Dear friends of Apollo Sauroktonos! Apollo Sauroktonos is one of my favourite motives on coins. Here I want to share 2 types with depictions different from the usual presentations of this famous statue. (1) Nikopolis ad Istrum, Macrinus, AD 217-218 AE 27, 13.42g, 26.82mm, 345° struck under governor Marcus Claudius Agrippa obv. AV K OPPEL CE - VH MAKRI NOC laureate head r. rev. [VP AG]RIPPA NIKOPOL - ITWN PROC IC in l. and middle field TR - W Apollo Sauroktonos, nude, with crossed legs, l. leg set behind r. leg, stg. r., l. hand resting on tree-stump, in bent r. hand holding branch with which he touches the tree ref. a) AMNG I/1, 1687, pl. XIV, 35 (5 ex.) b) Varbanov (engl.) 3372 c) Hristova/Hoeft/Jekov (2018) No. 8.23.7.2 (same dies) d) Pat Lawrence obv. M, no.10 (gap between I and N on obv. not mentioned) VF, dark green patina Pick writes:"the left on a tree-stump from which a lizard(?) is jumping to him." But on this coin it is rather a branch with small round fruits. Pat Lawrence (in 'The Pontianus and Agrippa Dies for Macrinus and Diadumenianus at Nicopolis ad Istrum"): Apollo Sauroktonos, so labeled by Pick (and Taf. XIV, 35) and earlier, though Postolakas at Athens: Achilles Postolakas, Catalogue of the Ancient Coins of Regions, Nations, Cities and Kingdoms, National Numismatic Museum, 1872, no.847, is at pains to describe what he sees: "...to one side and the other of Apollo, naked, stg. r., bending his l. knee, having his head laureate and holding with his r. hand a twig (or branch) slanting downwards, placing his raised l. hand on the little tree, stripped of its branches, stand in front of him." He, too, doubted wether we may read the elements between Apollo's torso and the tree trunk as a leaping lizard. (2) Philippopolis, Faustina jun., AD 145-176 AE 26, 7.74g obv. FAVCTEINA - CEBACTH bust, draped, r.; hair in three horizontal waves and bun behind rev. FILI - PPOP - O - LEITWN Apollo, nude, stg. r. with crossed legs, leaning with l. hand on oblique column with quiver at base, holding arrow in r. hand Ref. Mionnet Suppl.2, 1491 (from CoinArchives) Rare, VF A beautiful variation! Best regards
Two beautiful coins @Jochen. Too bad it's not a leaping lizard. Looking at it with squinted eyes, I think it might be a lizard.
Wonderful coins Jochen! Although, I must say the wistful part of me wishes for that branch to be a lizard.
If it would be a lizard than we would have the nice situation that the lizard jumps against his killer! jochen
From the detail I see, it could as well be the lizard held by the tail jumping back to the tree from which he has been plucked. I wish I knew the reasons behind all the variations with/without darts and foot positions. The coins were supposed to copy an original but it appears there was a series of related poses. My favorite is the one that matches the Louvre statue (a Roman copy from the lost original. I feel certain Nikopolis had at least one copy of the statue, perhaps more. This Geta also has the largest lizard (~chest to knee?) I have seen in proportion to the boy.
That's what it looks like to me, or that he's grabbed the lizard by the tail and it is trying to hold on to the tree with its front legs, or they just slipped off the tree.
The Apollo Sauroktonos was a famous statue by Praxiteles. There is only one ancient copy of an Apollo killing reptile statue that survives the millennia -- in the Cleveland Museum.
