Roman Republican Lucius Plautius Plancus

In his Fasti, Ovid relates that during the censorship of Gaius Plautius and Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC, the latter quarrelled with the tibicines [flute-players] and had them exiled to Tibur. As the people resented their loss, Plautius schemed to bring them back to Rome in the very early morning with their faces covered by masks, an event from his ancestry which the moneyer of this type chose to celebrate on his coinage.

Hence, the depiction of Aurora [Rev.] is an allusion to their early morning arrival and the mask of Medusa to the concealment of their faces. The commemoration of this event was already a part of the yearly calendar of Roman religious festivals with the Quinquatrus Minusculae, celebrated at Rome on the Ides of...

Okumaya devam et...