Roma Numismatics Ltd.
Lot 496
Caligula, with Germanicus, AR Denarius. Rome or Lugdunum, AD 37-38. C CAESAR•AVG•GERM•P•M•TR•POT, laureate head of Caligula right / GERMANICVS•CAES•P•C•CAES•AVG GERM, bare head of Germanicus right. RIC 18; BMCRE 19; RSC 4. 3.73g, 19mm, 6h. Good Extremely Fine; attractive light cabinet tone. Well centred on a very broad flan; among the finest known examples of the type. Struck at the beginning of Caligula’s reign, as part of a series honouring his dead father, mother and brothers, this particular coin pays homage to his father Germanicus. A talented military commander, Germanicus famously led eight legions in three campaigns against the Germanic tribes (AD 14-16), in the course of which he avenged the humiliating defeat suffered by Varus in the Teutoberg Forest and reclaimed two of the lost legionary eagles. He was awarded a Triumph upon his return to Rome in AD 17, and was subsequently dispatched to Asia to restructure the provinces and kingdoms of Asia, which were in such disarray that the direct attention of a senior member of the imperial family was considered necessary. In AD 19, in the midst of a feud with the governor of Syria Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Germanicus was suddenly taken ill with suspected poisoning, and soon died. Piso was implicated in his death, with suspicions falling on the emperor’s chief advisor Sejanus, and even on Tiberius himself. Several historians of the time including Tacitus and Suetonius discuss how beloved Germanicus was by the people and how they regarded him as a model Roman. They took it upon themselves to commemorate Germanicus by honouring him with a Justitium (a suspension of public and private business) and the mourning was felt throughout the empire; “When the news of his death finally broke, neither edicts nor official expressions of sympathy could console the commons...” (Suetonius, The Tweleve Caesars, p. 153). Caligula’s decision to include his fathers portrait on this coinage would no doubt have gone over well with the people of the Rome who remembered his father, and would certainly have helped endear him to them as he began his reign as emperor.
