| Roma Numismatics Ltd > Auction XXX | Auction date: 21 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 406 Price realized: 3,800 GBP (Approx. 4,814 USD / 4,432 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Divus Julius Caesar AR Denarius. Rome, 40 BC. Q. Voconius Vitulus, moneyer. Laureate head to right; DIVI•IVLI downwards before, lituus behind / Bull-calf walking to left; Q•VOCONIVS above, VITVLVS in exergue. Crawford 526/2; CRI 329; Sydenham 1132; BMCRR Rome 4308-10; RSC 46. 3.95g, 20mm, 10h. Extremely Fine; a bold portrait of Caesar. Ex Walter Luckhardt Collection, Dr. Busso Peus Nachfolger, Auction 433, 1 November 2022, lot 1431; Previously acquired from Santamaria, Rome, in 1940. In 40 BC when this coin was struck, upon learning of the defeat of his brother Lucius and wife Fulvia in the Perusine War, Marc Antony set sail for Italy with a small army and two hundred ships which he had built in Asia. Arriving at Athens, Antony was met by his wife Fulvia and his mother Julia, who had taken refuge with Sextus and been sent by him with warships from Sicily. She was accompanied by some leading Pompeians whose aim was to bring Antony and Sextus into alliance against Octavian. Antony's response to the embassy was to offer alliance in case of war and reconciliation in case of peace, suggesting that Antony believed that a lasting partnership with Octavian was still possible. These new lines of communication with Sextus provided an avenue by which former supporters of the liberators could find their way back from exile; the most prominent of these was Ahenobarbus, who met Antony at sea with his whole army and fleet; this combined force moved together to Brundisium, but was refused entry to the harbour by Octavian's commander. Despite initially laying siege to Brundisium, the triumvirs were able to negotiate a settlement that provided for a continued peace between them. The Treaty of Brundisium confirmed the de facto state of affairs, while further binding Octavian and Antony through the ill-fated marriage of Octavian's sister Octavia to Antony. Antony furthermore received legions for his planned invasion of Parthia and Octavian received warships to counter the ongoing threat posed by Sextus Pompey. This denarius depicts the now deified Caesar on the obverse with a lituus, an augur's staff representing his membership to the priestly college of augurs. Octavian's possession of the augurship was also made clear on an issue with his portrait struck by the same moneyer (CRI 330) emphasising his relationship to Caesar, a propaganda tool also employed by Marc Antony (see CRI 253-5, 257-8). It is well attested how Octavian capitalised tremendously on his posthumous adoption by Caesar; in truth he owed everything he eventually achieved to this twist of fate. Octavian used Caesar's reflected but undimmed prestige to legitimise himself and his ascent to power in the eyes of the Roman people and more importantly the legions, and thus the continuation of (often idealised) Caesar portrait issues at the Roman mint under Octavian's control is hardly surprising. This denarius, struck by Q. Voconius Vitulus, a partisan of Octavian of whom nothing else is known, features a purely personal reverse type with a punning allusion to his cognomen which translates as cow or calf. It was to be one of the last within the long tradition of the college of moneyers stretching back almost two and a half centuries, for the institution was abolished by the Triumvirate and state coinage placed under the direct control of the either the eastern of western Triumvir. Estimate: 3000 GBP |  |
Match 1:
| Roma Numismatics Ltd > Auction XXX | Auction date: 21 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 396 Price realized: 10,000 GBP (Approx. 12,668 USD / 11,663 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Julius Caesar AR Denarius. Rome, 43 BC. L. Flaminius Chilo, moneyer. Wreathed head of Caesar to right / Goddess (Pax or Venus?) standing to left, holding caduceus and sceptre; L • FLAMINIVS downward to right, IIII • VIR upward to left. Crawford 485/1; CRI 113; BMCRR Rome 4201-2; RSC 26. 3.78g, 19mm, 8h. Good Extremely Fine; attractive cabinet tone, a wonderful portrait of Caesar. This coin published in Richard Schaefer's Roman Republican Die Project (RRDP), binder 12, p. 14, available online at: http://numismatics.org/archives/ark:/53695/schaefer.rrdp.b12#schaefer.rrdp.b12_0024; Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XXIII, 24 March 2022, lot 769 (hammer: GBP 10,000); Ex Viggo Collection, Classical Numismatic Group, Triton XXII, 8 January 2019, lot 946; Ex JD Collection of Roman Republican Coins, Numismatica Ars Classica, Auction 72, 16 May 2013, lot 494; Ex Numismatica Aretusa, Auction 2, 13 May 1994, lot 294. In the years of his supremacy, Caesar had amassed unprecedented power by corrupting the institutions of the old Republic to his own requirements. First appointed Dictator in 49 BC by the Praetor (and future Triumvir) Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, possibly in order to preside over elections, Caesar resigned his Dictatorship within eleven days but in 48 BC he was appointed Dictator again, only this time for an indefinite period, and was also given permanent tribunician powers making his person sacrosanct and allowing him to veto the Senate. In 46 BC he was appointed Dictator for ten years, and he gave himself quasi-censorial powers under the mantle of 'Prefect of the Morals', enabling him to fill the Senate with his partisans who duly voted him the titles of Pater Patriae and Imperator. He increased the