446, Lot: 207. Estimate $100. Sold for $260. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Coela. Gallienus. AD 253-268. Æ (25mm, 9.41 g, 12h). Laureate head right / Aeneas advancing right, head left, leading Ascanius with his right hand and carrying Anchises with his left arm; Anchises holding the Palladium. Unpublished in the standard references, but see Solidus Numismatik 27 (17 March 2018), lot 342 (Coela–same dies) and Roma 4 (30 September 2012), lot 2543 (Parium–same dies). VF, dark green patina with traces of red, some roughness. Very rare, third known(?).

The city of Ilium was founded by the emperor Augustus on the site of the legendary city of Troy. According to Virgil (Aeneid, Book 2), Aeneas, the son of the goddess Venus and the Trojan Anchises, fled with some remnants of the city’s inhabitants as it fell to the Greeks, taking with him his son, Ascanius, his elderly father, Anchises, and the Palladium, or ancient sacred statue of Athena. The Trojans eventually made their way west to resettle in Italy. There they intermarried with the local inhabitants and founded the town of Lavinium, and thereby became the nucleus of the future Roman people. One of the descendants of Aeneas’ son Ascanius (known now as Iulus) was Rhea Silvia. Impregnated by the god Mars, she gave birth to the twins, Romulus and Remus. Exposed by their great-uncle, Amulius, the twins were suckled by a she-wolf, but they were eventually rescued. Romulus later founded the city of Rome, and consequently the image of the she-wolf and the twins became the symbol of that city. The importance of this mythological story to the Roman Empire is confirmed by its appearance as a reverse type throughout the empire.