Denarius - Octavian CAESAR DIVI F

Struck in the chaotic years immediately following Actium, this denarius dates to the period when Octavian had defeated Antony and Cleopatra but had not yet been granted the title Augustus — that came in 27 BC. He was still styling himself with his adoptive identity, Caesar Divi Filius, son of the deified Julius, a claim he had been weaponizing politically since 44 BC. The mint is disputed; some attribute production to a traveling military mint accompanying Octavian's campaigns, others to Rome or Brundisium.

RIC I 257 falls within a densely catalogued but physically variable group. The transition from imperatoral coinage to the regularized Augustan system was still years away.