Lot description:
Julius Caesar AV Aureus
ROMAN REPUBLIC & IMPERATORIAL. Julius Caesar.
Gold Aureus, 46 BC. Rome.
A. Hirtius, praetor. Obv: heiled head of Vesta right, C • CAESAR COS • TER around. Rev: emblems of the augurate and pontificate: lituus, guttus, and securis; A HIRTIVS PR around.
Very Fine; struck on a broad planchet.
From the Euclidean Collection (collector's ticket included).
The present coin was minted as part of the first ever mass issue of aurei in Roman history, an extraordinary issue in response to extraordinary times - the numismatic heart of a wide ranging campaign of persuasion aimed at carrying Caesar through the delicate moment and into a position of confidence at the head of the growing empire.
In July 46 BC Caesar returned to Rome with his hands stained with the blood of the many thousands of Roman citizens who had lost their lives during the various campaigns of the civil war he had initiated in January 49 BC with the crossing of the Rubicon; the African campaign he had just completed, for instance, had seen the suicide of two great Republican heroes, Metellus Scipio and Cato the Younger, a big blow to the image of a man who took great pride in his periodic exercising of 'clementia' (clemency). He had been away on the warpath for the better part of the last two decades, but now, with the Pompeians largely quelled, the task at hand was to establish himself as a statesman and peacetime ruler of the city he had won by the sword.
The line he walked was a tight one, and coins such as the present are a fascinating manifestation of the strategy he adopted. It would appear that the issue was paid for at least partly by his mass sell-offs of confiscated Pompeian assets, sold at prices that disappointed his allies who had hoped to pick them up cheaply as a reward for their service. The lower standard of the issue in comparison to the typically high quality of the Capitoline mint suggests a hurried minting; it seems it was rushed to cover the huge expenses Caesar was racking up as he sought to consolidate his position in Rome, as he bought the continuing loyalty of his soldiers with donatives that were the equivalent of over sixteen years wages, hosted games and banquets, and celebrated his 'Quadruple Triumph', commemorating his victories as proconsul in Gaul (58-51 BC), over Ptolemy XIII of Egypt (47 BC), Pharnaces of Pontus (47 BC) and Juba of Numidia (in the recent African campaign, slyly casting this awkward slaughter of fellow Romans as a noble war fought against a foreign enemy).
Contrasting with this ostentatious aggrandisement of the man as military triumphator, however, is the alternative image of himself that Caesar attempted to project at the same time: that of a man of peaceable, civic virtue as well as one with great respect for the ancestral customs and traditions of the ancient city and an authentic feeling of responsibility for the duties placed on him as essentially another, if highly privileged, member of the Republican elite. Hence, with the present coin, we witness types that referenced not his martial achievements - which we might have expected at this moment of unprecedented triumph - but rather the religious roles he fulfilled at the time: the lituus of an augur as well as the guttus and securis of the pontifices, of which Caesar had been the head since 63 BC, combined with what is most likely a depiction of Vesta, whose rites were within the remit of Caesar as Pontifex Maximus. This inclusion of Vesta is significant: as goddess of the hearth, the symbolic centre of peaceful family life, she was in many ways the antithesis of the civil bloodlust that had decimated Roman families under Caesar's watch for the past few years.
In the short period that followed, Caesar's strategy was validated and his supreme status ratified by his declaration as 'dictator' for ten years, and he set about statesmanlike on a wide system of reforms which famously included the creation of the Julian Calendar, beginning on the 1st January 45 BC after the insertion of two extra months between November and December 46 BC, correcting a situation wherein the months had come out of alignment with their customary seasons.
Reference: CRI-56; Crawford-466/1; BMCRR-4050; Calicó-37; Babelon-(Hirtia) 1, (Julia) 22.
Weight: 8.00g.
Diameter: 21mm.
Die Axis: 5h.
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Estimate: 5000 GBP |  |