Octavian as Augustus, 27 BC – 14 AD
L. Caninius Gallus. Denarius 12 BC, AR 3.71 g. [AV]GVSTVS Bare head r. Rev. L CANINIVS – GALLVS III VIR – AVGVSTVS Bisellium with apparitors staff upright on r.; above, TR POT. C 382. BMC 131. RIC 417. CBN 565. Extremely rare. Lovely iridescent tone, field gently smoothed and a hairline flan-crack at twelve oclock on obverse, otherwise good very fine / extremely fine Ex Aureo & Calicó sale 339, 2019, Alba Longa, 1319 (expertly conserved since). An extensive series of coins from 13 B.C. are devoted to the affirmation of Agrippa as heir, and to the hereditary line comprised of his wife Julia and their sons Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar. Two reverse types of denarii reflect the renewal of the tribunician power: one of C. Marius Tromentina shows Augustus and Agrippa standing side-by-side with the attributes of tribunes, and one of C. Sulpicius Platorinus shows the two men seated on a bisellium set upon a platform decorated with a rostra. The bisellium, as described by Varro (L. L. V.128), was large enough to seat two, and its use seems to have been restricted to magistrates and other distinguished individuals. The coin type of Sulpicius offers a good comparison to the L. Caninius Gallus denarius offered here, which shows an unoccupied bisellium with an upright apparitors staff or hasta pura at its side (just as it appears upright to the left of the bisellium on the issue of Sulpicius). The meaning of the coin type seems clear, as Mattingly proposed: it honors the absence of Agrippa from the tribunes bench due to his untimely death.