Venus, Aeneas and Julius Caesar’s African Campaign

Julius Caesar
AR Denarius, African mint, 47-46 BC
Dia.: 19 mm, 6h
Wt.: 3.83 g
Obv.: Diademed head of Venus to right
Rev.: Aeneas advancing to left, carrying palladium and Anchises on shoulder; CAESAR downwards to right.
Ref.: Crawford 458/1; CRI 55; BMCRR East 31; RSC 12

Background
After Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Pharsalus, most of the remaining Optimates with a will to fight fled to Africa to regroup. Caesar followed them there in 47 BC. With characteristic boldness he crossed into North Africa during December of 47 BC with only 6 legions. A storm scattered his fleet and Caesar was forced to fight on a defensive footing for much of the campaign while he regathered his legions and waited for reinforcements. He fought an indecisive battle outside the city of Ruspina and then delivered a crushing defeat to the Optimates at the Battle of Thapsus on April 6th, 46 BC. In the aftermath, Cato and Scipio committed suicide while the remaining few holdouts fled to Hispania.

These Venus / Aeneas coins were struck at a military mint travelling with Caesar on this campaign in order to pay the soldiers. The design references part of the mythological story that Virgil would write about in the Aeneid a few decades later. In my opinion, these types are the most interesting of all of Caesar’s coin issues.

The Reverse: Aeneas carrying Anchises
The reverse shows the Trojan hero Aeneas carrying his father Anchises (and the Palladium) out of the city of Troy as it is being sacked by the Greeks. This scene must have been well known among the Romans because it would later be an episode in Virgil’s Aeneid.

“Haste, father, on these bending shoulders climb!
This back is ready, and the burden light;
one peril smites us both, whate'er befall;
one rescue both shall find. Close at my side
let young Iulus run,… in thy hands
bring, sire, our household gods, and sanctifies.” [1]​

This scene is important for Caesar because the gens Julia (i.e. IVLIA) claim to traced their decent from Iulus, son of Aeneas, who is mentioned in the above passage. Claiming decedent from the hero Aeneas would be honor enough for most families, but we will see below that Caesar goes even farther by claiming a divine lineage.

The Obverse: Venus as the Ancestor of Julius Caesar
The obverse of this coin shows a portrait of Venus (Greek Aphrodite). As we discussed above, Julius Caesar was highlighting his claimed ancestry from Aeneas. All of the earliest sources agree (The Iliad of Homer, Theogony of Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite) that Aeneas was the son of Aphrodite (Venus) and Anchises. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite has the fullest account of the story. In it, Zeus becomes angry at Aphrodite for making him lst after mortal women and so he strikes her with a desire for Anchises. Aphrodite lies to Anchises and tells him she is a mortal and that Hermes has brought her to be his bride. The next day she reveals herself and tells him that she will give birth to Aeneas, and threatens that if he reveals to anyone that she is the boy’s mother then Anchises will come to serious harm. Of course, we know that Anchises did reveal that Aphrodite was the mother of Aeneas. In various versions of the story he is either struck blind, killed or made lame by a thunderbolt. Such an injury is perhaps why he needed to be carried by Aeneas in the early Greek versions of the story.

Caesar’s decision to highlight this episode from mythology to boast about his own divine ancestry makes this one of my favorite coin types. The theme has been a continuously popular subject in art from Ancient Greece down to the present day.


Attic vase showing Aeneas carrying Anchises (ca. 500 BC). Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Aeneas and His Family Fleeing Troy by Simon Vouet, Oil ofCanvas, ca. 1635-40. San Diego Museum of Art (Author’s photo)

References

[1] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0055:book=2:card=692

Please share your Julius Caesar coins, Roman Civil War coins, Trojan War myth coins or anything else you feel is relevant.

 

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A fantastic coin and a great, interesting write up. I have nothing of the Caesar civil war, but the one before between Marian/Sulla, also depicting Venus.

