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AR Denarius (Rome, 129 BC)
O/ Helmeted head of Roma right (star on flap), with curl on left shoulder; XVI behind.
R/ Horseman galloping right, wearing crested helmet, holding reins in right hand and spear in left hand; helmet with goat's horns behind; Q PILIPVS below; ROMA in exergue.
3.88g; 18mm
Crawford 259/1 (89 obverse dies/111 reverse dies)
- Naville Numismatics Live Auction 41, lot 408.
Quintus Marcius Q.f. Q.n. Philippus:
Philippus belonged to the great plebeian gens Marcia, which was originally patrician -- the Marcii even claimed to descend from Ancus Marcius, the fourth king of Rome. However, only plebeian stirpes are known in later times, the most famous being the Censorini, Reges and Philippi. The latter two refer to kings; the cognomen Rex is an obvious allusion to Ancus Marcius, whilst Philippus alludes to Philip V of Macedon, with whom the family had a connection (Livy, xlii. 38). Since both cognomina appear in the same period, at the beginning of the 3rd century, the two families could have been related.
Our moneyer was the grandson of the Consul of 186 and 169 BC and son of an ambassador in 163. He is only mentioned a single time, by Cicero, as having been exiled to Nuceria, a Roman allied city in the north of Italy (Pro Balbo, 28). Since Cicero mentions him alongside two other exiles, Quintus Fabius Maximus (cos 116) and Gaius Popillius Laenas (banished by Caldus), Brennan suggests that he was of praetorian rank1. Gruen speculated that Philippus' exile was due to his hostility to the powerful Caecili Metelli, since he had family ties with Tiberius Gracchus and Appius Claudius Pulcher2. It shows that there was a long-lasting involvement of the Marcii Philippi on the side of the Populares against the Conservatives led by the Metelli; indeed, they are later found as allies of Caesar, then Octavian (cf. Lucius Marcius Philippus, great-grandson of Quintus RRC 425/1).
Brennan adds that our Philippus was likely the elder brother of Lucius, the consul of 91 and also moneyer in 113-112 (RRC 293), but since Quintus used an archaic spelling ("PILIPVS"), he was more probably a generation older and therefore the father of the Consul3 -- and moneyer at an older age than usual. Both of them refer to Philip V of Macedon on their coins: Quintus added a typical royal Macedonian helmet on his reverse, while Lucius simply put a portrait of the king on his obverse.
1. T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic: Volume 2: 122 to 49 BC, 2000, p. 905 (note 183).
2. Erich S. Gruen, "Political Prosecutions in the 90's BC", in Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, vol. 15, n°1 (Jan., 1966), pp. 32-64.
3. Gordon P. Kelly, A History of Exile in the Roman Republic, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 169-170.
Coleção : Roman Republic