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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;zumbly, post: 2785918, member: 57495&quot;]I&#039;ll first confess that I&#039;ve stolen my thread title from the fourth episode of HBO&#039;s TV series, <i>Rome </i><img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie8" alt=":D" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />. </p><p><br /></p><p>At this point of the series, Pompey has already fled Rome at the approach of Caesar&#039;s legion, and in this episode, discovers to his dismay that some of the men he had sent to empty the Republic&#039;s Treasury of all its gold had instead decided to make off with it themselves.&nbsp; To his even greater displeasure, he learns that his men had encountered two of Caesar&#039;s own - Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo - who beat them off and took possession of their wagons, with one of them (Pullo, naturally) deciding that he would keep all the Treasury loot for himself.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>In a more contemporary and certainly more accurate account of the events, Pliny the Elder tells us that Caesar, on crossing the Rubicon and entering Rome in 49 BC, took from the <i>aerarium </i>(the Treasury located in the basement of the Temple of Saturn on the Capitoline Hill) a massive hoard of gold and silver, as well as the equivalent of 7.5 million denarii worth of coin.&nbsp; One of those coins could very well have been this one...</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]645790[/ATTACH]</p><p><b>ROMAN REPUBLIC</b></p><p><b>Manius Acilius Glabrio, moneyer</b></p><p>AR Denarius. 3.78g, 19mm. Rome mint, 49 BC. Crawford 442/1a; Sydenham 922. O: Laureate head of Salus right; SALVTIS behind. R: Valetudo standing left holding serpent and leaning elbow on column; MN ACILIVS III VIR VALETV around.</p><p><i>Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection, ANS 1001.1.12776</i></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t have the Michael Harlan book with a chapter on this moneyer, but writing in an online forum thread a few years ago, he postulates that this issue of Glabrio&#039;s from 49 BC was struck in support of Pompey, and that the obverse bust of Salus speaks to the idea that Pompey and the optimates were fighting to preserve the health (<i>salus</i>) of the Republic.&nbsp; He goes on to suggest that the bulk of the coin that Caesar took from the Treasury for his own use was this exact type. </p><p><br /></p><p>The very specific choice of depicting Valetudo, the goddess of physical well-being, on the reverse of the coin, is also an interesting one.&nbsp; It&#039;s been suggested that the Acilia were responsible for the early promotion of private medical practice in Rome, but there is no actual evidence to support this theory.&nbsp; On the other hand, Glabrio may have been raised as a child in Pompey&#039;s house (his mother, Aemilia Scaura, was Pompey&#039;s second wife), and the choice may have been made in connection with Pompey&#039;s recovery from a grave illness the year before, an event which was widely celebrated throughout Italy.&nbsp; Ironically, Pompey would be dead before the end of 48 BC.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>Please feel free to post your M. Acilius Glabrio coins![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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