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Æ21 - Marcus Aurelius ϹΚΗΨΙΩΝ ΔΑΡ

Issuer Scepsis (Conventus of Adramyteum)
Year 169-176
Type Standard circulation coin
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Reverse description Youthful Dionysus standing in contrapposto pose facing left, nude or lightly draped, extending a cantharus (wine cup) in his right hand downward toward a panther at his feet, while his left hand holds a thyrsus (the fennel-stalk staff of the god) upright at his side. The figure is rendered in the Hellenistic tradition appropriate to a civic coinage of the Troad. The encircling Greek legend naming the issuing city, ϹΚΗΨΙΩΝ, with the abbreviated ethnic ΔΑΡ, appears in the field around the reverse type.
Reverse script Greek
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Additional information

Scepsis was an ancient Troad city with a peculiar claim to fame: according to Strabo, the library of Aristotle was hidden there by his student Neleus, buried in a pit to prevent its seizure by the Attalid kings of Pergamon, where it sat deteriorating for roughly two centuries before being rediscovered and eventually acquired by the bibliophile Apellicon of Teos. The city's coinage under Marcus Aurelius falls within his co-reign with Lucius Verus and the catastrophic Antonine Plague, which was actively depopulating Asia Minor's urban centers during precisely these years.

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