I want to think about how RIC Augustus 407 intersects with Republican types of Caepio Piso and also the Plebeian Aedile issue of the Cinnan regime, not to mention the Libertas issue of 45….!
Also cool rostra on the rostra!!!
Update 11-25-25:
I ended up on this old post this AM and stopped to fix the broken images and then started noticing not the similarity but the difference. Besides the clear indication the scene is on the rostra (itself significant for creating as setting) we also have a the staff next to only one of the figures. WHAT is the staff!?! The subsellium is for magistrates without imperium (quaestors, aediles, tribunes of the plebs). BUT the staff has a bulge it that seems no die engraving accident. That made me wonder if it was supposed to be a bundle of fasces, but I don’t like that interpretation. Too narrow (very unlike other iconography), magistrates don’t hold their own fasces. It isn’t a scepter there is not decorative top. So what is it?!
Also un related notice the attempt as creating depth through angling the bench seat edges but the engraver did not get the angles right for the desired effect.
Liv Mariah Yarrow 