Very Rare Nilus Aureus

CNG 99, Lot: 632. Estimate $10000. Sold for $11000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Hadrian. AD 117-138. AV Aureus (20mm, 7.02 g, 12h). Rome mint. Struck AD 134-136. HADRIANVS AVG COS III P P, bareheaded and draped bust left / NILVS, river-god Nilus reclining left on Sphinx protome right, holding cornucopia and reed; above leg, hippopotamus standing right; in water below, crocodile swimming right. RIC II 308; Strack 307; Calicó 1290 (same dies as illustration); BMCRE 855 and pl. 63, 15 (same dies); Biaggi –; Künker 133, lot 8818 (same dies); NAC 41, lot 81 (same dies) CNG E-219, lot 447 (same dies). Near VF, light cleaning marks above head. Very rare.

Struck from a single pair of dies, this very rare aureus was part of a larger issue of commemorative coinage struck in Rome following Hadrian’s return from the eastern provinces in AD 134 – a visit partly in connection with the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132-135). While Hadrian’s previous travels throughout the empire had been remembered on earlier Rome mint issues – most notably the galley coinage – the coins commemorating specific provinces were all struck between AD 134 and AD 136. Strack posited a date of AD 137 for this issue, supposing that the emperor was in the East to oversee the coup de grâce of Simon bar Kokhba and his followers at Betar in AD 135, returning sometime shortly after. Hadrian, however, who was suffering from increasingly poor health, was known to be in Rome during the last four years of his life, during which time he received an imperial salutation for the Roman victory over Bar Kokhba. In AD 136, he was present at the dedication of the Temple of Venus and Rome, and in AD 137, he appointed Aelius as his successor. Given Hadrian’s return to Rome prior to the actual conclusion of the war, this aureus, along with the issuance inter alia of the other “province” commemorative coinage, must have been struck between AD 134 and AD 136.

The province of Egypt, in accordance with its strategic and economic importance (and possibly reflecting the special place it held in the emperor’s heart), was commemorated with three reverse types: the province Aegyptus, the city of Alexandria, and the river-god Nilus.