Sale: CNG 72, Lot: 1136. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 June 2006.  Sold For $800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

THRACE, Hadrianopolis. Autonomous issue. Time of Commodus, circa AD 181-192. Æ 18mm (3.48 g, 8h). TON KT-ICTHN, head of bearded, mature Herakles right / Eros standing left, holding Club of Herakles, which is supported by second Eros crouching right. Yorukova, Hadrianople 711 (V299/R669); SNG Copenhagen -. Good VF, black-green patina, minor smoothing.

Although the obverse legend here addresses Herakles as ktisthV, (founder or restorer), his association with the city of Hadrianopolis is uncertain. One intriguing possibility is that this usage is an allusion to the emperor Commodus, who envisioned himself as the hero reincarnated. The use of erotes, a popular leimotiv which carried with it a sense of disarming, to support Herakles’ club, a symbol of his heroic abilities, suggests some hoped-for imperial reward to the city for an earlier and as yet unknown service.