maximus of the Empire (literally the greatest high priest of the inhabitable world) and of Asclepius.”