Concordia Disciplinarum, pp.

107–121
© 2018 The American Numismatic Society

Seeing Caesar’s Symbols: Religious Implements

on the Coins of Julius Caesar and his Successors
Roberta Stewart

This chapter explores the civil war coinage of Julius Caesar and the re-use of his designs by his suc-
cessors and the republican leaders who assassinated him. The argument develops an idea about a
pattern in numismatic iconography that I saw when I had the privilege to study with Bill Metcalf
at the American Numismatic Society summer seminar.
When Caesar invaded the Italian peninsula in 49 BC and then engaged with Pompeian and
senatorial forces in Italy, Gaul, Spain, Greece, and Africa, he issued coins that made extensive use
of religious iconography. His successors and his assassins copied and adapted those assemblages
of religious symbols. The usual explanation of the assemblages is that they provided visual short-
hand for Caesar’s office as pontifex maximus.1 I argue that this mistakes the character of the as-
semblages as a conscious selection, and also the nature of symbols that carry multiple particular
resonances.2 Several symbols, e.g., the ancile, or shield, of the Salian priests, do not correlate or
correlate badly with Caesar’s offices and with the careers of those who re-used the types.3 Even if
and when the symbols correlate with a priesthood, the equation of a variety of different symbols
and assemblages to a single meaning—religious office—produces a reductive banality. The coins
of Julius Caesar, his successors, and his assassins have the potential to bring us into the historical
moment and offer tantalizing evidence for the competing discourses during the civil wars of the
40s.
I argue that Caesar’s coins were innovative in their designs, their use of symbols, and in their
legends. They develop a theme of piety, both ritual correctness and respect for the oldest religious
1. The gloss is made by numismatists, e.g., RRC: 735, Woytek 2003: 119, and by historians, e.g., Wardle 2009: 103–4;
Stepper 2003: 33–35; cf. Büsing 1997: 39, emphasizing claims to the sanctity of the office.
2. Implements have a rich bibliography: for coins, see Büsing 1997; for architectural friezes, see La Follette 2011/2012.
On stylized representations of architecture and visual coding in Roman art, see Elkins 2015: 1–10. On numismatic
symbols and their referents, see Sutherland 1959; idem 1983; idem 1986; Levick 1982; Evans 1992: 17–34; Metcalf 1999;
Meadows and Williams 2001. On symbols and their multivalence, see Blakely 2017: 1–13.
3. RRC: 735, n. 5: “This is, as far as I know, the only evidence that Caesar was a Salius.” For attempts to explain the
apex, see Woytek 2003: 120–21.

107
108 Roberta Stewart

traditions of Rome, particularly the pignora imperii (tokens of empire). They also reflect and de-
velop the two-fold critique of senatorial government that Caesar articulated in De Bello Civili:
the failure to carry out traditional rituals properly, hence the essential illegality of the senatorial
government and its members (BCiv. 1.6); their treatment of priestly offices as empty titles and
plunder of war (3.82, cf. Sallust, BJ 31.10).4 His successors (A. Hirtius, Cn. Domitius Calvinus,
M. Antonius, M. Aemilius Lepidus, C. Octavius) copied his religious symbols wholesale; his op-
ponents (M. Iunius Brutus, C. Cassius Longinus) manipulated them to frame the assassination as
religious sacrifice; all show the effectiveness of his messages.
The frequently changing repertoire of Roman coinage produced a rich body of contemporary
evidence for historical study. Coins offer a window into government policy, individual self-rep-
resentation, and cultural values both at the moment of issue and as a seriation, showing change
across time. How do we interpret the symbols and their possible meanings appropriately? As Met-
calf (1999) insisted, the value of the coin as historical evidence depends on appreciation of it first
as a material artifact. The internal evidence of the coins—their symbols and inscriptions—needs
first to be evaluated in terms of numismatic conventions, not as transparent symbols with self-
evident meaning. For example, legends identified the names of moneyers and so functioned to
regulate the minting process,5 even as a name made a political claim. Second-century generic
battle scenes may connect obliquely with historical events or family history, but communicated
shared military values.6 Repetition and remodeling of types and symbols is evident as an aesthetic
principle of coin design already by the mid-second century BC.7 Roman visual media and literary
sources aid interpretation, by illustrating larger contexts and possible significations. Coins had the
potential to carry messages wherever Roman money changed hands, making them cost-effective,
but also making the audience multiple and indeterminate, thereby further complicating argu-
ments about the meaning of a particular symbol for any individual viewer.
Caesar’s military coins form a distinct group—for their design and iconography—. even
among his own coin production. With one notable exception, the coins minted by Caesar’s sup-
porters during the civil wars, at Rome and elsewhere, feature the name of the moneyer, a range
of deities on the obverse (e.g., Mars, Medusa, Fides, Venus, Roma, Apollo), and a wide range of
themes, including but not exclusively, martial themes on the reverse.8 This group of coins (RRC:
448–51, 453–55, 457, 463–66) closes with the one outlier, an enormous issue of aurei minted by
the praetor A. Hirtius at Rome in 46 BC for Caesar’s quadruple triumph (RRC: 466/1); the au-
reus adopts the iconography of Caesar’s military issues and shows a veiled female (Vesta?) on the
obverse and three religious symbols (lituus, jug, axe) on the reverse. By contrast, Caesar’s own
military coins, minted on campaign, contain only the legend CAESAR (RRC: 443, 452, 458, 468)
or Caesar’s titles (RRC: 467/1).9 Caesar’s coins are filled with religious symbols, with one outlier
(RRC: 468), minted in Spain in 46/45 BC, after the final defeat of the Republican forces at Thapsus;
that coin shows Venus on the obverse and a trophy displaying Gallic weaponry with two bound
captives. What was the force of the religious symbols on Caesar’s civil war coins?
The very first issue of the civil war (RRC 443; Fig. 1) had an elephant confronting a snake (or
trampling a Gallic war club, or carnyx) with the legend CAESAR on one side and on the other side
an assemblage of religious implements: a single-handled cup, sprinkler, axe, and apex.10 Minting
4. On the illegality of government, see Stewart 1997: 178; Wardle 2009: 108.
5. Wolters 2012: 341.
6. Zehnacker 1973: 480–83.
7. Woytek 2012: 326.
8. For a survey, RRC: 89, 735–37.
9. Woytek 2003 is fundamental: a review of hoard and stylistic evidence, and previous scholarly opinion on each coin.
Crawford’s review (2012) should be consulted.
10. On dating the civil war coins by campaign, Crawford 2012: 339. For a careful discussion of the coin, see Woytek
2003: 119–33. Brockages suggest the elephant as the usual obverse die, Woytek 2003: 119, n. 453; idem 2006: 71–72.
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 109

