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Message:: [QUOTE="Nemo, post: 2512895, member: 58462"]When looking for a denarius of Caligula, patience pays off.  So does knowing what your looking at.  I never thought I would have the opportunity to get hold of a rare TR POT IIII COS IIII example.  When I saw this one, I jumped on it. [ATTACH=full]534785[/ATTACH] Gaius Caligula DenariusGaius (Caligula). AD 37-41. AR Denarius, 3.67 g. Rome mint. Struck January AD 41. O: C CAESAR • AVG • PON • M • TR • POT IIII COS • IIII, laureate head right R: S • P• Q • R •/P P/OB • C • S • in three lines within oak wreath. - RIC I -; RIC I (1st ed.) 7 = BMCRE 32 = RSC 23a. Extremely rare denarius of Caligula's fourth consulship, which only lasted from January 1, 41 until his assassination on January 24. The fourth known. Although the first of these three rare coins, the British Museum piece, was cataloged in the first edition of RIC I, it was left out of the revised edition. In that edition, Giard notes (p. 110, note *) that the BM piece was a misreading of TR POT III COS III. In fact, the first edition was correct, the piece was not misdescribed. The second known example of this type was sold as lot 56 in the Bourgey sale of 17 December 1913. Ironically, Bourgey misdescribed that coin as TR POT III COS III. A third example sold through CNG printed auction 78 lot 1723. "On the ninth day before the Kalends of February at about the seventh hour he hesitated whether or not to get up for luncheon, since his stomach was still disordered from excess of food on the day before, but at length he came out at the persuasion of his friends. In the covered passage through which he had to pass, some boys of good birth, who had been summoned from Asia to appear on the stage, were rehearsing their parts, and he stopped to watch and to encourage them; and had not the leader of the troop complained that he had a chill, he would have returned and had the performance given at once. From this point there are two versions of the story: some say that as he was talking with the boys, Chaerea came up behind, and gave him a deep cut in the neck, having first cried, "Take that," and that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, who was the other conspirator and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast. Others say that Sabinus, after getting rid of the crowd through centurions who were in the plot, asked for the watchword, as soldiers do, and that when Gaius gave him "Jupiter," he cried "So be it," and as Gaius looked around, he split his jawbone with a blow of his sword. As he lay upon the ground and with writhing limbs called out that he still lived, the others dispatched him with thirty wounds; for the general signal was "Strike again." Some even thrust their swords through his privates. At the beginning of the disturbance his bearers ran to his aid with their poles, and presently the Germans of his body-guard, and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some inoffensive senators. (Suetonius - Life of Caligula 58).[/QUOTE]

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