Collection History: Donated by Dean Fred B.R. Hellems, 1930
Roman Republic.
The moneyer is most likely Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Consul in 83 BCE and the great grandson of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, Consul in 190 BCE and victorious Roman general in the Battle of Magnesia (189 BCE). The reverse legend designates a cognomen of Asiagenes, since Asiaticus did not occur before the Augustan period. The elder Scipio was especially venerated by the gens Cornelia and was thus memorialized on the coinage of later moneyers of the Cornelia family. As seen on the contemporary coinage of Cn. Blasio (RRC I no. 296), descendant of Cn. Cornelius Blasio, Scipio Asiaticus was linked in iconography with the Capitoline Triad. An obverse laureate head of Jupiter is thus appropriate for the coinage of the great grandson and namesake of the illustrious ancestor. Alyssa Friedmann 2013.