HGC 7/596. Gaius Papirius Carbo (59 BC)

AE demnomination A/B or Dichalkon (Nicomedia, 59 BC)

O/ Laureate head of Zeus right; ΝΙΚΟΜΗΔΕΩΝ downwards behind.

R/ Roma seated left on shields, holding Nike and spear; ΔKΣ (date 224) below; EΠI ΓAIOY downwards on right; ΠΑΠIPOY KAPBΩNOΣ downwards on left; ΡΩΜΗ in exergue.

7.95g; 24mm

Hoover 7/596

- Numismatik Naumann, auction 61 (07/01/2018), lot 129.

Gaius Papirius Carbo: 

Carbo belonged to a famous plebeian gens of social reformers, the most famous of whom being Gnaeus, three times consuls in 85, 84, and 82. This last Carbo was killed in the Civil War against Sulla. Gaius the moneyer's connection to the other Carbones of the time is not certain, though he was more probably the son of the Gaius Carbo, murdered by the Younger Marius in 82, during another episode of the Civil War.

The moneyer was tribune of the plebs in 67, during which he successfully prosecuted Marcus Aurelius Cotta, the consul of 74, for having illegally used the war booty he took from Nicomedia in Bythinia, at the end of the Third Mithridatic War. Carbo then became praetor in 62, and propraetor (or perhaps proconsul) of Bythinia and Pontus, the post occupied by Cotta before. He stayed there until 59, leaving a good number of provincial coins from Nicomedia (this coin and several other types), Apamea Myrleia, and Nicae.

Riferimento : HGC 7/596

Collezione : Roman Republic - Provincial Coinage