The New York Sale 2026 Ancient & World

Choice Caracalla Serapis Reverse Aureus

3x

1222 Caracalla (AD 198-217). Gold Aureus (6.31 g), struck AD 217. ANTONINVS PIVS AVG GERM, laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right Reverse: P M TR P XX COS IIII P P, Serapis, wearing polos on head, draped, standing front, head left, holding corn-ears in wreath downward and vertical scepter. RIC IV 289b var; Calicó 2761var; Biaggi 1200var; Jameson 191var. Rare. In NGC holder graded MS : Strike 5/5; Surface 3/5, Fine Style, brushed. Excellent portrait. In the Third Century BC, Ptolemy I Soter ordered the mass popularization of the Graeco-Egyptian god Serapis, as a means to unify his Greek and Egyptian subjects. Serapis would become Egypt’s patron deity during the Ptolemaic era, while his cult would spread across most of the known Greek world, then across the Roman Empire. In Rome, Serapis was worshipped at the Iseum Campense, the sanctuary of Isis built during the Second Triumvirate in the Campus Martius. Serapis would them burgeon in popularity under the Flavians. While in Alexandria in AD 70, Vespasian reputedly cured a blind man and a man with a limp hand through the agency of Serapis. The story of the miraculous healing spread like wildfire. When Caracalla began his reign 128 years later, he gave his imperial support for Serapis, building a lavish Serapeum on Quirinal Hill, as a temple to Serapis, on the site of what was likely once the Temple of Bacchus and Hercules. NGC Certification Number 6709560-002

$25,000

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