Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 964. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $375. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

KINGS of BOSPORUS. Rhescuporis II (III), with Macrinus. 211-227 AD. AV Stater (7.66 gm, 12h). Dated 514 of the Bosporan Era (217/8 AD). Diademed and draped bust of Rhescuporis right; sword before bust / Laureate, draped, and cuirassed imperial bust right, date below. MacDonald 557/1; Anokhin 634; Frolova p. 203, A/a. VF. ($300)

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection.

In the Bosporan calendar, the year began in October of the previous year, continuing to the end of September in the year following. The period from the murder of Caracalla on 8 April 217 AD to the defeat of Macrinus, occurring on 8 June 218 AD, then covered the second half of 513 BE through the first eight months of 514 BE. While beardless staters of 513 BE clearly demonstrate that news of the regime change had reached the kingdom, they and those struck the following year show the apparent confusion caused both by Macrinus' failure to secure his position and the Severan effort to retake the throne. By the beginning of 515 BE, Elagabalus' intensive propaganda promoting his legitimacy to the throne had reached the Bosporus, and it is possible to see a portrait with his specific features emerge.