Gaius (Caligula), with Divus Augustus

Caligula (AD 37–41) struck a famous series of coins pairing his own portrait with that of his deified great-grandfather, Divus Augustus. These issues, minted at Lugdunum (modern Lyon), were deliberately struck to legitimize his rule by visually linking himself to the founder of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. NGC MS★ 5/5 - 5/5, this coin is the finest Caligula aureus known in private hands. It made $500k on 13 January 2025.

Born Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus in AD 12, he was dressed as a soldier by his parents, including miniature army boots. (caligae) When the hated Tiberius died in AD 37, Caligula, 25, was welcomed with relief. That didn't last long.

Gaius (Caligula), with Divus Augustus. AD 37-41. AR Denarius, Lugdunum (Lyon) mint. 1st emission, AD 37. $4,200. After 3 years of misrule Caligula was assassinated in a plot by some senators and the Praetorian guard led by Cassius Chaerea on 24 January AD 41.

The Bar-Kokhba Revolt

In 132, a revolt led by Simeon Bar Kosiba (Bar Kokhba) spread from Modi'in across Judea, cutting off the Roman garrison in Jerusalem.

The Bar Kokhba revolt was fought circa 132–136 CE. It was the last of three major Jewish–Roman wars. Although Jewish Christians hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba, they were barred from Jerusalem along with the Jews. The war helped differentiate Christianity from Judaism.

Papyrus containing Bar Kokhba's orders found in the Judean desert.

The outbreak took the Romans by surprise. Hadrian called his general Sextus Julius Severus from Britain, and troops were brought from as far as the Danube. The struggle lasted for three years before it was brutally crushed in the summer of 135 AD. After losing Jerusalem, Bar Kokhba and the remnants of his army withdrew to the fortress of Betar, which also came under siege. Betar was the site of the last stand of the rebels in their struggle against Roman rule in Judea. The Talmud says that the numbers slain were enormous, that Romans "went on killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils"

In 2009 the largest cache of coins ever found from the Bar-Kokhba revolt was found in a cave. Most coins were overstruck as rebels' coins on top of Roman.

The new imprints show Jewish images and slogans. (i.e. "for the freedom of Jerusalem") Other coins that were found, of gold, silver and bronze, are original Roman coins of the period minted elsewhere in the Roman Empire.

Coins bear the names of the rebellion's leader, and the high priest, Eleazar the Priest.

Caesar's 49 BC elephant denarius

Minted in 49 BC at a moving military mint, Caesar’s famous elephant denarius was struck to pay his legions as he crossed the Rubicon. It features a war elephant trampling a serpent on the obverse, and a collection of religious implements on the reverse. Caesar’s military campaigns were costly, and he needed vast sums of silver to pay his legions. Caesar took over the state treasury at the Temple of Saturn in Rome. From this hoard Caesar minted his elephant denarius, and used them to fund his campaigns.

The elephant denarius, the first coinage to bear Julius Caesar's name, had one of the largest mintages of any Roman Republican denarii with 750 known obverse dies. An estimated 22.5 million denarii were minted. Issuing them without Senate approval, indicated by the letters S-C (Senatus Consulto), was a clear signal. Caesar wouldn't share power with the Senate, as Republican law and custom dictated. The final issue offended the Roman Senate and elites by displaying his portrait on the obverse with his proclaimed new title, “DICT PERPETVO,” for dictator in perpetuity.

Baiae - Las Vegas of ancient Rome

Baiae was a mineral springs and coastal resort on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples in ancient Italy. The city was named after Baius, Ulysses’ helmsman. It was fashionable for centuries during antiquity for the super-rich. The ancient Roman 'Sin City' was famed for its natural volcanic hot springs. It housed some of the empire's most luxurious baths and private saunas. (laconica) Baiae was notorious for its hedonism, corruption and scandal.

Roman poet Sextus Propertius once described Baiae as a “vortex of luxury” and a “harbor of vice.” Baiae later formed part of Port Julius, the base of the western fleet of the Imperial Roman Navy. Portus Julius was built in 37 B.C. by Agrippa as Rome's first purpose-built naval base in the Campi Flegrei.

Baiae was built on the Cumaean Peninsula in the Phlegraean Fields, an active volcanic area.

Ruins were submerged by volcanic activity by the time of the Renaissance.

The bathhouses of Baiae were filled with warm mineral water directed to its pools from underground sulfur springs. Roman engineers constructed a complex system of chambers that channeled underground heat into facilities that acted as saunas.

