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Zeus & Ganymede

321, Lot: 291. Estimate $150.
Sold for $475. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Hadrianopolis. Septimius Severus. AD 193-211. Æ (29mm, 12.51 g, 1h). Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Ganymede standing left, placing right hand on eagle sitting on rocky outcropping, holding logobolon in left; flute to lower right. Youroukova 192; Varbanov 3348 (R8). VF, green patina, minor smoothing, a few cleaning marks. Very rare type.


Ganymede was the son of Tros, founder of Troy. A youth of great beauty, he was abducted by Zeus while the young man was tending his flocks on Mt. Ida. Carried to Olympus either by an eagle, or Zeus himself in aquiline form, Ganymede served as the god’s cupbearer in place of Hebe, as well as his eromenos. To recompense Tros for the loss of his son, Zeus provided him with a pair of horses so swift they could cross over water, which became the ancestors of the horses for which the Trojans were renowned.