An extremely rare and exquisite aureus showing the ill-fated Geta (from the collection of the Royal Library of Belgium) [4475×4000]

Hello again, everyone!

The Severans are one of those iconic Roman dynasties with everything you’d want from an imperial family – murder, bloodshed, insane behavior, powerful women, and so on. As with so many other periods of Roman history, it is replete with “what-ifs”. What if Caracalla hadn’t killed Geta? What if Geta had gained the upper hand? What if Elagabal had been a bit less eccentric? Alas, we will never know the answer.

This aureus brings us back to happier days, when Septimius Severus still could act like all was well in the family. It shows a fantastic left-facing portrait of Geta, while the reverse shows the young Caesar as princeps iuventutis on horseback to right, followed by two other horseman. Likely, this scene refers to a sort of parade on horseback performed by young men of equestrian rank through the city of Rome (the transvectio equitum). Geta, as the “foremost of the youth”, would naturally be in a prime position to lead this parade. A curious detail is the fact that Geta is nimbate. While this is something you’d expect of a Christian saint, this has nothing to do with saintliness. After all, the nimbus also played a role in the iconography of the Golden Age (an important theme in imperial legitimization) and it helped accentuate the Caesar’s presence on the reverse.

This coin is one of the two examples known, both coming from the famed Karnak Hoard of 1901 (ours is the better of two!) This hoard consisted of about 1200 aurei, running from Hadrian to Elagabal, and was found in the vicinity of the Precinct of Amun-Ra in Karnak. It was quickly dispersed among collectors of high-end Roman gold coins and our Albéric du Chastel acquired 35 of them. A fine pedigree for an interesting piece!