Flaminia





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Flamia gens. Of the plebian order, having Flaminius for its name (from Flamen), and Cilo or Chilo for its surname. It offers, for its record, the following three coins, of no particular rarity:

1. ROMA, galeated head of Rome. Reverse: L FLAMINI, below CILO. Victory, holding a crown, in a biga at full speed.
|Lucius| Flaminius Cilo must have been questor of the republic in the time of Sulla, or at the beginning of Caesar 's domination; and although the more ancient types are preserved, yet the Sullian or Caesarian coins are allusive to the respective achievements of those two despotic rulers over the affairs of Rome.



2. IIII VIR PRI FL,adorned head of Venus. Reverse: L FLAMIN, below, CHILO. Victory in a rapid biga, as in the above engraving.

3. Laureated head of Julius Caesar. Reverse: L FLAMINIVS IIII VIR, a woman draped in the stola, stands holding in the right hand a caduceus, and in the left the hasta pura.
|Lucius| Flaminius Chilo, nephew perhaps of the preceeding, was moneyer to Julius Caesar during his dictatorship, when the number of those magistrates was increased from three to four.

What PRI FL means has given rise to discussion among numismatists. First, it is believed by some that it should be read primus flando, as designating the first monetal quatuovir added to the other colleagues by Caesar. Next, Borghesi and Cavedoni concur with Ursin that it ought to be interpreted primus flamen, there being a corresponding example in the coeval medal of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, who besides the title of IIII V took that of quaestor designatus; and in this instance the first priest (primus flamen), has placed the head of the new divinity on a coin struck during his own monetal magistature, the date of which is to be referred to 43 BC, according to the calculation of Cavedoni, in the course of his examination of discovered repositories. The head of Venus on coin No. 2 is allusive to the assumed origin of Caesar; and the woman on the reverse of No. 3 is thought to represent Felicitas.

View whole page from the |Dictionary Of Roman Coins|