A series of dives involving historians and scientists from across the world revealed vast villas, priceless statues and breathtaking mosaics, as well as heated spas, cobbled streets and even a nymphaeum – a grotto of pleasure. The chambers of volcanic molten rock that lay beneath Baiae, providing the hot water that served the spas, were eventually its undoing. The chambers emptied as the lava found a way to escape, causing the resort to sink beneath the waves.

A volcanic phenomenon known as bradysism saw large portions of Baiae’s coastline—including opulent villas and bathing complexes, sink about 3 meters beneath the Gulf of Naples.

One of its most notorious events was in CE 39, when Emperor Caligula ordered a floating bridge of nearly five kilometers across the gulf to be built and rode across it on horseback. Suetonius recorded that Thrasyllus, an astrologer, had said to the previous Emperor Tiberius, “as for Gaius [Caligula], he has no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse dry-shod across the Gulf of Baiae.” Caligula donned purple silk robes adorned with precious stones and gold, a sword, a shield, and a crown of oak leaves. He wore what he claimed was the breastplate of Alexander the Great, that he had stolen from the conqueror’s tomb when in Alexandria.

A palace was built in Baiae by Emperor Nero, and Hadrian died among its baths in CE 138. Cicero had a villa in Baiae.

Rome - cruel and unusual punishment

Ancient Rome is famous for its extreme and bizarre penal system, where punishments were used for deterrence and social control. The penalty depended heavily on the offender’s social class. Romans (citizens of Rome) were exempt from cruel punishments such as crucifixion. Only non-Romans could be crucified. However, a Roman could be found by a judge guilty of crimes against the people and stripped of his citizenship. He is then considered an outlaw and may be killed or tortured by anyone for any reason, or no reason.

In ancient Rome, punishments for theft (furtum) varied drastically. If caught red-handed (manifestum) and a slave or non-citizen, the punishment could be hard labour or execution. Citizens typically paid fines ranging from double to quadruple the stolen item's value.

When Tarpeia let the enemy Sabines into Rome, she was thrown from a precipice above the Roman forum. It then became established practice to throw traitors from the Tarpeian Rock. Such tales served as a warning for future citizens. Roman society was patriarchal. The family’s oldest living male had, in theory, the power to kill anyone within his household with impunity. This included not only those living under his roof, but the wider family as well.

Parricides were punished by being 'condemned to the beasts', which was popular in the Roman world.

Anyone who killed his father, mother, or another relative (parricide) was subjected to the “punishment of the sack” (poena cullei). This allegedly involved the criminal being sewn into a leather sack together with four animals – a snake, a monkey, a rooster, and a dog – then being thrown into a river. The emperor Constantine’s penalty for parricide only specified that snakes should be used.

Vestal Virgins who broke their vows of chastity were buried alive in an underground chamber with bread, water, and a lamp.

Common crimes, such as brawling, would likely result in beatings with sticks, or lashings with a whip. Prisons existed only for temporary stays before trial. Criminals found guilty were assigned for gladitorial combat or the mines. Taking part in the Roman census was compulsory as the state needed a complete record of citizens’ property for taxation. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the sixth king of Rome Servius Tullius decreed that anyone who did not participate in the census would lose their property and be sold into slavery.

Roman law was not uniform. Colony rule was often corrupt and Rome favored some colonies more than others.

Roman gold mining

Pliny: "Gold in our part of the world ... is found in three ways: first, in river deposits. ... No gold is more refined, for it is thoroughly polished by the very flow of the stream and by wear. The other methods are to mine it in excavated shafts or to look for it in the debris of undermined mountains." Placer deposits are the easiest and first to be exploited. Where the Romans recognized ores on the surface, they followed them into the ground by strip-mining. Opencast was used for many metals. Deep-vein mining was the most difficult and dangerous. Only gold and silver were valuable enough to justify this kind of mining.

'Ruina montium' was the Roman method to systematically dismantle entire mountainsides. Water was used to collapse large sections of a mountain to extract the gold and silver it contained. Las Médulas is an otherworldly landscape in northwestern Spain that served as the largest and most important open-pit gold mine in the Roman Empire.

