This particular coin, having been expertly pierced just above the head of Brutus, was highly likely to have been worn by a high-ranking supporter and, it has been speculated, even one of Caesar’s murderers. Together this iconography reflects the symbolic rhetoric that followed Caesar’s death around the liberation of Rome, iconography that was adopted in future historical moments to symbolise liberty including the French revolution in 1789-99. So remarkable was this coin that it was mentioned in the writing of ancient historian Cassius Dio in the 3rd century AD.Ĭoins of this design in gold, rather than silver, were extremely rare, and almost certainly intended as gifts for senior army officers. The reverse of the coin celebrates the assassination: two daggers represent Brutus and Cassius, while Rome’s freedom is illustrated by a ‘cap of liberty’, the Phrygian cap traditionally given to emancipated slaves. The head of the coin shows a portrait of Brutus with an inscription of BRVT IMP, denoting him as an acclaimed military victor. The coin’s design has important distinguishable features. This Eid Mar coin was produced by a mobile military mint by Caesar’s former ally and later lead conspirator, Brutus, once he had fled to Greece, to celebrate the freeing of Rome from Caesar’s tyrannical rule. In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, a soothsayer warns the Roman leader: “Beware the Ides of March.” (The ides referred to the month's first new moon, appearing around the 15th.)Ĭaesar was brutally murdered by a group of Roman senators led by Brutus and Cassius, in the Senate in Rome. The coin also featured prominently in the British Museum’s exhibition Shakespeare: Staging the World for the London 2012 Olympics.
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