451, Lot: 279. Estimate $150. Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

SELEUCIS and PIERIA, Antioch. Nero. AD 54-68. AR Tetradrachm (25.5mm, 14.94 g, 12h). Dated RY 6 and Year 108 of the Caesarean Era (AD 59/60). Laureate, beardless bust right, wearing aegis / Eagle standing left, wings spread, on thunderbolt; palm branch to left, ς above HP (dates) to right. Prieur 79; McAlee 256a; RPC I 4180. Toned, a few light marks, small metal flaw on reverse. VF. Nice metal.

From the Michel Prieur Collection. Ex Gorny & Mosch 130 (8 March 2004), lot 1906.

Prieur notes in his book (p. 13): “This is the first coin where a palm-branch appears in the field. We have noted in our introduction to Antioch that it was a religious symbol linked to rites of aspersion. The suppression of the Tyche, which bore the palm in hand, does not make the palm disappear; it must have had a meaning in itself.”