Ex Boyd Collection

438, Lot: 560. Estimate $200. Sold for $500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Philip I. AD 244-249. Æ Sestertius (29mm, 17.23 g, 7h). Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) issue, commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Rome. Rome mint, 5th officina. 10th emission, AD 249. IMP M IVL PHILIPPVS AVG, laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust right / MILIARIVM SAECVLVM, S C across field, cippus inscribed COS/III in two lines. RIC IV 157a; Banti 24. VF, green-brown patina.

Ex CNG Inventory 160185 (December 2005); William C. Boyd Collection (Baldwin’s 42, 26 September 2005), lot 584 (part of), with his ticket (numbered 98), purchased from A.H. Baldwin, April 1893.

Continuing the tradition of Claudius and Antoninus Pius before him, the celebration of the Secular Games at the end of every century since the founding of Rome culminated during the reign of Philip I, as the city celebrated her 1,000th anniversary in AD 248. The legends on these issues frequently read Saeculares Augg, and feature a similar iconography from previous games, such as the she-wolf suckling the twins, the various wild beasts paraded through the amphitheater, and a cippus inscribed for the preservation of the memory of these events.