429, Lot: 293. Estimate $200. Sold for $550. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

EGYPT, Alexandria. Lucius Verus. AD 161-169. Æ Drachm (32.2mm, 26.61 g, 1h). Dated RY 9 (AD 168/169). Laureate bust right, slight drapery / Semasia on horseback riding left, wearing elephant skin headdress and holding palm frond and reins; CHMACIA below, L ЄNA [TOV] (date) around. Köln –; Dattari (Savio) 9508; K&G 39.202 var. (obv. bust type); Emmett 2433.9 (R5). VF, brown surfaces with touches of red, a bit of roughness. Rare type, and extremely rare for this regnal year.

Σημείον means ‘signal,’ as σημεία is a military standard, which signals the location of an army. Semasia, therefore, is the herald that brings news of a military triumph – in this case the news that the Parthians had been routed by the Roman army, losing Seleuceia and Ctesiphon in the wake of the Armenian War. This very rare and interesting depiction of Semasia also occurs on Alexandrian drachms of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina Junior, further recanting the military exploits during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.