Sale: CNG 66, Lot: 1472. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 19 May 2004.  Sold For $725. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. AR Cistophoric Tetradrachm (10.23 gm). Nicomedia mint. Struck after 128 AD. Laureate and draped bust right / Octastyle temple set on three-tiered podium, ROM S P AVG across frieze, pellet in pediment. RIC II 461c; Metcalf, Cistophori B3, 13 (O10/R13; same dies); Pinder 99; BMCRE 1099 note; RSC 240. VF. ($1000)

Cistophori were produced in the name of the Commune Bithyniae only once, under Hadrian. The inscription on the frieze, reconstructed as ROM(ae) S(enatui) P(opulo) AVG(usto) and translated as "To Rome, the Senate, the People, and Augustus" tentatively identifies the building as a temple of Rome and Augustus at Nicomedia. No archaeological remains of this structure have as yet been found, and reconstructions of it are based entirely on the second century numismatic evidence. Both Tacitus and Dio Cassius report that in 19 BC Augustus did authorize the construction of a temple to Rome and himself at Pergamum, an event commemorated on his cistophori there. No such evidence for a temple at Nicomedia occurs earlier than this cistophorus.

CISTOPHORI OF HADRIAN

The cistophoric tetradrachms first struck at Pergamon in the second century BC continued as a form of uniform trade currency in western Asia Minor even after the imposition of Roman rule. Roman proconsuls, and later the emperors themselves, issued cistophori from a number of mints in western Asia Minor, such as Mysia, Ionia, and Lydia, even though the cista (serpent basket) had gradually disappeared as the main type and the coins were now tariffed at three Roman denarii. The central government kept tight reign over the minting and quality of these large denomination coins, in contrast to the irregular production cycles and extreme variation of style seen in the autonomous bronze coins of the same issuing cities. Thus, these large silver coins are usually accounted among imperial coinage issues, rather than the provincial series. Hadrian was the last emperor to strike cistophori, and, after the middle of the second century AD, most precious metal coinage production was centered farther east, at Antioch and other Syrian mints, and Alexandria in Egypt. Presumably enough silver in the form of Roman denarii was reaching Asia Minor.