HERC GADIT – Shrine of Hercules at Gades

CNG 99, Lot: 629. Estimate $3000. Sold for $6000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Hadrian. AD 117-138. AV Aureus (18.5mm, 7.18 g, 6h). Rome mint. Struck circa AD 119-125. IMP CAESAR TRAIAN • • HADRIANVS AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / P M TR P COS III around, HERC GADIT across field, Hercules standing right, holding club set on ground and apple; to left, prow left; to right, river-god reclining left. RIC II 125; Strack 68η1 (same dies); Calicó 1270; BMCRE 274 (same dies); Biaggi 613. VF, a few minor marks on reverse.

This aureus refers to the shrine of Hercules locacted in Gades (mod. Cadíz). The figure of Hercules is sometimes flanked by two female figures, who may represent the Hesperides, the mythical people to whom Hercules went in fulfilment of his penultimate labor to recover the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. Gades was not only an ancient and wealthy port city, and the ancestral home of Hadrian's mother, but it was also the edge of the known world. Beyond lay the Atlantic Ocean, possibly represented by the water-god at the shrine's base. Thus, Hadrian proclaims not only his Spanish origin, but also his kinship with Hercules through his own labors of travelling the whole of the Empire.