Figure 1. RRC 443. ANS 1941.131.270. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.
technique—multiple dies mounted together into the anvil—localizes some production in Gaul
or Spain.11 The issue was the largest of the civil wars: Crawford’s die estimates yield 22.5 million
denarii at 30,000 coins/die.12
The obverse design has few comparanda. Whatever the significance—a civil war clash of good
elephant over evil snake (Pliny HN 8.23)13 or competitive factional politics14—interpreting and
over-interpreting the obverse design affirms a precept of Metcalf (1999: 3), not to focus on the
unusual design because we simply do not have the evidence to interpret it appropriately. Whatever
the significance of the obverse—and it was comprehensible because it was re-used twice by Roman
commanders in Gaul (RPC 1: 501, 502) —the reverse counterpoised Roman religion, a typical Ro-
man discourse, especially in moments of crisis.15
Caesar’s use of religious symbols as central elements of a design, was not itself new. Sulla
first used ritual symbols as a substantive type: a jug and lituus flanked by military trophies and
enclosed in a laurel wreath (RRC 359); the symbols invoked rituals of political legitimation and
associated these with his military success, as he invaded Italy and fought a civil war in the 80s.16
Caesar’s assemblage (single-handled cup, sprinkler, axe, apex) is new, and its significance emerges
from consideration of its individual elements that have precedents in Republican coinage and
were part of a known numismatic vocabulary.
The single-handled cup first appears on coins of Sulpicius Galba in 69 BC (RRC 406). These
feature a knife and axe, forming a pediment and enshrining a cup; the inscriptions AED CVR and
P GALB identify the moneyer; on the obverse, a portrait of a veiled female with a distinctive hair
roll at the forehead represents Vesta.17 The cup appears as a subsidiary symbol on a coin of 61,
behind the head of Vesta (RRC: 419/3b), and held in the hand of a standing veiled female on a later
issue of 42 BC (RRC: 494/1). Thus, the single-handled cup had an association with Vesta and with
sacrificial implements. As a subsidiary symbol on later coins, the cup appears as a linked pair with
the sprinkler (RRC: 492/2), axe (RRC: 502/1 and 2), or apex (RRC: 502/4). Cumulatively, these
coins copy Caesar’s initial assemblage of 49. Although the cup became a short-hand symbol of the
pontifical college in imperial coinage (beginning in 16 BC: RIC 12: 69, n. 367; cf. RIC 12:125, nos.
76–77), reliefs of ritual implements that adorned Roman temples and altars make clear the endur-
ing significance of the cup as a sacrificial implement in the popular imagination.18 Thus, before
11. Woytek 2006: 73–76, with Crawford 2012: 339–40.
12. RRC: 658–59; Nousek 2008: 293.
13. RRC: 735, no. 2; Woytek 2003: 121–23, idem 2006: 70.
14. Nousek 2008.
15.See Dumézil 1970: 457–89; Santangelo 2013.
16.See Keaveny 1982, Stewart 1997.
17. On Galba, MRR 2.136, n. 4. The symbols are connected with Galba’s pontificate by RRC. As curule aedile Galba
would have led the public ritual at the ludi and used the simpulum, see Wilhelm 1988: 82–83. On the image of Vesta,
see Lindner 2015: 81.
18. The cup in Roman art, Zwierlein-Diehl 1980: 405–22. General surveys: Siebert 1999: 236–39; ThesCRA 5: 205-212
(Hölscher). On architectural reliefs, La Follette 2011/2012: 26 figs. 10–11.
110 Roberta Stewart

