Very Rare Julia Reverse – Ex Sydenham Collection

CNG 109, Lot: 596. Estimate $3000. Sold for $2700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Augustus. 27 BC-AD 14. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.91 g, 8h). Rome mint; C. Marius C.f. Tro(mentina tribu), triumvir monetalis. Struck 13 BC. Bare head of Augustus right; AVGVSTVS before; behind, lituus to left / C · MARIVS · TRO [III · VI]R, draped bust of Julia the Elder, as Diana, right, wearing taenia decorated with jewel; quiver over shoulder. RIC I 403; RSC 1 (Julia and Augustus) = BMCRE 104 = BMCRR Rome 4651 (same rev. die); BN 522-5; CNR 1; Triton XI, lot 795 (same dies). VF, toned, light scratches under tone, area of flat strike on head of Julia. Very rare.

From the DSV Collection. Ex Classical Numismatic Group 82 (16 September 2009), lot 971; Seaby Coin & Medal Bulletin 370 (March 1949), no. B866; Rev. Edward A. Sydenham Collection (Glendining, 24 November 1948), lot 516. Reportedly ex Greece hoard (RRCH 533).

Julia, the only child of Augustus, was born to him by his second wife, Scribonia. While still an infant, Julia was betrothed to Mark Antony’s son Antyllus, whom Augustus (still as Octavian) had executed in 30 BC. She was married in 25 BC to Marcellus, the son of Augustus’s sister, Octavia, but when Marcellus died in 21 BC, Julia was then married to Agrippa, Augustus’s second-in-command and the victor of Actium. By Agrippa Julia had five children; her oldest sons, Caius and Lucius, were groomed to succeed Augustus upon his death. Julia’s third marriage, following Agrippa’s death in 12 BC, was to Tiberius, Augustus’s stepson, who then had been taking over some of Augustus’s military duties. This third marriage proved to be an unhappy one for Julia, who began to engage in various extramarital affairs, and for Tiberius, who, having been forced to give up his previous (and happy) marriage in order to marry Julia, became increasingly unhappy by Julia’s actions and withdrew to Rhodes in 4 BC. Augustus’s banishment of Julia in 2 BC, as well as the deaths of Caius in AD 4 and Lucius in AD 2 necessitated a rapproachment between Tiberius and Augustus, with Tiberius’s recall from Rhodes and appointment as heir in AD 4.