Helios in Leo

Triton XVIII, Lot: 911. Estimate $1000. Sold for $1900. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ Drachm (34mm, 25.95 g, 1h). Zodiac series. Dated RY 8 (AD 144/5). AVT K T AIΛ A∆P ANTωNINOC CЄB ЄVC, laureate head right / Helios in Leo: Lion leaping right; above, radiate and draped bust of Helios and eight-pointed star; L H (date) below. Köln 1495-6; Dattari (Savio) 2968; K&G 35.278; Emmet 1530.8. VF, dark green and brown patina with earthen highlights/deposits, minor edge splits.

Alexandria saw an immense output of coinage during the eighth year of Antoninus Pius’s reign. The Zodiac drachms, mythological types, and a host of issues for the nomes appeared that year. One explanation for this activity centers on the celebration of the renewal of the Great Sothic cycle, the point when the star Sothis (Sirius) rises on the same point on the horizon as the sun. This cycle of 1461 years began early in the reign of Pius in AD 139, and apparently prompted a renewal in the ancient Egyptian religion, while the coin types also stressed the connections to the Greco-Roman Pantheon.