Caesar, the libation vessel is associated particularly with Vesta, although it had a broader use that
might factor into its apprehended meaning on Caesar’s coins.
Later coinage illustrates its use. A medallion of Lucilla, the wife of Verus, dated AD 164–
168/9, shows a sacrificial scene in front of the temple of Vesta (Gnecchi 1912: 2.51, no. 13, pl. 76,
9).19 A priestess standing to the right of a lighted altar holds forth incense to the fire; the priestess
on the left holds the single-handled cup at the altar (cf. RIC III: 276, no. 788). Libation could be a
complete offering, or the preliminary offering, the praefatio, of incense and wine that initiates the
sacrifice (Cato Agr. 134.1).20
Literary sources describe the vessels of sacrifice and their associations. A vessel, termed a
simpulum/simpuvium, was used for libation during sacrifice (Festus p. 455).21 Varro distinguishes
two vessels (guttus, simpulum) retained for sacrificial practice, the simpulum used as a ladle (Ling
5.124). The ladle is identified with curule aediles (Cic. Har. resp. 23), pontifices (Cic. Rep. fr. 922;
Schol. Iuv. 6.343), and Arval Brethren (CIL VI.1. 2104, 26–27). Cicero connects the use of the sim-
pulum by the curule aediles with a prayer that began the games (Cic. Har. resp. 23). Two hundred
years later, the acts of the Arval Brethren (CIL VI. 2104.26, a. 218) recorded use of a simpulum to
fill the skyphoi (cups) for an offering of wine.23
The sprinkler appears in use on the issue of A. Postumius Albinus (RRC: 372/1, 81 BC): a
togate sacrificant extends a sprinkler over an acquiescent bull standing at the lighted altar.24 The
sprinkler occurs as a subsidiary symbol together with a cup (RRC: 492/2) and in a second assem-
blage of ritual implements minted by Caesar; it appears frequently among sacrificial implements
in the ritual friezes that adorned temples.25 The sprinkling of the sacrificial animal with liquid
(wine or water) and then with mola salsa (salted meal) constituted the preliminary ritual to the
sacrifice (Serv. Aen. 9.641a).26
The axe appears together with the apex as a linked pair of religious symbols on the earliest Ro-
man denarii, during the Second Punic War (RRC 59:1a and b). The axe on Caesar’s coin type—as
well as the earlier issue of Galba in 69 BC—does not resemble the implements illustrated in use in
sacrificial reliefs, but is clearly a ceremonial implement.27 Festus records a special ritual axe of the
pontifices, called scena, sacena, or dolabra pontificalis (p. 444 Lindsay).28 The Ara Pacis features a
togate figure, capite velato (with covered head), who processes behind the flamines (priests), and
carries on his shoulder an axe with a rectangular blade.29 The figure is not dressed as the sacrificial
worker (popa) who regularly wields the axe in scenes of sacrifice, nor does he carry the appropriate
fasces with axe of the lictor; he may represent the rex sacrorum (senatorial priest) or an attendant
of the pontifical college.30
The axe and the knife were the two key tools of large animal sacrifice: wielded from above,
the axe functioned to sever the spinal cord of the sacrificial victim and immobilize it; driven from
below, the knife severed the carotid arteries and jugular veins of the neck for a quick bleed-out.31
The axe is thus a crucial ritual tool that created the impression of a yielding animal, guaranteeing
19. Zwierlein-Diehl 1980: 418–20, with other examples. For discussion of the ritual scene, Lindner 2015: 229–32.
20. Prescendi 2007: 36.
21. “A small vase, not unlike a cyathus, with which wine is offered in sacrifices,” ed. W. M. Lindsay, 1930.
22. “incertae sedis”, quoted by Nonius p. 398M; see Powell 1998.
23. For discussion, Scheid 1990: 611–13.
24. For a survey of evidence, Siebert 1999: 110–15, 260–61.
25. ThesCRA 5: 188, with pl. 18, n. 18, pl. 20, n. 23 (Hölscher); La Follette 2011/2012: 21–22.
26. Dumézil 1970: 558; Prescendi 2007: 36–37, 111.
27. For forms of the sacrificial axe, Aldrete 2014: fig. 2. On the axe on Galba’s and Caesar’s coin as ceremonial imple-
ment, Siebert 1999: 72.
28. On archaeological evidence, see Fris Johansen 1932; on Festus, idem 140–41.
29. Friis Johansen 1932: 141–42; Koeppel 1985: 19; Siebert 1999: 71.
30. Koeppel 1985: 18–19, cf. Siebert 1999: 71.
31. Aldrete 2014: 45–46.
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 111

