306, Lot: 303. Estimate $200. Sold for $280. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

JUDAEA, Herodians. Agrippa I, with Caligula. 37-43 CE. Æ (28mm, 13.45 g, 1h). Caesarea Maritima mint. Dated RY 7 or 8 (42/3 or 43/4 CE). Laureate head of Caligula right / Two figures standing facing one another, each holding patera; below, [figure kneeling left]; behind, torso of figure; all within distyle temple with [date] in pediment. A. Burnett, “The coinage of King Agrippa I of Judaea and a new coin of King Herod of Chalcis,” Mélanges Bastien10 or Meshorer 121 or 125; Hendin 1245 or 1249; RPC I 4983 or 4984. Near Fine, green patina, heavy encrustation. Rare.

Agrippa had a close relationship with both Gaius (Caligula) and Claudius, in part helping to secure the rule of the latter in the uncertain days following his unexpected rise to the purple by counseling the understandably shaken Claudius and entreating the Senate to support him. Indeed, his relationship with Claudius was sufficiently close that Josephus (Ant. xix. 5.1) records that among the new emperor’s first acts was the publication of an edict guaranteeing Agrippa’s kingdom (with the title “great king”) and granting the territory of Chalcis to Agrippa’s elder brother Herod.

Burnett believed the scene on the reverse represented the consecration of this treaty in Rome, a treaty which is specifically mentioned by Josephus (He also made a league with this Agrippa, confirmed by oaths, in the middle of the Forum in the city of Rome. [Jospehus, Ant. xix.5.1]). Although Suetonius (Suetonius, Claud. 25.5) also places the rites of the treaty (or fetial ceremony), which included the sacrifice of a pig, in the Roman Forum, Burnett argued that they instead took place at the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Following Burnett’s interesting argument, this rare Judaean bronze not only represents a religious ceremony before the holiest temple of Rome, but accurately depicts a victimarius (sacrificial assistant) about to kill a pig.