Aureus - Augustus S P Q R

This issue belongs to a politically charged moment: Augustus had just returned to Rome in 19 BC after settling affairs in the East, recovering the standards lost by Crassus at Carrhae in 53 BC. The senate voted him a triumphal arch. The SPQR legend on coinage of this period was not merely decorative — it was a carefully managed fiction that Augustus ruled by consent of senate and people rather than by military dominance.

RIC I 118 is attributed to an uncertain Spanish mint, most likely Colonia Patricia, active during Augustus's western campaigns of the late teens BC.