Roma Numismatics Ltd
E-Sale 85 17 Jun 2021
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Augustus AR Denarius. Uncertain Spanish mint (Colonia Caesaraugusta?), 19-18 BC. CAESAR AVGVSTVS, head to left, wearing oak wreath / Eight-rayed comet with tail upwards, DIVVS IVLIVS across fields. RIC I 37b; RSC 97; BMCRE 326-7 = BMCRR Gaul 138-9; BN 1298-304. 3.76g, 21mm, 6h.
Good Extremely Fine; very minor edge chip. Rare.
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., E-Sale 67, 6 February 2020, lot 785;
Ex Heritage World Coin Auctions, CCE Signature Sale 3064, 20 April 2018, lot 30251 (hammer: $3,000).
Caesar's Comet, also known as Sidus lulium 'Julian Star', Caesaris astrum 'Star of Caesar', or its less prosaic modern designation C/-43 K1, was perhaps the most famous comet of antiquity, and may have been the brightest daylight comet in recorded history. The comet appeared suddenly during the festival known as the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris that was being held in July 44 BC, just months after the assassination of Julius Caesar, which also happened to be Caesar's own birth month. According to Suetonius, as celebrations were getting under way, "a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour, and was believed to be the soul of Caesar" (Suetonius, Divus Julius, 88).
Its seven-day visitation was interpreted by Romans as a sign of the deification of the recently assassinated dictator, and it quickly became a powerful symbol in the political propaganda of Octavian, who was just then launching his career. "Then Jupiter, the Father, spoke..."Take up Caesar's spirit from his murdered corpse, and change it into a star, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his high temple on our Capitol and forum." He had barely finished, when gentle Venus stood in the midst of the Senate, seen by no one, and took up the newly freed spirit of her Caesar from his body, and preventing it from vanishing into the air, carried it towards the glorious stars. As she carried it, she felt it glow and take fire, and loosed it from her breast: it climbed higher than the moon, and drawing behind it a fiery tail, shone as a star" (Ovid, Metamorphoses; XV; 745-842).
Good Extremely Fine; very minor edge chip. Rare.
Ex Roma Numismatics Ltd., E-Sale 67, 6 February 2020, lot 785;
Ex Heritage World Coin Auctions, CCE Signature Sale 3064, 20 April 2018, lot 30251 (hammer: $3,000).
Caesar's Comet, also known as Sidus lulium 'Julian Star', Caesaris astrum 'Star of Caesar', or its less prosaic modern designation C/-43 K1, was perhaps the most famous comet of antiquity, and may have been the brightest daylight comet in recorded history. The comet appeared suddenly during the festival known as the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris that was being held in July 44 BC, just months after the assassination of Julius Caesar, which also happened to be Caesar's own birth month. According to Suetonius, as celebrations were getting under way, "a comet shone for seven successive days, rising about the eleventh hour, and was believed to be the soul of Caesar" (Suetonius, Divus Julius, 88).
Its seven-day visitation was interpreted by Romans as a sign of the deification of the recently assassinated dictator, and it quickly became a powerful symbol in the political propaganda of Octavian, who was just then launching his career. "Then Jupiter, the Father, spoke..."Take up Caesar's spirit from his murdered corpse, and change it into a star, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his high temple on our Capitol and forum." He had barely finished, when gentle Venus stood in the midst of the Senate, seen by no one, and took up the newly freed spirit of her Caesar from his body, and preventing it from vanishing into the air, carried it towards the glorious stars. As she carried it, she felt it glow and take fire, and loosed it from her breast: it climbed higher than the moon, and drawing behind it a fiery tail, shone as a star" (Ovid, Metamorphoses; XV; 745-842).