Antony’s Final Issue

196, Lot: 247. Estimate $300. Sold for $2200. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Mark Antony. Summer 31 BC. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.47 g, 12h). Mint with Antony at Actium(?). Bare head right / Victory standing left, holding wreath tied with fillet and palm branch; D (TV)R to lower right; all within wreath. Crawford 545/1; CRI 387; Sydenham 1211; RSC 11; Mazzini 11 (same obv. die). VF, light porosity, area of flat strike, cleaning scratches. Very rare.

According to Sear (CRI), this was the final issue minted by Antony. This coinage is believed to have been struck to pay his troops in Greece proximate to the battle at Actium. There are two versions of this issue, one with the D TVR on the reverse and one without. Those with the monogram, like the present specimen, were struck under one of Antony's last remaining senior officers, Decimus Turullius. Turullius was one of the assassins of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, and a staunch republican who came to identify Antony as the leader of the republican cause. Captured at Actium, he was later executed by Octavian. The obverse is significant for a number of reasons. The portrait of Antony, while Greek in character, clearly shows the stresses and disappointments that Antony had suffered in the final years before Actium. Perhaps more interesting is the obverse titulature, in which Antony claims a fourth imperatorial acclamation. Coinage in his name as of 32 BC still bore the title IMP III, and as no victory was attained by Antony in the intervening year, this fourth acclamation can only be a boast predicting a glorious victory over Octavian in the impending showdown. It is also speculated that the Victory type on the reverse is also used for the same purpose, and possibly to inspire the troops.