Very Rare Parthian Reference Issue

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 705. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $18000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (3.78 g, 8h). Rome mint. M. Durmius, moneyer. Struck 19/8 BC. M • DVRMIVS • III • VIR •, diademed bust of young Hercules right, draped in lion skin; club sloped back on right shoulder / CAESAR • AVGVSTVS • SIGN • RECE •, bare-headed Parthian kneeling on right knee right, extending in right hand a signum, to which is attached a vexillum marked X, and holding out left hand below left knee. RIC I 314; RSC 433b; BMCRE 59 = BMCRR Rome 4565; BN 205. Near EF, toned. Very rare.

Ex Leu 59 (17 May 1994), lot 245.

This coin commemorates the major diplomatic coup of his reign: the recovery of the Roman standards, lost by Crassus at the battle of Carrhae in 54 BC, from the Parthians. The reference to Hercules, like that of Liber in lot 694, is a special mythological allusion to the event, and an ad hoc use of such mythology by Augustus that would be later considered unsuitable and discarded from the canon of his public image.