Minted Before the Rug Pull: Own the Original Token from Rome’s First Failed Coup

Well.....maybe not the first failed coup - from the second century BCE onward, Rome was repeatedly convulsed by what might be called failed coups : violent challenges to republican order mounted by ambitious elites.

In 133 BCE Tiberius Gracchus was killed by senatorial mobs for pushing agrarian reform, and in 121 his brother Gaius fell after the Senate invoked the senatus consultum ultimum to crush his supporters.

In 100 BCE the populist tribune Saturninus and his ally Glaucia used gangs and assassinations to force legislation, only to be suppressed under the same emergency decree by Marius, their sometime patron.

In 88 BCE when Sulla marched his army on Rome - the first true military coup - briefly triumphant until his departure allowed Marius and Cinna to retake the city, before Sulla’s bloody restoration in 83–82.

In 78 BCE, after Sulla’s death, his opponent Lepidus attempted an armed reversal of his reforms, only to be defeated near Rome by Catulus and Pompey.

By the time of Catiline’s conspiracy in 63, Romans had already witnessed a string of failed or short-lived seizures of power, each one eroding constitutional norms and normalizing violence as a tool of politics.

Roman Republican & Imperatorial, L. Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and L. Scribonius Libo, 62 BC. Denarius (Silver, 20 mm, 3.64 g, 5 h), Rome. PAVLLVS LEPIDVS CONCORD Diademed and veiled head of Concordia to right. Rev. PVTEAL•SCRIBON / LIBO Garlanded Puteal Scribonianum (Scribonian wellhead), decorated with two lyres; hammer at base. Babelon (Aemilia) 11. Crawford 417a. RBW 1503. Sydenham 927. Nearly very fine.

On 21 October 63 BCE, Cicero persuaded the Senate to pass the senatus consultum ultimum granting extraordinary powers to the consul to defend the state. On 5 December 63 BCE, after heated Senate debate with Julius Caesar arguing for life imprisonment, and Cato the Younger urging execution, Cicero ordered the immediate strangling of five conspirators in the Tullianum prison without trial. Executing Roman citizens without due process was legally dubious (Cicero would eventually be called out for this by his rivals and exiled).

The Temple of Concord in the Forum, is where the Senate met to deliberate Catiline’s fate. In 62 BCE, two young moneyers, Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus and Lucius Scribonius Libo, issued coinage that projected: harmony restored and divine protection.

Post coins of Concordia, or anything else you find interesting or entertaining.

 

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