Civil war is a moment of disruption that lays open the guts of a society’s discourses and values. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BCE he became a legal “enemy of the state.” The coin imagery allows us to track that engagement, his propaganda during the ensuing war that stretched from Gaul and Spain, to Greece, Asia Minor, and to North Africa). These messages had profound effects, influencing the images of the coinage of his successors, both political elites and veteran colonies, and especially from his heir Octavian, soon to be Augustus. The coins reveal competing viewpoints on religious traditions and political exceptionalism, as well as Caesar’s awareness of history and attempts to relive or rewrite history.
William E. Metcalf Lectures in Numismatics
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