a propitious sacrifice. The raising of the axe began the sacrifice (Ovid Fasti 1.319–22) and Ovid
describes the formulaic dialogue of sacrificial worker, who raised the axe and paused for permis-
sion, and officiant, who ordered the strike and so controlled the sacrificial act.32 The axe thus has
a ritual function (to create a compliant sacrificial victim) and a theological significance, when the
will of the sacrificant and the divine presence were focalized. Thus, the reverse of the first coin is-
sued during the civil war (443/1) reads left to right, as a narrative frieze of the act of sacrifice: the
cup for the libation, the sprinkler for the immolation, the axe for the ritual moment of sacrifice.
The assemblage ends with an apex. The apex first appears as a substantive type here on the
coin of Caesar. It is a subsidiary symbol on the earliest Roman coins of 211–208 BC (RRC: 59), in
a linked pair together with an axe or hammer, a tool of sacrifice, on four denominations and two
reverse types, i.e. the symbols are not control marks. The apex perhaps served to make a pun on
the name of the moneyer T. Quinctius Flamininus (RRC: 267), thus suggesting the referent of the
symbol as the flamen. The apex represented the most distinctive feature of the office of the flamen,
as on the processional frieze on the Ara Pacis. Thus, the Roman viewer seeing the apex would most
likely recognize the flamen.33
But what would apex—and a reference to the flaminate—mean in 49? It is hard to imagine
it as short-hand for personal tenure of the priesthood. Caesar had been designated flamen Dialis
(priest of Jupiter) after the dramatic suicide of the flamen Dialis Cornelius Merula, precipitated by
the actions of Caesar’s own uncle (by marriage) C. Marius and father-in-law Cinna. Caesar avoid-
ed the office because of the change of government and Sulla’s annulment of Marius and Cinna’s
acta (Vell. Pat. 2.43.1).34 Merula’s suicide, including a curse on leadership and a libation of his own
blood for the safety of the state (Vell. Pat. 2.21.1–2), lived in cultural memory and would provide
the paradigm for a political suicide in order to challenge the government of Nero. Merula’s dying
curse may have affected religious policy until 11 BC, when Augustus finally appointed his succes-
sor (Suet. Aug. 31.4; Tac. Ann. 3.58.5; Dio 54.36.1). Thus, the apex on the type could conjure up the
remembrance of forced political suicide during civil war and Caesar’s questionable avoidance of a
religious office—an unlikely signal on Caesar’s coins. These would be the political memories stem-
ming from the civil war of the 80s, the most recent incursion of renegade armies on the peninsula.
It is relevant, though perhaps tangentially relevant, that in De Bello Civili Caesar himself consis-
tently identified his senatorial opponents, their actions and aspirations, with Sulla (BCiv. 1.4, 1.7).
To be sure, the pontifex maximus regulated the pontifical college, the Vestals and the flamines;
and the pontifices supervised the performance of public, state sacrifices.35 It is possible to read
the symbols as a short-hand for Caesar’s office as head of the pontifical college. But for the elites,
Caesar secured the office of pontifex maximus in 63 by bribery, and his election was a scandal that
caused ill-will (Suet. Iul. 13);36 his unilateral action and disregard of the pontifical colleagues in
59, over the adoption of P. Clodius, caused hostility, and, in 57, Cicero argued that Caesar’s actions
deprived him of his claim to religious legitimacy (Cic. De domo sua 104).37 An allusion to Caesar’s
flaminate or his pontifical office on the first coin of the civil war would hardly be positive or offer
effective rhetoric to win hearts and minds.
Reading the symbol as a signifier of the priesthood, rather than personal tenure of the priest-
hood, produces an allusion to attentive ritual work on behalf of the Roman community. The
flamines, a priesthood ascribed to Numa (Enn. Ann. 2.117–19; Livy 1.20), served individual gods
32. On the ritual, Prescendi 2007: 37.
33. The Salius also wore an apex; for an attempt to distinguish typologies of apex, see Schäfer and Ganzert 1980.
34.On Merula’s suicide, see Liou-Gille 1999: 440–42, who suggests that Caesar, Marius’ nephew, and his wife Cornelia,
Cinna’s daughter, were selected precisely because they were related and would close the curse or at least regain public
favor. On priestly murder in the first century, Várhelyi 2011.
35. Stewart 1997: 173–74, 175–78.
36. Wardle 2009: 102.
37. Stepper 2003: 31–32
112 Roberta Stewart

Figure 2. RRC 452/3. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18217118. Images 2:1.

(Cic. Leg. 2.20) and represented the gods whose names they carried (Dialis, Quirinalis, Martialis)
an incarnation of the divine.38 They had crucial public roles and recognition. Their ritual work
protected the community: the Quirinalis celebrated the Consualia (21 August), Robigalia (25
April) and Larentalia (23 December); the Martialis participated in the Larentalia. The Dialis lived
a life of continual sacrifice to Jupiter for the good of the Roman State,39 and Plutarch describes
him as the living embodiment of the god Jupiter.40 Regulations on the Dialis separated him com-
pletely from the secular world (he could not see an army or swear an oath) and committed him
to constant service to Jupiter. So Caesar’s symbol to a Roman familiar with the ritual cycles of the
city would conjure the priesthoods whose ritual work protected the Roman State. The apex also
focalized ritual piety (Serv. Aen. 8.664): the flamen Dialis might not remove his cap sub divo (while
outdoors, Gell. NA 10.15.17) and loss of the apex meant the loss of office, e.g., for Q. Sulpicius in
223 BC (Val. Max. 1.1.4–5; Plut. Marc. 5.3–4). The Martialis and Quirinalis needed to wear the
apex for sacrifices.41
The symbols on Caesar’s reverse make a ritual narrative. Reading them left to right reproduces
the ritual of sacrifice: the libation (single-handled vessel), then immolation (sprinkler), then sac-
rifice of the victim (axe); and the sequence culminates with a symbol of a priesthood whose life-
work was defined by ritual service and piety. The symbols evoke and reinforce the hierarchies of
libation, sacrifice, dutiful perpetual service to deity.42 Scheid has emphasized the character of the
rituals of libation and sacrifice as performative of hierarchies, of gods and mortals, and a “system
of being.”43 The symbols on Caesar’s coins give graphic expression of the rituals that oriented man
and gods. The expressed piety of the coin gives point to Caesar’s critique of senatorial government
in the opening chapters of De Bello Civili: he noted the disregard or poor performance of ritual
regulating public life and charged his opponents with a disrespect of religion and a general disre-
gard of divine and human law (BCiv 1.6.8: “money was exacted from the towns, and taken from
the sanctuaries: all human and divine laws were thrown utterly into confusion”).
Caesar’s second issue of the war associated his military victories with the central cults of the
state. The aureus and denarius (RRC 452/1, 2) feature a female portrait wearing a diadem, wreath,
and pearls on the obverse, and a trophy with Gallic weapons and a Roman ritual axe in the field.
The quinarius (RRC 452/3, Fig. 2) shows on the obverse a veiled female portrait with a distinctive
hair roll at the forehead, suggesting the identity of Vesta, and a single-handled cup figured in the
field behind; the reverse pairs a trophy with Gallic weapons and the ancile, or sacred shield of the
38. Dumézil 1970: 71, 153. On ritual roles and status of the flamen Dialis, Goldberg 2015.
39. “flaminem Iovi adsiduum sacerdotem creavit,” Livy 1.20.2; “cotidie feriatus est,” Gell. NA 10.15.16.
40. Plut. Quaest Rom. 111, “ἔμψυχον καὶ ἱερόν.”
41. On the apex and ritual roles, Goldberg 2015: 337.
42. Scheid 2012: 84–98, esp. 93–94.
43. Scheid 2012: 87.
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 113

