Watch List notes:

Roman Republican Coins

Julius Caesar and L. Flaminius Chilo. Denarius 43, AR 3.82 g. Laureate head of Caesar r. Rev. L·FLAMINIVS – IIII VIR Goddess standing l., holding caduceus in r. hand and sceptre in l. Babelon Julia 44 and Flaminia 3. C 26. Sydenham 1089. Sear Imperators 113. RBW –. Crawford 485/1.
Very rare. One of the finest, if not the best, portrait of Julius Caesar, and the work of an
incredibly skilled engraver. Struck on a very broad flan and with a spectacular
old cabinet tone, almost invisible banker's mark,
otherwise good extremely fine
Few portraits of Julius Caesar are as well-executed as those on this issue of 43 B.C. by the moneyer L. Flaminius Chilo. It is obvious even to the untrained eye that special care was taken in the engraving of Caesar's portrait. This must have involved considerable effort, especially since the earlier Caesar portraits of 44 B.C. often are of such poor quality. The demands that such an improvement in artistry would have placed on the engravers at the Rome mint likely were difficult to meet. For this reason, it is suspected that these denarii could not have been created until after Octavian had arrived in Rome late in the summer of 43 B.C., and had secured his position.Crawford notes that the identity of the rather ambiguous god on the reverse is not certain, though it likely is Venus or Pax. In either case, he reasons that the scepter represents dominion and the caduceus symbolizes felicitas. The other denarius type of this moneyer is equally pro-Caesarean, as it pairs a head of Venus Victrix with Victory in a biga.