172, Lot: 102. Estimate $150. Sold for $285. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Cyrrhestica. Hieropolis. Philip II. AD 247-249. Æ 30mm (17.74 g). Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right, seen from behind / Atergatis seated facing holding sceptre, riding lion walking right. BMC Galatia p. 145, 57; SNG Copenhagen 64; SNG München 485. VF, dark brown and black patina, minor roughness.

From The John A. Seeger Collection.

Atergatis, or Atargatis was a Syrian goddess whose cult center was at Hieropolis (Hierapolis- Bambyce). She held a similiar status to Astarte, being a goddess of fecundity and generation and was also known as Derketo. Her priests, generally eunuchs, spread an ecstatic form of her worship to Greece, where she became associated with the Phrygian mother goddess Cybele, and achieved wide-spread popularity in Greece and Italy as a guardian of cities and thus a forerunner of Tyche. See lot 236 for a Roman manifestation of the goddess.