184, Lot: 125. Estimate $100. Sold for $75. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SYRIA, Coele-Syria. Heliopolis. Divus Septimius Severus. Died AD 211. Æ 25mm (9.74 g). Laureate and draped bust right / Bird’s eye view of the front and side of the temple of Jupiter Heliopolitanus. BMC Galatia p. 290, 4; SNG Copenhagen -; SNG München 1031 var. (cuirassed). Near Fine, grayish-green patina with some earthen highlights.

The sanctuary of Heliopolis (modern Baalbek) was the most massive religious sanctuary of the Greco-Roman world. It was actually a complex with four distinct temples and shrines, all dedicated to syncretistic Roman-Semitic deities- Hadad / Jupiter, Atargatis / Venus, Simios / Mercury and Adonis / Bacchus. Baalbek does not appear to have been a significant settlement before the time of Alexander, and the major construction period began under Augustus in the last decade BC. The Great Court surrounding the temple complex was probably completed under Trajan. The sixty foot tall columns of the Jupiter temple were the largest ever erected in a classical temple. Archaeologists have used the coinage of the city, which began under Septimius Severus, to guide the reconstruction of this massive structure.