Did Caesar Issue a Coin When He Crossed the Rubicon?

QUESTION: I discovered it fascinating that you simply had been in a position to calculate the funding of the struggle that Cleopatra offered Mark Antony. Have you ever carried out comparable work to have a look at the funding of Julius Caesar to cross the Rubicon?

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ANSWER: Sure. The place the Battle of Actium was a proxy struggle instigated by Cleopatra to attempt to seize management of Rome following the assassination of Julius Caesar. The very best estimate I may make was that Mark Antony struck at the least 25 million legionary denarii as much as 35 million. Likewise, the coinage of Julius Caesar gives us with proof of the price of revolution as properly, which isn’t recorded amongst modern historians. They had been extra within the causes and biases of the time, not within the economics of the occasions.

Julius Caesar struck his Rubicon Coinage with the picture of an elephant crushing a dragon-snake which represented the corrupt Senate. Some tried to assert that the snake represented Pompey the Nice. Caesar had married Pompey to his daughter. He was drastically upset when the Egyptians beheaded Pompey and gave him his head as a present. It’s unlikely that the snake was ever a private illustration of Pompey. It was, in my thoughts, the Senate the place the instigator of the civil struggle was none aside from the vile and corrupt Cato. It was Cato who was the chief of the Opimates who managed the Senate and tried to strip Caesar of all energy which successfully compelled him to cross the Rubicon.

It’s more than likely that this coinage commenced in Gaul, as a part of Caesar’s preparations for invasion, with a view to pay his troops. The variety of dies means that this situation was additionally enormous exceeding 25 million denarii. It most actually was expanded when he acquired the reserves of the Roman Treasury that had been left behind by the panic-stricken Senators, Optimates, once they fled Rome as a result of the folks by no means supported the likes of Cato or Cicero for that matter.

Elephant strolling proper, trampling on dragon-snake the top of which rears up earlier than him, CAESAR in exergue. On the reverse, we see the emblems of the hold forth — simpulum, aspergillum, axe, and apex.

The coinage opens an financial window that permits us to know the actual motives and prices behind the occasions in historical past. This Rubicon Coinage reveals one thing much more politically vital than what the modern writers revealed. Caesar truly took private duty for the manufacturing of this coinage which was clearly unconstitutional on the time. Usually, there was a treasurer often known as a moneyer who issued the cash. There is no such thing as a moneyer on this coinage so Caesar is taking PERSONAL duty absent the possession of a qualifying magistracy appointed by the Senate.

For this reason I name this the Rubicon Coinage for Caesar was declaring struggle on the Senate of Rome on this time of nationwide disaster. The very creation of this coinage with out a moneyer sanction by the Senate was a declaration of civil struggle. The symbolism of the obverse can hardly be something aside from the triumph of excellent over evil, while the reverse alludes to Caesar’s possession of the workplace of pontifex Maximus and he ended the corruption of bribing the excessive clergymen to increase the calendar to keep away from elections. Therefore, at this time we now have the Julian calendar.

This situation of the Rubicon Coinage clearly funded the crossing of the Rubicon. How lengthy this necessary sort remained in situation after Cato and his corrupt Senators fled and the struggle with Pompey started is tough to say. It was more than likely struck proper as much as the time of the ultimate marketing campaign resulting in the Battle of Pharsalus which befell  August ninth, 48 BC, and the defeat of Pompey. It was on January tenth, 49 BC when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

It took simply 19 months to deliver down the Republic or 82.3 weeks from Caesar crossing the Rubicon to the defeat of Pompey on the Battle of  Pharsalus within the Greek area of Thessaly. Thereafter, Caesar now consolidated his energy He was elected as consul (usually a one-year time period) in 48, 46, 45, and 44BC. Due to the political disaster and the corruption of the Senate which didn’t wish to yield any energy to the folks, the brand new Senate thus waived the standard requirement {that a} consul needed to wait 10 years between phrases. Caesar was additionally granted the title and workplace of  Dictator which was a political place in occasions of disaster through the years 49, 48-47, and 46-44. Historically, the workplace of the Dictator was confined to simply six months and he can be granted particular powers to 1 man for a restricted interval to flee the paperwork to get issues carried out. This was the means to take care of an emergency that threatened the state.

To satisfy the Republic’s pressing want for money, Caesar resumed coinage of gold, which had not been struck by Rome for the reason that dictatorship of Sulla (82-81 BCE). Most of Caesar’s aurei (about eight grams) are crude in design and workmanship in 46 BC. The moneyer was Aulus Hirtius who was a key supporter of Caesar. He served as one among Caesar’s legates in Gaul from about 54 BC and was an envoy to Pompey in 50 BC. He served Caesar loyally through the Civil Conflict in opposition to Pompey and his successors in 48-45 BC. Hirtius was appointed as Caesar’s mintmaster in Rome in 46 BC, and it was at the moment as a moneyer when he struck the primary really giant situation of gold aurei from the spoils of Caesar’s campaigns. These aurei had been poorly designed and executed with a veiled feminine head on the obverse, usually showing as a male, with priestly implements on the reverse. They had been used to pay Caesar’s troopers after the good triumphal parade.

