CNG 91, Lot: 856. Estimate $750. Sold for $1400. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.62 g, 6h). Spanish mint (Colonia Caesaraugusta?). Struck circa 19-18 BC. Head right, wearing oak wreath / S P Q R above and below shield inscribed CL•V; laurel branches flanking. RIC I 36a; ACIP 4037; RSC 51. Good VF, toned.

Ex Triton XII (6 January 2009), lot 535; William C. Boyd Collection (Baldwin's 42, 26 September 2005), lot 188, with his original ticket (numbered 11); purchased from Seltman, 1898.

In the Res Gestae, Augustus records that the Senate, in giving him the title Augustus, also decreed that the doorposts of his house be officially decorated with laurel, that the corona civica be placed over the door, and that a shield be displayed in the Curia Iulia. This shield, or clipeus, had been dedicated to him by the Senate and the Roman People on account of his virtues of bravery, clemency, justice, and pietas, virtues which were inscribed on the shield itself. Copies of it were then set up all over the Roman world. The return in 19 BC of the Roman standards captured by the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae offered an excellent opportunity to once again recall Augustus' pietas, one of the virtues recorded on the clipeus.