Caesar’s elephant denarius is one of the most iconic coins in the hobby. Its high survival rate today is probably due to the fact that the ancients also viewed it as a special piece, with fewer being melted and reused than other common Republican denarii. The coin sells in a wide variety of price points, with cull examples fetching around $500, to the record set by Heritage in May for over $21,000.
 
In the years preceding the minting of this coin, Caesar was campaigning in Gaul (modern France) against the native tribes. He was awarded the governorship of the region, a lucrative position he had always coveted, as part of the First Triumvirate established between himself, Pompey, and Crassus in 59 BC. The governorship of Gaul, far more a military than civilian position, allowed Caesar to conquer nearly all of France for the Roman Republic over the following decade. Caesar’s military campaigns spanned seven years and took him all over Northern Europe, from the Alps to the Rhine and even a brief foray to the island of Britain. During the British campaign, Caesar recounts his heroic amphibious landing on the beaches of England, after crossing the English Channel. He did not defeat the Britons, however, who were subdued by Claudius (r. 41-54) nearly a century later. He wrote about his exploits and remarkable military achievements in a work now iconic in any Latin curriculum, De Bello Gallico, of which I have read several books. I highly recommended it.


 
On January 10 of 49 BC, declaring “alea iacta est” (“the die is cast”), Caesar made the fateful decision to cross the Rubicon River and march on Rome. This elephant denarius was struck in the tens of thousands to pay the fiercely loyal troops Caesar led across the river, many of whom had served with him for the full Gallic campaign. The elephant would have served as an allusion to Carthaginian general Hannibal’s heroic crossing of the Alps two centuries before, a journey on which he brought dozens of war elephants. The inclusion of the moneyer’s (in this case the general’s) name on coinage was nothing new, but the CAESAR below the elephant was far more prominent than the names of moneyers on other Republican denarii.
 
Historians, both Roman and modern, were quick to attribute the decision to cross the Rubicon to Caesar’s boundless ambition and desire to be dictator. However, his move was probably more practical; the Senate had issued him an ultimatum demanding he disband his Gallic army; this would have meant relinquishing the immunity of the governorship and, in a more practical sense, voluntarily giving up his only means of defending himself. Caesar in essence had no choice but to plunge the Republic into civil war – without it, he faced prosecution and likely conviction at the hands of his wealthy rivals.