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Research Coins: Electronic Auction

 
172, Lot: 227. Estimate $200.
Sold for $951. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Antoninus Pius. AD 138-161. Æ As (26mm, 10.55 g). Rome mint. Struck AD 143-144. Laureate head right / Sow seated right under oak tree, suckling three young, two more before. RIC 733 var. (suckling four piglets); BMCRE 1625 var. (same); Cohen 450 var. (same). VF, dark brown, almost black, surfaces, some roughness, well struck. Rare and desirable type.


From The John A. Seeger Collection.

The sow and pigs refer back to a foundation myth of Rome, celebrating its 900th anniversary during the reign of Antoninus Pius. According to Vergil, The Trojan exile Aeneas sailed up the Tibur until he came upon a white sow nursing thirty piglets, and was to found a settlement on the site of this good omen, the town of Lanuvium, the precursor to Rome.