Il triumviro monetale Cordus e i tipi monetali dell'emissione RRC 403: due questioni controverse

Abstract

This article aims to shed new light on the coin series RRC 403, struck in 70/69 BC and signed by the moneyers Calenus (consul in 47 BC) and Cordus. The first section restates the probable belonging of Cordus to the Mucii Scaevolae family. Nevertheless, although the majority of scholars currently follows Crawford’s identification of Cordus with Publius Mucius Scaevola (pontifex ca. 72-60 BC), the so far-ignored Gaius Mucius Scaevola, the younger brother of Publius, who lived in the first half of the first century BC, could be an ideal candidate as well. The second section discusses the interpretation of the coin types: while the obverse representation of Italia and Roma alludes, as is known, to the census carried out in 70/69 BC, the jugate heads of Honos and Virtus, personifications associated in particular with Gaius Marius, probably recall the seven times consul. This mixture of themes attributable to Pompeian and Marian entourages can be easily explained by taking into consideration the figures of Fufius Calenus and Scaevola Cordus – the former a well-known popularis politician, and the latter the brother-in-law of Pompey.