Antoninus Pius Æ Drachm of Alexandria, Egypt. Dated RY 8 = AD 144/5. AYT K T AIΛ A∆P ANTѠNЄINOC CЄB ЄYC, laureate head to right / Jugate busts of Sarapis and Isis to left within two Zodiac wheels, reading anticlockwise with Aries at the top, each sign coinciding. RPC IV.4 Online 15279 (temporary); BMC 1078; Dattari (Savio) 2984 (same obv. die); Staffieri, Alexandria In Nummis 145; Emmett 1708.8. 23.50g, 33mm, 12h.

Good Very Fine; lightly smoothed and tooled. Extremely Rare; five examples known to RPC, only two of which have been offered at auction in the last 20 years and both were not as attractive as this current example.

From the inventory of a UK dealer.

This attractive drachm was minted in Alexandria some years after the advent of the new Great Sothic Cycle, a cosmological event of heavenly realignment celebrated by Egyptians in a five-day festival, highlighting the importance of astrology to Egyptian society and culture. The bronze zodiac series issued by Antoninus Pius in AD 144/5 includes a sequence of types combining astrological signs with Roman deities as well as the extremely rare types featuring the zodiac wheel, including this particular issue with a double wheel of the twelve zodiac signs encircling jugate busts of the Egyptian gods Sarapis and Isis. Geissen’s connection of Antoninus’ Alexandrian nome coins to the marriage of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger in AD 145 suggests this series too may celebrate this union, which provided the empire with a secure succession, and thus promised the dawn of a new golden age, blessed by the heavens (2005, pp.167-70).