AUGUSTUS SILVER TETRADRACHM – 5 BC ISSUE REGARDED BY SOME AS CHRIST’S BIRTH YEAR – CHOICE VF NGC GRADED ROMAN PROVINCIAL COIN (Inv. 18207)

$1,500.00

18207. ROMAN EMPIRE. AUGUSTUS, 27 BC–AD 14. PROVINCIAL ISSUE OF ANTIOCH.
Silver Tetradrachm, 27 mm. Issue of year 26 (Actian era) with consular date XII (5 BC).
Obv. KAIΣAPOΣ ΣEBAΣTOY, laureate head of Augustus right. Rev. ETOYΣ ΝΙΚΗΣ, Tyche seated right on rocky outcropping, holding palm, river god Orontes swimming to right, SK (Actian Era date = 26) above; in right field, IB (consular date = XII) above civic monogram (ANTIOXIEΩN?).
Prieur 50; RPC 4151; McAlee 180.
NGC graded CHOICE VF.

The Actian Era year 26 (6/5 BC) date of this coin has also been proposed as a contender for the year of Jesus’ birth based on the dating of the death of Herod the Great in March 4 BC (i.e., in Actian Era year 27 [5/4 BC]). It is assumed that the Slaughter of the Innocents is not likely to have taken place while Herod was increasingly incapacitated and dying from a terrible putrefying disease thought by many of his contemporaries to have been a divine punishment for the violent and pro–Roman character of his reign.