Roman Republic, Denarius

This Roman denarius was struck in the year 49 BC somewhere on the campaign of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus against Gaius Julius Caesar. In this Roman civil war both sides needed a lot of money to pay the troops.

The obverse depicts the Greek god Apollo.

The reverse shows the symbols of the Greek hero Hercules: an upright standing club with a lion's skin on top and a bow and an arrow on either side.

This design might have been chosen in anticipation of a victory of Pompey, whose epithet was Magnus, the Great. This was an allsion to no other than Alexander the Great, symbolized by Hercules and his lion's skin.