Salii, with the legend CAE – SAR.44 The inscription LII on the obverse indicates Caesar’s age, as
confirmed by Antony’s appropriation of this feature to identify his age (XL and XLI).45 This dates
the coin to the year beginning 13 July 48 BC.
Sulla had paired trophies with the jug and lituus, symbols that alluded to the rituals legiti-
mating his command, the sacrifice and sacrificial wine and the auspicia, both rituals of Jupiter.46
Caesar paired trophies with Vesta and the ancile of the Salii. Again, the symbols have been read
as short-hand for Caesar’s priesthood, but this is unconvincing, for Caesar was not a Salius, nor
was he a Vestal. Even if the image of Vesta could be construed to refer to Caesar’s office as pontifex
maximus, the short-hand reduces the cultural resonance of the symbols to banality and elides the
importance of Vesta in Roman religious and political life.
Representations of Vesta, labelled and not, but with her distinctive roll of hair at the forehead,
first appear on coins in 69 BC, opposite sacrificial implements (RRC 406) and scenes of voting
(RRC 413, 61 BC; RRC 428 in 55 BC). Establishment of Vesta’s fire and cult was attributed to
Numa. Vestals participated in major state cults: the Fordicidia and Parilia in April, the Argeii in
May, the Vestalia in June, the Consualia in August, and the Bona Dea in December.47 The Vestals
prepared the mola salsa for public sacrifice and so their work guaranteed the integrity, the ef-
ficacy of all state sacrifices.48 But the fire and the ritual work of the Vestal Virgins that preserved
that fire, guaranteed Roman military success and the perpetuity of the State. Vesta was named in
all prayers and sacrifices (Cic. Nat. D. 2.67; Serv. Aen. 1.292).49 Vesta’s fire was a talisman of the
safety of Rome, one of the pignora imperii (Livy 26.27.14), and major military defeat during the
Republic was correlated with disruption of her cult and solved with punishment of the Vestal
Virgins, in 228, 216, and in 114/3 BC.50 Political history and Roman moral anecdote document a
close association of the pontifex maximus with Vesta. When the temple of Vesta and its relics were
threatened by fire in 241, the pontifex maximus L. Caecilius Metellus (cos. 251) braved the flames,
lost his eyesight—and earned enduring repute and the privilege of conveyance by carriage for
his efforts (Cic. Scaur. 48; cf. Livy Per. 19; Pliny HN 7.141). In 82 BC, when pursued by assassins,
the pontifex maximus Q. Mucius Scaevola vainly sought refuge in Vesta’s temple, anticipating the
protection of the god or of the temple (Cic. De or. 3.10; Nat. D. 3.80). Caesar’s quinarius could be
seen to exploit a close association of the pontifex maximus with Vesta. But coincidentally or con-
spicuously, the Senate had responded to portents reported at Caesar’s invasion of the peninsula by
organizing an amburbium in which the Vestals and the priests marked the boundaries of the city
against the external threat (Luc. 1.592–98). Caesar’s coin uses a traditional equation of Vesta on
the obverse and military success on the reverse to claim that Vesta was on his side.
The reverse brings together a military trophy and the shields of the Salii, another of the pignora
imperii (Serv. Aen. 7.188). The Salian shields were sacred relics: a shield fell from the sky, a gift from
Jupiter and a promise of Roman military greatness; King Numa, the founder of Roman religion,
had copies made to protect the original (Plut. Numa 13; cf. Cic. Phil. 11.24).51 Numa’s role can be
documented as early as Ennius (Ann. 2.114). Numa furthermore instituted the Salian priesthood,
patrician youth who sang a hymn and danced with the shields through the city of Rome dur-
ing the month of March (Cic. Rep. 2.26; Livy 1.20.4).52 The annual rituals that protected Roman
44. Lindner 2015: 81.
45. Woytek 2003: 142–53; Crawford 2012: 340.
46. On Jupiter, Vinalia, and the wine of sacrifice, Stewart 1997: 173–74; Scheid 2012: 90–95. For Jupiter as the god of
the auspices, Wissowa 1912: 119; Linderski 1986: 2226–29.
47. On the ritual roles of Vestals, see Wildfang 2006: 22–36.
48. Prescendi 2007: 107. For the Vestal’s preparation and storage of mola salsa, see Holland 1961: 313–31, esp. 317–25.
49. Prescendi 2007: 54 and 93, n. 245.
50. On pignora, Dumézil 1970: 146, 323. On political ideology and the Vestals’ virginity, Staples 2006: 129–56.
51. On the myth, Bremmer 2014: 149–55.
52. On the rites, Wissowa 1912: 144, 555–57.
114 Roberta Stewart

