Extraordinary Early Aes Grave Dupondius

CNG 85, Lot: 742. Estimate $20000. Sold for $29000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Anonymous. Circa 230 BC. Æ Aes Grave Dupondius (82mm, 589.22 g, 12h). Libral standard. Rome mint. Head of Roma right, wearing Phrygian helmet; = (mark of value) behind / Wheel of six spokes; II (mark of value) between spokes. Crawford 24/2; Thurlow & Vecchi 30; Haeberlin pl. 23, 2-24, 3; HN Italy 325. Near EF, attractive green patina. Rare. Extraordinary.

Ex Tkalec (7 May 2006), lot 92.

Along with the unique tressis, the design of this rare dupondius may, as Thurlow & Vecchi postulate (p. 23), commemorate in some ceremonial fashion the opening of the new Roman mint. The wheel design on the reverse is open to a number of fanciful interpretations. Mattingly (Roman Coins, p. 49) thought the symbol represented communication, with the spokes suggesting the unification of cities. Sydenham, in Aes Grave, saw a connection “between the wheel and Rome’s rapidly expanding road system.” (Thurlow & Vecchi op. cit.) Thurlow and Vecchi viewed the wheel as a “simple statement of the unit of value,” with the Latin word for wheel being assis, along with it being an attribute of Fortuna, which “together with its convenient design, [made] it a most suitable as a coin type.” While their connection of the wheel to Fortuna is an attractive possibility, as the neighboring Etruscans also used the wheel as a device on at least 38 varieties of their local aes, T & V’s interpretation of the wheel seems highly speculative, given that no concrete etymological connection between the the word assis and the denomination as. The word assis, however, is a variation of the word axis, which refers specifically to the the axle tree, or even the celestial pole and, by metonymy, the vault of heaven which revolves around the pole star. Perhaps, if the portrait on the obverse is that of Roma, the wheel is to be interpreted as an allusion to the vault of heaven under which all Romans were to live (see Verg. Aen. VI.789-790).