SEXTUS POMPEY BRONZE AS – ISSUE OF SICILY SHOWING JANIFORM HEAD OF POMPEY THE GREAT – XF NGC GRADED ROMAN IMPERATORIAL COIN (Inv. 19777)

$1,500.00

19777. ROMAN IMPERATORIAL. SEXTUS POMPEY, d. 35 BC.
Bronze As, 22.94 g, 31 mm. Issue of a Sicilian mint, ca. 43–36 BC.
Obv. MGN, laureate janiform head with double portraits of Pompey. Rev. Prow of galley right, with upper structure and star decoration.
Crawford 479/1; Sydenham 1044; RPC 671.
NGC graded XF, Strike 4/5, Surface 4/5, “adjusted flan,” attractive olive–green patina.

Although sometimes attributed to a Spanish mint in the past, find evidence has shown that the remarkable as series of Sextus Pompey depicting Janus with the features of his father, Pompey the Great, were most likely produced in Sicily after he gained control of the island in 43 BC. The types of Janus and the prow of a galley were traditional for the Roman as denomination going back to the cast coinages of the third century BC, but here Sextus Pompey has personalized the denomination by giving the god of beginnings and endings the appearance of Pompey the Great. Sextus frequently depicted or alluded to his famous father on his coins as a means of casting himself as a legitimate opponent to the members of the Second Triumvirate who, after all, were essentially the heirs of Julius Caesar, the great nemesis of Pompey the Great.