Description Roman Gold Coins
Collection of a European Scholar lately Deceased
Estimate: CHF 32'500.00
Aureus (Gold, 5.98 g 1), Emesa, c. 253-254. L IVL AVR SVLP ANTONINVS Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Uranius Antoninus to right. Rev. FORTVNA PEDVIX Fortuna seated left on throne, holding rudder with her right hand and cornucopia with her left; below throne, wheel. Baldus 78 (dies VI/10/c, this coin). Calicó 3388. Hurter 34 (this coin). Mazzini III, pl. LXXIV d.3 (this coin). RIC 4 (misdescribed). Extremely rare. Very minor marks, otherwise, a superb example, virtually as struck.
Ex Monnaies et Médailles XXVIII, 19 June 1964, 452, from the collection of G. Mazzini, Santamaria 4 May 1961, 249, ex Monnaies et Médailles XII, 11 June 1953, 847 and Münzhandlung Basel VI, 18 March 1936, 1935 and from the Homs Hoard, found before 1936 and sold in Damascus (this coin once in the hands of the Armenian dealer A.K. Ebeian). Lucius Julius Aurelius Sulpicius Uranius Antoninus, also known as Samp sigeramus, was apparently the hereditary high priest of Emesa (he was probably related to Elagabalus), who, in 252/3, organized the city’s resistance against a Sasanian invasion led by Shapur I. While Antioch was sacked, Emesa not only held out but its troops apparently defeated all the Sasanians in their immediate area: presumably Uranius Antoninus was acclaimed emperor around that time (the title appears on his provincial Greek coinage, but not on his Latin aurei). Of course, at the time this was happening in the East, the empire was in the throes of civil war in the West, with the rapid succession of emperors from Trebonianus Gallus and Volusian to Aemilian and finally to Valerian and Gallienus. Once affairs in the West became more settled, Valerian marched east and, no later than late 254, deposed Uranius Antoninus, who then disappears from history (whether he was executed or allowed to retire, like Vetranio some one hundred years later, is unknown). |
