Denarius Sulla, ROMA / C SERVEIL

Issued during the dictatorship of Sulla, this denarius belongs to a period when the Roman mint was under direct military control — Sulla had marched on Rome twice and was reorganizing the state from a position of absolute power. The moneyer C. Servelius operated under conditions that were anything but routine. Sulla's dictatorship, taken in 82 BC without the traditional six-month limit, represented a deliberate break with Republican precedent, and the coinage of these years reflects an administration consolidating legitimacy through institutional forms while dismantling them in practice.