GORDIAN III BRONZE MEDALLION – ANCHIALUS ISSUE WITH HERACLES DEFEATING THE CERYNEIAN HIND PUBLISHED IN VARBANOV – EF ROMAN PROVINCIAL COIN WITH MYTHOLOGICAL THEME (Inv. 18839)

$5,000.00

FPL V, 75 (18839). ROMAN EMPIRE. PROVINCIAL ISSUE OF ANCHIALUS, PHRYGIA, UNDER GORDIAN III, AD 238-244.
Bronze medallion, 35.55 g, 37 mm.
Obv. Laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust left, holding spear and shield decorated with eagle. Rev. Heracles and the Ceryneian Hind – Heracles standing left, grasping the antlers of the Ceryneian Hind with both hands and leaning on the animal’s back with his right knee.
RPC VII.2 1100 (with 10 specimens listed on RPC Online, this coin being no. 6); Yanislav Tachev, The Coinage of Аnchialos (Sofia, 2018), p. 626, pl. 128, no. 14 (this coin illustrated); AMNG II 622; Varbanov 639; Voegtli, Bilder der Heldenepen in der kaiserzeitlichen griechischen Munzprägung, Type 3j.
Ex Southern Collector; ex Benito Collection, CNG 114, 5/13/2020, lot 502 = Gemini III, 1/9/2007, lot 433.
Near EF, dark olive-green patina under lacquering, with some repatination, smoothing and minor tooling; a rare type, one of only 10 specimens cited by RPC (ineligible for encapsulation).

The Third Labor imposed on Heracles by King Eurystheus of Tiryns was the capture of the Ceryneian Hind – a golden-horned and fire-breathing deer the size of a bull that roamed along the banks of the River Cerynites in Achaea. This was a tricky labor for Heracles because he could not simply kill the animal, which was sacred to Artemis, but had to bring it back alive. After hunting the Ceryneian Hind for a year, Heracles finally captured it, either by throwing a net over it while the animal slept (Diod. 4.13) or by wounding it with an arrow as it crossed the River Ladon (Apollodorus 2.5.3-4). This coin of Anchialus seems to preserve an alternate version of the labor that is not mentioned by the ancient literary sources. Here Heracles grasps the hind by the antlers and forces it into submission with his knee placed firmly on the animal’s back. His need to bring it in alive is underlined by the placement of his club on the ground.