“Saturn in Aquarius”
Ex Wetterstrom, Garrett & Niggeler Collections

Triton XIX, Lot: 379. Estimate $2000. Sold for $6500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ Drachm (33mm, 22.61 g, 12h). Zodiac Series. Dated RY 8 (AD 144/5). AVT K T AIΛ A∆P AN[TωNINOC CЄB ЄVC], laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Saturn in Aquarius (day house): veiled bust of Cronus left, disk atop head; star of eight rays to left; below, youth swimming left, looking back over shoulder, wearing chlamys and holding an inverted amphora with both hands; L H (date) below. Köln –; Dattari (Savio) 2978 var. (falx behind Cronus); K&G 35.275 var. (same); Emmett 1596.8; Carlson, “Rarities 3–The Zodiac Series,” SAN Journal 1972/3, Vol. IV, No. 3, p. 48 (this coin illustrated). VF, dark brown patina with touches of green, minor roughness. Rare, and perhaps unique without the falx on the reverse.

Ex Kerry K. Wetterstrom Collection (Classical Numismatic Auctions XIII, 4 December 1990), lot 175; John Work Garrett Collection (Part 1, Numismatic Fine Arts/Leu, 16 May 1984), lot 1010 (part of); Walter Niggeler Collection (Part 2, Leu/Münzen und Medaillen AG, 21 October 1966), lot 741.

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.