60, Lot: 56. Estimate $150. Sold for $90. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Anchialus. Commodus. 180-192 AD. Æ 24mm (7.20 gm). Draped and cuirassed bust right / Wreathed figure of Dionysos standing, half-draped, holding a kantharos, behind him a nude youth holding a filleted thyrsos. Unpublished in the major collections. Near VF, brown and green patina.

Dionysos, whose cult was particularly strong in Thrace, is usually shown accompanied by his female followers, the Maenads, or mythological half human creatures such as the satyrs or silenoi. The nude male youth shown with him on this coin is probably a participant in one of the races associated with the Dionysiac harvest festival, the Oschophoria.