Denarius - Augustus C ANTIST VETVS FOR DVS P R QVM GABINIS

Issued under the moneyer C. Antistius Vetus, one of the tresviri monetales appointed during Augustus's reorganization of the Roman mint after Actium. The reverse type referencing the Gabini — an ancient Italic people whose town of Gabii lay just east of Rome on the Via Praenestina — reflects Augustus's deliberate program of invoking archaic Roman religious and civic traditions to legitimize his new political order. Gabii held particular ritual significance as the site where Romans supposedly adopted the cinctus Gabinus, a sacred manner of wearing the toga used in certain religious rites and military departures.