The reverse of this denarius is, in effect, a photograph of the entrance to Augustus's house on the Palatine. In 27 BC the Senate voted him a bundle of honors that he would advertise on his coinage for the rest of his life: a golden shield (the *clipeus virtutis*, here labeled CL V) inscribed with his four cardinal virtues, the *corona civica* of oak leaves for saving the lives of citizens, and a pair of laurels planted at his door. All four show up on this small disc of silver from a Spanish mint around 19-18 BC, the oak wreath crowning his head on the obverse, the shield and laurels filling the reverse, with SPQR wrapped around to remind anyone holding it who had voted these honors in the first place.
The legend names no office, no *imperator* salutation, no tribunician power, only CAESAR AVGVSTVS, because by this point the name itself was the office. The genius of the so-called Augustan settlement was always to dress autocracy in the costume of gratitude, and here the costume is laid out item by item: the Senate gave, the *princeps* received, and the Roman who paid for a jar of wine with this coin handed over a miniature of the regime's founding contract.
- Mint
- Uncertain Spanish mint
- Struck
- circa 19-18 BC
- Authority
- Augustus
- Reverse
- Round shield inscribed CL V with CAESAR above and AVGVSTVS below, S P Q R around, two laurel branches or trees flanking