Please welcome our latest Roman Imperial collector!

Yeah, I don’t think Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was so keen on being called Caligula (“Little Boots”). It probably would have undermined the impression of absolute power he wanted to project.

Woe on the careless courtier who might have let that one slip and addressed the megalomaniac emperor by his childhood nickname! You wouldn’t want to have been that guy.

Of course with the reputedly-nasty Caligula nearly two millennia dead, we get to call him that without repercussions.

 

A little bird told me that Randy now has his Twelve Caesars collection completed, though the Julius Caesar is a low grade “Elephant” type denarius without Caesar’s portrait, to act as sort of a temporary hole filler. It does have his name on there (Caesar's, not Randy's. LOL).

From genesis to completion in barely over a month. That’s a whirlwind-fast journey for an endeavor that takes some collectors years.




Where to next, I wonder?

.

 

In the case of Julius Caesar there is, and some would argue that it’s the Holy Grail of ancient coin collecting.

 

Looks fantastic, doesn’t it?

 

It could be interesting, for sure. You could have a mushroom on the Claudius coin, since he was allegedly done in by poisoned mushrooms.

Not so sure how you’d portray the death of Vespasian, though. He died of natural causes, but it wasn’t pretty (diarrhea). I guess you could put one of those poop emojis on there, but put a sad face instead of a smiley face on it?

 

You've gotta hand it to Vespasian, though. He might've died of a fatal case of diarrhea, but the ol' guy still managed to go out with a measure of dignity, cracking a joke with his final words. (He reputedly had a good sense of humor.)

He is supposed to have said, Vae, puto deus fio! Which roughly translates to "Oh dear, I think I am becoming a god!". Which was a pithy comment about the Roman practice of deifying their dead emperors.

And he was right. Sure enough, here he is, on a posthumous coin in my collection. In the coin's legend he is declared Divus Vespasian, "divus" meaning "god".

So you might croak from a case of the runs, but that needn't prevent you from attaining divinity.

(For those who have trouble reading jumbled Roman coin inscriptions, the obverse bears the legend DIVVS AVGVSTVS VESPASIANVS.)

 

I agree- and just realized that if he switched out (or added) only three pieces, he could have the even more challenging “all silver” set! Of course with Caligula and Claudius, that’s pretty pricey. Nero is more doable.

 

So what’s next, Randy? Upgrades? Pursuit of the “all silver” 12Cs?

Or branching out into further emperors, since there was of course a lot of very interesting history that followed the 12 Caesars? I heartily recommend this last option. Since you already bought a Hadrian, you’ve got one foot on that path already.

Or are you just going to rest on your laurels a while and resume non-ancient operations?