Did anyone else see the recent episode of Pawn Stars where a guy brings in a gorgeous
denarius of
Caligula? They brought in David
Vagi again to authenticate, and even though it
had magnificent
style on the
portrait, it at first looked a little too
good to me. It's fairly obvious that the whole thing was a set up, how convenient is it that the only early imperial coin they have
had on the show just so happens to be a
Caligula denarius, super
rare and very relatable to the
average Joe. I guess a nice
Trajan or
Vespasian would not have made as much of an impact as the sensational
Caligula. Rick also quickly went down the laundry list of the most over the top anecdotes about
Caligula, including the persistent and ridiculous idea that madness
had Caligula actually trying to designate
his horse Incitatus as
Consul, rather than him joking about this as an insulting jab promoting
his view of the intellectual capacity of available human candidates. On one hand, it was a neat thing to see on TV, on the other hand I wonder if such exposure is always positive in the era of MOU's that now increasingly target coins.