The Capture of Rhodes
Cassius’ Final Issue

CNG 108, Lot: 544. Estimate $7500. Sold for $8500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

The Republicans. C. Cassius Longinus. Summer 42 BC. AV Aureus (20mm, 7.96 g, 6h). Military mint moving with Brutus and Cassius, probably at Sardis; M. Servilius, legatus. Laureate head of Libertas right; C • CASSI • IMP upward to left / Aplustre, with branches terminating in flowers; M • SERVILIVS upward to left, LEG upward to right. Crawford 505/1; CRI 224; Calicó 67; Sydenham 1311; BMCRR East 82; RBW 1772; Biaggi 46. VF, scrape on obverse, slightly wavy flan. Rare final issue of Cassius.

From the Jonathan P. Rosen Collection. Ex Gorny & Mosch 207 (15 October 2012), lot 545A.

This reverse type commemorates the capture of Rhodes by Cassius, who seized booty amounting to eight thousand talents from the public treasury after he had contemptuously spurned the title of king which the terror-stricken Rhodians had offered him. The aplustre was a common symbol of naval superiority, while the floreate endings of its branches allude to the rose, the civic emblem of Rhodes.