Who hasn’t heard the phrase, “Et tu Brutus”? The often-quoted expression, filched from Shakespeare and not history, refers to the once-beloved friend of Julius Caesar who was among those who organized the conspiracy that left Caesar dead, stabbed a gruesome 23 times.
What is less known is that Brutus later had a coin minted to celebrate the event.
That rare and ancient gold coin was returned this week to Greek officials by investigators in New York who had determined it was looted and fraudulently put up for sale at auction in 2020. “The Eid Mar is an undisputed masterpiece of ancient coinage,” Mark Salzberg, the chairman of Numismatic Guaranty Corp. said.
The coin, valued at $4.2 million, features the face of Marcus Junius Brutus, the onetime friend and ally of Caesar who, along with other Roman senators, murdered him on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. According to historians and experts, Brutus had the coins minted in gold and silver to applaud Caesar’s downfall and to pay his soldiers during the civil war that followed the killing.
The return Tuesday came at a ceremony attended by officials of the Manhattan district attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, who cooperated on the case.
The coin, one of 29 artifacts returned to Greek officials, was given up earlier this year by an unidentified American billionaire who, investigators said, had bought it in good faith in 2020. The British dealer who helped to arrange the sale was arrested in January, and the coin itself was recovered in February, officials said.
Experts said the coin, minted two years after Caesar’s death, is about the size of a nickel and weighs about 8 grams, and is one of only three known to be in circulation. A silver version of the coin was also minted and about 100 are known to exist. Those can sell for $200,000 to $400,000.
Experts said they believe the coin was likely discovered more than a decade ago in an area of current-day Greece where Brutus and his civil war ally, Gaius Cassius Longinus, were encamped with their army.
The front, or obverse, of the coin features an engraved side view of Brutus and the Latin letters “BRVT IMP” and “L PLAET CEST.” Experts say the former stands for “Brutus, Imperator,” with imperator referring not to emperor but to commander. The latter stands for Lucius Plaetorius Cestianus, who was a treasurer of sorts for Brutus and oversaw the minting and assaying of his coins.
The reverse features two daggers on either side of a cap known as a pileus. The daggers stand for Brutus and Cassius and reflect the manner of Caesar’s death, experts say, while the cap is a symbol of liberty that was worn by freed slaves. Overall, the image is meant to celebrate the murder as an act by which Rome was liberated from Caesar’s tyranny.
Beneath the symbols is the Latin inscription “EID MAR,” designating the Ides of March — March 15, 44 B.C. — the fateful day on which the conspirators left Caesar dead on the floor of the Roman Senate.
