Ancient Empires
BRUTUS Roman

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In 45 BC, Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins, was, like the other conspiratorial Senators, granted amnesty, at the suggestion of Marc Antony, by the Senate (!) for their act, but popular outcry against the murderers forced him and others to leave Rome. He settled in Crete.

This AV stater coin may have been struck a couple of years after Caesar's death after Brutus and Cassius had fled to the eastern empire. Rome was plunged into a bitter civil war after the assassination as several factions fought for control of the empire. Brutus was in Greece to raise an army of 17 legions to fight the combined armies of Marc Antony and Octavian (later known as Caesar Augustus).

It is believed a Thracian king named Koson (who was allied with the Republican legions led by Brutus) provided the gold that Brutus used to mint this coin. Antony and Octavian crushed Brutus and his ally Cassius at the battle of Phillipi in Greece in 42 BC. Brutus committed suicide soon thereafter. Despite Brutus's murder of Caesar, the Republic quickly came to an end when the Roman Senate ushered in the Imperial era by declaring Octavian as Emperor Augustus.