Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XX 29-30 Oct 2020
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Julius Caesar AR Denarius. Postumous Issue. Rome, 40 BC. Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, moneyer. Laureate head of Caesar right / Signum, aquila, plow, and decempeda; TI•SEMPRONIVS above, GRACCVS below, Q•DES downwards to left, S-C across fields. Crawford 525/4c var. (no S-C on obverse); Sydenham 1128a; CRI 327 var.; Gorny & Mosch 219, 353 (same dies). 3.90g, 19mm, 10h.
Good Extremely Fine; a superb portrait coin of Julius Caesar. An extremely rare variety of a very rare type.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XIII, 23 March 2017, lot 624.
The year 40 BC marked the end of the long tradition of the college of moneyers producing currency at the Capitoline mint. With the exception of a brief revival in the early principate of Augustus, this most venerable of Roman traditions was brought to an abrupt end as the treaty of Brundisium confirmed the Second Triumvirate's supraconsular offices and carved up the Roman world into the private fiefdoms of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus.
In the preceding years, the college of moneyers had tended strongly towards what both Sear and Sydenham describe as playing it safe during a period of political turmoil by displaying political affiliations through the use of politically-charged portraits that yet retained deliberate ambiguity. The same held true for this year when Q. Voconius Vitulus and Ti. Sepmronius Gracchus were the issuing colleagues of the college of moneyers. Since all three triumvirs were originally Caesareans, certainly no harm could come from displaying the portrait of Caesar alongside types of a purely personal nature. In the case of this moneyer, the reverse clearly alludes to the glorious record of the moneyer's ancestors of the same name: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 238 BC who carried on war in Sardinia and Corsica; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 215 and 213 BC during the second Punic War, who fell in battle against Mago; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, commander of the allies in the war against the Gauls, under the consul Marcellus in 196 BC, who fell in battle against the Boii; and principally Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 177 and 163 BC who triumphed over the Celtiberi and the Sardinians, father of the brothers Gracchi. That this last ancestor is principally honoured is clear from the emplacement of the plough and decempeda: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a decorated military officer of impressive renown and tribune of the plebs in 133 BC who succeeded in enacting a major agrarian reform law, the Lex Sempronia Agraria. This radical law reorganized control of publicly held lands, attempted to place an upper limit on the area any one citizen could possess, and redistribute public and confiscated land to the poor and homeless in Rome so that they might not only support themselves and their families, but also so that they might become eligible for taxation and military service. The near-revolutionary nature of the legislation inevitably led to civil strife, resulting in the murder of Gracchus who was beaten to death with clubs along with three hundred of his supporters, with many others exiled or arrested and executed without trial. Despite or indeed because of this, the Senate allowed the agrarian reforms to go through to mollify the people. A decade later his younger brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus shared the same fate while trying to implement further reforms; statues of the brothers were thereafter placed throughout the city and held in great reverence as heroes of the common people.
Good Extremely Fine; a superb portrait coin of Julius Caesar. An extremely rare variety of a very rare type.
From the Long Valley River Collection;
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XIII, 23 March 2017, lot 624.
The year 40 BC marked the end of the long tradition of the college of moneyers producing currency at the Capitoline mint. With the exception of a brief revival in the early principate of Augustus, this most venerable of Roman traditions was brought to an abrupt end as the treaty of Brundisium confirmed the Second Triumvirate's supraconsular offices and carved up the Roman world into the private fiefdoms of Octavian, Antony and Lepidus.
In the preceding years, the college of moneyers had tended strongly towards what both Sear and Sydenham describe as playing it safe during a period of political turmoil by displaying political affiliations through the use of politically-charged portraits that yet retained deliberate ambiguity. The same held true for this year when Q. Voconius Vitulus and Ti. Sepmronius Gracchus were the issuing colleagues of the college of moneyers. Since all three triumvirs were originally Caesareans, certainly no harm could come from displaying the portrait of Caesar alongside types of a purely personal nature. In the case of this moneyer, the reverse clearly alludes to the glorious record of the moneyer's ancestors of the same name: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 238 BC who carried on war in Sardinia and Corsica; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 215 and 213 BC during the second Punic War, who fell in battle against Mago; Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, commander of the allies in the war against the Gauls, under the consul Marcellus in 196 BC, who fell in battle against the Boii; and principally Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, consul in 177 and 163 BC who triumphed over the Celtiberi and the Sardinians, father of the brothers Gracchi. That this last ancestor is principally honoured is clear from the emplacement of the plough and decempeda: Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a decorated military officer of impressive renown and tribune of the plebs in 133 BC who succeeded in enacting a major agrarian reform law, the Lex Sempronia Agraria. This radical law reorganized control of publicly held lands, attempted to place an upper limit on the area any one citizen could possess, and redistribute public and confiscated land to the poor and homeless in Rome so that they might not only support themselves and their families, but also so that they might become eligible for taxation and military service. The near-revolutionary nature of the legislation inevitably led to civil strife, resulting in the murder of Gracchus who was beaten to death with clubs along with three hundred of his supporters, with many others exiled or arrested and executed without trial. Despite or indeed because of this, the Senate allowed the agrarian reforms to go through to mollify the people. A decade later his younger brother Gaius Sempronius Gracchus shared the same fate while trying to implement further reforms; statues of the brothers were thereafter placed throughout the city and held in great reverence as heroes of the common people.