Roman Republican Lucius Valerius Acisculus

This extremely rare denarius highlights a climactic moment in the myth of the Gigantomachy, the cataclysmic battle between the Olympian gods and the earth-born Giants that took place when the former established themselves as the new rulers of the cosmos. The giants, who were depicted in iconographic tradition inherited from the Ancient Greeks as anguipedic - with serpents for legs as a sign of their origin as sons of Gaia - were led by their king Porphyrion, who is likely depicted on the reverse.

According to the Roman version of the myth, Porphyrion attacked Hercules and Juno and was on the point of destroying them when Jupiter inspired a desire for Juno in the giant, and struck him down with a thunderbolt while Hercules shot him with...

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