Denarius - Augustus P CARISIVS LEG PRO PR

Struck in Spain under the authority of Publius Carisius, legate propraetor of Lusitania, this issue belongs to a group of denarii produced to fund Augustus's Cantabrian Wars — the grinding northwestern campaign (29–19 BC) that would become the last major military conquest on the Iberian Peninsula. Carisius ran what was effectively a field mint, almost certainly at or near Emerita Augusta, the colony he founded around 25 BC to settle veterans of those same campaigns. The coin is his signature on the operation.