Denarius; Crawford 452/5
MINT MOVING WITH CAESAR: 10, 48-47BCE. Female head (rt.) wearing oak wreath, cruciform earring and pearl necklace (Pietas is the orthodox ascription, Sear argues it’s Clementia). LII (52) behind. Reverse with Gallic trophy holding oval shield and carnyx above bearded captive (Vercingetorix?) seated, right leg bent under, with the foot not visible, hands tied, “CAE–SAR” across middle. In this type a quick check of the difference between it and the coin above (Cr. 452/4) is that the captive’s leg is bent and his head is turned and looking up at the trophy. A killer. The rarest Caesar military denarius, the accompaniment piece to the coin above (452/4). Extremely fine to near mint state (amazing), well centered, innately toned in multiple hues of gray, finer than the one pictured by Crawford that is in The British Museum (and the BM coin grades extremely fine), and way finer than the one pictured by Sear (13). A cosmic melding of rarity and condition, beautifully struck, with all the mellowness and patina, the play of light and shade, the joy of age and genuineness, which makes for an aesthetic value having little to do with the objective or artistic merits with which the coin was invested by its makers. 18mm. 3.52 grams. Cr. 452/5. Sydenham 1011. BMC 3960. RSC 19 var. Ex–A. Tkalec (Zurich, 29, Feb. 2008, lot 234, $15,971, which I was happy to pay), cataloged by them as “FDC” (fleur de coin, or literally, with the bloom of the die), the highest grade possible for an ancient coin. That said, Euros tend to overgrade their ancient coins, but Tkalec might be right on this one, likely the finest example surviving. Item #359
Let me say this as simply as possible but not any simpler: The denarius described above (Cr. 452/5) is the best of the best, the rarest of Julius Caesar’s regular military issue, and the finest one known.
Which of the silver coins in Crawford’s 452 series (our numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5) were minted first or last, or which were minted in Rome (first part of 48 B. C.) or in Greece (end of 48 B. C.) or in Egypt (end of 48 B. C. through the winter into 47 B. C.) is an open question. Possibly, 452/2 (the larger coinage) can be attributed to Rome (Grueber’s call), or less persuasively Greece, minted as pay for the largest concentration of his army. 452/4 and 452/5 (the much smaller coinage), if not also minted at one of those sites, either before, after or concurrently, might then have been Egyptian, minted to pay his smaller occupying force, and where he had newly available bullion and a more stable environment for the mint. Or 452/2 may overlap, having been struck in all 3 places, while the 2 scarcer varieties may exclusively hail from either a secondary mint in Greece or Egypt (and other permutations on these possibilities are also plausible, though even less so). A cleaner separation may be revealed by new data, but it’s a long climb up Mount Molehill. And regardless of origin or priority, 452/4 and 452/5 (our number 4 and 5) are the rarest, and the most beautiful, of all the coins struck for Caesar by his military minters, and are the centerpieces of any collection of Julius’ military coinage. The quinarius (our number 3, 452/3) seems to have been struck in even smaller numbers (its reintroduction as a denomination was after a 38 year lapse), but it survives (proportionately) a bit more frequently, and once its reasons for being reintroduced (its purpose) can be deduced, its exact place in the order of mintage may be revealed, or conversely, its order may reveal its purpose.
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