Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 782. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Ninica-Claudiopolis. Maximinus. 235-238 AD. Æ 26mm (10.12 gm). IMP MAXIMINVS P I, laureate head right / NINI COL CLUA (sic), nude heroic male figure standing left, raising hand and holding wine sack. SNG Levante Supp. 169 (this coin); SNG France 794; BMC Lycaonia pg.117, 7; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG von Aulock 5778. Good VF, choice, glossy olive green patina. ($300)

The references are unanimous in describing the reverse type as Marsyas holding a wine skin, in his typical pose. But Marsyas is a satyr, normally depicted as a balding, pot-bellied, bandy-legged little fellow; nothing at all like the heroic figure posing here. Is there an alternative for a hero with a wine sack? One obscure mythological reference offers a slight possibility. Aegeus, the king of Athens, being childless after two marriages, and concerned about the intentions of his rival brothers and their kin, travelled to Delphi to consult the Oracle concerning the begetting of children. Her characteristically Delphic response:
"The bulging mouth of the wineskin, O best of men,
Loose not until thou hast reached the height of Athens." [Apollodorus 3.15.6]
The puzzled Aegeus returned to Athens by way of Troezen, where the king Pittheus got him drunk and the king's daughter Aethra became pregnant by him. Their child was Theseus, the hero of Athens. The representation on this coin may be Aegeus with his metaphorical wine skin. The other major type of Maximinus from Ninica-Claudiopolis depicts the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus, and thus links are formed with the foundations of the two great civic centers of the day, Athens and Rome.