Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 1526. Estimate $50000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $57500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GETA. As Caesar, 198-209 AD. AV Aureus (7.14 g, 7h). Struck 207 AD. P SEPTIMIVS GETA CAES, bare headed, draped, and cuirassed bust left / PONTIF, COS in exergue, Bacchus and Ariadne seated left; herm behind, panther at feet of Bacchus; in background, Silenos, satyr, double-flute player, and two maenads. RIC IV 33; Calicó 2897 = Biaggi 1260 (same dies); BMCRE p. 243, *; Cohen -; O. Voetter, Sammlung Bachofen von Echt (Vienna, 1903), 1766; Sir Arthur Evans Collection (Naville III, 16 June 1922), lot 102; Kent & Hirmer 392 (this coin). Superb EF, underlying lustre, light scratch in exergue on reverse. Bold high-relief portrait. Extremely rare, one of four known. ($50,000)

Ex Collection of a Perfectionist (Leu 87, 6 May 2003), lot 66; E. von Schulthess Collection (Hess-Leu 17, 23 March 1961), lot 274; 1901 Karnak Hoard(?).

This aureus features one of the most unique and distinctive reverse types in the Roman Imperial series. The coin was part of a special donative issue celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Septimius Severus and the tenth of Caracalla, of which only four examples (see above), all struck from the same dies, are known today. The scene of Bacchus and Ariadne's marriage is well represented in Roman paintings, engravings, and sculpture, and was chosen for this issue as Bacchus was the patron of Geta.

Ariadne, the elder daughter of King Minos of Crete, fell in love with Theseus of Athens and assisted him in slaying the Minotaur. For her reward, she was abandoned by him on the island of Naxos; Theseus then returned to Athens, and there married her younger sister, Phaedra. According to the commonest version of the myth, Bacchus, in the company of his Maenads and satyrs, were traversing the island when they happened upon her.The god rescued Ariadne and took her to be his consort; the diadem she wore at the ceremony was subsequently placed in the heavens to become the constellation Corona Borealis.