number of magistrates who were elected each year, thus allowing him to reward his supporters, and in October 45 BC, having served in the unconstitutional role of Sole Consul for that year, Caesar resigned his consulship and facilitated the election of two successors for the remainder of the year - theoretically restoring the ordinary consulship, but in practice submitting the Consuls to the Dictatorial executive - a practice that later become common under the empire. In February 44 BC, one month before his assassination, Caesar was appointed Dictator for life. More followed; he was given the unprecedented honour of having his own likeness placed upon the Roman coinage, his statue was placed next to those of the kings, he was granted a golden chair in the Senate, and was permitted to wear triumphal dress whenever he chose. Then, at the festival of the Lupercal, Marc Antony presented Caesar with a royal diadem, and attempted to place it on his head. Yet for all these hideous affronts to the ancient institutions of the Republic and the sensibilities of the Roman people, perhaps his most egregious reform was the law he passed in preparation for his planned campaign against the Parthian Empire. Realising that his absence from Rome would impede his ability to install his own men in positions of power and that therefore his back would be exposed while away from the city, Caesar decreed that he would have the right to appoint all magistrates in 43 BC, and all consuls and tribunes in 42 BC, thus at a stroke transforming the magistrates from being representatives of the people to being representatives of the dictator. Struck after Caesar's assassination, this coin marks a departure from the portraiture on the coinage minted during his lifetime. Rather than the veiled head of Caesar the dictator, depicted instead is the wreathed head of the soon-to-be deified adoptive father of Octavian. This depiction of Caesar by Flaminius Chilo appears to be heavily influenced by Octavian's concerted attempts in the aftermath of Caesar's death to rehabilitate his image in the eyes of many of those at Rome who had developed concerns surrounding his increasing power and also, perhaps more cynically, to reinforce Octavian's own legitimacy as his heir. Estimate: 8000 GBP |  |
Match 2:
| Roma Numismatics Ltd > Auction XXX | Auction date: 21 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 405 Price realized: 2,800 GBP (Approx. 3,547 USD / 3,266 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: C. Numonius Vaala AR Denarius. Rome, 41 BC. Bare head of Numonius Vaala to right; C•NVMONIVS downwards before, VAALA upwards behind / Soldier advancing to left, holding sword and shield, attacking vallum defended by [two soldiers]; VAALA in exergue. Crawford 514/2; CRI 322; BMCRR Rome 4216; Sydenham 1087; RSC Numonia 2. 2.90g, 18mm, 10h. Near Mint State; a striking portrait accentuated by hints of golden iridescence. Ex Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG, Auction 280, 26 September 2016, lot 392. The reverse type no doubt depicts the deeds of an ancestor which resulted in the cognomen Vaala. The first soldier to breach the enemy rampart (vallum) was awarded the corona vallaris. The details of this particular instance are not known to history. Estimate: 2500 GBP |  |
Match 3:
| Roma Numismatics Ltd > E-Sale 119 | Auction date: 24 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 1293 Price realized: 65 GBP (Approx. 81 USD / 76 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Q. Cassius Longinus AR Denarius. Rome, 55 BC. Head of Libertas to right; LIBERT upwards behind, Q•CASSIVS downwards before / Curule chair within temple of Vesta; urn to left, voting tablet inscribed AC (Absolvo Condemno) to right. Crawford 428/2; BMCRR Rome 3873; RSC Cassia 8. 3.46g, 20mm, 2h. Good Very Fine; unobtrusive scratches to obv. Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., E-Sale 38, 29 July 2017, lot 460. Estimate: 50 GBP |  |
Match 4:
| Roma Numismatics Ltd > E-Sale 119 | Auction date: 24 April 2024 |
| Lot number: 1306 Price realized: 400 GBP (Approx. 497 USD / 465 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: Julius Caesar AR Denarius. Rome, January - February 44 BC. L. Aemilius Buca, moneyer. Laureate head to right; CAESAR•IM before, P M and crescent behind / Venus Victrix standing to left, holding Victory in outstretched right hand and leaning on sceptre with left; L•AEMILIVS behind, BVCA before. Crawford 480/4; CRI 102; BMCRR Rome 4152-3; RSC 22. 3.35g, 19mm, 8h. Near Very Fine; uneven surface resulting from impurities in the metal. Reportedly acquired from Áureo & Calicó. Estimate: 100 GBP |  |
Match 5:
| Roma Numismatics Ltd > Auction XXX | Auction date: 21 March 2024 |
| Lot number: 374 Price realized: 140 GBP (Approx. 177 USD / 163 EUR) Note: Prices do not include buyer's fees. | |
| Lot description: L. Julius Bursio AR Denarius. Rome, 85 BC. Male head to right, with attributes of Apollo, Mercury and Neptune; plough (control symbol) behind / Victory driving quadriga to right, holding reins and wreath; ⊥XXX above horses, L•IVLI•BVRS[IO] in exergue. Crawford 352/1c; De Ruyter obv. die 166; BMCRR Rome 2508 ff. var. (control symbol and number); RSC Julia 5a. 4.24g, 20mm, 11h. Near Mint State; sharp details, pleasant old cabinet tone. Ex LNB Collection of J Bursio Denarii, Roma Numismatics Ltd., E-Live Auction 6, 25 March 2023, lot 615. Ex Fritz Rudolf Künker GmbH & Co. KG, Auction 257, 10 October 2014, lot 8398; Ex Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung, Auction 176, 10 March 2009, lot 1861. Estimate: 150 GBP |  |
