Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 722. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

AEOLIS, Cyme. Antinoüs, favorite of Hadrian. Died 130 AD. Æ 34mm (26.21 gm, 6h). Hieronymos, magistrate. HRWC ANTINOOC, bare-headed, half-length bust right / IERWNUMOC ANE QHKE KUMAIOIC, half-draped, bearded figure seated right, resting right hand on stool, left holding sceptre over shoulder. Cf. Blum pg. 39, 2 = SNG München 547 (same obverse die, different reverse type); BMC Troas -; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG von Aulock -. Fine, dark green patina, edge partially filed, roughness. Apparently unique and unpublished with this reverse. ($1000)

From the David A. Dowdy Collection. Ex Giessener Münzhandlung 28 (2-3 February 1984), lot 3550; Münzen und Medaillen 52 (19-20 June 1975), lot 648; Mabbott Collection (Schulman, 6-11 June 1969), lot 1421; Münzen und Medaillen 13 (17-19 June 1954), lot 887.

The fact that Zeus appears nowhere else either on the provincial issues of Cyme or the remainder of the coinage of Antinoüs argues against attributing the reverse figure to that god. If the rod is a thrysus, the figure may be Dionysus; other issues, however, portray him as a younger male. It is possible that either Homer, whose mother was from Cyme, or Hesiod, whose father hailed from the area, is the intended figure. A third possibility is Ephorus, a local historian, whose world history was quoted by later authors.

See lot 715 for a note on the life and coinage of Antinoüs.