Exceptional Tarpeia Denarius

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 700. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $5250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (4.13 g, 12h). Rome mint. P. Petronius Turpilianus, moneyer. Struck 19/8 BC. CAESAR AVGVSTVS, bare head right / T-VRPILIANVS III VIR, Tarpeia, bare-headed, with flowing hair, standing facing, wearing tunic, raising both hands, buried to her waist under ten shields. RIC I 299; RSC 494; BMCRE 29-31; BN 157-60. Choice EF, handsome gray and gold, slightly iridescent toning, light marks on portrait beneath tone. Bold strike on both sides.

Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 7 (2 March 1994), lot 670.

The reverse type of this issue recalls that of the Republican moneyer L. Titurius Sabinus, and Augustus conscious archaizing of Roman culture to reestablish a more solidly conservative Roman society.

According to Livy, when Titus Tatius attacked Rome after the Rape of the Sabines, the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, governor of the citadel on the Capitoline Hill, betrayed the Romans by opening the city gates for the Sabines in return for “what they bore on their arms.” She believed that she would receive their golden bracelets. Instead, the Sabines crushed her to death with their shields, and she was thrown from the rock which subsequently bore her name, and from which heinous criminals were thrown.