1 Dinar Virgil

The "Virgil" dinar commemorates the bimillennial of the poet's death — Virgil died in 19 BC, placing this issue precisely two thousand years later. Tunisia's claim on the commemoration is geographic: Virgil, though born near Mantua, died at Brundisium after falling ill on a return journey from Greece, having spent considerable time in North Africa gathering material that shaped the Carthaginian episodes of the Aeneid. The Banque Centrale issued this as part of a broader series of silver commemoratives produced through the late 1970s, several struck at foreign mints under contract.