An exceptional Roman coin with the image of Brutus, the best known of Julius Caesar’s assassins, It was sold at auction on Monday in Geneva for 1.98 million eurosannounced Numismatica Genevensis, responsible for the sale.
The gold coin was sold for more than 1.83 million Swiss francs, or “1.98 million euros ($2.089 million),” including the sales commission, “to a European collector,” the company said. company in a statement.
The price at the start of the auction was more than 800,000 euros.
The sale generated «an intense battle between eight online bidders», said the auction house.
This Roman coin is “a fragment of history” related to the last episodes of the Roman Republic, Frank Baldacci, director of Numismatica Genevensis, told AFP a few days ago.
The coin, which weighs 8 grams and has dimensions similar to those of the 1 euro coin, was minted in the year 43 or 42 BC by “Brutus and his friends, who murdered Julius Caesar” in March of the year 44 before our era, he noted.
The coin shows the profile of Brutus surrounded by laurel leaves and on the reverse his recent military victories. It is one of only 17 known, according to the auctioneer.
Minted in a mobile army workshop
This coin, “was not minted in Rome but in a mobile workshop that traveled with Brutus and his armies, when he tried to obtain power after assassinating Julius Caesar”, and also had a “propaganda value”, according to Baldacci.
The coin was minted shortly before the battle in which Brutus lost against Mark Antony and Octavian and after which “he committed suicide,” said Baldacci.
The coin traveled through the centuries, passing from hand to hand, and reappeared in the 1950s when it was published in a private collector’s catalogue.
It resurfaced at auction in 2006 in Zurich, where it was sold to another private collector.
The coin is kept in an airtight box to prevent alterations and to “guarantee its authenticity,” said M. Baldacci.
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