Hero and Leander

Sale: Triton X, Lot: 661. Estimate $5000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $5750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Septimius Severus. AD 193-211. Æ 37mm (23.74 g, 12h). Abydus mint. Faba Proclus, archon. AV KAI L CEPTIMIOC CEOVHPOC PERTIN, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / EPI APX FABA PROKLOV, ABVDHN, in exergue, Leander swimming right across Hellespont toward tower containing Hero standing left, who holds a lighted lamp in extended right hand; below Leander, two dolphins swimming right, one left. Cf. Kraft pl. 56, 21 (for obv. type); SNG Copenhagen -; SNG München -; BMC 60 corr. (ABVDH) and pl. III, 2; SNG von Aulock -. Good VF, black-green and brown patina.

The tragic love-story of Hero and Leander was a popular theme with Classical and Renaissance poets and playwrights. Leander was a young man from Abydus, located on the Asian side of the Hellespont. Across the water in Sestus lived Hero, a virgin and priestess of Aphrodite. Enamored of Hero, Leander would swim each night two miles across the strait to woo her and, in the early morning, swim back to Abydus. To guide him in this dangerous journey, Hero would climb a tower on the shore near Sestus with a lamp. One stormy night, however, Leander, drowned when the storm put out the light. When Hero became aware of his death, she cast herself in despair from the tower into the waters below, and too was drowned.