SYRIA, Seleucis and Pieria. Emesa. Caracalla, 198-217. Octassarion (Bronze, 31 mm, 21.79 g, 6 h), SE 527 = 215/6. AVT K M A[YP ANTΩNINOC CЄB] Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust of Caracalla to right, seen from behind. Rev. ЄMЄCΩN KOΛΩNIAC / ZKΦ Three quarter perspective of the hexastyle temple of El-Gebal with facade to the right. BMC -. CNG E-Auction 395 (2017), 292. Cf. Mionnet, Suppl. V, pg. 229, 606 var. (differing reverse legend). Cf. Price & Trell 299 var. (same). SNG Copenhagen -. SNG München -, cf. 818 (differing reverse legend and temple facing left). Extremely rare, apparently the second known example. Old scratch on the reverse with minor pitting and some deposits, otherwise, fine.


Ilah el-Gabal ('the god/deity of the mountain'), who we better known by his latinized name Elagabalus, was a Syro-roman sun god worshipped in the form of a baetyl in Emesa, and the religious ba'al or 'lord' of the city. After the dissolution of the Seleukid Kingdom of Syria by Pompey in 64 BC, the Romans aknowldegded the local dynasty of hereditary priests of el-Gebal as semi-autonomous rulers of Emesa. In 218, under Caracalla's successor, Macrinus, Sex. Avitus Bassianus, the young priest of el-Gabal, a nephew of Caracalla's, claimed to be an illegitimate son of the deceased emperor and was proclaimed emperor by the Legio III Gallica in Raphanea, thus overthrowing Macrinus. Once in power, Bassianus, whom we know today by his nicknam Elagabalus, the name of his deity, transferred the sacred Stone of Emesa to Rome, where he had a new temple, the Elagabalium, erected to house it. This present coin, on the other hand, shows the god's original temple in Emesa, which most likely constructed in earlier Roman imperial times. Since the baetyl appears again on Emesan coins until the times of Uranius Antoninus, it must have been returned to Emesa after the fall of his most prominent worshipper, the emperor nicknamed after him, Elagabalus.