LENTULUS AND MARCELLUS SILVER DENARIUS – TRISKELES ISSUE OF 49 BC – VF NGC GRADED ROMAN REPUBLICAN COIN (Inv. 2018)

$1,100.00

20188. L.C. LENTULUS AND C. MARCELLUS. Ca. 49 BC.
Silver Denarius, 3.86 g, 19 mm. Issue of military mint moving with Pompey, ca. April–June 49 BC.
Obverse. Medusa within triskeles, ears of grain between legs. Rev. LENT MAR COS, Jupiter standing left, holding eagle and thunderbolt, harpa in right field.
Crawford 445/1a; Sydenham 1029a.
NGC graded VF, Strike 5/5, Surface 4/5.

This denarius was struck for L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus at a mobile military mint operating in the east in support of Pompey, however, the obverse type refers to Sicily, probably as an allusion to the capture of Syracuse by Marcellus’ homonymous ancestor in 211 BC. The triskeles was a common Roman symbol for the three–cornered shape of Sicily while the grain ears refer to the island as the breadbasket of Italy.