301, Lot: 176. Estimate $150. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CILICIA, Seleucia ad Calycadnum. Julia Domna. Augusta, AD 193-217. Æ (22mm, 6.26 g, 7h). Draped bust right / Europa, holding billowing veil, riding bull right being guided by a flying Eros; below, Triton with crab headdress, holding rudder and dolphin. . SNG France 984; SNG Levante 742. Good Fine, earthen green patina.

Europa, daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenica, was wooed by Zeus, who came to her in the guise of a bull. The coin shows the bull, led by Eros (Love), leaping over the Ocean (symbolized by the Triton) from Phoenicia to Crete. Agenor sent his sons out to find their wayward sibling, but one of them, Cilix, came to the pleasant shores of Asia Minor and decided to abandon the pursuit and settle there, in the region that came to be known as Cilicia.