Figure 3. RRC 456/1. Münzkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 18217123. Images 2:1.

militarism would have been witnessed communally, and the Quinquatrus, one of the March rites
celebrated by the Salii at Rome on 19 March, continued to be observed by the Roman army in the
provinces into the third century AD (PDura 54). The shields were stored in the sacrarium Martis
in the Regia, and departing military commanders, as part of the ceremonies of departure, touched
the shields (Serv. Aen. 8.3). Caesar must have done this. The general symbolism reminds of Cae-
sar’s Gallic victories as the embodiment of Jupiter’s promise of military success.
Again, there could be a personal reference in the coin type. The pontifex maximus had a special
association with Vesta, selecting the Vestal Virgins and regulating their primary work of tending
the fire, so any allusion to Vesta could be an allusion to Caesar’s job. Moreover, the sacred shields
were stored in the Regia, the house of the pontifex maximus.53 Detailing the prodigies before Cae-
sar’s death Dio (44.17.2) records that the shields of Mars moved the night before Caesar’s murder.
Moreover, Caesar may have made himself literally a patron of Vesta’s cult and the cults housed in
the Regia with his building program in the Forum. Recent excavations have identified significant
rebuilding of the Domus Publica and Aedes Vestae, as well as the reorganization of streets coming
into the Forum at the north end, in the first century BC. Scott has argued that these be associ-
ated with Caesar, because of his building of the Basilica Julia (dedicated in 46) and because of his
priesthood.54 But more generally, in De Bello Civili Caesar criticized his opponents in the civil
war for their disrespect of religion and their despoiling of sanctuaries (1.6.8) and cited his own
protection of sanctuaries against planned predations (3.33). Caesar’s coin could have invoked his
military, religious, and economic patronage of these state cults.
The aureus Caesar issued after Pharsalus (RRC 456/1, Fig. 3) contains only religious sym-
bols.55 The design is new: obverse (axe and two-handled cup) and reverse (jug and lituus) combine
to make a continuous frieze of ritual implements. The division of the legend—CAESAR DICT on
the obverse and ITER on the reverse—emphasizes the unity of the doubled round fields. The coin
was minted in the East. The legend dates it to the year that began in October 48.56 Once again,
interpretation of the symbols as referents to personal tenure of priesthood runs into problems:
although the lituus was the insignia of the augur, Caesar was not augur when he issued the coin.57
53. On the Regia, see LTUR 4.189–92 (Scott).
54. Scott 2000: 173–79.
55. Woytek 2003: 225–28, 272.
56. MRR 2.272 suggests late in October 48 for Caesar’s dictatorship: Caesar defeated Pompey and the senatorial forces
at Pharsalus on 9 August 48; he was named dictator for one year in absentia, after the news of Pharsalus (Dio 42.20.3);
M. Antonius was acting as magister equitum in December 48 (Cic. Att. 11.7.2); Caesar returned to Rome in fall 47 when
the consuls of 47 were finally elected.
57. On the lituus, Wissowa 1912: 500. On Caesar’s augurate, MRR 2.293; Rüpke 2008: 734; cf. Woytek 2003: 226 and
n. 296.
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 115

Figure 4. RRC 458/1. ANS 1941.131.302. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

