Meggie Macdonald

In a surprising bit of news this morning, the British Museum has announced that a rare gold coin – one of only two known to exist – depicting Brutus, one of Caesar’s assassins, will go on display at the Museum to mark the 2, 054th anniversary of the assassination.

The second of the two gold coins is believed, by experts at the British Museum, to be a forgery so this coin is rightly considered to be a unique addition on loan to the collections.

Brutus would likely have minted these gold and silver denarii in 43 or 42 BC to pay his soldiers.  It is very unusual for a coin to bear the likeness of a living person, something that Susan Headley from About.com sees as counter-intuitive to Brutus’ declaration that he was restoring the Republic by assassinating a tyrant.  In addition, the coin is also stamped with the name of the moneyer who had them made – L. Plaetorius Cestianus – and the inscription EID MAR (for Eidibus Martiis, or Ides of March) flanks a freedman’s cap.  The symbolism is clear:  Brutus wanted his soldiers to know that the Ides of March brought about the freedom of the Republic from tyranny, and that he was the instrument of that liberation.

However, Brutus was unsuccessful in his bid to make his name as a saviour.  He and his fellow conspirators were tracked across the known world by Marc Antony and Octavian Caesar and defeated at Philippi only a few years after the assassination.  Brutus committed suicide rather than be captured by Antony.