Obolos 16

CAPPADOCIA. Caesaraea-Eusebia. Elagabalus, 218-222. (Bronze, 27 mm, 12.88 g, 12 h), year 3 = 221-222. ΑΥΤ Κ Μ ΑΥΡΕΛΙΟC ΑΝΤωΝЄΙΝ Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Elagabalus to right. Rev. ΜΗΤΡΟΠ ΚΑΙCΑΡΙ Statue of Helion standing atop agalma of Mt. Argaeus set on altar or platform inscribed ЄT Γ. Cf. Sydenham 522a. Henseler 700g-h var. (legends). Dark brown patina; well centered with an excellent portrait. Nearly extremely fine.

Until recently the single most useful reference work on the Roman coinage of Caesarea was Sydenham's 1933 The Coinage of Caesarea in Cappadocia , but it is very much outdated. Alex Malloy reprinted the work in 1978, adding a most useful supplement listing hundreds of new varieties based principally on the collection of Peter Burbules, yet even the reprint still lacks so much that it is more common for a cataloguer to not find a precise variety in Sydenham than it is for him to find it. Once the series Roman Provincial Coinage (RPC) is completed it will certainly alleviate these lacunae within the corpus of known varieties, but that unfortunately appears to be still many years away. Luckily enough, only two years ago, the Henseler collection catalogued by T. Ganschow was published, which includes almost all known varieties of Caesarea. Our example is unfortunately not among the varieties published.