Few coins in Roman history were struck in the shadow of so specific a deadline as Mark Antony's legionary denarii, and this one, marked LEG VII on its reverse between an aquila and two signa, was small change for a war that had perhaps six months left to run. The galley on the obverse is no decorative flourish: Antony was concentrating his fleet at Patrae on the Gulf of Corinth in the autumn of 32 BC, preparing to meet Octavian across the Ionian Sea, and the warship and the eagle together advertise the two arms of the coming campaign. He struck these denarii in colossal quantity, one issue for each of his legions and praetorian cohorts, debased just enough to stretch the silver across a payroll of perhaps thirty legions. The Seventh was an old and storied unit, a name Caesar himself had led in Gaul, and the soldier who pocketed this coin in the camp at Patrae could read the legend as a reminder of who he was and whom he served.
Then came Actium, in September of 31, and Antony's world ended in an afternoon. The coins did not. Their low silver content meant nobody bothered to melt them down, and they kept circulating, worn smooth, into the reign of Marcus Aurelius and beyond, the longest-lived denarii Rome ever produced. A defeated man's emergency coinage became, by accident, the most durable money of the Republic.
- Mint
- Patrae
- Struck
- Autumn 32-spring 31 BC
- Authority
- Mark Antony
- Reverse
- Aquila between two signa with LEG VII across lower field