Rare Lifetime Caesar Portrait
The Caesarians. Julius Caesar. February-March 44 BC. AR Denarius (18mm, 3.86 g, 3h). Lifetime issue. Rome mint. L. Aemilius Buca, moneyer. DICT PERPETVO CAESAR, Wreathed head of Caesar right / L・BVCA, Venus Victrix seated right, holding Victory in outstretched right hand and transverse scepter in left. Crawford 480/7b; Alföldi Type XV, 39-43 (A8/R11); CRI 104a; Sydenham 1062; RSC 24. Light cabinet toning over faintly porous surfaces. VF. One of the raresr Caesar lifetime portrait types.
Before 44 BC, Roman coin portraiture had been confined to various deities and historic figures of renown, these usually ancestors of the moneyers appointed each year to strike coins. The very few portraits of living Romans were confined to coins minted and circulating outside of Italy. But early in 44 BC, the Senate granted Julius Caesar, recently appointed dictator for the fourth time, the honor of having his portrait placed on silver coinage struck in Rome. The break with tradition was sudden, startling and, as it turned out, enduring, for Caesar’s successors (and even his assassins!) soon adopted the practice. This denarius, struck in February and March of 44 BC, falls into the third great issue of portrait coinage of Caesar’s lifetime, naming him as Dictator Perpetuo -- “Dictator in Perpetuity,” another unprecedented honor bestowed by the Senate, probably on February 15. Caesar would bear the title only a month before his assassination on the Ides of March (March 15) 44 BC.
