Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 1229. Estimate $200.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $165. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Decapolis. Gadara. Gordian III. 238-244 AD. Æ 25mm (11.94 gm, 12h). Dated CY 303 (240/1 AD). Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Galley right; date in exergue. Spijkerman 93; SNG ANS 1332. Near VF, green patina. Rare. ($200)

At first glance, the appearance of a sea-going galley is an oddity on a coin from a land-locked desert city. But the Gadarenes never forgot their origins as a foundation by the great Roman naval commander Pompey, keeping the title Pompeion as a civic epithet. Other coins refer specifically to the naumachia, or naval games sponsored by the city, as a festival located on the nearby Hieromices (Yarmuk) River.