The Mountain God Haemus

365, Lot: 249. Estimate $100. Sold for $180. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MOESIA INFERIOR, Nicopolis ad Istrum. Macrinus. AD 217-218. Æ (27mm, 13.20 g, 1h). Statius Longinus, legatus consularis. Laureate head right / mountain-god Haemus reclining left on wooded rock outcropping, head right, resting arm above head and cradling scepter; below, bear right. H&J, Nikopolis 8.23.43.1; Varbanov 3428. Near VF, flaky green patina. Very rare reverse type.

Haemus, the son of Boreas, was a mythological king of Thrace. Vain and haughty, he boastfully compared himself and his wife Queen Rhodope to Zeus and Hera. For this vainglorious presumption, Haemus and Rhodope were transformed into local mountains. Sometimes, the Greeks called the entire Balkan Peninsula the Χερσόνησος τοῦ Αἵμου, Haemus’s Peninsula.