Not Recorded as an Aureus in RIC

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 818. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $12000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AV Aureus (7.88 g, 6h). Spanish mint - Tarraco. Struck 17-16 BC. S • P • Q • R • CAESARI AVGVSTO, bare head right / QVOD • VIAE • MVN • SVNT •, Augustus standing right in triumphal quadriga of horses right, holding branch in right hand, being crowned by Victory, who stands behind him, set on double triumphal arch adorned with prows, set on a viaduct. Cf. RIC I 144 (denarius); Calicó 265; cf. BMCRE 433 = BMCRR Rome 4463 (denarius); cf. BN 1257-9 (denarius). VF, a few inconsequential marks, slight wave to flan. Very rare, apparently the second known. Recorded only as a denarius in RIC.

Ex Count Alessandro Magnaguti Collection (Santamaria, 12 October 1949), lot 398.

This reverse refers to extensive measures undertaken by Augustus to improve the road systems in Italy. The historian Dio Cassius records the installation of ‘statues on arches on the bridge over the Tiber’ in commemoration of Augustus’ underwriting of the work carried out on the Via Flaminia. David Sear proposes that this scene may depict the Milvian Bridge which carried the Via Flaminia across the Tiber to the north of Rome.