Following Caesar’s assassination, Hirtius initially supported Marc Antony, however, after taking up as Consul in 43 BC, he raised a military in opposition to Antony on the instigation of Cicero and Octavian. His military defeated Antony at Mutina in April of 43 BC, however Hirtius was killed within the preventing. He left that political stage leaving Octavian and Antony masters of Rome. Hirtius was a loyal supporter of Caesar for he preserved and edited Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars.

It was through the latter a part of 45BC when this explicit sequence of Aureii was produced for Caesar’s Spanish triumph in October of that 12 months. Certainly, that the obverse sort of the winged goddess Victory clearly refers to Caesar’s victory at Munda in opposition to Roman adversaries. Caesar was a Populares, a person of the folks, who was not shy to specific his growing disdain for the factions of the aristocracy – the Optimates led by Cato. Caesar even celebrated a triumph within the capital, an unprecedented commemoration of victory over different Romans illustrating he regarded the Optimates because the enemy of the folks. The presence throughout the situation of a gold half-aureus, or quinarius, makes it virtually sure that this sort was minted specifically for the Spanish triumph for the reason that denomination was usually related to the distribution of largess at public celebrations.

Lucius Munatius Plancus, whose identify seems on the reverse of this coin, was one of many City Prefects appointed by the dictator in 46 BC to manage the capital whereas he was on marketing campaign. After this distinguished situation of aurei was minted underneath his identify, he rose to the place of governor of Transalpine Gaul in 44 BC the place he based the colony of Lugdunum, and later was appointed consul in 42 BC. Though he supported Marc Antony within the tumult which adopted Caesar’s assassination, he ultimately grew to become an adviser to Octavian and in keeping with Suetonius he dissuaded the princeps from assuming the identify of Romulus as a ‘second founding father of Rome’ (Suet. Aug. 7) and as an alternative on 16 January 27 BC he formally proposed that the title ‘Augustus’, which means ‘revered one’ be granted to the younger princeps.

It was not till Caesar acquired the unprecedented title of “Dictator in Perpetuity” (DICT PERPETUO on the coinage) early in 44 BCE, conservative Romans had been horrified. To them, this was akin to a monarchy. Here’s a coin struck earlier than his assassination with the title DICT PERPETUO issued by the moneyer Macer.

They assassinated Caesar on the Ides of March – the fifteenth. Due to this fact, cash with the portrait of Caesar with the legend “DICT PERPETUO”  needed to have been struck for just a few weeks. He was granted that title between January twenty sixth, 44BC and February fifteenth, 44BC. It was on February fifteenth when Rome celebrated the competition of the Lupercal, which we name at this time Valentines’s Day.  That was when Mark Antony twice presents Caesar with a royal diadem, urging him to take it and declare himself king. He refuses this provide and orders the crown to be positioned within the Temple of Jupiter. It was more than likely at the moment when Caesar took the title “DICT PERPETUO” as the choice. Curiously, it was 30/31 days later when he was assassinated – Pi?

The conspirators who once more fled Rome, additionally started to situation cash pretending they’re defending the Republic, championed by the faux information of Cicero,. That is even when Brutus points silver and gold coinage bragging that he killed Caesar on the EID MAR – fifteenth of March.

When Caesar was assassinated, that’s once we see the coinage change. Mark Antony begins to situation denarii together with his image on one aspect and Caesar’s on the opposite.

We additionally see Octavian issuing even gold aurei together with his picture on one aspect and Caesar on the opposite. They even issued cash asserting their Triumvirate in opposition to the corrupt Polulares. We even see Augustus, after he defeats Cleopatra and Mark Antony, issuing coinage exhibiting the comet within the sky that folks took because the omen that Caesar was now a god.

The coinage paperwork occasions written by modern writers on the time. This was the idea of Shakespeare’s play – Julius Caesar. The coinage has each confirmed historical past but in addition opened the door to ascertain solutions to necessary financial developments.  One with the coinage was it potential to reply the query of how briskly did Rome actually fall. By imputing this information, it grew to become potential for the pc to even accurately forecast the autumn of communism and the Berlin Wall in 1989. It’s fascinating the way it takes a finite period of time to deliver down a nation-state. When it begins to fall, it does so in a Waterfall sort occasion. Rome fell in simply 8.6 years.