As - Augustus and Numa Pompilius CN PISO L SVRDIN C PLOT RVF

This as belongs to a short-lived experiment in senatorial coinage: between roughly 23 and 4 BC, Augustus permitted a board of tresviri monetales — junior magistrates from old Republican families — to sign coins with their own names, a deliberate nod to Republican tradition at a moment when the princeps was carefully disguising the autocratic nature of his new order. The magistrates named here, Cn. Piso, L. Surdinus, and C. Plotius Rufus, held the position around 16–15 BC. The invocation of Numa Pompilius, Rome's legendary second king and founder of its religious institutions, was a pointed choice during a period when Augustus was simultaneously reviving priesthoods and positioning himself as restorer of Roman piety.