Sale: Triton VI, Lot: 580. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 13 January 2003.  Sold For $250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUDAEA, Gaza. Commodus. 177-192 AD. Æ 23mm (9.26 gm). Dated year 248 (187/188 AD?). AVT K M AVPH KOMMOD, laureate head right / EIW GAZA, Io and the Tyche of Gaza standing clasping hands; Punic "mem" (=Marnas, patron deity of Gaza), date in exergue. Cf. Rosenberger 129 (year 249); cf. SNG ANS 941 (year 245). Good VF, dark green patina. Rare this nice. ($300) 

The connection of the myth of Io with Gaza is extremely tenuous, but it must have been of significance to the inhabitants; she is both named on the coinage and appears in her transformed state as a heifer. Io of Argos was transformed into a heifer by her lover Zeus, in order to hide her from his suspicious wife Hera. Hera was not deceived, and sent a gadfly to hound Io to the ends of the earth. She eventually ended up in Egypt, where her original form was restored. Io became associated with the Egyptian cow-goddess Hathor, whose temples have been found in Philistine territory. Herodotos also relates a rationalization of the myth, with Io being a Greek princess kidnapped by Phoenicians (Philistines?). There is, presumably, somewhere in ancient Gaza, a temple of Hathor-Io waiting to be found.