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The Collection of Roman Republican Coins of a Student and his Mentor Part III

M. Junius Brutus with L. Plaetorius Cestianus. Plated Denarius, Northern Greece circa 43-42, AR 3.42 g. BRVT IMP L·PLAET·CEST Head of Brutus r. Rev. EID·MAR Pileus between two daggers. Babelon Junia 52 and Plaetoria 13. C 15. Sydenham 1301. Sear Imperators 216. Kent-Hirmer pl. 27, 98. Cahn, EIDibus MARtiis, Q. Tic. 18, 1989, 29a (this coin). Crawford 508/3.
Very rare and an issue of great historical importance and fascination.
Old cabinet tone and about extremely fine / good very fine
Ex Sternberg sale XV, 1985, 297.Perhaps no coin of antiquity is as familiar, or as important, as the 'eid mar' denarius of Brutus: its dagger-flanked liberty cap and explicit inscription are a simple and direct monument of one of the great moments in western history. So remarkable is the type that it elicited commentary from an ancient historian Dio Cassius (XLVII.25). The murder of the dictator Julius Caesar in the Senate House on the Ides of March, 44 B.C., is one of the major turning points in western history. It is impossible to know how history would have changed had Caesar not been murdered on that day, but the prospect certainly taxes one's imagination. The designs are worth visiting in detail. The reverse testifies to the murder of Caesar by naming the date, by showing daggers as the instruments of delivery, and by showcasing the pileus, or freedman's cap, as the fruit of the assassins' undertaking. Though dozens of men were involved in the plot against Caesar, all are represented by only two daggers – a clear allusion to Brutus and Cassius as leaders of the coup and, subsequently, of the armed opposition to Antony and Octavian. Caesar was a populist, and an opportunist, bent upon dismantling the traditional arrangement of senatorial authority, which was based on the concentration of power within the hands of the ancient and elite families. In the minds of Brutus and his fellow conspirators, this was a struggle to maintain their traditional hold on power, and with that aim they struck down Caesar. This class struggle was couched in the terms of the ancient form of Republican government, and of Rome's hatred for kings and autocrats; thus it comes as no surprise that the two daggers – indeed the two leaders Brutus and Cassius – follow the twin-symmetry of the two consuls, and even of Castor and Pollux, the mythical saviours of Rome. The portrait is also of great interest and importance. The only securely identifiable portraits of Brutus occur on coins naming him imperator: the 'eid mar' denarii of Plaetorius Cestianus and the aurei of Servilius Casca and Pedanius Costa. Indeed, all other portraits on coins or other media are identified based upon these three issues, inscribed BRVTVS IMP on the aurei, and BRVT IMP on the denarii. Careful study has been made of the 'eid mar' series from the numismatic perspective by H. A. Cahn, and from the art-historical view by S. Nodelman. The latter has convincingly divided Brutus' inscribed coin portraits into three main categories: a 'baroque' style portrait on the aurei of his co-conspirator Casca, a 'neoclassical' style on the aurei of his legatus Costa, and a 'realistic' style on the 'eid mar' denarii of Cestianus. Nodelman describes the 'eid mar' portraits as "the soberest and most precise" of all. Further, he divides the 'eid mar' portraits into two distinct categories – 'plastic' and 'linear' – and suggests both were derived from the same sculptural prototype.