325, Lot: 541. Estimate $100. Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Moneyer issues of Imperatorial Rome. C. Clodius C.f. Vestalis. 43 BC. AR Denarius (20mm, 4.01 g, 4h). Rome mint. Draped bust of Flora right, wearing wreath of flowers; lily behind / Vestal virgin seated left, holding cymbium (two-handled bowl). Crawford 512/2; CRI 317; Sydenham 1135; Claudia 13. Good VF, attractive gray and gold toning, area of flat strike on reverse.

From the Demetrios Armounta Collection. Ex CNG Inventory 782935 (January 2007).

David Sear (CRI p. 194) writes: “The reverse type of a seated Vestal, one of the six sacerdotes Vestales (the sole female priesthood in Rome), may represent nothing more than a punning allusion to the moneyer’s cognomen. Grueber and Crawford, however, both attempt more precise identifications, the former describing her as Claudia Quinta, the Vestal Virgin who was instrumental in bringing the image of Cybele (Magna Mater) from Asia Minor to Rome in 204 BC, the latter preferring Claudia, daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 143 BC), another noted Vestal, who protected her father against an intercessio (veto) following his unauthorized triumph. The obverse type depicting Flora, the Italian goddess of flowering or blossoming plants, probably relates to the foundation of the festival of the Floralia during the consulship in 240 BC of an ancestor of the moneyer, C. Claudius Centho.”