GORDIAN III BRONZE AE 28 – ISSUE DEPICTING RIVER GOD ISTROS – AU FINE STYLE NGC GRADED ROMAN PROVINCIAL COIN (Inv. 19009)

$875.00

19009. ROMAN EMPIRE. PROVINCIAL ISSUE OF NICOPOLIS AD ISTRUM, MOESIA, UNDER GORDIAN III, AD 238–244.
Bronze AE28, 12.97 g, 29 mm.
Obv. Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Gordian right. Rev. River god Istros reclining left, leaning on vase from which the waters flow, reed in background.
RPC VII.2 1297; Varbanov 4220.
NGC graded AU, Strike 5/5, Surface 3/5, FINE STYLE, “lt smoothing,” a spectacular specimen struck with great detail.

Already in the 8th or 7th century BC, the Istros (modern Danube) was considered by the Greek poet Hesiod in the Theogony as one of the river gods born from the union of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys and described as possessing beautiful waters. As the largest river of Europe, Istros was sometimes characterized as the king of rivers receiving tribute from many smaller rivers. While on earlier Greek coinages river gods were often represented with the bodies or horns of bulls to represent their rushing waters, by the Roman period they had become fully anthropomorphous and commonly shown, as here, with water flowing from an overturned vase to represent their source.