The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

RARE AND UNPUBLISHED ROMAN COINS. 827
of about half their size, in the same metal. The
reason for their being struck may however be, as
I suggest, a tentative effort to place the portrait of
Augustus on Senatorial coins of the largest size without
actually encroaching upon the then severe Republican
type of the sestertius.
The monetary triumvirs who struck the coins with
the head of Augustus crowned by Victory are M.
Salvius Otho, M. Maecilius Tullus, and P. Lurius
Agrippa, and M. Babelon puts their year
of office at
12 B.C., as in this year Augustus received the title
of Pontifex Maximus, which appears upon all these
coins. Mr. Grueber, however, puts their date as 5 B.C.,
as he has reason to believe that other moneyers, on
whose coins this title appears, held office before the
three who struck the coins in question. Perhaps,
however, the most interesting suggestion is made
by Willers. 4 He describes them as triumphal asses,
struck for 1 Jan., 7 B.C. He notes (pp. 175-6) that
they frequently exceed the normal size and weight
of the as, and that one at Berlin has remains of
ancient gilding. The obverse type suggests that they
were struck specially to celebrate a triumph, and he
comes to the conclusion that of the three possible
triumphs that of 1 Jan., 7 B. c. is the most probable.
I may observe that my own suggestion made above is
in no way incompatible with this view, if we may regard
these triumphal coins as dupondii as well as asses.
In making the suggestions as to copper dupondii
I should perhaps say that I have not overlooked the
fact that the ordinary sestertii of the reign of
4
Op. cit., pp. 152-3.