Gold aurei of the Twelve Caesars

Unknown

ca. 46 BCE–68 CE · Gold, amethyst · Greek and Roman Art

The coins are mounted in a matching pair of nineteenth-century gold bracelets that are also decorated with oblong amethysts en cabochon. The jewelry may have been fashioned by the firm of Castellani in Rome and was inspired by the early second-century A.D. writer Suetonius' biographies of the first twelve rulers of imperial Rome, which started with Julius Caesar and ended with Domitian. One bracelet contains aurei of the dictator Julius Caesar and the Julio-Claudian emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, the other has coins of the emperors of the civil war in A.D. 69—Galba, Otho, and Vitellius—and the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 46 BCE–68 CE

Medium

Gold, amethyst

Culture

Roman

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Gift of C. Ruxton Love Jr., 1967