Denarius Cornelia: Publius Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, MARCELLINVS / MARCELLVS COS•QVINQ

Publius Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus served as quaestor under Pompey during his eastern campaigns and later as moneyer around 50 BC, a year when the Roman treasury was under acute strain and the Republic was sliding irreversibly toward civil war. The reverse type invokes M. Claudius Marcellus, five-time consul and conqueror of Syracuse in 211 BC — the last Roman general to personally dedicate the spolia opima, stripped from a slain enemy commander in single combat. That claim to ancestral glory was pointed political currency in 50 BC, when the Cornelii Lentuli were maneuvering hard against Caesar's faction in the Senate.