Sulla, Marius and an Anonymous Denarius

In a previous post, I shared a coin from Brutus, that celebrated his family history of tyrannicide. This week, a much humbler coin, linked in time to an equally compelling story (and to Julius Caesar). This coin is an anonymous denarius which also has variants that are signed by Gargonius, Ogulnius and Vergilius.

Anonymous issue, 86 BC, AR Denarius

Obv: Laureate head of Apollo right, thunderbolt below, border of dots.

Rev: Jupiter in quadriga right hurling thunderbolt, border of dots.

Ref: Crawford 350A/2; RSC 226; Syd 723

Size: 3.85g, 19.4mm

This relatively affordable and common coin is easily ignored or dismissed. To me it is always surprising how readily available a 2000+ year old coin can be from Rome from a storied time of social unrest and civil war, linked to Marius, Sulla, Cinna, the young Julius Caesar, and others.

After the Social War of 91 to 88 BC, in which Sulla distinguished himself as a general, he became consul in 88 BC. He was awarded the prized command against Mithridates VI of Pontus, but political maneuvers transferred it to Gaius Marius. Sulla then took a step without precedent, turning his army against Rome, capturing the city and reclaiming his command. The senate condemned Marius to death, Marius fled, and Sulla sailed for Greece.

While Sulla was away, Marius returned from Africa, joined Cinna in taking Rome in late 87, had Sulla declared a public enemy, and entered his seventh consulship on 1 January 86. An interesting turn-around for Cinna, his fellow consul, who had sworn on the Capitol to support Sulla's policies, "praying that if he did not maintain his goodwill towards Sulla, he might be cast out of the city, as the stone from his hand" (Plutarch, Sulla 10.4, trans. Perrin).

Marius had little time to enjoy it. Reports arrived that Sulla had finished with Mithridates and was sailing home, and Plutarch says the old man was haunted in his sleep by a voice repeating, "Dreadful, indeed, is the lions' lair, even though it be empty" (Marius 45.3, trans. Perrin). He died seventeen days into that consulship, in mid-January 86 BC (Marius 46.5). Meanwhile Sulla was breaking Mithridates' armies at Chaeronea and Orchomenos in Boeotia.

Julius Caesar was about fourteen when this coin was struck. Two years later he married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, and was nominated Flamen Dialis, priest of Jupiter. That marriage would bring him into confrontation with Sulla on his return, but that is another story, and another coin. (Continued: Sulla & Mithridates)