Rare coin returned to Greek officials

NICHOLAS PAPHITIS
Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece - A rare silver coin celebrating the most famous
murder of antiquity was handed over to Greek Culture Ministry
officials, after a groundbreaking deal that allowed its repatriation
from Britain.

The tiny coin, a denarius issued in 42 B.C. by Brutus, the chief
assassin of Julius Caesar, is one of only 58 in the world. Greek
authorities say it was illegally excavated in Greece, and sold last
year by two Greek suspected smugglers to London's Classical
Numismatic Group Inc.

Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis hailed the 2,000-year-old
artifact's return on Tuesday as an important success in Greece's
struggle to reclaim smuggled antiquities.

"This has great significance ... and is a forebear of future
repatriations as part of our fight against illegal excavations and
antiquities trafficking," he said Tuesday.

The Roman coin - which weighs only 0.1 ounces - was returned after
Greek officials initiated legal action against the British
dealership, based on a European Union directive on the return of
cultural goods illegally removed from the territory of a member state.

Voulgarakis said the Classical Numismatic Group unconditionally
handed over the denarius this month to a lawyer representing the
Greek state, after Greece was able to prove it had been illegally
excavated.

The coin was issued by a mobile military mint used by Brutus to pay
his soldiers during the wars that followed Caesar's assassination in
44 B.C. by a group of his friends and proteges - immortalized in
Shakespeare's play, "Julius Caesar."

Decorated with the head of Brutus on one side and a pair of daggers
flanking a cap on the other, the denarius carries the inscription Eid
Mar - short for the Ides of March, or March 15, the date of Caesar's
murder.

A denarius equaled a Roman legionary's daily pay.

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Martin G Conde
Washington DC, USA
mgconde@...