AUGUSTUS SILVER DENARIUS – ISSUE WITH THE GREAT COMET OF 44 BC – CHOICE VF NGC GRADED ROMAN IMPERIAL COIN OF THE 12 CAESARS (Inv. 19111)

$3,500.00

19111. ROMAN EMPIRE. AUGUSTUS, 27 BC–AD 14.
Silver Denarius, 3.96 g, 18 mm. Issue of a mint in Spain (perhaps Colonia Caesaraugusta), ca. 19–18 BC.
Obv. CAESAR AVGVSTVS, head of Augustus right, wearing the oak crown (corona civica). Rev. DIVVS IVLIV[S], comet with tail upward.
RIC I rev 102.
Ex Áureo & Calicó 367, 6/2/2021, lot 2068.
NGC graded CHOICE VF, Strike 4/5, Surface 4/5.

This famous type depicts the comet that appeared in July of 44 BC. Octavian interpreted the celestial event as a sign confirming the transition of Caesar’s spirit to the divine sphere, proclaiming it to be the “Sidus Iulium” (“Caesar’s star”). In his Metamorphoses XV, 745–842, the poet Ovid rhapsodized the comet: “Jupiter hardly had pronounced these words, when kindly Venus, although seen by none, stood in the middle of the Senate–house, and caught from the dying limbs and trunk of her own Caesar his departing soul. She did not give it time so that it could dissolve in air, but bore it quickly up, toward all the stars of heaven; and on the way, she saw it gleam and blaze and set it free. Above the moon it mounted into heaven, leaving behind a long and fiery trail, and as a star it glittered in the sky.” (Brookes More translation, 1922)