No Roman before him had taken the cognomen PARTHICVS for beating other Romans with Parthian help, and none would dare it after. Quintus Labienus, son of Caesar's renegade legate Titus Labienus, struck this denarius in early 40 BC from somewhere in Syria or the soft underbelly of Asia Minor, and the legend Q • LABIENVS PARTHICVS • IMP says exactly what he was: a Roman commander acclaimed *imperator* at the head of a Parthian army. He had been sent east by Brutus and Cassius to beg King Orodes II for aid; Philippi came and went, his patrons died, and Labienus stayed at the Parthian court until 40, when he rode back across the Euphrates with Pacorus, the king's son, and tore through the Roman East while Antony was distracted in Italy. The reverse drives the point home with a quiet brutality: a Parthian horse, saddled, bridled, quiver slung at the flank, the mount of the steppe archers who had annihilated Crassus at Carrhae thirteen years earlier.
A Roman moneyer was advertising the cataphract as his own. The boast did not last the year. By late 39 Ventidius Bassus had caught Labienus in the Taurus passes and killed him in flight, and in 38 the same general would kill Pacorus on the anniversary of Carrhae and balance the books Crassus had left open. The coin survives as the only portrait of a Roman who tried to come home on Parthian horses, and discovered that Rome had a longer memory than he did.
- Mint
- Uncertain mint in Syria or southeastern Asia Minor
- Struck
- Early 40 BC
- Authority
- Labienus
- Reverse
- horse standing right on ground line, wearing saddle with quiver attached and bridle