Nomos 23

Titus, as Caesar, 69-79. Aureus (Gold, 20 mm, 7.36 g, 5 h), struck under Vespasian, Rome, 79. T CAESAR IMP VESPASIANVS Laureate head of Titus to right. Rev. TR POT VIII COS VII Venus standing right with her back to the viewer, partially draped, resting her left elbow on a low column beside her, holding crested helmet in her right hand and transverse spear in left. BMC 255, note. Calicó 790. Cohen 331. RIC 1077. A flawless example, sharply struck and lustrous; one of the finest aureus of Titus known! Virtually as struck.

Sold on behalf of the Compagnie Bancaire Helvétique, Switzerland, ex Numismatica Ars Classica 43, 21 March 2007, 43 and Bank Leu 10, 29 May 1974, 110.

Struck shortly before the death of Vespasian, the reverse of this magnificently preserved aureus shows us a version of Venus Victrix, holding a crested Corinthian helmet and a long sceptre (it is not a spear since both ends are blunt). She was not only a favoured goddess of Caesar’s, but also of both Sulla and Pompey (the last dedicated a temple to her in Rome in 55 BC). The statue on this coin is vaguely similar to Canova’s statue of Pauline Napoleon as Venus Victrix, and is related to the famous statue of Venus Callipyge (Aphrodite Kallipygos), which shows a partly draped figure of the goddess admiringly looking over her shoulder at her bare bottom. This pose may simply be the result of modern restoration since when the statue was found in the 16h century, it was headless. In any event, by the time it entered the Farnese Collection, in 1594, it had a head similar to the one it has now (it was re-restored in 1786). Interestingly enough, it is said to be the best known and most popular ancient sculpture in Brazil. In any event, the statue here almost certainly appears as a reference to Caesar and to the Julio-Claudians in general, thus, stressing the legitimacy of the Flavian “connection” to the line of Caesar.