Roman Silver & Bronze

Lot 2104       Roman Silver & Bronze

Estimate $400
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $240

AUGUSTUS, (27 B.C. - A.D. 14), silver cistophorus, Ephesus mint, issued 27-26 B.C., Sutherland Group VI, (11.5 grams), obv. IMP CAE SAR, bare head to right of Augustus, rev. AVGVSTVS below Capricorn to right, head to left, bearing cornucopiae, all within laurel wreath, (cf.S. 474-5, RIC 477, BMC 262, Sutherland `The Cistophori of Augustus', Group VI, No.154-173). Lightly toned, top silver surface eaten away on high points, good very fine and very rare.

Ex. Spink Noble sale 43 (lot 1939). In his exhaustive treatment of the series Sutherland recorded 87 coins of this type from 58 obverse and 77 reverse dies from all sources, (auction sales, dealer lists, public and private collection and hoards etc). The entire series of Augustan cistophori with all the different reverses in Sutherland amount to only 670 coins. The reverse with the Capricorn, according to Seutonius is that Theogenes, the mathematician of Apollonia, when informed by Augustus then a youth, of the time of his nativity, leaped forward and paid him adoration. He adds 'Augustus soon began to place such reliance on fate, that he published his horoscope, and caused a silver coin to be struck, marked with the constellation Capricorn under which he was born.'