The capricorn on the reverse is Augustus telling you, in the language of the stars, that he was born to rule the world. This silver denarius, RIC I 130, struck at an uncertain Spanish mint around 18 to 16 BC, pairs the princeps's bare head with a sea goat clutching a globe and rudder between its hooves while a cornucopia rises behind: government, dominion, and abundance compressed into a single composite beast. Augustus had publicized his Capricorn horoscope in his autobiography (Suetonius tells us he even issued coins stamped with the sign), and whether the constellation marked his conception in January or some other astrologically charged moment, the message was that the cosmos itself had ratified his authority. The globe and rudder are the props of a world helmsman, the cornucopia the promise that his hand on the tiller produces plenty.
The legend AVGVSTVS, the honorific the Senate had voted him in 27 BC, is the only word the coin needs. By the late teens BC, with Spain pacified, Parthia humbled by the diplomatic recovery of the lost standards in 20 BC, and the Secular Games of 17 BC theatrically inaugurating a new age, the regime had stopped arguing for itself and started simply asserting. A goat with a rudder was now sufficient explanation for who ran the Mediterranean.
- Mint
- Uncertain Spanish mint
- Struck
- circa July 18-17/16 BC
- Authority
- Augustus
- Reverse
- shows a capricorn facing right, holding a globe attached to a rudder between its front hooves, with a cornucopia above its back