Octavian and Mark Antony. Aureus (Gold, 18 mm, 8.09 g, 9 h), military mint moving with Octavian in Cisalpine Gaul, November-December 43 BC. C•CAESAR•IMP•III•VIR•R•P•C•PONT•AVG• Bare head of Octavian to right. Rev. M•ANTONIVS•IMP•III•VIR•R•P•C•AVG• Bare head of Mark Antony with light beard to right. Babelon (Julia) 77 and Antonia (41). Bahrfeldt 74c. Calicó 107. Crawford 493/1c. CRI 133. RBW -. Sydenham 1167 var. (obverse legend). An exceedingly rare variety of an already exceptionally rare type, perhaps only the third known example. Beautifully struck and among the finest known examples of this historically important issue. Minor marks, otherwise, very fine.


Struck in late 43 BC, this exceptionally rare aureus belongs to the very beginning of the Second Triumvirate, formally established by the lex Titia in November of that year. Only months earlier, Octavian and Mark Antony had stood on opposing sides in the conflict culminating at Mutina; here, however, they appear on opposite sides of the same coin as partners in a newly constituted regime, each bearing the unprecedented title III VIR R P C (triumvir rei publicae constituendae, or ‘one of the three men for the reconstitution of the Republic’). Both men are shown bearded, a convention associated with mourning for the murdered Julius Caesar and with the Caesarian cause that now united them against Brutus and Cassius.

At first sight, the issue presents the two triumvirs as equals, yet the details introduce a more subtle hierarchy. Antony is styled augur (AVG), while Octavian advertises both his priesthoods as pontifex and augur (PONT AVG); more significantly, it is the twenty-year-old Octavian who occupies the obverse. Less than a year earlier he had raised troops on his own initiative, and by late 43 BC had already secured the consulship and a place among the three men formally entrusted with reconstituting the Roman state. His position on the obverse is therefore particularly striking when compared with the much more abundant joint portrait issues struck under Antony in 41 BC, on which Antony consistently takes the obverse and Octavian the reverse (see lot 1218 below). The coin thus proclaims collegiality at first glance, while its finer details preserve the distinctions of status and precedence that were fundamental to Roman political representation.