The jug and lituus had appeared as a linked pair on coins since Sulla: they invoked the tradi-
tional rituals that turned power into authority, and thereby worked to answer claims of constitu-
tional irregularity. While the legend on Caesar’s coin defined his absolute—and irregular—posi-
tion as dictator for one year (Dio 42.21), the symbols asserted that his authority accorded with the
political and religious traditions of the Republic.58 The obverse shows the axe and the culullus, a
two-handled sacrificial cup associated particularly with the Vestal Virgins and pontifices.59 A coin
of Clodius Vestalis in 41 BC (RRC: 512) shows on the reverse a veiled, seated female holding a
two-handled cup, with the legend VESTALIS, an apparent pun of the moneyer’s name.60 The axe
resembles the sacrificial axes shown in use in Roman public art.61 The implements again invoke
rituals of libation and sacrifice, rituals that enacted the hierarchical relationship of man and god
on behalf of the legitimate state. The issue paired political and religious ritual guaranteeing the
welfare of Rome in the first coin Caesar issued after defeating Pompey and the forces of the senato-
rial government. M. Iunius Brutus would re-use this coin design in a way that makes very clear he
understood—and imagined a Roman audience to understand—the symbols not as short-hand for
personal tenure of priesthood but as claims of religious piety and authority.
The third CAESAR coin (RRC 458/1, Fig. 4), the second largest emission of the civil wars,
minted in 48–47 BC, shows on the obverse a female portrait with diadem and wearing pearls; the
reverse features Aeneas carrying his father Anchises and the Palladium, another relic and another
one of the talismans of the safety of the city (Livy 5.52.6–7; Serv. Aen. 7.188).62 The Vestals kept
the Palladium in the temple of Vesta (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.69.3–4).63 The mere representation
of Venus by a military commander is not new: Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar all claimed Venus as
their patron god during civil war.64 And representations of Venus on coins of the Julii began with
an issue of Sex. Iulius Caesar in 129 BC (RRC: 258).65 Caesar’s design similarly claims Venus, a
claim of descent he first made in the highly political funeral oration for his aunt Julia in 69.66 His
patronage of the goddess was persistent and significant: a temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum
Iulium vowed at the Battle of Pharsalus; the use of her name as a password before the battle (“Ve-
nus Victrix,” App. BCiv. 2.76); dedication of the Temple of Venus Genetrix on 26 September 46,
the last day of his quadruple triumph. Roman use of the Aeneas legend to make political claims is
58. Stewart 1997: 183.
59. ThesCRA 2.209 (Hölscher); Siebert 1999: 216–17. Porph. Schol. Hor. Carm. 1.31.10: “The ‘cululli’ are properly
‘kylices’ made of clay which the pontifices and Vestal Virgins use in ritual.”
60. On the representation, see Zwierlein-Diehl 1980: 178; Lindner 2015: 80–81.
61. Aldrete 2014: fig. 1, 3.
62. On the mint, Woytek 2003: 218–25; Crawford 2012: 339. On the iconography, Evans 1992: 35–44.
63. On the Palladium and Vesta, Staples 1998: 152–53.
64. On the phenomenon, Scheid 2017: 24–25.
65. Evans 1992: 39–40.
66. Evans 1992: 40.
116 Roberta Stewart

Figure 5. RRC 467/1a. ANS 1970.156.31. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

not new: claims to Trojan origins supported a treaty of alliance between Segesta and Rome during
the First Punic War.67 Aeneas on coins is not new: an issue of M. Herennius, traditionally dated to
108–107 BC, shows a male figure bearing an older man on his shoulders opposite a female portrait
labelled PIETAS (RRC: 308/1), the first representation of Aeneas and Anchises on coins.68 Caesar’s
coin is new in representing the Palladium and the featured role of his family member Aeneas in
preserving a relic associated with the safety of the city.69 In a courtroom defense speech in 54 BC,
Cicero described the Palladium as a guarantor of Roman safety and a pignus imperii (“that Pal-
ladium which is a surety, if you will, of our safety and of our empire, is preserved by the protective
care of Vesta,” Scaur. 47), and he invoked the personal service of the defendant’s family to the state,
when an ancestor risked life and limb in order to save the Palladium from fire. Claims to protect
the Palladium had a cultural currency. Caesar’s coin thus referred to the crucial role of his family
in Roman history. In adding the Palladium and Aeneas to a representation of Venus, Caesar made
Roman history and protection of a pignus imperii into his family history. The Aeneas coin again
reflects a claim of De Bello Civili, that Caesar protected the Roman state religion.
In dedicating his Antiquitates to Caesar in 47, Varro likened his scholarly project of recording
and keeping religious practice safe from oblivion to Aeneas’ rescuing the Palladium from Troy
or to a pontifex maximus who preserves the sacred relics that keep Rome safe.70 Varro’s language
suggests a larger Roman discourse affirming a conception of the pontifex maximus as protector
of the sacra that protect Rome. The dedication also may have flattered Caesar with his own self-
conception as protector of religion.
A final coin issue in Africa in 46 BC (RRC: 467/1a, Fig. 5) continued Caesar’s heavy use of
symbols affirming the ritual traditions of the Republic. The obverse shows a female head facing
right with the legend DICT ITER and COS TERT. The reverse legend AVGVR and PONT MAX
frames a frieze of ritual implements: the single-handled cup, sprinkler, jug, and lituus. The coin
design lacks Caesar’s name, and scholars, imagining that he would never omit his name, suggest
that it was minted by an underling. But the titles are clever: they do not define a particular histori-
cal moment (DICT ITER=after Pharsalus; COS TERT=46 BC) and create a selective resumé with
the absence of Caesar’s name underscoring the identity. This is the first time that a Roman used a
coin to name his own priesthood. Newman (1990) has shown that titles on the coins of Antony,
67. Evans 1992: 36.
68. Evans 1992: 37–39.
69. On the coin, Woytek 2003: 218–25, esp. 221, n. 283 citing I.Ephesos 251 τὸν ἀπὸ Ἄρεως καὶ Ἀφροδε[ί]/της θεὸν
ἐπιφανῆ.
70. Ant. Rer Div 1 fr. 2a (=August. De civ. D. 6.2): “He says that he was afraid that the gods would perish not by enemy
attack but by neglect of the citizens. He says that they were liberated by him from this ruin and that by means of books
of this sort the memory of the gods is stored away and protected in the memory of good men; and that this is a more
useful act of care than when the pontifex Metellus preserved Vesta’s sacred relics from fire, or when Aeneas preserved
the penates from the Trojan destruction.”
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 117

Figure 6. RRC 532/1. ANS 1944.100.5986. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

Figure 7. RRC 537/1. ANS 1944.100.6053. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