Gaius Naevius Balbus in 79 BC was a supporter of Sulla and may have been a prefect in Sulla’s army at the Battle of the Colline Gate in 82 BC. The obverse of the coin depicts Venus, the patron Saint of Sulla, while the reverse shows Victory, alluding to Sulla’s victory games.
The gens Naevia, occasionally written Navia, was a plebeian or patrician family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned at the time of the Second Punic War, but the first of the Naevii to obtain the consulship was Lucius Naevius Surdinus, in AD 30.
The nomen Naevius is generally regarded as a patronymic surname derived from the praenomen Gnaeus indicating a birthmark. Gnaeus and naevus, the usual form of the Latin word for a birthmark, were pronounced similarly, and a number of other Latin words could be spelled with either gn- or n-, such as gnatus and natus, "born".
In the time of the Republic, the principal cognomina of the Naevii were Balbus and Matho. Balbus, a common surname, originally signified one who stutters

 

This is a great post, @Curtisimo , thank you. I think I'll use it as a reference to my own example (which I have posted too many times on this forum )

 

My comparatively humble example:



3.16g, 17mm Diademed head of Venus right Aeneas advancing left, holding plladium and carrying Anchises on his shoulder. "CAESAR" RSC 12

My example is light weight for a Republic denarius (3.16 grams). Is the low weight due to circulation wear, crystallization, or fourre?

 

One of the main Caesarian propaganda themes struck on Caesar's coinage is his Pietas. Above everything else, a Roman imperator must be pius, so the gods will favor him and his men.

This is why Pietas is very often depicted on his coinage. Usually, Pietas is symbolized by a veiled goddess, or most often by sacrificial or sacerdotal implements : the jug, the simplulum, the lituus, the flamen's cap with its apex, the aspergillum, the axe. Before Caesar, Sulla had already minted denarii with such symbols.

The Aeneas scene on the OP coin is a new symbolic depiction of Pietas, and in the same time an evocation of Caesar's personal ancestors. The gens Julia claimed descent from Aeneas, thus from Anchises and the goddess Venus. On this coin Julius Caesar pays tribute to three of his personal ancestors: Venus on obverse, Anchises and Aeneas on reverse. By doing so, he does what most of the young money magistrates of Republican Rome used to do when choosing a personal type for their denarii.

But Aeneas running from Troy carrying the Palladium and his old father on his back is the very image of Pietas. They were two forms of pietas : the pietas erga deos (piety toward the gods) and the pietas erga parentes (piety toward one's parents). By refusing to leave the Palladium and his own father behind, Aeneas does both. This is why Virgil will later call the Trojan hero "Pius Aeneas" (Aeneid I, 378).

 

Excellent coin Curtis, such strong detail.

 

I love this period of Roman history and its coinage, but the hard part is always deciding what to include in this period.

Caesar's Civil Wars set the stage for Brutus & Cassius' against the Second Triumvirate, which then culminated in that between Octavian and Marc Antony.

But the cast of characters and the conditions for the later wars had already been set a generation earlier during Sulla's Civil War (or earlier yet...). Within my collection, I think of this period "starting" sometime around Julius Caesar's uncle...

Lucius Julius Caesar, Consul in 90 BCE during the Social War. The Denarius below was struck by L. Julius Caesar as moneyer in 103 BCE (Crawford p. 325, 320/1). Here already we see a connection to the iconography of the OP denarius, as "the reverse type alludes to the descent of Iulii from Venus by way of Aeneas and Ascanius-Iulius" (Craw. 325; perhaps not a literal scene from myth, but I recall Venus, Aeneas, and cupid-disguised-as-Ascanius may have fled the burning city of Troy together?):

L. Julius Caesar AR Denarius (3.92g), 103 BCE. Mars / Venus in Biga of Cupids. Craw. 320/1. Prov: Ex Scipio Collection (Part III, 458); Leo Benz (1906-1996) Collection (Lanz 88, 407); Kricheldorf 29 (3 Mar 1975), Lot 249; ill. in ANS RRDP, Schaefer Binder #19 (Processed, 300-399): pp. 119 (ꓘ) & 121 (·ꓘ)​

Sulla had served under L. Julius Caesar (as Consul) during the Social War (91-89 CE). When Sulla headed east to fight Mithdrates VI, Marius returned to Rome and seized control. Lucius Julius Caesar was killed by the Marians (in typical fashion for this period, his head was reportedly displayed at the forum). The young Gaius Julius Caesar -- "the" Julius Caesar -- was allowed to flee with his life (his inheritance now taken, which no doubt incentivized him to later seek riches through conquest).

