DR-848 | Crawford: 526/4
Quintus Voconius Vitulus
Quintus Voconius Vitulus

Gens: Voconia
Moneyer: Quintus Voconius Vitulus
Date and mint: 40 BC - Rome


Obverse: Laureate bust of Caesar, right. Dotted border.
Legend:

Reverse: Veal, left. Dotted border.
Legend: Q VOCONIVS VITVLVS Q / DESIGN S C

Comment: The Voconia gens was a plebeian family little known in the history of Roma, of which only a few magistrates are documented. The most prominent member is Quintus Voconius Vitulus, an active coiner in the years after the assassination of Julius Caesar, whose fame comes above all from this numismatic issue.

At a time of great instability, with open fights between Caesar's heirs and his adversaries, several coiners resorted to minting denarii with the image of the already deified dictator, reinforcing the new cult of the Divine Julius. This propaganda was closely linked to the figure of Octavian, who presented himself as divi filius, adopted son and son of the god.

The obverse of the denarius shows the laureate portrait of Julius Caesar, accompanied by an augural lituo behind the head, remembering his religious dignity as pontiff and augur. The DIVI IVLI legend underlines Caesar's divine condition, in full consolidation of his official cult.

On the reverse there appears a calf advancing to the left, a motif apparently without political charge, but which constitutes a play on words with the magistrate's cognomen: Vitulus in Latin means precisely "calf." In doing so, Voconio ensured personal visibility while complying with the common practice of linking moneyer iconography to his own name.

This denarius thus combines two different levels: on the one hand, the projection of the cult of the Divine Julius as the axis of legitimacy of the young Octavian; on the other, the subtle self-reference of the moneyer through a symbol linked to his last name.

Provenance: Nomos AG (2010)
Price: 32,091 €