Apollo the “Lizard Killer”
After Praxitiles’ Famous Sculpture

303, Lot: 182. Estimate $200. Sold for $575. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

MOESIA INFERIOR, Nicopolis ad Istrum. Caracalla. AD 198-217. Æ (27mm, 10.92 g, 7h). Ovinius Tertullus, legatus consularis. Struck AD 198-201. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / Apollo Sauroktonos standing right, holding laurel branch in right hand, leaning left hand on a tree stump with a lizard climbing up it. H&J 8.18.7.1; Varbanov –. Good VF, brown patina, light roughness.

From Group CEM.

This type takes its inspiration from Praxitiles’ famous “Apollo Sauroktonos”, of which later Roman copies survive. While Apollo also carried the epithet “Smintheos” (“rat-killer), which alluded to his role a destroyer of plagues, the significance of the Apollo as the “lizard killer” is not entirely clear.