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Auction Name: 2025 November 6 - 7 World & Ancient Coins Platinum Session and Signature® Auction
Lot Number: 31043
Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/3126*31043
Uranius Antoninus (AD 253-254). BI denarius (18mm, 2.90 gm, 12h). NGC Choice AU 4/5 - 3/5. Emesa. L IVL AVR SVLP VPA ANTONINVS (sic), laureate, draped, and cuirassed bust of Uranius Antoninus right, seen from behind / FECVND-ITAS AVG, Fortuna standing facing, head left, rudder in outstretched right hand, cornucopia cradled in left arm. RIC IV -, cf. 3 and pl. 15, 16 (aureus; same rev. die). Baldus 71 (same rev. die). Baldus, Denare p. 31, E (V VI/R 9 - same dies). The fourth known denarius of Uranius Antoninus. A superb portrait in hand with satiny surfaces.
Baldus published the two known denarii of Uranius Antoninus at the time in Uranius Antoninus, Münzprägung und Geschichte (Bonn, 1971). Another example surfaced since that publication, and now this coin.
Specimen 1: Henri Seyrig Collection, published by Georges le Rider in Bulletin de la Société Française de Numismatique 17/4 (April, 1962); donated to the British Museum in 1962.
Specimen 2: S & S Collection (Triton XXVI, 10 January 2023), lot 816; Leo Benz Collection (Numismatik Lanz, Auction 100, 20 November 2000), lot 331; Bank Leu, Auction 48 (10 May 1989), lot 401.
Specimen 3: Classical Numismatic Group, Auction 96 (14 May 2014), lot 862.
The present, extremely rare denarius of Uranius Antoninus, who had primarily minted aurei and tetradrachms in Emesa, Syria, in addition to city bronzes, shows - as does the other known example of this denomination in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris - that under this usurper, too, gold coin dies were used for denarii, which were presumably distributed as part of an issue for the city's New Year's festival in September/October 253 AD (cf. Baldus, op. cit., p. 33).
L. Iulius Aurelius Sulpicius Severus Uranius Antoninus Sampsigeramus, High Priest of Baal of Emesa and a general under Valerian I, was proclaimed emperor in the summer of AD 253 to repel the Sasanian attack under Shahpur I on the city. He resigned or was deposed after the arrival of Valerian I in Syria in AD 254, and little else is known about him.
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