Mars on the reverse of an Augustan denarius is rarely just Mars. Struck around 17 to 16 BC at an uncertain mint in Spain, this silver piece (RIC I 148a) places the bare head of the princeps on one side and, on the other, the war god standing with vexillum and parazonium, the short ceremonial sword of a senior officer. The choice of attributes matters: not a spear, not a trophy, but a standard.
Three years earlier, in 20 BC, Augustus had recovered the legionary aquilae lost by Crassus at Carrhae, extracted from the Parthians by diplomacy rather than battle and trumpeted across the empire as if Carrhae itself had been avenged. A vexillum in the hand of Mars, on coinage of the late teens BC, is the visual aftershock of that propaganda coup, the god of war converted into a quartermaster of returned eagles. Augustus had taken a humiliation half a generation old and, without fighting a war for it, made it the centerpiece of a regime that preferred its victories tidy and its gods carrying paperwork.
- Mint
- Uncertain Spanish mint
- Struck
- 17-16 BC
- Authority
- Augustus
- Reverse
- Mars standing left with head right, holding vexillum and parazonium