Classical Numismatic Group, LLC
Auction 123 23-24 May 2023
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The Republicans. Brutus. Spring-early summer 42 BC. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.60 g, 5h). Military mint traveling with Brutus in Lycia. Head of Libertas right / Lyre; quiver to left, laurel branch tied with fillet to right. Crawford 501/1; CRI 199; Sydenham 1287; RSC 5; RBW 1767. Residual luster, off center. Near EF.
Marcus Junius Brutus was a blue-blooded Roman whose fortune derived from lending money at exorbitant interest rates when, in 44 BC, he was suborned into the conspiracy against his former benefactor, Julius Caesar. As his distant ancestor had entered history as a great tyrannicide, Brutus soon became the de-facto leader and spokesman for the assassins. After the Ides of March, Brutus induced a cowed senate to give him a governorship in northern Greece and promptly departed to raise money and arms for the brewing civil war against Caesar's adherents. He cut a brutal swath through Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor, looting city treasuries and enforcing horrendous taxes at the point of a sword. He turned his ill-gotten gains into silver denarii to pay his growing army and navy, including this type depicting the head of Libertas, exemplar of senatorial liberty. However, Brutus and his companions were soon maneuvered into battle against the Caesarians at Philippi in Greece, where Mark Antony proved to be much the better general. Brutus took his own life with the very dagger he had plunged into Caesar, earning this unattractive character the reputation as a martyr for the cause of liberty.
Marcus Junius Brutus was a blue-blooded Roman whose fortune derived from lending money at exorbitant interest rates when, in 44 BC, he was suborned into the conspiracy against his former benefactor, Julius Caesar. As his distant ancestor had entered history as a great tyrannicide, Brutus soon became the de-facto leader and spokesman for the assassins. After the Ides of March, Brutus induced a cowed senate to give him a governorship in northern Greece and promptly departed to raise money and arms for the brewing civil war against Caesar's adherents. He cut a brutal swath through Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor, looting city treasuries and enforcing horrendous taxes at the point of a sword. He turned his ill-gotten gains into silver denarii to pay his growing army and navy, including this type depicting the head of Libertas, exemplar of senatorial liberty. However, Brutus and his companions were soon maneuvered into battle against the Caesarians at Philippi in Greece, where Mark Antony proved to be much the better general. Brutus took his own life with the very dagger he had plunged into Caesar, earning this unattractive character the reputation as a martyr for the cause of liberty.