Interesting feature over at Coin Week … here are the first couple of paragraphs as a bit of a tease:
Much like Americans, Republican Romans had a deep-rooted prejudice against depicting living people on their money. It was something that pretentious Greek kings and tyrants did. When Julius Caesar violated this taboo, his assassins claimed that he was trying to make himself a king. And yet, within a few years, Brutus struck his own portrait on coins to pay his army – the famous “Ides of March” denarius.
The civil wars that tore the Republic apart (49-30 BCE) saw dramatic social change, including changes in gender roles. Female figures had appeared on Roman coinage for centuries, but these were goddesses, personifications, or legendary figures like the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, who appeared on a denarius in 89 BCE. […]
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