RIC 166a.

Nice specimen.

Nice BB.

Shipping only in Italy.

The numerous issues of Augustus's so-called "bull coins" minted at the Gallic mint of Lugdunum, date to a period of strong affirmation and consolidation of the new regime. The choice of the bull is not accidental: it is a visual reference to the city of Thurium, in Lucania, with which Octavian's family boasted significant ties.

In 60 BC, while serving as praetor, Octavian's father, Gaius Octavius, successfully led Roman troops against a slave revolt that had broken out near the city. It is likely that, to celebrate this victory, he bestowed upon his son, then just three years old, the cognomen Thurinus, an explicit reference to the city.

The premature death of Gaius Octavius the following year led the young Octavian to quickly abandon this cognomen. However, once in power, Augustus revived that family memory in a more subtle and symbolic way, incorporating the charging bull into his public image: the same iconographic type used by Thurius on his Greek coinage of previous centuries. In this way, an episode of personal and family history was transformed into an element of imperial propaganda.