Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 919. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $775. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MOESIA INFERIOR, Nicopolis ad Istrum. Antoninus Pius. 1138-161 AD. Æ 21mm (4.94 gm, 7h). Bare head right / Apollo Sauroktonos standing right; lizard on tree to right. AMNG I -; SNG Copenhagen -; Varbanov 1679. Good VF, variegated brown and green patina. Exceptionally fine style. ($500)

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34.69-70: "Praxiteles also, though more successful and consequently better known as a worker in marble, created admirable works in bronze: ...He...made a young Apollo with an arrow watching a lizard as it creeps up with intent to slay it close at hand; this is known as the sauroktonos or Lizard-slayer."

It is not known what connection existed between Nicopolis and Apollo Sauroktonos, or even the reason for the lizard hunt, but the type appears on the city's coins several times in the Antonine and Severan periods. This specimen is the earliest and most elegant representation of this famous sculpture.