Sale: CNG 67, Lot: 1612. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 22 September 2004.  Sold For $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 193-211 AD. Æ Medallion (43mm, 58.86 gm). Struck 195 AD. L SEPTIMIVS SEVERVS PER[TINAX A]VG IMP IIII, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right, seen from the front / DIS AVSPICIBVS P M TR P III COS II P P, Hercules standing left, holding club and lion skin; and Bacchus, wreathed, standing left, emptying cup for panther standing left below, and holding thyrsus. Cf. Gnecchi pg. 73, 4; Toynbee -; cf. Cohen 122. Near VF, brown patina, areas of corrosion. Rare. ($2000)

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection. Ex Frederick S. Knobloch Collection (Stack's, 1-3 May 1980), lot 1395.

The Dis Auspices are the divine augurs who inaugurate a new era, hopefully of peace. Severus had deposed Didius Julianus the previous year, and in 194 defeated Pescennius Niger. There would be a brief lull before he turned his militant attention to his nominal associate, Clodius Albinus. Meanwhile, the victorious Hercules and Liber (Dionysus) proclaim the end of conflict. The two semi-divine beings, before ascending to Olympus, had assisted the Olympian gods in the Gigantomachy, and both divinities in their later cults incorporated elements of victory celebrations, with wine and festivals for their followers. Hercules was kallinikos, or "Gloriously Triumphant," upon whose altar in Rome, the Ara Maxima, retiring soldiers and gladiators offered their no longer needed arms. Dionysus, meanwhile, with his army of Bacchantes had overawed the entire known world, to the borders of India. Severus is employing divine heralds to announce his ultimate ascension to supreme power.