Watch List notes:

Octavian as Augustus, 27 BC – AD 14.
M. Durmius. Denarius circa 19 BC, AR 3.86 g. AVGVSTVS – CAESAR Bare head r. Rev. M DVRMIVS III VIR Victory flying r. crowning man-headed bull r. C 432. BMC 66. RIC 319. CBN 219.
Very rare and in exceptional condition for this extremely difficult issue, undoubtedly one
of the finest specimens known. Several minor scratches, otherwise about extremely fine

In 27 BC, a settlement was made between Octavian and the Senate that made him Augustus, sole ruler of the Roman Empire, and effectively brought an end to the Roman Republic, which had been dying since the civil war of 88-87 BC. However, whereas Julius Caesar had previously attempted to become a new Roman monarch and paid for it with his life, Octavian was much wiser in the public representation of his power than had been his adoptive father. Caesar had paraded himself as a virtual king and god, which became cause for offence and murder, but Augustus cloaked his monarchic rule under republican terms and institutions. Thus, he was not really a Roman king, but rather primus inter pares or princeps, "first among equals." This sort of dissimulation caused Augustus to retain and even promote certain traditional Republican institutions. Among these was the college of monetales, the Roman magistrates responsible for striking coins. During the period of the Triumvirate this board exceptionally consisted of four men (the quattuorviri monetales), but Augustus reduced this down to three men (the tresviri monetales) that had been traditional since the Romans began to strike coins in gold, silver and bronze in the third century BC. Augustus advertised himself as Republican traditionalist not only by his restoration of the tresviri monetales, but also by permitting these moneyers to continue to advertise themselves and their families on the coins as had been customary in the second century BC. Augustus allowed the tresviri monetales leeway to employ coin types for their own ends until ca. 4 BC, when he finally took total control of the coin types at Rome for the dissemination of his imperial propaganda. One could only press the illusion of a surviving Republic so far before the mask had to come off. This remarkable denarius was struck by an obscure tresvir monetalis M. Durmius around 19 BC. It features a superb bare-headed portrait of Augustus on the obverse and a reverse naming Durmius and giving his abbreviated title as moneyer. The central reverse type depicts a man-headed bull crowned by Nike and clearly copies the Greek coinages struck by the cities of Campania-especially Neapolis, which may have served as a regional mint-from the fifth to the third century BC. It has been suggested that the type here alludes to a Campanian origin for the family of Durmius, but it has been recently noted that this allusion may have backfired in Rome, where the local elite considered Campanians to be prideful and arrogant. Whatever the case, the reverse type shows that in the late first century BC, there were still centuries-old Campanian coins to be had in Rome to use as models. It may also speak to the popularity of coin collecting in ancient Rome. Indeed, Suetonius reports that Augustus himself was known to collect old and foreign coins and to have given them to his friends as gifts on occasion. This of course leads to the question of whether the reverse type of this denarius actually represents the ethnic origin of Durmius or whether it might have been copied from a coin collected by the first Roman Emperor, perhaps even one gifted to the moneyer.