Portraits Debated

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 424. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ISLANDS off SICILY, Sardinia. Caralis. Circa 40 BC. Æ 30mm (24.34 g, 11h). ARISTO • MVTVMBAL • RICOC[E] S[VF], jugate male heads right / VE N E RIS, KAR in exergue, tetrastyle temple façade with closed doors set on podium; in pediment, eagle standing left with wings displayed; acroteria and antefixes along roof line. RPC I 624; Müller, Afrique 319-20 (Carthage); FITA 149-50; SNG Hunterian 184 (same obv. die). VF, brown surfaces.

From the Patrick Villemur Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 8 (3 April 1995), lot 732.

The identification of the conjoined heads on the obverse of this coin remains uncertain. They have been variously identified as Octavian and Agrippa, Octavian and M. Aemilius Lepidus, and Octavian and Caesar. RPC states that "the portraits are completely unlike those of Octavian and....are probably those of municipal officials." In the case of provincial coinage, it is difficult to use style as a criterion in identification as portraits were often either the work of inferior engravers or engravers without access to the Imperial imago. Without any epigraphic evidence the exact identity of these individuals will have to remain uncertain.