Freeman & Sear - Gemini I, Session 2, Lot: 404

Caracalla. AD 198-217. AE 52 mm Orichalcum medallion (52.86 gm)
of Hadrianothera, Mysia. Strategos Moschianos.

AVTOKPAT K MAPKOC ANTWNEINOC, laureate, cuirassed bust 
right, seen from front, Medusa head on cuirass, fold of 
cloak on left shoulder.
EPI CTR AVP ATTALOV MOCXIANOV ADPIANOQHPEITWN, TO B E A in
fields, Caracalla in military dress standing left, holding 
spear in left hand, clasping right hands with Aesculapius who 
holds serpent-entwined staff, and crowned from behind by Tyche, 
polos on head and holding cornucopiae. 

Lanz, Munich 114, 26 May 2003, lot 508 (this coin). Peus 366 
(Burstein Collection), 25 October 2000, lot 584 (same obverse 
die). Otherwise unpublished. Second known specimen, and 
far better preserved that the other. 

Aurelios Attalos Moschianos named on this coin as strategos for 
the second time is presumably the same man as the strategos 
Moschianos mentioned on coins of Caracalla Augustus ca. AD 200 
in one of the issues under Septimius. In AD 214, Caracalla, 
on his way to Syria for a Parthian campaign, stopped at the 
famous temple of Aesculapius in Pergamum, another Mysian 
city. Our gigantic medallion would seem to indicate his 
visit to a temple of Aesculapius in Hadrianothera, too, during 
the same journey. 
For the coinage of Hadrianothera, see von Fritze in AMNG 
IV/1, pp. 194-208 and SNG von Aulock 1145-1161. 
Estimated Value: $ 5,750 
...Lot was unsold.
 
Gemini I Auction Closed Jan 11-12, 2005. 

Re-used by permission of Freeman & Sear (www.freemanandsear.com) 
and Harlan J Berk (www.harlanjberk.com).