Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Lot 4883    Session 18 (2.30pm Friday 25 November)    Greek Silver & Bronze Coins

Estimate $150
Bid at live.noble.com.au

SYRIA, Antioch, temp. Augustus, (27 BC-AD 14), trichalkon, 7.74 g), struck under P.Quinctillius Varus, Governor of Syria, dated (5/4 BC), obv. laureate head of Zeus right, rev. Tyche seated right on rocky outcropping, holding palm branch, at feet half-length figure of river-god Orontes swimming right, (BMC 59, SNG Munich 640, RPC I 4252). Toned, fine, very rare.

Varus was the General at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. P. Quinctilius Varus had a successful career under Augustus until A.D. 9. He had been consul in 13 B.C., along with the future emperor Tiberius and served as governor of Africa, Syria (where he had sent two legions into Judaea to quell local unrest after the territory was made a Roman province) and Germania. It was in Germania that Varus suffered the defeat he is best remembered for. The Cherusci, under their chieftain Arminius, along with other allies, ambushed Varus in the Teutoburg Forest of northwest Germany, and annihilated the XVII, XVIII, and XIX Roman legions in a battle that lasted for three days. Varus, sensing doom, committed suicide, and when Augustus heard of the disaster, it is recorded that he tore his clothes and exclaimed, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!" No further attempts were made to subdue the Germans beyond the Rhine until the reign of Domitian.