Aureus - Augustus L AQVILLIVS FLORVS IIIVIR

The moneyer L. Aquillius Florus held the position of tresvir monetalis — one of three junior magistrates annually appointed to oversee coin production — almost certainly during the Augustan reorganization of the mint in the late teens BC. Augustus had wrested direct control of gold and silver coinage from the Senate by this point, a political consolidation that made the tresviri increasingly ceremonial, their names on the coinage more a nod to Republican tradition than evidence of genuine authority.

RIC 308 is among the less frequently encountered issues of the Augustan gold series. The survival rate for aurei of named moneyers runs thin compared to the anonymous imperial issues that dominated later production.