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Auction: 5014 - The Coinex Sale
Lot: 391

Sextus Pompey (executed 35 B.C.), AR Denarius, 3.92g, Sicily, 42-40 B.C., [mag piv]s imp iter, bare head of Pompey the Great right between jug and lituus, rev., [praef] clas et orae marit ex s c, Neptune standing left, holding aplustre and resting right foot on prow, between the Catanaean brothers Anapias and Amphinomus, each bearing one of his parents on his shoulders (Cr. 511/3a; RCV 1392), attractive toning, good very fine, very realistic and lively portrait Estimate £ 1,200-1,600The two brothers of Catana had saved their parents during the eruption of Mount Etna (Strabo, Geography, VI, 2.3). This subject had been used already on a denarius of M. Herrenius (RCV 185), but it is interesting here to find it on a coin struck in Sicily. While the elder son of Pompey the Great, Gnaeus Pompey Junior, had been executed in 45 B.C., his younger son Sextus Pompey survived until 35 B.C. when he was captured in Asia Minor and executed by a general of Mark Antony´s (he had been defeated by Marcus Agrippa at Naulochus the preceding year). This coin is then a rare homage to his late father (murdered 48 B.C.), and an attractive reminder of Sextus Pompey´s role as Prefect of the Fleet.

Sold for
£1,600