221, Lot: 472. Estimate $500. Sold for $1800. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Brutus. Late summer-autumn 42 BC. AR Denarius (19mm, 3.57 g, 12h). Military mint traveling with Brutus and Cassius in western Asia Minor or northern Greece. Laureate head of Neptune right; trident below / Victory standing right on broken scepter, holding palm over left shoulder and broken diadem in both hands. Crawford 507/2; CRI 212; Sydenham 1298; RSC 3. VF, toned.

From the Jörg Müller Collection.

Brutus is best known for his role in the assassination of Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. This action, while often thought as an attempt to save liberty and justice, was actually meant to try to preserve aristocracy and privilege. Brutus and the other conspirators wanted to restore power to the Senate, comprised of the wealthiest and most powerful of Roman citizens. This is in contract to Julius Caesar, who had wanted to break the old power holds in the Senate, populating it with men of lower rank and birth. In a way, Julius Caesar could be seen as promoting a dictatorship with some flavor of a democracy, whereas Brutus and the other conspirators were attempting to save aristocracy.

After his assassination of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius occupied Rome, but had to flee when a funeral oration delivered by Caesar’s protege, Marc Antony, turned public opinion against them. Brutus and Cassius went their seperate ways, but met again in early 42 BC in Smyrna, Ionia, where they began preparations for the inevitable conflict that would ensue between them and Marc Antony and Octavian, Caesar’s grandnephew.. The title IMP on the reverse show that Brutus still styled himself the savior of the Republic, as that was a title only the Senate can award, and the Victory breaking the royal symbols of diadem and scepter is a clear allusion to their anticipated victory over the forces of tyranny.