Sale: CNG 69, Lot: 1600. Estimate $500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 8 June 2005.  Sold For $1200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

HADRIAN. 117-138 AD. AR Cistophoric Tetradrachm (10.54 gm, 7h). Nicomedia mint. Struck after 128 AD. Laureate and draped bust right / Octastyle temple set on three-tiered podium, ROM S P AVG across frieze, pellet in pediment. RIC II 461b; Metcalf, Cistophori B1, 5 (O4/R-; unlisted rev. die); BMCRE 1099 note; RSC 240b. VF. ($1000)

From the Garth R. Drewry Collection.

Cistophori were produced in the name of the Commune Bithyniae only once, under Hadrian. The inscription on the frieze, reconstructed as ROM(ae) S(enatui) P(opulo) AVG(usto) and translated as "To Rome, the Senate, the People, and Augustus" tentatively identifies the building as a temple of Rome and Augustus at Nicomedia. No archaeological remains of this structure have as yet been found, and reconstructions of it are based entirely on the second century numismatic evidence. Both Tacitus and Dio Cassius report that in 19 BC Augustus did authorize the construction of a temple to Rome and himself at Pergamum, an event commemorated on his cistophori there. No such evidence for a temple at Nicomedia occurs earlier than this cistophorus.