Octavian, and Lepidus in the 30s were part of competitive discourse on the sources of their au-
thority: names, titles, and their placement indicate relationships of power as well as political and
religious offices; recurrent symbols and legends make claims and counterclaims, in response to
coins issued by opponents. That tradition arguably began with Caesar in 46.
Caesar’s ritual friezes were distinctive, and were repeated by his heirs and foes. The reverse
type of the first issue of the civil war, the first assemblage of religious symbols, was copied by A.
Hirtius and C. Carrinas in Gaul in 45/44 and 30/29 BC (RPC I: 501, 502; Woytek 2003: 123–24),
Cn. Domitius Calvinus during campaigns in Spain in 39 BC (RRC: 532/1, Fig. 6), on a joint coin
of M. Antony and M. Aemilius Lepidus in 43–42 (RRC: 489/1), by Africanus Fabius Maximus in
Africa in 7/6 BC (RPC I: 781), and in modified form by the town of Ebora in Roman Spain after
12 BC (RPC I: 51a). Re-use under Augustus suggests that the designs themselves were well known
even years after the first emission. In 37 or 36, Octavian minted a coin (RRC: 537/1, Fig. 7) that
appropriated the iconography but not the legend of the coin issued in Africa in 46 (RRC 467/1a).
The reverse design of the coin of 46 later became a “succession coin” after Vespasian re-used the
type to define his constitutional position in 71 (RIC II.1: 42). The reverse assemblage, minus the
titles, was re-used by Nerva from the beginning of his reign (RIC II: 47, 1–25 January), then by
Hadrian and Antoninus Pius.71
Caesar’s assassins manipulated Caesar’s religious symbols. Coins issued to pay the republican
forces at Philippi repeated the iconography of Caesar’s Pharsalus coin (RRC: 456), both restoring
and omitting the knife (RRC: 500/7, Fig. 8; RRC: 508/2, Fig. 9; cf. RRC: 508/3, Fig. 10). The iconog-
raphy has been explained as a reference to Brutus’ priestly office as a pontifex.72 For the assassins,
71. The reverse assemblage, minus the titles, was re-used by Nerva at the beginning of his reign (RIC II, p. 224, n. 12,
and p. 226, nos. 41, 47), then by Hadrian (RIC II, p. 362, nos. 198, 384), with a modified design by Antoninus Pius (RIC
II, p. 29, n. 28).
72. For example, RRC, p. 741, no. 4.
118 Roberta Stewart

Figure 8. RRC 500/7. ANS 1937.158.333. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

Figure 9. RRC 508/2. ANS 1937.158.339. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

Figure 10. RRC 508/3. ANS 1944.100.4554. American Numismatic Society. Images 2:1.

repetition reminded of Pharsalus and lent legitimacy to Cassius and Brutus in 42. What was new
(and was played with) was the knife. Varhelyi (2011) has studied the framing of political murder
as a priestly act of sacrifice in the accounts of the suicide and murder of priests in the first century
and observed the subsequent framing of Caesar’s murder as a sacrilege. The alternation of sacrifi-
cial knife (associated with the pontifical, Vestal ritual) and the assassin’s knife accords with Brutus’
own attempts to posture as the (re)founder of the Republic, when he publicly displayed his bloody
dagger after Caesar’s assassination and issued a call to freedom (App. BCiv. 2.119; cf. Livy 1.59).
Brutus’ coins invest a political act with ritual significance and attempt to align it with the tradi-
tional rituals that preserved Rome, after a Roman court in 42 had condemned both him and Cas-
sius in absentia for the murder of Caesar (Livy, Per. 120; App. BCiv. 3.95, 4.27; Dio 46.48.2–3, 49.5).
I have suggested that Caesar’s coins innovated in their designs, their use of symbols, and in
their legends. The coins developed claims about piety, both ritual correctness and respect for the
oldest religious traditions of Rome. The coins fall into two groups. One group showcased the
pignora imperii (Vesta, the shields of the Salii, and the Palladium) and associated Caesar’s military
 Seeing Caesar’s Symbols 119

victories, his family history, and his own priestly role with the protection of these oldest religious
traditions of Rome. A second group featured ritual friezes that selectively invoke sacrificial ritual
and the traditional rituals that framed political authority.
The claims of Caesar’s coins correlated with the critique of senatorial government that he
developed in the De Bello Civili. He faulted the senatorial government for its failure to perform
properly the traditional rituals for investiture of commanders and the ceremonies of departure,
and he implied that the government was illegal. His own coins invoked traditional rituals that
legitimated political authority. Caesar claimed that his opponents robbed sanctuaries and temples
(although we have no documented instance of the pillaging). His coins illustrated and insisted on
proper relationships with deity. Caesar claimed that his opponents viewed priesthood as plunder
of war (BCiv. 3.82, cf. 3.83):

And so among themselves they were competing openly for prizes and for the priesthoods,
they were allocating the consulship for years, some wanted the homes and property of
those who were in Caesar’s camps.

Sallust repeats Caesar’s critique and suggests a larger discourse (BJ 31.10, cf. Cat. 4.7–8, 21.2):

Nor does it shame or cause remorse to those who have done these things. But they process
before your eyes, some holding forth their priesthoods and consulships, some their own
triumphs, as if these things counted for honor and not for plunder.

Caesar’s coins illustrate repeatedly the ritual work of the priesthoods and signal that priest-
hood was more than a title. When we read the symbols on Caesar’s coins as “titles of his office as
pontifex maximus,” we, too, become subject to Caesar’s and Sallust’s critique of late Republican
office and we miss the history.

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