Nomos 22

Augustus, 27 BC-AD 14. Aureus (Gold, 20 mm, 7.83 g, 12 h), Lugdunum, 13-14. CAESAR AVGVSTVS – DIVI F PATER PATRIAE Laureate head of Augustus to right. Rev. TI CAESAR / AVG F TR POT – XV Tiberius Caesar standing in a triumphal quadriga to right, holding eagle-tipped scepter in his left hand and the reins in his right; first and third horses with their heads turned back to left. Bahrfeldt 238b. BMC 508.BN 1687. Calicó 295. Cf. Cohen 301 (but only as a denarius). RIC 223. A splendid example, rare and beautifully struck and centered. Good extremely fine.

From a North American collection, ex Numismatica Ars Classica 106, 9 May 2018, 869.

What is extraordinary about the portraits of Augustus is that he never shows any signs of ageing.Throughout his reign he appears as a glorious, perfect prince - serene and unaffected by the cares of rule that weighed upon him. When this coin was struck Augustus was almost 77 and was in the last year of both his life and his reign; yet his portrait is still that of an at most middle-aged man at the height of his power. No other emperor managed to remain so completely ageless in his numismatic portraits until they began to become formalised visions of power under the Tetrarchy. While Tiberius issued masses of his "Livia" aurei from Lyon, with unchanging types, the portraits themselves moved from an idealised young man to a clearly elderly one; and the portraits of Nero show him changing from a teenager into an obese voluptuary.