Sulla's absence was taken in service of the Mithradatic War in Greece, including the Siege of Athens. The "New Style" Tetradrachms of Sulla, under Proquaestor Lucullus, were struck either during the siege or after Athens was sacked:

Athens AR “New Style” Tetradrachm (29mm, 16.36 g), c. 86-84 BCE. Thompson 1315, HGC 4, 1779. Prov: CNG 115, 147 ("Texas Wine Doctor” Coll.), CNG 51, 302.
(Photo doesn't quite capture the nice toning, but click thumbnail for still image)
​

An interesting thing about Sulla's "Imperatorial" denarius below (struck at military mint, c. 84-3 BCE) is the apparent influence on some of Julius Caesar's later denarii:

Lucius Sulla AR Denarius (3.67g, 18mm, 12h), military mint, 83 BC. Venus & small Cupid / Capis and lituus between two trophies. Crawford 359/2. Prov: InAsta 84 (30 Oct 2019), 114.​

Sulla's Venus & Cupid also appear on the front of Julius Caesar's first denarius below, and the trophy on the reverse. The "priestly implements" appear on the reverse of his famous "elephant denarius":

Julius Caesar AR Denarius (3.70g, 20mm, 12h). Military mint, 46-5 BCE. Elephant / Implements. Crawford 443/1. Prov: Kirk Davis Catalog 74, 65.​

Julius Caesar AR Denarius (3.49g, 17mm, 1h). Military mint, 49 BCE. Elephant / Implements. Crawford 443/1. Prov: Kirk Davis Catalog 74, 65.​

Caesar's elephant denarius clearly influenced the elephant denarius of Metellus Scipio, one of the Pompeian generals against whom Caesar fought in his own Civil War:

Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio AR Denarius. Military mint travelling with Scipio in Africa, 47-46 BCE. Crawford 459/1. Prov: American Collection, via Ben Mous.​

Of course, the civil wars did not end there. Depending on your perspective on the "Koson" coinage, the following may all be connected to Brutus (first as Moneyer, c. 54 BCE, then Imperator, c. 42 BCE):




But where / when to draw the line?

I'm also partial to the very last of the Greek coins struck under Antony & Cleopatra, though Greek coins from that period are often dated only tentatively to their reigns. From Messenia (AR Hemidrachm/Triobol) & Olympia, Elis (AE Diassarion/Dupondius), both mid-to-late 30s BCE in the lead-up to the Battle of Actium, at which Octavian decisively defeated the star-crossed lovers:

Messenia, Messene AR Hemidrachm – Triobol (16mm, 2.25g, 10h), c. 35 BCE. Zeus / Tripod. Prov: BCD Peloponnesos II 2327 = C. Grandjean No. 203-g (D125/R171 – this coin); James Madison University (John A. Sawhill Bequest); Kommerzienrat H. Otto, Stuttgart (Hess 207 (Lucerne, 1 Dec 1931), 493).​

Olympia, Elis AE Diassarion (27mm, 12.56g, 12-1h), c. 30s BCE. Hera / Eagle. Prov: Philipsen (Hirsch XXV (25 Nov 1909), 1300); Warren (Naville Ars Classica XV (2 Jul 1930), 809); RK Morcom; Christopher Morcom; P. R. Franke. ​

Perhaps a stopping point here, as Marc Antony (under whose joint control of Greece with Cleopatra these were likely struck) was the grandson of the Lucius Julius Caesar from the very first Denarius shown in this comment.

Though I'd kinda like to switch to numis. lit. and start showing some of my favorite books on this period...

 

Excellent coin @expat ! That is an interesting detail about the meaning of the name Balbus. I Wasn’t aware of that.

I’m honored! Your example of this coin is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Beautiful detail on both sides.

Great example! Thanks for sharing.

Yes very true. I remember reading somewhere that Peus was the word most often used to describe Aeneas in the Aeneid. I’ve even read some opinions that the ending where Aeneas kills Turnus is meant to be a comment on the loss of his Pietas due to war.

Thank you my friend!!

 

This is such a good post it will certainly cause me to do some follow up reading. Wonderful examples and comments.

On an unrelated note I must say how impressed I am with your provenance research and the online resource you started for information on historic collectors / collections. Very interesting and a great idea. I really think it could turn into an incredibly useful resource.