Denarius; Crawford 480/1
Rome: 49, 44BCE. Diademed head of Venus Victrix (rt.). The rev. depicting “Sulla’s Dream” (clearly named and so stated by both Grueber and Crawford) generally thought to refer to a dream Sulla had before marching on Rome in 88 B. C. (see: Crawford, the 6th paragraph of his note following 480/28). Other speculations include its referring, perhaps, to Sulla being told by a Chaldean seer that he would die at the height of his fame and fortune (a prophesy he repeated frequently), or perhaps (from a note in his memoirs) that he regretted sparing the young Caesar’s life (during the purge of 81 B.C.), because he foresaw the consequences of Caesar’s notorious ambition, or, even perhaps, Sulla’s vision to give up his dictatorship. Other irreconcilable opinions abound, including 2 that say it is not Sulla at all. The strike is on a large flan (19 mm. 4.15 grams) and there is a flat area along 90° outside the edge on the obv. and inside the border only in a narrow arc on the rev. but the coin is surely very fine, the image and details are quite sharp for this type, and it is fully realized on the obv. and almost fully so in the rev. Crawford 480/1, listed by him as the first of all the denarii minted in Rome in 44 B.C. though he admits to its placing as “arbitrary” and his 480 series continues with portraits of a living Caesar from Cr. 480/2, so perhaps some new data will emerge and support Crawford’s placement in a new way, or redefine this coin’s proper place in the chronology (I’m betting on Crawford here). 2 of the radical opinions (not mine), spurning Sulla entirely, is (1) that the reverse portrays the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, victorious and heroic, reclining on a bier and greeted by Luna, the upright torch indicating Divus Julius, and so maybe a very early posthumous coin, but this explanation is fraught with dubiousness and ambiguity. John Melville Jones proposes (2) a depiction of Endymion, favorite of the moon (Luna), which might also relate to Caesar, as well as tie it to Buca’s sestertius of 44 B. C. with its head of Luna. Sear lists it separately, as struck in Rome (but not for Caesar) along with the quinarii and sesterce of 44 B.C. and that may argue for its priority since the smaller denominations were usually struck earlier in the year, and like this coin, carry no overt attachment to Caesar. I include it in this collection without championing one view or the other, or even my own, just because it is a 44 B. C. denarius, and because Crawford ranks it earliest of all, and thus its absence in this collection might speak louder than its presence, and frankly, all the coins struck in the city of Rome from late 49 B. C. to the January 1, 44 B. C. were somewhat for Caesar (though in a different way than his personal military issues or his portrait coins), differing only in that their link would be subtly symbolic rather than direct. In any case, quite a scarce coin with only 7 obv. and 7 rev. dies. Ex– Tony Hardy. BMC 4160. Sydenham 1064. Bab. Aemilia 12. Kraay, Num Chron (1954) pl. 4, 3. Item #396
Authorities have long agreed that 480/1, was struck early in 44 B.C. There remains only lingering (quixotic?) debate about whether it was struck for Caesar, but this is a debate with all the life of last year’s moth shaken out of the curtains in an empty house, and I will not join it, preferring to save my ammunition for where it might do some good, and you may call my detachment from the matter ignorance, or you may call it apathy, but I don’t know and I don’t care. As for the next group (after Cr. 480/1) beginning with 480/17 (A through E), a rapidly declining rational argument against it being a lifetime issue has all but disappeared, leaving only the crusty stubborn, or the lazy detached, who continue to toe the traditionalist line, with more shrieks than crows thrown in a woodchipper, and virtually all open minded interested parties are now (or should be) rethinking the likelihood that it was also struck before Caesar's murder (actually, common sense now places it among the earliest portrait coins, perhaps as early as the 2nd portrait coin of all).
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