Pre-Long Beach Auction #80

L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus. Silver Denarius (4.00 g), 49 BC. Military mint traveling in the East. Triskeles, with winged head of Medusa facing at center and ear of grain between each leg. Reverse [L]E(NT) (MAR) COS, Jupiter standing facing, head right, holding thunderbolt and eagle; in right field, harpa. Crawford 445/1a; HCRI 4; Sydenham 1029a; Cornelia 64. Rare. Well struck with lustrous surfaces and delicately toned. Superb Extremely Fine.

Struck under the exiled consuls, Lentulus and Marcellus, the types reference both family history and Roman power. The issue has traditionally been assigned to a mint operating in Sicily, but the hurried nature of the Pompeian withdrawal from Brundisium to Greece suggests it was struck somewhere in the East. The obverse recalls that it was M. Claudius Marcellus, the ancestor of the current consul, who conquered Syracuse in 211 BC. The reverse depicts Jupiter, the chief deity of the Roman pantheon and thus a symbol of unity, and may copy the famous statue of Zeus Eleutherius by Myron. Jupiter appears on all the joint issues of the Lentulus and Marcellus.
Estimated Value $2,500 - 3,000.
Ex Elsen 97 (13 September 2008), 201; Crédit Suisse 3 (19 April 1985), 419.