Sale: Triton VII, Lot: 785. Estimate $400.  Closing Date: Monday, 12 January 2004.  Sold For $525. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Seleucia ad Calycadnum. Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus. Augusta, 193-217 AD. Æ 24mm (8.05 gm). IOULIA DOMNA CEBACT, draped bust right / CELEUKEWN KALUKA, Europa riding a bull being guided by a flying Eros, leaping over a Triton with crab headdress, holding rudder and dolphin. SNG Levante Supp. 191 (this coin); SNG France 984; BMC Lycaonia -; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG von Aulock 5829. Good VF, brown and green patina. ($400)

A wonderful compact visual gloss on the Europa legend. Europa, daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenica, was wooed by Zeus, who came to her in the guise of the bull. The coin shows the bull, led by Eros (Love), leaping over the Ocean (the Triton) from Phoenicia to Crete. Agenor sent his sons out to find their wayward sibling, but one of them, Cilix, came to the pleasant shores of Asia Minor and decided to abandon the pursuit and settle there, in the region that came to be known as Cilicia.