Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 638. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $3000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Octavian. 32-31 BC. AR Denarius (3.84 g, 1h). Italian (Rome?) mint. Bare head right / CAESAR DIVI F across field, Venus standing right, half-turned from spectator and with drapery covering only her lower thighs, holding transverse scepter in left hand, resting left elbow on column, and holding helmet in right hand; on left, shield with star motif set on ground, leaning against column. RIC I 250a; CRI 395; RSC 62; BMCRE 599 = BMCRR Rome 4333; BN 19-22. EF, small banker’s mark on obverse. Fine style portrait.

Ex Aufhäuser 12 (1 October 1996), lot 414.

Since Venus is the guardian deity of the now-deified dictator and the ancestress of the Julia gens, the depiction of Venus on the reverse conveys a dynamic messsage, namely, that Octavian is of a divine heritage and is the authentic inheritor of the Caesarian tradition.