Philip II, as Caesar, AV Aureus. Rome, AD 245. M IVL PHILIPPVS CAES, bare-headed and draped bust to right / PRINCIPI IVVENT, Philip standing to right, holding spear in right hand, globe in left. RIC IV 216a; Bland, Gold 22 (dies 7/- [unlisted rev. die]); Biaggi 1390; Calicó 3276. 4.50g, 22mm, 6h.

Near Mint State. Very Rare; the finest example offered at auction in the past 20 years.

Ex Long Valley River Collection, Roma Numismatics Ltd., Auction XX, 30 October 2020, lot 654;
Ex Classical Numismatic Group, Triton XXI, 9 January 2018, lot 827 (hammer: USD 45,000).

Born in AD 237, Marcus Julius Severus Philippus was seven years old when his father and namesake, the emperor Philip I, had him proclaimed Caesar early in AD 244. Despite his youth, Philip II accompanied his father on campaigns against the Quadi and Carpi on the Danube frontier in AD 245-247, and when Philip I returned in triumph, his 10-year-old son was elevated to the rank of co-Augustus and together they oversaw the extravagant Saecular Games that marked Rome’s one-thousandth anniversary in AD 248. However, in the following months further turmoil on the frontiers led to a rash of attempted usurpations, the most serious by the general Trajan Decius, who then marched against Rome in mid-AD 249, resulting in the overthrow of the administration of father and son and, ultimately, their deaths. The circumstances of the younger Philip’s demise are uncertain, but the writer Aurelius Victor (Epitome de Caesaribus xxviii) suggests he was murdered by the Praetorian guard when news of his father’s defeat reached Rome.

This beautiful aureus displays an exceptionally lifelike portrait of the young Caesar, then about eight or nine years of age. To a modern viewer it is a somewhat tragic portrait of a youth killed before he could reach adulthood.