Aureus Livineia: Lucius Livineius Regulus, C·CAESAR III·VIR·R·P·C / L·REGVLVS IIII·VIR·A·P·F

Struck in 42 BC, this aureus belongs to the frantic coinage program that followed Julius Caesar's assassination, when the triumvirs were simultaneously fighting Brutus and Cassius and scrambling to pay their armies. Lucius Livineius Regulus served as one of the moneyers operating under the authority of the young Octavian — the C·CAESAR of the obverse legend — at a moment when coin production was less a matter of monetary policy than of military survival.

The quattuorviri monetales of this period wielded unusual prominence precisely because the stakes were so high. RRC 494 as a group is well-documented; the 3a subtype distinction rests on die linkage analysis rather than any gross visual difference.