318, Lot: 427. Estimate $300. Sold for $1700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CARIA, Stratonicaea. Caracalla, with Plautilla. AD 198-217. Æ (38mm, 21.22 g, 6h). Claudius Dionysus, prytanis for the second time. Struck AD 202-203. AVP A–ИT KAI ΘЄ C–ЄB ИЄ ΠΛAUTIΛΛA[И], confronted busts of Caracalla right, laureate, draped, and cuirassed, and Plautilla left, draped and wearing stephane; c/m: laureate and draped bust right within oval incuse and ΘEOV within rectangular incuse / CTPATONЄIKЄΩИ Є–ΠI TΩИ ΠЄPT [B KΛ ΔIONV]CIOИ, Zeus Panamaros on horseback right, holding scepter; altar to right. Karl 302 (same dies); for c/m: Howgego 84. VF, dark green patina, cleaning marks around the devices on obverse. Unusually clear legends.

Large bronze issues of the Carian cities of Alinda, Alabanda, and Stratonicea proclaim Plautilla to be a “new goddess” after her marriage to Caracalla, sometimes overtly referring to her as Hera. As Ken Harl notes (Civic Coins and Civic Politics in the Roman East: A.D. 180-275 [Berkeley, CA: University of California Press], p. 41): “By implication, Caracalla was envisioned as a youthful Zeus, so that the imperial marriage became a symbolic reenactment of the celestial one.”