Located near the town of Ponferrada in the El Bierzo region (province of León), the site is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Las Médulas mine operated for about 250 years, from 25 BC until the 3rd century AD. Roman engineers built over 700 kilometers of canals to divert water into massive, elevated reservoirs. Upwards of 60,000 slaves tunneled into the core of the mountains. Water was abruptly released through sluice gates into the networks of cavities. The hydraulic pressure caused catastrophic landslides, tearing the mountain apart. The collapsed material was washed down inclined channels to isolate the gold.

Rock-cut aqueduct in La Cabrera.

Pliny the Elder witnessed and described the site in full operation around 74–77 AD. The Romans abandoned the mine in the 3rd century AD as the gold ran out. Las Médulas yielded an estimated 1,500 tons of gold. Pliny stated that 20,000 Roman pounds (6,560 kg) of gold were extracted each year.

Today a kilo of Au is $135k giving $855,600,000

Removing rock was a difficult and time-consuming process in Roman mines. Iron was used for most tools, though stone hammers and wedges have been recovered. Wood was used for buckets to remove ore. Remains of wooden ladders have been found. Leather sacks, miners' sandals and caps have been recovered.

It was labour intensive work: "those individuals of outstanding physical strength break up the quartz rock with iron hammers, applying to the work not skill, but force". Shafts were vertical or inclined passages that provided access, ventilation, and a path for ore removal. They were normally square, small (1-2 meters square), and braced with wood to prevent collapse.

The deep mine workings created problems with ventilation, lighting, and drainage. The Romans knew the dangers. The huge state-controlled operations relied heavily on slaves, prisoners of war, and condemned criminals. Life expectancy of a Roman miner was short. Most enslaved laborers sent to the mines were essentially given a death sentence. Virtually none survived 5 years of brutal conditions marked by physical exhaustion, poor diet, harsh punishments, and regular fatal accidents.

Emperor Postumus aureus brings $189k

Topping the sale at a recent Nomos 471-lot public auction May 31 in Zürich was a gold aureus of Romano-Gallic Emperor Postumus, A.D. 260 to 269 that remains virtually as struck. It brought a hammer price of 150,000 Swiss francs. ($189,924 U.S.) Marcus Cassianius Latinius Postumus founded the Gallic Empire (260–274 CE), a breakaway state comprising Gaul, Britain, and Hispania. Proclaimed emperor by his Rhine legions, Postumus assumed the title and powers of Emperor. He ruled for the better part of a decade, defending the frontier from Germanic tribes. He was killed by his own troops in 269 CE after refusing to let them sack Mainz.

The year 268 saw the issuing of the 'Labours of Hercules' series of coins in honour of Postumus's favourite god. A sudden large debasement of his coinage later that year shows that Postumus was facing increasing financial pressure, probably due to a sharp decline of silver and gold production from Spanish mines. The need to buy off an increasingly discontented army compounded those problems.

Sword of Damocles

The 'Sword of Damocles' is a famous ancient metaphor used to describe the always present danger that accompanies power.

Damocles is a character who appears in a anecdote referred to as "the Sword of Damocles." This refers to the imminent peril faced by those in positions of power. Damocles was a courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse, a 4th-century BC ruler. Damocles was pandering to Dionysius, and exclaimed to him that Dionysius was truly fortunate as a great man of power and authority. In response, Dionysius offered to switch places with Damocles for one day. Damocles eagerly accepted the king's proposal. Dionysius, who had many enemies, had a huge sword above the throne, held at the pommel only by a single hair of a horse's tail. Dionysius did this to evoke the sense of what it's like to be king: though having fortune, always having to watch in fear and anxiety against dangers that might try to take it away.

Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power also comes great danger.

Leadership lessons from Julius Caesar

After a 5 day war with Pharnacles II of Pontus, Caesar wrote a report to Rome detailing his conquest. The commander didn't go into much detail, writing: "I came, I saw, I conquered." The sound bite proved so catchy that we still remember it to this day.

Crossing the Rubicon River with an army was a declaration of war. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon on January 10, 49 BC, he risked all. Suetonius writes that Caesar quoted an Athenian playwright as he crossed the river, declaring "the die is cast."

Caesar wrote that "in war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."In his chronicle of the Gallic Wars, Caesar concludes that: "in most cases men willingly believe what they wish" describing a tactical mistake of his Gallic enemies.

Caesar writes: "The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances." As a young man, Julius Caesar was abducted by pirates. When the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty.

Caesar went on to promise the pirates that he'd personally kill them once he was free. After he was ransomed, he raised a fleet, hunted them down, and did exactly what he had promised.