In 20 BC, Augustus pulled off the diplomatic coup of his career: the Parthians, without a battle, returned the legionary standards lost by Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC and by Antony in 36 BC. Rome had been chewing on those defeats for a generation, and the recovery of the *signa* was sold, plausibly, as the equal of any conquest. This denarius, struck a year or two later at one of the Spanish mints Augustus used during his western tour, is the monumental version of that propaganda: a triumphal arch crowned by a facing quadriga, flanked by two figures who are the whole point of the issue, one cradling a *signum*, the other an *aquila* and a Parthian bow.
The arch itself almost certainly stood in the Roman Forum, voted by the Senate to commemorate the settlement, though archaeologists still argue over which set of foundations between the Temple of Castor and the Temple of Divus Iulius belongs to it. What the coin asks the user in Tarraco or Emerita to understand is straightforward enough: the *princeps* had retrieved Roman honor from the one enemy Rome had never managed to beat, and he had done it by sending an embassy rather than an army. The standards would be rehoused with great ceremony in the Temple of Mars Ultor, and for the rest of the reign, every poet who mattered would be expected to mention them.
- Mint
- Uncertain Spanish mint
- Struck
- Struck 18-17 BC
- Authority
- Augustus
- Reverse
- with central arch surmounted by a facing quadriga, side arches with standing figures, left figure holding a signum and right figure holding an aquila and bow