Roman Imperial: Augustus (27 BC-AD 14). AV aureus (20mm, 7.82 gm, 8h). NGC XF 5/5 - 3/5, brushed....

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Augustus (27 BC-AD 14). AV aureus (20mm, 7.82 gm, 8h). NGC XF 5/5 - 3/5, brushed. Lugdunum, 2 BC-AD 4. CAESAR AVGVSTVS-DIVI F PATER PATRIAE, laureate head of Augustus right / AVGVSTI F COS DESIG PRINC IVVENT, Gaius and Lucius Caesars, both togate, standing facing, each resting inner hand on grounded shield with spear behind; simpulum (on left) and lituus (on right) turned inwards in upper field; C L CAESARES in exergue. Calicó 176a. RIC I 206. A regal portrait of the emperor on a bright dandelion flan.

From The Peh Family Collection, Part IV. Ex Heritage Auctions, New York Signature Sale 397 (9 January 2006), lot 12056.

This aureus displays the succession arrangements Augustus hoped to implement for the Roman state. After the death of his favorite nephew Marcellus, Augustus turned his hopes for the succession to the young Caius and Lucius Caesars, his grandsons via his daughter Julia and his close friend Marcus Agrippa. Caius was born in 20 BC and Lucius three years later. Augustus formally adopted them both and gave them an accelerated progress up the cursus honorum, or ladder of public offices. He also carefully supervised their education and displayed them at public events to endear them to the populace and army. There are hints that being showered with honors and adulation may have gone to their heads, but history will never know whether their reigns would have been superior to what did come after Augustus, for they both suffered untimely ends. Lucius fell ill during a state visit to Gaul and died in Massalia in AD 2. Two years later, Caius suffered a wound during a skirmish with the Parthians on the eastern frontier and died in Lycia. Augustus was devastated and spent the rest of his reign sunk in depression. Their deaths cleared the way for Tiberius, Augustus' dour son-in-law via his wife Livia, and rumors abounded that she had somehow conspired the deaths of Caius and Lucius, and possibly that of Marcellus as well, but the disparate circumstances of their deaths leaves for little doubt of Livia's innocence.

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