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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 6913784, member: 84744&quot;]Historically a very interesting coin!</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1273176[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The populist &quot;cheap grain&quot; law referred to on the coin (AD FRVmentum EMVndum = &quot;for buying grain&quot;) was sponsored by Gaius Marius via his ally and tribune of the plebs, Saturninus.&nbsp; Marius had been elected consul for the 6th time, and they also had an allied praetor, Glaucia - the elections had been rigged by bribery and even murder.&nbsp; The trio simultaneously sponsored an agrarian law designed to give land to Marius&#039;s veterans.&nbsp; These laws were hugely contentious and their passage was preceded by much violence, some of it sponsored by Caepio and other senators. I figure that must be Caepio on the right saying &quot;Sorry, I tried, don&#039;t blame me!!&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s an earlier (103 BCE) Saturninus coin:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1273177[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>At the end of the year, Saturninus was again elected tribune, but the brutal assassination of Gaius Memmius to make way for Glaucia&#039;s election as consul went too far, and the Senate passed a senatus consultum ultimum directing Marius to defend the State. Marius defeated a mob fighting for Saturninus and tried to spare Saturninus by securing him in the Curia, but he was killed by members of the aristocratic party who climbed onto the roof and pelted him with heavy roof tiles.&nbsp; Glaucia was dragged out of the house he had hidden in and was also killed.</p><p><br /></p><p>All this forms the climax to Colleen McCullough&#039;s wonderful book, <a href="https://www.ebooks.com/en-ca/book/209883347/the-first-man-in-rome/colleen-mccullough/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ebooks.com/en-ca/book/209883347/the-first-man-in-rome/colleen-mccullough/" rel="nofollow">The First Man in Rome</a>.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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